The way Jim structured the cooking class was that we would learn new skills and practice during the week, and then on Friday (last day/night), we would plan, prep and make a two course farewell dinner. Early in the week the group began discussing what we wanted to make (an entree and dessert), and Jim specified that it had to be something special and - of course - cheffy. After much debate we settled on rabbit with a mustard sauce and crepes suzette with praline ice cream. I petitioned hard for the praline ice cream because I don't usually like orange desserts, but more on that later. With that nailed down, we continued with the class.
One of our favorite things we made during the week was baked mini camemberts with garlic, orange croutons and raspberry confiture (aka jam). They look and taste impressive with hardly any work.
Pity, we aren't going to give you the recipe because you must come to Tahoe where we will make them for you. We promise, this dish alone will be worth the trip and thats not even counting swimming in the lake, skiing, snow shoeing, hanging by the fire, etc.
But we aren't all bad, what about a lovely creme brulee recipe with homemade berry ice cream (just ask if you are interested)? YUM. This time we were prepared for the small portion size due to the richness and ironically everyone at the table agreed they could have eaten 3x the amount of creme brulee that was in those tiny squares.
We used vanilla pods that were fresh from the market and you could see/taste the vanilla in the brulee - Red and I agreed that the pods are amazing if you can find them fresh - don't bother with dried version. But no judgement, we will still have vanilla extract in our pantry.
Next we made moules marinieres (mussels) and sorry, again no pictures, but this one is definitely worth making at home. We cleaned about 400 mussels and then made a lovely garlic, lemon, white wine cream sauce - definitely one of the best dinners because it was so simple and fun - and the french bread was heaven dipped in that sauce.
Ok, now the pics. We had quite the time making the pancakes for our dessert - I was first to make one on the special crepe hot plate and I had to concentrate very hard...maybe a little too hard:
After comparing notes, American men really are bigger. Ok she was actually clapping because I had done a half decent job with the crepe, and then I got really excited after I flipped it:
Its harder than it looks, ok?? I was really proud of myself. But then Red did this and showed me up (and yes, it landed right in the pan):
Anyway, then we moved on and butchered some rabbits - this is really neat if you can get over having a skinned head still attached to the body of Bugs Bunny (the head still had the eyes and the tongue was hanging out of its mouth - actually that looked morbidly funny). We portioned out the "rack" (its so tiny!), the loin and legs, and the rest went into our rabbit stock for the sauce (except we did make an appetizer with the liver). Later in the day we seared the meat:
And then made a delicious mustard white wine sauce which we served with the finished dish (we also served mashed potatoes, blanched green beans, honey glazed carrots and a shallot tatin):
Rabbit is actually a very healthy protein and we learned an interesting recipe for the sauce which can be used on many other meat dishes: reduce some stock (preferably made from the carcass that you butchered), add white or red wine depending on the dish, reduce/cook off the alcohol, add jams, special vinegars, mustard, cream or any other flavor enhancing ingredient and voila, you've got a delicious sauce. Best part - our meal was really tasty!
Unfortunately the same cannot be said for dessert. While the actual crepes were good, the sauce was awful (my distrust of orange desserts continues)...thank god for the praline ice cream, it saved the day! But it wasn't worth taking pictures of (aka we forgot).
Anyway, that meal marked the end of our class in France. We learned loads of kitchen/cooking skills and have been practicing them ever since. While some of the food was not our taste or style, we really appreciated the lessons and definitely walked away with a few recipes that we will use or tweak to fit our life at home. Can't wait to try them out on you!
i love your face in these pictures!
Posted by: Lisa | September 14, 2009 at 10:31 AM