A Change of Plans

We didn't do day 7 - pork. Chef instead assigned us to create appetizers for a party of 50 people from the student-run literary magazine. After a lengthy brainstorming session in which he told us to come up with recipes from the ingredients we had in front of us, we (or, really, Chef) came up with the following: mushroom tart, caramelized onion tart, grilled vegetables on skewers with sauce, pork skewer with sauce, pork sandwich, veg sandwich, rice pudding balls

My table made the mushroom tarts, pork skewer with sauce, and rice pudding balls. I did the mushroom tarts, or, more specifically, I made the tarts. 50 triangular puff pastries. Which means: cutting out 50 triangles, cutting out 150 edge pieces, then "gluing" on the edge pieces with water. This took a really long time.

Chef said we did a pretty good job, but it would have been faster if I had made all the tarts for both teams - he said a circular shape would have been easier because it would have cut down on time. I would only need to have cut the original circle, and then another smaller one to line the edge, x50 of course. But 100 is a lot less than 200. The other group made squares, which was even more work.

Here's my completed tray:

And a close-up:

Then we had a lecture on meat cookery - mostly repeated from Meat Fab. But it never hurts to review.

And it was Tennessee's birthday! Irish actually had me and her over to her apartment on Sunday for a formal dinner -but this is the cake Master brought for Tennessee - standard Jewel yellow cake because that's what Tennessee loves best!

There's this guy Peanut next door - he's given all of us nicknames. I'm Smiley because, well, he thinks I didn't smile enough when he first talked to me. She's e-dub because it's an abbreviation of her real name. Anyone of us that interacts with him has been given a nickname. It's kind of sweet actually.

Lessons Learned:

Maillard reaction: caramelization of carbs in protein.

Rare meat 130 degrees, medium 140-145, and well at 160 degrees.