Day 77 – What A Lunch!!!

It is getting a little noticeable that we are approaching the latter part of the course. We have been shown all of the exam dishes and we have now cooked all but one of them. Monday was our opportunity to cook the penultimate main course and that was Magret de Canard au Gingembre et Cassis, which is just such a tasty dish. To go with this we cooked up some little Tarte Tatins and served them with a Calvados Sauce, aka YUM!

Day 77 Magret de Canard au Gingembre et Cassis

Last week we made up a Duck Stock using the giblets and Duck carcass and this would form the basis for our sauce. The stock was reduced to a very concentrated 300ml and then we went to town adding in orange juice and zest, shallot, green peppercorns, Madeira, fresh ginger, blackcurrant jelly and some whole blackcurrants as a finishing touch. The Duck breasts were simply sealed in a hot frying pan ’til the skin was a lovely golden brown, and then we transferred them into the oven for 8-10 minutes. We served the Duck with some Wild Rice that was tossed in a little butter and the garnish was Celery julienne and turned Mushrooms also cooked in a little butter. So naughty but so flipping tasty! As we were eating this dish we workout out that the only component that wasn’t cooked with Butter was the sauce; everything else had butter added to it or was tossed in hot butter prior to serving. It gives it flavour though 😉

Day 77 Tartelettes des Demoiselles Tatin & Calvados Sauce

The dessert required us to make up a batch of All Butter (there it is again Folks!) Rough Puff pastry. Little tart cases were crammed with thinly sliced quarters of peeled apple and a mixture of brown sugar and butter was dotted quite liberally on top of the apples and this is what turns to a caramel in the oven. With a disc of the pastry on top we cooked these for probably about half an hour. Served with this was a Calvados Sauce of sugar, glucose syrup, water, butter, cream and calvados – a light lunch one may say!!! 🙂 The tartelettes could probably have done with a little longer in the oven to help develop the caramel but we were worried about the pastry getting too dark. The apples were still lovely and soft though so it’s not all bad.

And in the afternoon we baked off the cake for the Sacher Torte that we will make in class tomorrow afternoon. A very chocolatey cake that will be enveloped in a dark chocolate sauce, what’s not to like?! 🙂