Flavour & Texture

This will be a very short post because it’s half past twelve! Just in from The Blackbird after a great evening. After demo, a few of us made sour dough with wine, cheese, onion chutney and bread – as you do! Making sour dough is quite the process, you have to feed your starter daily, make a sponge and knead it (in the machine) for nearly thirty minutes, rest it over night, or for two, shape it (which takes about twenty minutes), rest it for a night or two, and then bake it the following day. Tonight, I just made my sponge and kneaded it! The entire process of bread making is something I thoroughly enjoy, and the end result is so worth it!

Erin and her wife, Jo did a demo on home brewing tonight, they chatted about different types of beer, food and beer matching, as well as the home brewing process.

I had another excellent morning in the kitchen, although I didn’t get to make my flakey pastry – I will get to make it on Thursday though! Brown soda bread, milk and butter bread (40 minutes of kneading!!!), terrine, onion chutney and celeriac remoulade. My remoulade was insanely salty so I added my own personal twist, more mayo, Dijon, apple (Rory’s idea!), and less French dressing than suggested. The end result was fantastic, and I could have eaten the entire bowl! My bread turned out so well, even after all of that kneading, I still love making bread! The terrine was tasty, but the minced pig’s liver nearly did me in – it looked a bit like BBQ sauce, I tried to tell myself this as I was eating it, but it didn’t help!

After another fabulous demo by Rory we received our herb and technique exam marks, I was so happy with the results! 100% on my herbs and 97% on my techniques – not bad and makes it all worth it! As I’ve said before, I love Rory’s demos, he talks a lot about the importance of flavour and texture and how the little things like patience can make all the difference in the final dish. I really, really could watch him for hours, especially when he is plating different dishes.

Right, will add photos tomorrow, and give a better description of the day after our full on lecture day, must go to bed now!

“In real life you don’t have time to chase your hazelnuts…” – Rory on finding ways to help yourself with last minute prep for salads