Classical Five Course Gastronomique Menu For One

So I entered another one of those illustrious American Culinary Federation competitions I love to participate in. The latest entry was another cold food entry. This particular one was a five course tasting menu, prepared hot and shown cold. The requirements for the category was to prepare two appetizers, consommé, salad course and an entree.

As I love reading Le Guide Culinaire and I instantly thought of the classical French style of cooking, I decided to prepare a five-course menu right out of Escoffier's design. I knew that some of the ideas might be dated because of the time when the book was written, but I wanted to do it all the same. As Fritz H. Sonnenschmidt, Certified Master Chef, A.A.C. was one of the judges for the competition, I knew that the research put into the classical menu would be appreciated.

I took a couple of student's from the school where I teach at and one of them took pictures of my dishes, so if she is reading this thanks Christina Luckette. I also took Valerie Inman along with me, another great student from one of my Food Prep classes. I think both of these girls will be great chefs some day in the culinary community.

So I will expalin the menu here along with the pictures that Christina took. My first course was
medallions made from the chicken breasts served with medallions of mouselline forcemeat made from the legs. The version I made was with a chipolata garnish which includes glazed button (chipolini) onions, chipolata sausage, olive shaped carrots, and diced caramelized salt pork. The sauce was a demi-glaze sauce made from chicken stock. Some issues I had with this course is that I didn't place the breast medallions on top of the farce medallions. Otherwise I think the course came out well, so did the judges.

My second course filet de sole a l'andolouse. I went with this one as I had served it awhile ago at one of the restaurants I worked at and loved eating it. The dish is half a lightly cooked tomato with risotto with pimento inside and a paupiette (silet of sole rolled with forcemeat) with pimento sitting on top. The whole thing sits on a base of pan-friend eggplant and it is accompanied by beurre noisette (brown butter). The judges each seemed to have issues with the eggplant for some reason. One stated that for the amount of eggplant there needed to be more sauce, another stated an issue with the eggplant in general, but all the comments made sense. This course was my least favorite of all the courses, it just seemed clunky to me.

My third course was a consommé, Consommé Talleyrand. I have no picture of this course. The consommé was made from chicken stock, the garnish was quenelles of pheasant forcemeat, cockscombs and julienne of truffle. I think I needed some work on the truffles, but the judges all seemed to like this course.

My salad course came out pretty well, needed some work as well but I liked it a lot. I prepared Salade Opera which consists of julienned chicken breast, truffle, salted ox tongue and celery tossed in mayonnaise. The salad has a bouquet of asparagus tips in the center an then slices of rooster kidney and gherkin bordering the salad. I prepared a pate en croute made with an herb dough and dried cranberries, salt pork and ham in the forcemeat.

My final course was a Filet de Bouef Bouquetiere. The dish is a roasted filet of beef surounded by bouquets of glazed carrots, diamond sliced haricot verts, butter coated peas, hollandaise coated cauliflower and small chateau potatoes. The sauce was a gravy made from the pan drippings in the manner of an Espagnol sauce. The beef was undercooked on this course, could've been sliced thinner as well. The vegetables should have ben plated together as we do not serve food this way anymore unless we are in a French restaurant presenting by tableside service.

Overall the presentation went well, I ended up with a silver medal. I had fun coming up with this menu as it was something different and I don't normally see a menu like this displayed. The show itself had a number of great pieces displayed. We don't often see as much cold food displayed these days at ACF shows but this show had probably about sixty or more entries. The show did not have any gold medals for cold food, there was one other silver medal and the rest was either bronze or certificates. This show has its own medals as well that they give to those entries that did not receive an ACF medal which was a nice touch,e specially for those just starting out as it encourages them to continue competing. I will certainly attempt this category again some time soon if I can find an ACF show with a cold food salon close to me.

Got the Gold

Been really busy the last couple weeks with a number of things. I went out to judge an amateur cooking competition for some great high school girls from all over the country that was held in Massachusetts two weeks ago. Then I had to drive up to Vermont to take the "written" test for my American Culinary Federation certification as a Certified Executive Chef, which I passed.

Then I started teaching last week on Wednesday and was getting ready for a culinary competition which I went to in St. Augustine, FL. I then drove down to Florida immediately after teaching on Wednesday. I took the opportunity during the drive to find some local BBQ restaurants on my way down. It was sort of a challenge though, as you saw from my last post about I-95.

The competition I was taking part in was an American Culinary Federation "market basket". The market basket is a sort of mystery basket competition. You go into the competition having no idea what the ingredients are going to be. There is a "common stock" of ingredients that one knows about ahead of time. This includes items like flour, salt, sugar, eggs, oil, wine, vinegar, vegetables, etc. The competition allows 30 minutes for creating a menu, then four hours for cooking and finally 30 minutes to plate-up.

The basket given at this competition included a large piece of tuna (about 3 lbs.), two large pieces of oxtail, and 15 quail. Many times we receive a number of vegetables, fruits and other items in the basket, but this basket was limited and required a notion of what was in the common stock in order to come up with a good four course meal, with ten portions for each course.

There were a number of challenges in this competition. My personal challenge was the kitchen I was working in. I was given four portable butane burners to cook on, with an oven, barely big enough to fit a half sheet tray in. This difficulty however seemed to work in my favor, along with the excellent apprentice that was given to me to work with. The other major challenge was a lack of stocks, but a good cook can over come this as well.

For my first course I used the tuna. I made a risotto Milanese, with the tuna pan-seared with some toasted, ground fennel seed and dried rosemary. The sauce I made by sauteing some carrot, celery, onion and garlic. I then added some tomato paste, caramelized again and deglazed with brandy and added some white wine, reduced and then added some heavy cream and simmered for about 30-45 minutes.

The salad course I made was a toasted caraway seed vinaigrette, which I tossed some salad greens in. I paired that with a number of vegetables that I prepared a la Grecque. I also made some blue cheese, pecan crackers.

I used the quail and oxtail for the entree. I brined the quail breasts and thighs, while I reserved the bones for making a sauce. I then smoked the quail with some cherry wood and seared the skin when ready to plate. The oxtail I braised in a pressure cooker, along with bacon, mirepoix, brandy, and red wine. For vegetable I cut obliques of carrots, simmered then until cooked through and then tossed them in butter and fresh oregano. The starch was a potato gnocchi with walnuts. I tossed the gnocchi in some concasse of tomato along with some fresh basil. Finally, the sauce was made from roasted onion, carrot, celery, shallot, leek and tomato paste. I then added that to the sauce pot with the roasted carcasses of the quail. I added equal parts port wine and white wine to the pot and reduced by half. I then added beef broth made from beef base to cover the bones and vegetables and simmered for about 1.5 hours. I then strained the sauce and thickened it with arrowroot.

My dessert was the chocolate cornmeal tart I wrote about the other day. I paired it with a zabaglione, honey tuile cookie and a strawberry frozen yogurt. I topped the chocolate tart with powdered sugar and a little lemon infused sea salt in the middle.

The final results came out pretty darn good. I ended up with a gold medal, which I had not won for this category before. I have won numerous silver medals for this category, along with a couple bronze medals, so I was very happy.

My next competition will be on March 17th. I will be entering a cold food category, for hor d'ourvres in Connecticut. It has been a busy couple weeks, I am in the second week of classes, and I am very behind in my studies for my thesis, but I should be caught up soon. Coming up most immediately though, I will be going out to visit SUNY Delhi to watch the ACF junior team championship for New York, should be a good time. The weekend after I am off to Akron, OH to apprentice judge one of my favorite competitions I have had the honor in the past to be a competitor in.