Day 63

This last Friday was a prep day for Monday's class. We made a compound butter with roasted shallots and a red wine reduction that will be used for a ribeye steak and we cooked up some black beans for black bean cakes and salsa for some pork carnitas.

In the middle of our prep work our instructor, Chef Frerichs, announced that we had 15 minutes to create an amuse-bouche (literally translated from French to mean "mouth-amuser") using only ingredients found in our classroom.  We were to work in teams of two (in my case a team of three as there was an odd number of students) and here is what we presented: 

First, a deconstructed Guacamole with fire-roasted jalapeno, tomato, avocado, lime zest, lime juice, salt, pepper, cilantro leaf - I made the round shape by using the wide end of a steel pastry bag tip 

Second, a crisp leaf of Belgian endive with fresh herbed Cypress Grove Chevre (goat cheese), fresh chervil, and a bit of balsamic reduction

An amuse-bouche is always compliments of the chef and is served as a single bite that is meant to awaken or amuse the palate before you begin your meal.

Chef Frerichs thought our class needed to "decompress" a bit after the week we had and so towards the end of class we made Elephant Ears...for fun.  If you've never had one before I can only describe it as the love child of an amusement park churro and a carnival funnel cake : deep-fried dough brushed in butter and covered in cinnamon sugar.