French Onion Soup a la Maison Emil

In my previous post I mentioned about the importance of a good stock that can be used as base for many dishes, such as the French onion soup.

French Onion Soup a la Maison Emil

The "marmite" or "bouillon pot au feu" method i.e. broth simmered over low fire overnight or for more than 20 hours yields a delicious base. Parcels of good veal meat, bones and feet, then of vegetables (leeks, carrots, turnips, shallots) and grilled onion were added in the pot, boiled and then roasted in the oven overnight.

Marmite (or pot au feu bouillon) 

A "pot au feu" stock does not only cost a lot but takes time and requires storage space, so I doubt that many professional kitchens in Paris can afford this investment of time, space and money, perhaps except for the Michelin starred restaurants.

In a home kitchen, I am all in favour of the value-for-money ratio, and the efficient use of time to produce a healthy and yet a tasty meal. So Maison Emil's version of French onion soup requires less time, probably costs less to make, but tastes good.

Chicken stock (unsalted) - the evening before - Day 0
1,5 kg hen - empty and clean inside
1 onion - chopped in big cubes
1 carrot - chopped in big cubes
1 turnip - chopped in big cubes
1 bouquet garni (BG) (thym, bay leaf, parsley stem wrapped in a leek and tied with a string)
1 big oven proof pot with lid - covered with cold water

Method: Add everything in the pot, cover with cold water (has to cover the hen completely), bring to a boil, discard impurities, add BG and simmer for 30 min while you turn on the oven 100C degrees. Put the pot with the lid on and place in the oven and roast overnight. You can let the stock stay in the oven until you need it the next day. Bring to a boil when you take out of the oven

Soup - Day 1 
2 big yellow onions - sliced
2 big sweet or white onion - sliced
25 g butter - melted
1 tablespoon flour
1,5L stock
Baguette - 10 slices approx 1,5 cm thick
Grated gruyere cheese - smelly but nice taste
Salt and pepper

1 hour before serving
Melt (but do not brown) the butter over medium heat, add the onion and sweat (turn the heat down if the onion starts to burn) sweat until soft and tender (10 min), increase the heat a bit to caramelise the onion (approx. 10min).
Add the flour and mix well to incorporate with the onion.
Add 1,5L chicken stock, stir well to dissolve the flour to avoid lumps, bring to a boil, skim, reduce the heat and simmer for 15-20 min. Season with salt. Let it simmer slowly before serving.

15-10 min before serving
Put the oven on grill at 225 C degrees.
Cut the baguette in 1,5 cm thick slices, place them on a tray and grill them in the oven for 2 minutes or until golden. Turn and grill the other side for 2 min or until brown. Pay attention as oven performance may vary. You grill the baguette so it won't get soggy when added in the soup. Keep the heat on as you will need the oven for baking the soup again.

5 minutes before serving
Bring the soup to a boil, add the hot soup in a serving bowl that is oven proof, season with pepper, stir, place the baguette slices and top with gruyere cheese. Bake until the cheese has melted and turned golden brown.
Remark: I like garlic bread, but do not add garlic on the baguette because when baked at high heat, the garlic will burn or taste bitter, but it's you choice.

 

Bon appétit,

Maison Emil Paris

French Rustic Food - La Tartiflette

One of many tartiflette recipes

I love French rustic food on cold days. In the French Alps, the local speciality called "la tartiflette" (gratinated potatoes with reblochon cheese and bacon) is served everywhere. It is really tasty but very filling.

Basic recipe:

• 6 big potatoes
• 2 yellow onions - diced or sliced (I prefer diced because I want to taste the onion but not see it)
• 400 g bacon (if salted, then no need to add salt in this dish) - some prefer smoked - skin removed
• 1 dl thick cream or creme fraiche - on top of the cheese (for air, you can also whip the creme fraiche)

Creamy reblochon

I keep the crust on for more flavour

Served with green salad and dry white

Bon appétit,
Maison Emil Paris

Regional Cuisine - Provence

During our five months of professional cooking training, we will be covering about 7-8 regions of France. We will learn about their local specialities and their wines although not every region is a wine producing region.

The first regional menu is from Provence, a lovely area in South East of France with a lot of sunshine, olive trees and the smell of lavender in abundance. A lot of olive oil is used in Provencal cooking.

Stuffed Provencal vegetables (petits farcis)

Red snapper - ratatouille - espuma pequillos

Provencal stew (Daube a la provencale)

Sorbet framboise - tuiles l'orange

Nougat glace

Once we finished all cooking preparations, and the table is set, the entire team sits down and enjoys the meals. MEP personal preference: Stuffed vegetables - very tasty stuffing with ricotta cheese

Provence - sunshine state of France?

Look forward to cooking the next regional cuisine, which is from the Picardy region (the very north of France).

Happy eating,

Maison Emil Paris :)

Consommé turned into aspic terrine

Consommé (clear broth served with garnish) was not a popular dish at home, so Maison Emil made aspic terrine out of it instead :)

Served cold with a mayonnaise and crispy croutons as a nice starter. As we made proper consommé at school, this aspic was very tasty.

The clear broth (consommé) is nice, but maybe not an exciting dish, so Maison Emil made aspic by adding boiled eggs, shrimps and gelatine. Clear broth was heated, then gelatine added. Eggs and shrimps nicely placed at the bottom of the terrine form, then the clear broth with garnish poured over. The same step was repeated again until the terrine form is filled up. Covered with film, cooled down then chilled overnight in the fridge.


When the aspic is set, dip the terrine in hot water and turn it up side down. Et voila there is your aspic

Bon appétit,
Maison Emil Paris - MEP

It's all in the stock

It's back to basic. Learning how to make a good stock is paramount in French cuisine. Maison Emil knows that it takes time to make a good stock, but not this long time and with so many ingredients.

Veal bones, meat, stock veggies (turnip, carrot, celery, onion), bouquet garni, removal of impurities floating on top, long simmering time, temperate control, heavy lifting (10L cobber pot) and storage are only some important inputs to make a good stock :)
To be honest, I am pretty sure that most restaurants have stock cubes in the kitchen ready for use :)

From stock to consommé
We learned how to make consommé (clear soup/broth) following old French method, such as clarification process with eggwhites and a well in the stock to let the steam out, and the end result is a very clear broth (or consommé). A consommé is served with garnish (garniture) such as turnip (navet in French), carrots, green peas and green beans cut in brunoise style (5mm x 5mm cubes).

So much work for a bit of clear broth. Our chef explained that not many modern cuisines serve consommé the traditional way - restaurants serving modern cuisine would add agar-agar or gelatine and serve the consommé cold. Chef's sample with agar agar.

Maison Emil likes the technique of letting the stock bake in the oven over night :)

Happy learning every day, but having now sore wrist from heavy lifting :(

Maison Emil Paris - MEP

Apple shortcrust pie

We have pastry class on Mondays, and Maison Emil is so happy, because Maison Emil loves baking, maybe even more than cooking :)

Chef's presentation of how a "simple" pie can both taste and look nice :)

Pate brisee or shortcrust pie is kind of "clean eating' as there is no chemical stuff (like yeast or baking power) added in the dough. Flour, butter, salt, sugar (if sweet), water and egg are all the ingredients that you need. If you have a food blender, it goes really quickly. By hand it's fast too, but you need to work fast and let he dough chill in the fridge and let the flour sit a bit before you use it.

I am learning new stuff today, such as pinching to make the pie crust look pretty.

 My first pie didn't look very pretty, with uneven edge and pattern

My second pie looked a bit better, but need to practice pinching some more :)










For classical French apple pie, we make apple compote of the part that less pretty (apple and sugar cooked with a bit of water) and keep the nice part of the apples to cover the pie.

More apple pies will be baked and consumed at Maison Emil for sure :)

Happy baking,
Maison Emil Paris - MEP

Fish soup a la Maison Emil

With the base mixture for stock and all the cut veggies from practice, MEP decided to make a fish soup. Since it was a Sunday, MEP paid the market in Bastille a visit. It was crowded and the market offered a good choice of fresh produce, ranging from local to imported produce. It's a big market, so will for sure revisit this market again.

Fish soup a la Maison Emil turned out yummy. Served with fresh ginger (thinly shredded) and parsley and hot baguette.

Sunday market near Bastille in Paris


Ingredients:

• Fish stock - see below
• Butter, carrots, potatoes (sweet potatoes would give even more sweetness - but I used the cut veggies from my cutting practice) 
• Leeks, shallot, paprika powder, fish sauce, coconut milk, pepper
• Salmon filet (I used meat from the salmon head simmered in salt water with leeks, shallot and ginger)
• Garnish: shredded ginger and parsley

Fish stock
For the fish stock, there is no need to buy super expensive fish cuts. Ask the sellers at the market for advice. MEP ended up with over 1 kilo of fish bones for the price of 2 euros :) And 1 euro for the salmon head - MEP likes the meat from the salmon cheeks :)

3 euros from the market 

Stock veggies from my chopping practice

Add the fish bones (except for the salmon head) and cold water in the pot.
Bring to a boil and reduce the heat
Remove impurities and let simmer

Add a bouquet garni (bay leaf, thym, parsley wrapped in green leek)Reduce the heat and simmer for 30 min.
Remove excess fat/impurities regularly (important to get a clear broth).
Add more cold water when required

Strain and discard the fish meat, bones & veggies

Strain again

Strain again et voila your fish stock. Keep it cold (inside an ice bucket) and when chilled, store in the fridge for immediate use, else freeze it. The stock will turn bad quickly due to the high protein content if kept at room temperature for many hours.

Happy cooking,

Maison Emil Paris - MEP

Cutting skills

I love to mix with different flavours, and cook but when it comes to technical cutting skills, I suck big time. So it's good that we learn baby steps at school and I go home and practice. And it's all about accuracy and speed ... Faster, faster, hurry up ... Puh ... I'll get there, eventually :)

different cuttings

 Paysanne mixture for jus (reduced stock). Matignon mixture for stock. Mirepoix mixture for fond/stock.

Did a bit of cutting this weekend - now what to do with all the cut veggies? 

Happy chopping, 

MEP :)

Week 1 @Ferrandi - Take away learning

Oh my, how do I best summarise this week except for aching back, tired and sore feet (5 hrs standing every day) and more muscles thanks to heavy lifting? :)

Kitchen world is not very different from the business world (the world I know) from an operating model point of view, because in a pro kitchen at the very basic level, you need the organisational skills (how to organise and structure your work station), team management skills (it's not a one-man show because the entire team needs to work together to deliver final results/products), process flow skills (certain tasks need to be performed in a certain order within a given timeframe), role and responsibilities of each team member, and last but not least the knife skills and time management skills.

On day 2 things were moving at reasonable pace. We got our cooking uniforms and safety shoes and a tour in the pro kitchen facilities, storage facilities, dish washing area etc. I felt lost in this building as well as in the pro kitchen :)

  

On day 3, it was straight in the kitchen to start PRODUCTION :) 
Objectives: deliver a vegetable soup (the end result) at the required time to the chef (client) for expectation, tasting and feedback :)  

Tasks: preping kitchen and work station, getting & distributing the produce, peeling, washing, cleaning, cutting, cooking, plating and delivering the end result

It was all moving at high pace, and because I still lack basic knife skills 101 (cutting, shredding, slicing, dicing, chopping etc to yield different end results of the produce), I struggled to deliver on time. All I can do is practice over and over again at home :)

Cutting has an impact on cooking time, taste/consistency and of course apparence of the produce. If you chop and bruise the onion, it will release more liquid when cooking or frying, which will impact the taste or structure compared to "clean cutting". I am here to learn new skills and techniques, not to debate on this statement :)

New knife skills & French cooking terms acquired 
Paysanne = cutting veggies to yield for instant 1 cm in height by 2mm in thickness
Macedoine = cutting veggies in equal cubes, for instant 1cm by 1cm
Parer and many new words ...

Day 1 cooking - veggie soup with crouton and cheese
My cutting was terrible, but crouton toasting was done correctly.

Day 2 cooking - veggie soup with pesto 
My cutting improved a bit, but still not neat or even. Luckily I haven't cut myself yet :)
But I need to work faster, much much faster :(

Guess what I will be doing this weekend? Practice on my knife skills - cutting, slicing, shredding veggies and once it's there I need to work on my speed - so here I come :)

Have a nice weekend, folks.

MEP :)

Maison Emil attending Ferrandi Paris

Maison Emil wanted to turn cooking passion into something more, and has thus decided to apply at Ferrandi Paris. So glad that I got accepted, and hopefully it won't be a regrettable decision.

Ferrandi is a culinary school specialised in French cuisine and pastry. Created in 1920 in Paris and today governed by the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Paris, it is highly regarded in the culinary world of France. Let's not dwell into the reasons why this and not another culinary school, but suffice to say that Ferrandi Paris met my school selection objective.

Maison Emil is excited to learn as much as possible from fellow culinary lovers, career-switchers as well as the professional chefs teaching this program.

Feb 4th - First day @Ferrandi  
Today has been a bit overwhelming; administrative orientation, visits of huge pastry and kitchen labs, interaction with relaxed yet professional chefs.
What to expect in the coming months? Hard work and long hours in the kitchen lab, professionalism such as punctuality, respect and integrity, increased technical skills, and plenty of delicious cooked meals :)

Feb 5th - Day 2 @Ferrandi
Off to get uniforms @Bragard (apparently this is THE uniform shop in Paris). So excited...

Le Premier Restaurant - a training restaurant
Maison Emil will be cooking for clients dining in this training restaurant in the very near future.

Wish me luck,

Maison Emil Paris :)