Whisked Off

Simple cuts September 9, 2009

I am learning to cook the way French cuisine has traditionally been taught for many years.

Each morning we get to school, squeeze into the locker room to change into our uniforms, grab our notebooks and head upstairs for a 3 hour lesson on principles, theory and technique. After class, we rush downstairs and change back into street clothes for lunch. Then, an hour later it’s back to the locker room, back into uniforms – this time with apron, tea towel and knife roll in hand –  and back up the stairs to set up our workspace so we’re ready when the chef enters the kitchen.

It is a lot of rushing around, but the high energy and excitement in the building is probably good preparation for the hustle of a professional kitchen.

Today was dedicated to basic vegetable cuts: julienne, slicing, mirepoix (which I can do but not say), bouquet garnis, segmenting, brunoise (small dice) and monder/concasse, words which are only used in relation to tomatoes. I got to class early (unheard of) and snagged a seat in the front row.

This afternoon I was excited to put into practice what I had learned a few hours earlier. What made so much sense in the morning was a distant memory by the time I had my hairnet on and my knife in hand. Chef had written the assignment on the kitchen white board, and I had my platter of vegetables ready to go, but my mind was blank. Should the brunoise be 2 mm or 3 mm square (like I’d know the difference!)? Is a mirepoix cut roughly or fine? How many pieces of leek was I supposed to use for the bouquet garni casing?

Nevertheless, 90 minutes – and several side conversations with my kitchenmates later- I had completely the lesson and was proud to call Chef over to review my first plates:

(clockwise l to r) diced onion, mirepoix, bouquet garni, julienne leek, chopped shallot, julienne carrot, potato brunoise, tomato 'petal,' concasse, sliced shallot, chopped parsley, minced garlic.

Orange segments in their juice