Skills 1 Day 11

Today in skills was a work out for my for my arm and everyone else in the class. So your probably wondering what I could possibly be talking about, well we had to make Hollandaise and mayonnaise. For both of these you must whisk intensely in order for the emulsion to come together properly and to ensure that the sauce will not break. My arm was killing me but the Hollandaise was quite yummy. We also had to do our knife trays, make brown veal stock, cook broccoli and make Consomme. We made Consomme on day 5 and we had to do it again. This morning at 5:30am up at breakfast I was informed we were making it, I had no idea for some reason until 30 minutes before class, so I quickly whipped out my index cards and wrote my game plan for Consomme. Luckily this time when we made Consomme I put just the right amount of salt and my soup did not have any grease droplets on the top like before. After we finished our knife trays and consomme we moved onto the Hollandaise and mayonnaise it went well and it really is not as hard and intimidating as one might think. We also had to make broccoli, this was so we would have something to put the Hollandaise on. I was trying to be smart and think ahead and for some reason made the broccoli before I had even started my Hollandaise sauce, well chef noticed and said "Tallulah are you going to serve me cold broccoli with a hot sauce, I hope not." So he did call me out on it but it was all fine because for some odd reason I kept a couple of spears on my tray that had not been cooked yet, so when I finally made the sauce I just dropped the broccoli into the boiling water, pulled it out a few minutes later and plated my broccoli with Hollandaise sauce. I still can't figure out why I didn't cook those few spears but I had a little guardian angle watching over me I guess. Chef was surprised to see pipping hot broccoli on my plate, but he was pleasantly surprised I think. After he took his one taste, I took it back to my station and enjoyed it but I put a ton more Hollandaise on it because I absolutely love Hollandaise, and by the end of it I ate a couple spoons of it. Lets just say too much Hollandaise = stomach ache. I could not eat lunch after that one, I think I learned my lesson! To much of something good can be bad, case and point. Tomorrow we have our final exam in skills 1, we will have to complete a 50 question fill in section, and then our final knife trays in 45 minutes. I am a little nervous, but tonight my class and I are having a study session at 6 so hopefully that will help me feel more confident about tomorrow!