Unfortunately, I did not have my camera, so this is a stock photo. I removed the claws first, and dropped them into rapidly boiling water. Half way through the cooking, I dropped the bodies in. I ice-bathed them, then got crackin'. As you can see, they have a really cool blue tint to them, but cooked, the bodies are this cool orange-red with white speckles. And where normal lobster is red/pinkish on the tail and claw meat, these lobsters were strawberry-red. Very cool looking. Then before I headed out, Ben had the sauté cook bring a piece of the tail up to temperature in some butter and season it up real nice and let me eat a piece. This stuff is about 50% more expensive than Maine lobster and about 100% worth it! Soooooo much more tender and sweet then Maine lobster. Great stuff.Then, I hit up Central Market for dinner supplies. And I made:
Meatloaf cupcakes with mashed potato frosting and bacon & chive sprinkles. I basically just divided my meatloaf recipe up into cupcake tins (with a tiny piece of bacon on the bottom and top, and baked them for about 75% of the time a meatloaf takes. Then I topped them with Wisconsin white cheddar, mashed Yukon golds, bacon and chives. They were pretty tasty. They got a scoach dry while I waited for the potatoes to finish, but not too bad. They were accompanied with green beans basques. Overall, a winner. It would be really nice for a dinner party or catering event - especially if I had time to put the mash in a pastry bag and pipe it on real purty like.
On to this morning. Totally forgot to take my camera to school. Bummer. Had some good looking dishes today. It's potato and egg week. We did roasted garlic mashed potatoes - yea; potatoes gratin - simmered in milk in cream and baked with a little Grueyere; Hungarian potatoes - potato slices simmered in chicken stock and topped with that stock reduced and tomatoes (not a big fan); and potatoes Anna. Potatoes Anna was great. Apparently, it's the dish that chefs make for other chefs to show off their skillllz. You cut two potatoes to relatively equal cylinders. You then slice those on the mandolin paper thin. (someone will get cut tomorrow as the mandolin was not provided it's blood sacrifice today) You then get some clarified butter going in a pan. Shingle the potato discs in, overlapping in a circle. Sprinkle with salt and white pepper. Top with more clarified butter. Repeat. Every three or so layers, you'll need to add half-discs to the outside edge, as the overlapping will cause the center to build higher than the outside. You let this simmer the whole time on VERY low heat. When it starts to get a little bit of color on the bottom, pop it into the oven. At about 10 minutes, you take it out, pour out the butter, and flip it EVER SO GENTLY! 10-15 more minutes, take it out. Remove with a slotted spatula to a cutting board. One clean slice through middle and serve. You can also make larger versions and slice them into wedges. This was the dish that bummed me out not having my camera. It was really pretty and fancy looking. And the final product really shows how much detail went into the dish.
Oh, did I forget to mention that I went solo today? Yea, I got paired with "The Phantom" - the dude whose name gets called every day and is never there. So I asked Chef Lange if I could fly it alone and he gave me the okay. I really enjoyed not getting to rely on someone else for help. I think the experience will pay off on the practical final next week.
Huh, I guess I had a little more to report than I thought. See ya tomorrow!
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