First day of final exams for Course I.

I arrived early, as usual, to make sure that my station is properly equipped, including the non-stick pans that are very, very useful for some of the dishes we will be preparing today. I never simply snag some pans or pots from another station, but always look for a station that has extra. Later, someone will take my non-stick pans causing me to waste valuable time locating other pans. This isn't the first time it has happened. I hate that.

Promptly at six am the class is moved to the large common area at the front of the school for the written portion of the test. There are fifty non-multiple choice questions including item identification and an extra credit question (consomme technique). There is a generous one hour alloted for the written, but I hurry through it so that I can get on to the knife cuts exam and production. Consequently, I miss a couple of questions. One, what grape is used for balsamic vinegar, I have no idea (Trebbiano). Another asks to list the ingredients for 3-2-1 dough. I get the main ingredients correct: 3 parts flour to 2 parts butter to 1 part ice water. 3-2-1 dough ... easy, right? Wrong. I forgot the salt. And, without salt, that dough is going to taste very flat. Ah well. I think I made it up on the extra credit. Of course, those are the questions I know I missed. Hopefully they are the only ones.

After the written, I returned to the kitchen lab to knock out the knife cuts exam. Unfortunately, rulers (my favorite eyeball calibration device) are not permitted. So, although my cuts look reasonably good, I'm not really sure how close to the right size they really are.

The first day is basically potatoes (mashed, dauphinoise, anna, rosti) in addition to consomme brunoise and glazed carrots. I got the potatoes boiling for the mashed and started the consomme, which has to simmer a bit. Today, the raft on my consomme came out wonderfully. It was a thing of beauty - the best consomme I've made so far.

A small hint on blanching the brunoised carrots for the consomme. You don't want to skip the blanching (the carrots will float and you'll lose points). You don't really want to blanch the carrots in the consomme itself. You might get starch from the carrots in the consomme, which will cloud it, or you'll simply impart too much carrot flavor to the consomme. However, blanching a tablespoon of brunoised carrots can be a bit of a pain. I figured out a pretty easy way to do it. Put the brunoised carrots in a small bowl (such as the ones used for the French Onion Soup). Then, pour boiling water on them, filling the bowl half-way. After thirty seconds to a minute, the carrots will be blanched, so then pour ice into the bowl, filling it the rest of the way. This has probably agitated the carrots and shaken loose any bits of carrot that might mar the consomme. They'll be ready to add to the soup after this.

One more suggestion on the consomme. When pouring the steaming hot consomme into the bowl for service, strain it one final time through a chinoise with coffee filter. The second straining will make sure that any debris in the pot used after the initial straining doesn't get to the bowl.

One of the questions on the exam was on the two types of potatoes (waxy and starchy). We had an unintentional demonstration of the difference in class as we had Yukon Golds (starchy, but a little waxy) and Russets (starchy).

I only got a couple of Russets and the rest Yukon Golds. I made my mashed with the Yukon Golds and could taste a noticeable difference in the texture. I garnished the mashed with finely chopped parsely, of course, but also with some potato rings that I had cut and fried. I put five of the rings on top of the mashed in the Olympic ring pattern and called the result "Winter Olympics Mashed Potatoes." Chef Guevara just smiled and shook his head when I turned it in.

The rest of the production was fairly straight forward. I used the Yukon Golds for the Pommes Anna because they made prettier circles, but ultimately my lower layers were underdone. My Dauphinoise came out well, I think, as did my glazed carrots. My rosti was decent, but I wasn't really happy with it. Of course, this is all just my opinion.

Unlike regular class production, we don't get any direct feedback from the chef instructors on these dishes. We will get our grades at the end of the week, but during the exam we simply label our plates with masking tape and turn them in. I understand the need for this, but it would be nice to get the feedback immediately.

Overall, I didn't feel particularly pressed for time, but I only had a spare 15 minutes or so. On the other hand, my organization suffered a bit as I didn't keep up with my dirty pots and pans very well. Washing as I go is something I need to continue to work on.