Mondays. Not a good day for culinary school.

Today I was especially tired, having worked the Academy Awards the night before (Catering the Academy Award's Governors Ball with Wolfgang Puck - March 5th).

First thing, a new station and a new partner. Second, dropping stock. Has to be done on Mondays, but it's tedious and uses valuable prep time. It also messes with my mise. While some students drop stock, other students starting doing some but, generally, not all of the mise for the entire class. This saves some time, but disrupts my organization. Once I get back to my station it takes me several minutes to figure out what's been mised, and what hasn't. Furthermore, when I mise, it allows me to consider what each ingredient is to be used for and gets me ready for production. Having someone else start my mise is no big deal, but it does interfere with the routine I've gotten used to. It was probably especially disruptive today because I hadn't reviewed my recipes the morning of or night before, due to the Oscars.

So, I was a bit behind schedule and not feeling particularly organized. This was not a good thing because we were learning moist cooking techniques today, which require a lot of time to do properly. Both of our dishes called for a minimum of two hours once you got everything going in the pots, which meant you had to get them prepped and in the pots right away.

The two dishes we produced were Pot-au-Feu (as a four-person group) and Beef Goulash with Spaetzle in Brown Butter.

I was so disorganized that I started cutting the meat for the Pot-au-Feu into 2-inch chunks. Oops. You cut the meat for the Beef Goulash into 2-inch chunks. The meat for the Pot-au-Feu doesn't get cut until it's ready to plate. Luckily, Chef Knight caught me before I had cut the meat for the Pot-au-Feu into anything more than 2-inch wide strips about 8 inches long. Wouldn't hurt the dish. Still, that goes to show why one should review and have a better understanding of the recipes before starting class. It also shows what sort of mistakes you can make when you're behind schedule and feeling rushed.

The Pot-au-Feu ("pot on fire") is basically a peasant stew where everything gets thrown into the pot. It takes time to tenderize the meat (you use a tougher cut) in a long simmer, but other than the time involved, the most difficult part of this dish is plating it. You have a lot of really nice, whole vegetables that you want to make attractive on the plate. Our arrangement was pretty good, but the only thing fancy we did was to take our quartered potatoes and dip one side into butter and then chopped parsley so that you had a nice green/white contrast on the cut edges of the red bliss potatoes.

The Goulash was very tasty. You really want to get a good brown on the meat, so you use a really hot pot to sear it before braising. It also helps to have a good veal stock that will reduce into a thick sauce during the long braising process. This is not something you could easily do with veal stock from a can or a box because they usually have salt, and when they reduce they'd be far too salty.

Making the spaetzle was fun. I also rather like the texture. As for the flavor, it's a starch, so it's not too exciting, but like many starches there is much potential depending on how it is used. It will definitely be something I make at home on occasion, a change of pace from the usual pastas, rice and whatnot.

I wonder if you can make a dessert spaetzle? Cinnamon spaetzle with baked, sliced apples, perhaps? Chocolate spaetzle with raspberry coulis? Okay, so maybe I'm still a little tired from the Oscars.