Day 8 9 AND 10

Home-made Butter

I'm so behind, a lot has been happening. Its been such a busy week. Okay lets catch up. Day 8 was a lecture day. We learned how to make butter and cheese. It was amazing. The butter seemed pretty straight forward and the cheese was a serious process but at the same time easy enough to follow. With butter you can jazz it up so easily....chop up some herbs and add them to the butter... simple, delicious and it looks great.

Indian Dish

Thursday we made those Indian dishes I mentioned before. I had Almond Chicken with Rice, Yogurt and Cucumber. It was amazing. We are supposed to have everything prepared and presented for
grading at 12 then lunch at 12:30ish but that has'nt been happening these last two weeks. I wonder if we will ever get it right? Anyhow lunch is always amazing. We eat everything we made and laugh about our morning disasters. My right hand is collecting burn scars. My house-mate dropped his lemon tart on the floor yesterday, burnt his pepper so badly it became 'one with the pan' and somehow managed to melt his pen on the stove top.

So yesterday was fish day. You'd think living on an island i'd be familiar with cooking and filleting fish. Guess again. It was disgusting. We received a huge marcral each and had to fillet and skin it. It sat on my chopping board staring at me as i cut into it. It was horrible. I did better than i thought though. I got all the bones out and skinned it okay. It was really butchered in the end but it all worked out once i got the rest of the ingredients together. We poped the fish in a bowl and added cheese and dijon mustard, popped it in the oven until brown and presto. It actually wasn't that bad. I sanitized all my kitchen equipment that was in two feet of the fish, got a shower and cut all my finger nails off that evening. I am just not a big fan of fish scales and eyeballs.

My poor fish moment before being hacked.  

The demo that afternoon was all about lamb. It was one of the best demos. Here you either need to expect a lamb walking in the kitchen on a leash or at least half the carcass on your chopping board. There is no such things as 'pre-cut meat' we pretty much learn how to butcher before we cook meat. So two assistances lugged this half lamb to the demo room and there it lay. It wasn't looking at us because it had no head (thankfully) but everything else was there. Rory chopped it up and we finally got the leg which was in the recipe to cook. If you could smell the room you would never forget it. Rosemary and garlic lamb roasting with potatoes, glazed carrots and gravy it was wonderful. Even better i get to experience it all over again on Monday when we make it for ourselves.

Everyone is getting sick around here. I'm just getting over my cold and my roomate is just starting up. oops. Friday night was really nice. I had dinner with some friends I met in Middleton then came home watched Glee and went to bed. This morning Rosie, Rosie and I went to town for lunch at a fantastic little cafe. We were talking about food, wine and whats good and what we don't like anymore and we realized we are on the verge of becoming 'foodies' (food snobs)! Its great to have a legit opinion about something.

So onto week 3!!