When I decided to change my career my biggest worry was that cooking every day might end up turning a passion into a chore. 10 weeks into the course I find that the opposite is true. Gone are the days of waking up with a hangover on a saturday morning with nothing in the fridge and an emergency packet of Supernoodles from the back of the cupboard to line the stomach at lunchtime. Nowadays I'm keen to try out new skills and whip something up using store cupboard ingredients and things I may have stored away in the freezer.
Now I'm feeling confident with pasta I can quickly make up a dough with the magimix and after 30 minutes of resting in the fridge I can be rolling out ravioli in no time. I had some wild boar ragout in the freezer which I defrosted and used to fill the ravioli. I plucked some leaves from the basil plant on the windowsill and made up some basil oil to drizzle over the pasta and with a sprinkling of grated parmesan a tasty weekend lunch was ready and on the table.
A couple of saturdays ago I had a little offcut from a leg of lamb which I brought home from school and I ended up rolling it, quickly roasting it and making a tomato and mint salsa with a splash of fig balsamic and olive oil as a dressing.
Tomorrow will be our last official practical lesson of the term. The time has just flown by and it's hard to believe that we have reached the week of our theory exam already. I have some hard revising to do over the next few days so apologies for the lack of posting recently, however once Thursday is out of the way I can catch up on a few posts I've been meaning to write, including a review of our trip to Restaurant Sat Baines which we visited this weekend.
5 comments:
Believe me. It gets even more interesting when most of the cupboards contain baby foods. Just try making a creme anglaise with formula milk.
Just about to make the same life change as you, from a film composer to a chef. Working in a gastropub kitchen for the next few days as a tryout.
It has been very helpful to hear about your first term at Leiths. Hopefully next year I will be able to blow my inheritance on the same course.
Have a look at Grant Achatz "Alinea" website. He truly looks like the next genius.
That sounds great, I hope you enjoy your gastropub stint and it fills you with excitement about the future. I'm having the best time at the moment and have no regrets about changing career. The Leiths course is a great way of formalising a lot of the knowledge you probably have already, producing food to more exacting standards, and learning more about the theory behind cooking. I'd be really interested to hear how you find the gastropub kitchen, please come back and post how it went.
Best of luck in your upcoming exams! And as Pete says, make sure to report back on how you get on at the gastropub.
Both recipes look so lovely and flavorful. Yum-Yum
Congratulations on getting this far and I hope your exams went well this week.
I'm very jealous of the home made ravioli. Last year, when I was still a student, I dreamt of making my own pasta as soon as I got myself my own flat. It turned out my first job would be far too heavy duty to allow me to do that. Hopefully, next year, when I've got myself a new employer.....
I'm glad to hear that your change of career hasn't made you sick of cooking. That would also be my main fear if I decided to switch jobs like you have.
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