A Le Cordon Bleu Cooking Class Experience
First, a small confession: I’m not great in the kitchen. I can make a mean apple pie (provided I use a ready-made crust), and my husband calls me the “Soup Queen” (really, I just toss things in a pot and add chicken stock), but once the ingredients in the recipe exceed seven items, I’m out. And don’t even get me started on shopping for ingredients. Buying an unprocessed piece of meat or even a whole fish – that would go straight into the ‘too hard’ basket!
So when I recently had the chance to join a cooking class at Le Cordon Bleu in London, one of the world’s most prestigious cooking schools in the world, I wholeheartedly said Oui, and what a good decision that turned out to be.
With coffee in hand and feeling half-asleep, I walked through the grand entrance at 15 Bloomsbury Square at 8 am on a Saturday, mind you. After registering for my Fish & Shellfish course, and receiving the welcome pack which included an apron, a tea towel, and a handbook, I headed upstairs to the shiny metal kitchen where Chef Eric Bédiat was already waiting to teach me the joys of French cuisine. Being French, the lucky monsieur was probably making Coq au Vin and Bœuf Bourguignon before he could count to ten.
A quick Q&A revealed that none of the other 15 participants, amongst them a banker, an architect and an MBA student, had ever taken a course at Le Cordon Bleu, so I breathed a little sigh of relief that no one seemed to be ready for Masterchef TV stardom just yet.
“My wife and I were given a sea bass last year, and I panicked”, a fellow participant, Allan Roberson, told me. “I had no idea what to do with it. I didn’t know if it was fresh. In the end, I threw it away. But I thought to myself, I really should know better, so here I am”.
We eased into the six-hour course by starting with the preparation of mussels. Rinsing, scrubbing, removing barnacles, tapping (if the mussels close they’re good, if not, they should be discarded) – I really enjoyed the hands-on aspect of this, and since I love mussels, I couldn’t wait to learn the recipe.
However, next up was an activity I had been dreading the most: gutting a fish. Displaying years of experience, Chef Bédiat made it look as easy as pie as four perfectly formed lemon sole filets slid onto the board, one after another. Back at my station, I cut along the spine, carefully separating the first filet from the bone. Easy, I thought … and then totally butchered the second one! The underside of the fish was even trickier as there was less flesh left but determined to get the hang of it, # 3 and #4 ended up somewhat presentable.
Slicing a “proper” fish open was perhaps an experience I had not had the pleasure of doing since fifth grade biology class, so when mackerel was next on the agenda, I put on a pair of gloves. As expected, it was a bloody affair with the head, gills, and fins off, guts inside out and yet still more fileting. But with the right technique and tools, like a fileting knife, I did a better job than I anticipated. The last few unpleasantries were pulled out with a special pair of tweezers for fish bone removal (I didn’t know these even existed).
With no bones to remove, preparing a squid seemed like a walk in the park, and after less than three minutes, off it went into the fridge, nicely cleaned and cut into rounds.
By now we’d been fileting, cutting, cleaning, gutting and refrigerating for nearly three hours, so excitement filled the room at the announcement of our first dish: Moules Marinières. Molluscs, butter, shallots, white wine, and parsley were heated in the pan and sacré bleu, the dish turned out to be one of the best I’ve ever tasted! I couldn’t quite believe it was me who made it and that it only took five ingredients to create, which meant I was still within the confines of my comfort zone.
After lunch, it was time to bring out the big pots and tongs, as lobsters had to be killed. “They are best kept alive until cooking though some chefs prefer to put them in the fridge to numb them beforehand”, explained our teacher while putting the first one in boiling water. I quickly followed suit, trying to be very matter of fact about the killing aspect although Chef Bédiat did offer to do it on our behalf. In the six minutes it took to turn the crustacean bright red and ready, we learned to open and scoop out scallops.
Had I previously thought that the mackerel was going to give me the hardest time, the lobster easily proved me wrong. Although armed with scissors and an army of knives, getting the delicious meat out of the crustacean was serious work (but worth it in the end). After adding the Sauce Vierge which had been prepared in advance by Le Cordon Bleu, my second dish was ready.
Chef Bédiat explained that Mackerel Fillets Poached in White Wine would be best served the next day, so we heated a classic court bouillon, simmered it and poached the filets before placing them in a container to take home where they would better in a fridge overnight.
With three dishes under our aprons, I mean belts, there was no time to rest as Lemon Sole Filets Meunière with Brown Shrimps was the next in line. Maybe I hadn’t listened carefully during the demonstration, maybe it was the unexpected speed of the induction oven, maybe I had become complacent and thought frying fish isn’t rocket science – let’s just say, my first filet didn’t end up on a plate. In fact, I burnt it so badly that Chef Bédiat hurried over, threw away the fish, personally cleaned my pan and made me start again.
After burning the lemon sole, I paid special attention to the last presentation. I love scallops even more than mussels, so no way was I going to ruin even a single ounce of them. Sauteed in oil, thirty seconds on each side, they were ready after which we moved on to the squid. Next, I sweated the garlic in a pan, deglazed some cherry tomatoes with vinegar, added rocket leaves to it, put in the scallops and squid, sprinkled pine nuts and seasoned with salt and pepper. Together I counted nine ingredients, but voilà I had made my final dish. Maybe there was a Julia Childs lurking in me after all.
Ready with takeaway containers packed with all the dishes from the day except the mussels which I’d devoured for lunch, a signed certificate from Le Cordon Bleu London as well as alot of new experiences, I jumped on the train home. What a fish fest I had that evening! And before heading to bed, I put “whole salmon” on the following week’s shopping list, secretly hoping that Chef Bédiat would be proud of me.
