another 7 days on

So today I've decided that I shall take some pictures of my apartment to show everyone. Its rather quaint but you know what, it's only a house to me, it will never be home. After all, home is defined by the important people in my life. Oh, how I miss Singapore & everyone, especially my Sher. Anyway, this here is the hall.



I can proudly say that the entire apartment is furnished by IKEA. To all the IKEA haters out there, it's cheap and good furniture, what's there not to like? The next part of our tour takes us to the kitchen and laundry area.


I haven't gotten my chopping board and another set of knives that I have been eyeing so at this point of time, I haven't done much cooking. But rest assured, once my kitchen is fully functional, I'll be churning out dishes after dishes of food using my newly attained knowledge of the culinary arts. One of the things that I can't stand about the kitchen which sadly I cannot change, is the damn stoves, they are electric coil stoves and they are hell of a slow. I want fire, no, I NEED fire!

Next up in the tour is the toilet. I try to minimise my time in there because it isn't really my ideal toilet, I hate the tiles alot. It's esthetically unpleasing and the tiles are cold as ice in the morning It's a freezing nightmare when I step out after a shower.


Last but not least is my bedroom, I don't have much to say about it, its just a simple no frills bedroom. A bed, a light, a wardrobe and a "side" table. You'll see why I inverted commas the side table when you take a look at the room.



Ladies and gentlemen, that is a fine example of poor planning. I ran out of space at the side of my bed to put the side table. So with that, we come to the end of the tour of my apartment. Did I mention that this is going to be a really long post?

Next on the agenda is the food cooked on my 4th week of school. This past week was abit of a mixed week for me. On the first day, we had to make 2 desserts, one was a cherry flan called Clafoutis aux Cerises in french and the other was disgusting rice pudding. It is beyond me how anyone can like rice pudding, it's unbelievably sweet and tastes strongly of sugar, it has no natural flavours in it except for the vanilla pod used and even though I love vanilla, it just wasn't enough to sway me to rice pudding. The Clafoutis on the otherhand was lovely. Although mine wasn't really up to par in the department of texture (I overbaked the flan pastry called Pate Sucree), the flavour was spot on. Unfortunately I didn't take a picture of it, it was a complex recipe and I didn't have time to snap a photo of it. So, I will cheat and show you a couple of pictures of it which I got from the internet.



Imagine yourself flying through the sky and imagine a perfect clafoutis, each cherry suspended in a soft cloud of sweetness and delight. As you look down from above, you can barely see the top of each cherry shyly peering back at you from the top of the cloud. Then imagine biting into that cloud and feeling a crumbly texture followed by a soft melt in your mouth one and then you are hit with the slight tang and sweetness of the cherries and the lovely flavours of the Clafoutis Filling. Heaven on earth. I think that by far, this is one of the best desserts I have ever had. I would recommend everyone to go out and find yourself a Clafoutis aux Cerises and serve it with a Sauce Anglaise which goes lovely with alot of pastry desserts.
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Sauce Anglaise
500ml Milk
1 Vanilla Pod
60g Sugar
5 Eggyolks

Slice open the vanilla pod and scrap the seeds out and put the seeds and the pods in with the milk and bring to a boil.
Then whisk sugar and eggyolks together and then add the boiled milk and whisk thoroughly.
Finally return the mixture to the pot and heat over low to medium heat until it has a coating consistency and then strain.
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Day 2 got more interesting, I loved the menu for that day. It consisted of Braised Lamb Shanks with Red Wine Jus, Risotto, buttered french beans and turned glazed carrots.

The lamb shank was braised til it is about to fall off the bone. That is how you tell the lamb shank is done. The jus was made from the reduction of the braising liquid. Overall, the lamb was juicy and tender and the sauce was delicious and silky.

One thing I learned so far is that there are 2 kinds of meat, 1st class cuts of meat and 2nd class cuts. 1st class cuts are like tenderloins, rib eyes etc that don't require much cooking to be tender and can be served as steaks. 2nd class on the other hand are like shanks, cheeks which are more flavorful but require long cooking times and are ideal for braising.

The chef made something else that day that was for demonstration only so I did not have to make it. It is called Galantine de Caneton. According to my chef, it is a lost art as not many chefs nowadays know how to make it. The recipe requires the skin of a duck but any other poultries's skin can be used to make a different kind of Galantine. The skin has to be removed whole and in as perfect a condition as possible, with no punctures on it other than at the appenditures.



The skin is then used to wrap a mince mixture of veal, pork, bacon, cow tongue, spiced salt, cognac and eggs (binding agent). Strips of ham, tongue, pork speck (lard) are arranged in the mince and truffles and pistachio nuts are added to the mix. It is then rolled into a sausage shape and tied up to retain the shape. It is then poached in a chicken stock for about 1 1/4 hours and allowed to cool and served cold. The end product is something like this.


I had to take the picture of it from the internet because I wasn't able to snap a photo of the Galantine made by my chef as it was served the day after. Let's just say it was delicious. It had alot of different textures going on inside the Galantine because of the lard, the tongue, the nuts and the minced meat. And the flavour is exactly how you think it would be like. Truffly, meaty and flavourful with a hint of pistachio.

On the last day, I had to make a cheese souffle, which is an extremely useful skill because you can make so many different kinds of souffles. I also had to make a Supreme de Volaille Chivry which is essentially a stuffed chicken breast served with button onions and mushrooms and topped with a chive, tarragon and shallot cream sauce. It is stuffed with very finely minced chicken which is mixed with cream and egg whites and passed through a sift in order to make a thick chicken paste. I'm not that great a chicken fan so I'll be as unbiased as possible and say that the chicken was juicy and tender and the sauce complimented the sweet button onions and chicken nicely. The cheese souffle had a lovely cheesy flavour. Afterall, there is no such thing as too much cheese. It had cheddar and parmesan cheese in it and that combination of cheese was great for the souffle.




Well that is it for week 4, tomorrow marks the beginning of week 5 and mid way to my practical assessment on week 8. I'll remember to take more photos when I go out during my off days so I can write more about Sydney as a sight seeing spot. Til next time, tata!