How is it July already? Week nine is over, and there are officially only two weeks of cooking left before finals… and so the big push to the finish begins. Our first exam, the wine exam, is actually this Wednesday, the 4th of July, so we’re already studying. (Luckily there will be a wine tasting at Ballymaloe House the night of the 4th, so Independence Day won’t be all work and no play!)
Considering we don’t have that much time left, not only have I been trying harder, I’ve also been doing more—in my case, this mostly means that I’m baking a lot. There are so many breads and so little time!
Monday was a quiet and relatively easy day, as Mondays should be. I basically spent the morning working on spring rolls, although I did make some rice and veg on the side. Rolling spring rolls is very relaxing on a sleepy Monday morning, and I was happily done precisely at noon, which rarely if ever happens. I also started making preparations to actually bake my sourdough bread, which has been an extracurricular labor of love, considering that I fed my starter—a mix of flour and tepid water in a jar that “sours” over the course of a few days—every day last week.
Spring rolls and Thai dipping sauce. Rolls filled with a mixture of chicken and pork.
On Tuesday, I went in at 8:00 in the morning for the first time. I never show up much before 8:45, since the cooking day starts at 9:00, but I was scheduled to meet with Darina, who runs the school, after the afternoon demonstration, and when you meet with Darina, you’re expected to bring tea and/or a treat. So I went in an hour early to bake brownies. I debated using one of the school’s gazillion biscuit recipes, but in the end, I decided to switch it up and use an amazing brownie recipe that my friend used when I visited her in Chicago. (See Ina Garten’s “Outrageous Brownies” recipe here. It is one hell of a recipe! Lots of eggs, chocolate, and butter—you can’t go wrong.)
Outrageous brownies for Darina.
I couldn’t find a proper baking tin, so I halved the recipe and used muffin tins instead. I had the brownies cooling on a shelf under my workspace by 9:00, so they were hidden until later in the morning, when I brought them back up to pop them out of the tins—and oh, was there excitement. My teacher announced to the entire kitchen that there was chocolate deliciousness at my station, and everyone flocked over. I carried the extras around with me that afternoon, too—needless to say, I had a bit of a chocoholic following.
Making cappelletti.
Tuesday was also pasta day. Literally everyone was making pasta, and there were only three pasta presses in the kitchen, so it was a bit hectic. But once my pasta was rolled, I was quite happy to stuff and shape fresh little cappelletti, which are like tortellini but are pointed instead of rounded. This was my second-ever attempt—and first successful one—at making pasta. (The first attempt was when my boyfriend and I decided to make ravioli, which was doomed by my insistence at adding half whole-wheat flour and by the fact that he had to roll it out with a wine bottle because I didn’t have a rolling pin or a pasta press. Oh well.)
Cappelletti with tomato cream sauce.
After Tuesday’s afternoon demonstration and my meeting with Darina, I baked up some sourdough bread. (Long day at school, to say the least!) It was my first shot at it, and I don’t think that the bread rose as much as it should have, but I hear this sometimes happens with first-time starters. I call them my “special” children—they don’t look great, but I love them anyway! At least they taste good. I’m definitely going to try baking new loaves this week, though.
Sourdough bread: Round 1.
On Wednesday, we had a canapés demonstration and game lecture, although neither of these was quite as exciting as the talk we got about the practical portion of our fast-approaching final exam. For the practical portion, we will need to cook a three-course meal in three hours, as well as a bread (i.e., soda, yeast, or focaccia) that will be selected at random a couple days before our exam. We need to submit our menu by this Wednesday—yikes! I already have an idea of what I’m going to pick, but I still need to work out the timing to make sure it will be doable within our allotted three hours.
Thursday was unusually “hot and humid” (by Irish standards), so working in the kitchen was a little rough, especially since half of us were making puff pastry. (And pastry needs to stay cool!) Luckily, the kitchen that I am now in has a weigh-up area that tends to be a few degrees cooler than the kitchen itself, so I was able to manage. I found puff pastry to be kind of fun to make—what’s not fun about whacking an entire slab of butter with a rolling pin and folding it into dough?
Practicing bread for the exam: white yeast bread rolls
I also made a strawberry meringue roulade, which is essentially a rolled up meringue “cake” stuffed with fresh strawberries, and some white yeast bread. Once made, I stashed my roulade in the fridge and later took it out to the weigh-up area to decorate. It was nice to escape the chaos and heat of the kitchen to work—I can see why some people want to be pastry chefs.
Meringue roulade with strawberries.
On Friday, I baked brioche buns, a gateau (cake) pithivier with my puff pastry, and more brownies. My teacher got me a “proper” brownie tin the day before, so I went in early again—which I don’t mind doing, really, since the kitchen is so nice and quiet then—and I got baking straight away. The brioche was another side project: something that they showed us a while ago but, like the sourdough, isn’t something we technically get assigned to bake. I whipped up the dough the night before so it’d be ready to bake in the morning. So really, I was only assigned to make the gateau and the prawns with brettone sauce, but I’m glad I got more done. Plus I wasn’t really feeling the prawn dish—kind of boring, really.
Brioche buns.
More brownies. Addictive, chocolatey goodness.
Prawns with brettone sauce.
Gateau pithivier.
As for the weekend, it’s been fairly quiet. A few of us did go into Cork on Friday night to see a film screening of the British National Theatre’s “Frankenstein”, which had been directed by Danny Boyle and was surprisingly very good. It was unlike any interpretation of the book that I have ever seen, as it was approached from the Creature’s perspective. On Saturday afternoon, we went to the Midleton farmer’s market for coffee—I am seriously addicted to an espresso hot chocolate they make there—and to the “Green Grocer” in nearby Castlemartyr. I made a seriously delicious mushroom burger with my groceries and some of the leftover yeast bread I baked on Thursday.
Mushroom burger with tomato, avocado, red onion, and parmesan.
I also got an interesting bottle of wine, which I like to think of as review for the wine exam, since it tells the story of the “lost” carmenère grape of Bordeaux. Certainly unlike any wine label I’ve ever seen before.
(Oops) wine: 85% sauvignon blanc and 15% carmenère. Pretty good.
And after a few glasses of wine, we ran out to the gardens last night, looking for berries that are now coming into season, and we found lots of ripening strawberry plants under some netting. I felt a bit like a naughty rabbit from a Beatrice Potter tale, picking out all the good strawberries from under the netting and sprinting back with my hands full. (Or maybe a crazy hippie kid, considering the hat I borrowed from my friend.) But hey, when you’re on a farm in the middle of the country, you’ve got to find some way to occupy yourself on a Saturday night!
Stealing strawberries to save for Sunday morning breakfast. Also a flower for my hair—the more color, the better.
and a-whey we go 
So does this mean no more store bought bread in the house when you’re at home?
We’re going to have to start giving the neighbors some of your baking, otherwise I’m going to gain lots of weight! Everything looks delicious. Good luck on your wine test!
Thanks! And yes, that’s correct! No more store-bought bread or plastic-wrapped chicken breasts allowed. We’re going to bake fresh bread and joint whole chickens… that’s the way to go.