Week 2, day 4

Happy Thursday everyone!  It has been a relatively relaxing day as far as classes go but stressful as my first test is tomorrow afternoon. Practical cookery began my day as usual. I had the opportunity to cook lamb's tongue, and serve it. I actually brought my camera to class, and I will be doing so in the future whenever I can remember. This will allow me to share my cooking creations and experiences visually with all of you so you can have an idea of what I am actually cooking, and what it looks like. French words explaining food doesn't seem to always cut it, as I can barely tell by the descriptions what I am cooking sometimes even until it pulls together in the end. I will begin adding pictures tomorrow as my camera is downstairs and it would take a lot of effort for me to get it at this moment. I am quite tired, and the stress is slowly adding up, but everything will be completed this weekend homework wise; just in time for another week to follow with more projects. The lamb tongue was interesting, as it had to be poached in a stock for two and a half hours before it was tender enough to consume. The other interesting thing about this dish is that it is served cold. There was not very much to prepare for it, and so I practiced turning vegetables, shaping them like a football with a paring knife. My paring knife is extremely sharp, because nothing is more frustrating and useless in a kitchen than a dull knife. I did however feel very uncomfortable peeling towards myself, holding the blade to use the tip of the knife to shape potatoes. I managed, but then out of curiosity, boredom, and in hope to expand my knowledge and improve my knife skills, I tried doing the same to a turnip. (The other group needed the turnip as well to be shaped and cut like this, so it was for a reason.) A turnip however, is much harder than a potato, and requires a little bit of slicing back and forth to get it started. When it slips off the turnip and the slicing motion hasn't stopped, an extremely sharp paring knife tends to slice your thumb open apparently. Luckily it was a very small cut, however I do believe I will buy a cheap knife, and purposely dull it to a point where I can't slice my finger open just for this use.
Back to the tongue,  it has been poached for two and a half hours, and is very tender at this point. Note for anyone that wants to cook lamb tongue in the future, peel the skin BEFORE the tongue dries out and cools down, and if you don't have time, leave it in the broth until you have time to peel it. The skin is VERY difficult to peel when the tongue has dried out and cooled.
The flavour is very good and similar to pork, and if sliced, doesn't look anything like a tongue and won't discourage unknowing guests from tasting it, and telling you how tasty it is. They will most likely however develop a horrified expression, and may never trust your cooking again once you tell them what it is, but it may be worth it.
Wine class followed, and we got to taste a terrible 6 dollar bottle of wine, for which I can't remember the brand. This wine was aged in a pine barrel, and so it has a distinct pine taste in it, which is not very pleasant. Commodities followed the wine class, and we are now learning about rice. Pasta was last week, and tomorrow there is a test on our knowledge of both rice and pasta. I, in the past few hours, have learned more about rice and pasta than I ever thought possible in a lifetime, and I'm not certain I have even begun to touch the surface about these two commodities. There is a fantastic history and background, as well as uses and facts about these commodities that is very interesting, and very practical in many ways I couldn't really begin to describe. Every week, I will be learning a new commodity, as well as expanding my knowledge on the everything I have learned previously.
After class, I was convinced to go out for sushi, and had, for my first time, a guide through my sushi experience. The local sushi restaurant in my hometown of Chatham Ontario is pretty good, however I didn't realize how amazing a higher quality restaurant would be. The salmon and tuna was pretty awesome, as well as many other dishes that I couldn't name to save my life, made up my dinner this evening, and I was very satisfied with the quality of all the food I ate. One of my fellow classmates assisted me with my choices, as well as explained chinese and japanese cultures and a short bit about their brutal history. As you have probably figured out, I have been immersed in a never ending sea of knowledge it seems for the past two weeks, and it is only getting bigger and bigger, and my mind will probably explode if I don't get some sleep now. I will tell you tomorrow how I did on my SPEC,... and I hope not to disappoint any of you with the mark I get, but I will be just as surprised as you will no matter what it is. If it's poor, I'll learn from it and do way better on my next one, and if it's good I'll strive to do better still on the next one due Monday morning.