the kale was assaulted, then drowned in butter and cream

thursday
after a break from the kitchen on wednesday, i was looking forward to cooking again and seeing marie. my work order for the day included cranberry sauce, swede turnip with caramelized onion and a butter sponge cake with raspberry jam and fresh creme.

i made my cake straight away so it would have time to cool before i put the jam and creme in the middle. while the batter was baking, i chopped my swede turnip, put it in a saucepan and brought it to a boil. it would need about 30-45 minutes of cooking before it was soft enough to mash. i checked on my cakes after 12 minutes and the skewer came out clean, so i removed them from the oven and popped them on a cooking rack out in the larder near an open window.

then i started on my onions. it was stressed in the demo on tuesday that the onions be cooked on a very low heat until they caramelized, which could take up to 45 minutes. i had the time to slice my onions thinly and evenly before putting them into the hot olive oil in the pan. i tidied my workstation and then located the cranberries for cranberry sauce. i was a bit unsure of the cranberry sauce because the recipe called for 4 tablespoons of water and 10oz of sugar for 6 oz of cranberries, which is quite different from the cup of sugar and cup of water to a 12 oz bag of cranberries i'm used to making. but, i'm learning things the ballymaloe way, so i sucked up my reservations and followed the recipe. i needed to boil the water and cranberries first, until the berries softened and popped. then, the sugar could be added until dissolved, removed from the heat and set aside to cool.

my turnip was nearly done but i didn't want to rush it (as i did before with the basmati rice), so i put the lid back on and gave it another 5 minutes. the onions were caramelizing quite nicely, still on a very low heat. i turned the heat off from under my turnip and checked with my instructor about how they should be mashed - magimix (which is the same as a food processor) or with the potato masher. she told me it was my preference, so i went with the potato masher as i didn't want pureed turnip. i put the mashed turnip into a bowl, covered it with a butter wrapper and then a saucepan lid and set it to the side while i finished my onions. i found myself being a perfectionist today because i had the time to truly take my time and do everything with a bit more care. i retrieved my cake so i could jam and creme it and then plate up my other food. when i turned my cakes out of their pans, i realized they were a bit underdone. my instructor agreed and instead of going ahead with the butter sponge cake, we decided i should make the winter berry pudding which uses the cakes as a shell for blackcurrants in a syrup sauce and then put in the fridge for a few days to set up. the more moist the cakes are, the better, so i was in good shape. :)

assembling the cake into the bowl.

blackberries boiling in syrup.

it didn't take any time to plate up my cranberry sauce and turnip.

so i had my instructor taste them and then i washed up my last few dishes before heading into the dinning room for lunch. my duties for the day were to make the tea and coffee for dessert and to supervise the other students who had to polish cutlery, lay tables and hoover. i find that effective supervisors are the ones who are hands on and help out as much as possible, so i polished the cutlery and laid out the silverware settings for the three tables. as usual, there wasn't much time to relax before afternoon demo, so i checked the menu sheet for friday and wrote down the dishes marie and i were assigned and then found my seat in the demo room.

i was excited to see kale on our list of new recipes but after a quick look at the ingredients i was disappointed to see butter and cream listed. ugh. pam ran demo again and informed us that 90% of the recipes were cakes and the other 10% were veg and mains. she baked a lemon curd sponge cake, an orange sponge cake, a coffee cake and a chocolate butter cream cake with chocolate shavings. (she has an amazing eye for plating food and i am looking forward to the week i'm in the demo kitchen so i can learn from her!) when she got to the kale, i cringed when she took it from the saucepan where it had been boiled and put it in the magimix. it was pureed to a sorry state and then drowned with butter and cream before it was turned out into a bowl and set on the counter in front of us. 'disgusting!', was my comment. 'incredible!', was grace's.

after a taste of all the food, i went back to the pink cottage and changed into running clothes. i convinced elisa to come with me to run sprints in the cul de sac and it was great to have the company. it was very windy and one of the coldest days we've had so far, so as soon as i had my sprints in, we headed back to our cottage.

charlotte, elisa and i had talked about going down to the pub after our workout, so after changing and having a quick bite to eat, we headed out. we stopped over at the white cottage to see if anyone else wanted to join us and euoghn was more than eager. the four of us walked into the goal post and quickly joined two other students who were there as well, christine and alex. we all crammed into one booth and chatted about the course and our backgrounds, etc. two guinnesses and some great laughs later, i was exhausted and ready for bed. we said goodnight to our classmates and made our way back to our respective cottages.

i'm looking forward to friday tomorrow, and then the weekend to unwind and relax a bit.