Oui, Chef!

Last night, I was lucky enough to be able to attend a cooking class at le Cordon Bleu! Yes, that hallowed ground of Julia Child and the most prestigious cooking school in the world. Obviously, we didn’t go to a class with the actual students, but the school offers classes for the public that are not hands-on and instead consist of two hours of observation and note-taking as the chef prepares the menu, and then sampling it after! The school is on a very non-descript side street in an outer arrondissement – I totally expected it to be right in the middle of “expensive Paris” but it was a modest facility. We were given a folder with the recipes and a Cordon Bleu pen (!) and ushered into a room set up like a lecture hall, with theater-style seating to allow everyone a clear view and rows of chairs with flip-out desks. Just what I’ve been missing :P

The front of the room was set up with an entire working kitchen, with a large island countertop with electric range built in, ovens in the background, etc. Above the island was a giant mirror that reflected everything the chef did below it and allowed us to see his technique and what exactly he was doing. We sat down and the chef, two assistants and a translator entered and started the class. The chef’s name was Marc Thivet, and his bio listed an impressive array of awards and positions as head chef in many famous and expensive restaurants. He was instantly likable and friendly, always cracking jokes and joyfully telling us his “little secrets” and giving us “little gifts” like adding black truffles and mushrooms to the salad which only called for apples. The translator was SUPER annoying because she talked like a bad news anchor and was totally distracting from the chef. I was very proud that I essentially didn’t have to listen to her, and it was fun to laugh at his jokes with the French people right after he said them and not having to wait for the English translation like the Americans.

It was hilarious to watch him interact with his assistants, two young Japanese students whom he called “mes enfants” – my children. Out of deeply engrained protocol in the patriarchal kitchen system, they had to respond “oui, Chef” to his every request. Apparently “non, Chef” is not part of the vocabulary… He explained to us that in the kitchen, the chef is like the general in the army and the cooks are his soldiers; it is essential to respond to him as the commanding officer!  To his great joy and amusement, he had us practice shouting “oui, Chef!” as a group.

The menu for the evening was cappuccino de carottes au cumin et croustillant de canard confit avec confiture de roscoff et pruneaux – a carrot puree with cumin topped by whipped cream, followed by a mixture of duck confit with Roscoff onion and prune jam wrapped in a thin crispy shell, drizzled with port wine sauce and served over a lamb’s lettuce salad with apples, truffles and mushrooms and a lemon vinaigrette. Oh yes. It was so interesting to see all of his tricks, and also depressing because there’s no way you could be that good at slicing stuff unless you literally sliced for 3 hours a day for 20 years. Which he has.

Anyway, we watched impatiently while he took the full 2 hours to prepare the meal for the group of about 28 students. I realized pretty much instantly that we were not going to get a meal at the end, just small tastes, which was not what I had anticipated and what had been described to me. Sooo I hadn’t eaten since lunch and was absolutely dying of hunger, which made the 2 hours rather tortuous, especially when the room was full of the incredible aroma of duck and onions!

We finally got our tastes, and unfortunately I wasn’t a huge fan of the carrot cappuccino. It was spicy, which I wasn’t expecting , and what I love about carrots is their sweetness. So, it was very pretty and a good idea but not my cup of tea. The duck croustillant however, was FABULOUS and I could have eaten about 10 portions. The shredded duck meat was mixed with the onion and prune jam (really a reduction of very thinly sliced onions and prunes) and wrapped in a filo-like dough, then buttered and baked until crispy. It was essentially a duck egg roll and the flavor was rich, complex and pretty much unlike anything I’ve ever tasted. The port wine sauce just topped it off, and the salad was a great contrast with the crispy apples. I tried to appreciate the truffles, but they didn’t taste like anything to me! Guess I’ll be able to save some money :) They also served us a glass of wine, which was probably my favorite wine I've tasted in my whole life! It was a Brouilly and apparently it's proper to serve it slightly chilled - I guess it can be done!

I’m kind of in love with this whole duck thing – the other day I had an appetizer of thin slices of duck breast served on top of a caramelized apple puree on a crispy pastry base with an herb cream sauce and almost died. Now this? I am now making it my goal to try duck in every possible form. Why don’t we eat it in the states?

I’ll leave you with this thought – if you find duck confit in California, I will make this recipe for you and hopefully capture some of its greatness :)