Menu: "Gourmet Small Plates." My second cooking class went pretty smoothly, thanks to your

J

joe

Well-known member
suggestions and encouragement. I really appreciate it.

I arrived very early and mise-en-placed my head off. I actually had time to kill before the guests arrived. (That was dangerous--me in a cooking store with time to kill, having just been shown by the departing boss how to ring up sales, with a "chef" discount. But I was strong). It helped too that I typed up a timeline and included "CLEAN UP!!" at key intervals, lol.

These are all recipes that are quick to make and look very impressive, and they all leant themselves to appetizer portions:

Green Olive Tapenade

Thyme-toasted Pecans

Flambeed Shrimp with mustard cream sauce and fresh dill

Warm Duck Breast Salad with Asian Vinaigrette

Feta-stuffed bell peppers

Lamb Skewers with mustard-rosemary marinade

Poached Pears in red wine sauce

The pears are the only item that had to cook for a while, so we started that first. I thought later that it would have been nice to poach those itty-bitty pears to keep with the "small plates" theme, but they would have been a pain to peel.

 
Warm Duck Salad with Asian Vinaigrette. Use skin-on breast, score the skin and cook skin-side

first in an iron skillet over medium heat to render out the fat and brown the skin. Spoon out the fat, season the meat and turn. Cook to medium rare, then let sit while you prepare the salad in the link. Slice the breast into diagonal slices, fan them out on the salad, and drizzle with a touch more dressing

http://eat.at/swap/forum/index.php?action=display&forumid=1&msgid=28495

 
What lucky students! Thanks for including the links and recipes. It all looks lovely.

 
I'll have to try this as I usually use only black olives. My version alson

includes a small can of tuna in olive oil. Kind of like a Veal tonnato sauce but thicker. Less intense than regular tapenade so you can eat more.

 
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