Cuisine de France

October 31, 2011.
This week of service La Friandise featured a French menu, which was met with very good feed back from the guests. For front of the house this week I was manager, and can say that service went pretty smooth, even with being down two in staff.

This class's service day happened to fall on Halloween, so as a special touch we all dressed up to celebrate. Some characters serving the guests included a witch, a French man, a football referee, and some kind of hobo-clown.

The menu was quintessential French fare. It was a respectable snap shot of the food one would find in France, even though a three course menu at lunch is not nearly enough time or space to grasp the entire French cuisine.

First course was a French onion soup; slow cooked sweet onions steeped in very earthy beef broth. To finish it was topped with a melted, gooey, cheesy crouton.




























For our second (and main) course, a classic Beef Wellington was prepared. For my kitchen day I was chef of the day and had joint responsibility in preparing this dish. It involved making a duxelle (which I was fond of since the main ingredient is mushrooms), topping that on a seared beef tenderloin fillet, then wrapping that in a puff pastry, and baking it off to perfection. The result is a beautiful golden-brown pouch filled with tender meat and mushrooms.

Our final course for this menu was a rich chocolate mousse. To elevate the mouse it was piped into a expertly made chocolate dipped twill. Then to add even more beauty to the plate sauces and coulis were arranged and piped around the mousse.


























So all in all, a pretty fun menu to prepare and serve. It was a well constructed menu that showed that French food is not all intimidating for those who will be eating it, or for the chefs to be who are preparing it.