Lesson 21: Written Exam; Lobster Bisque

Today was the final written exam for Module 1.. Yes, we are already done with 1/5 of the culinary arts program!  Crazy, huh?   After dominating the test (the study guide we were given was extremely helpful!!) we spent the remaining 3 hours of class making more delicious soups.  As shown above, one soup contained LOBSTER.. so I killed the second lobster in my life :(  .  It is kind of sad throwing a live lobster into a pot of boiling water, but the lobster bisque was SOOO SOOO SOO SOOOOOOOOO good!  No exaggeration.  I brought a tiny bit home so that my dad could try it and I know he's going to love it! (He's brining it into work for lunch tomorrow!)   Here's a picture of the creamy bisque simmering on the stove:

And Asli about to present her bowl to Chef Allen:

This is the bowl that my group presented:

It is the most satisfying feeling to plate a dish, garnish it, and present it with pride.  We knew it tasted delicious and we made it look beautiful!  

Also on today's recipe agenda was onion soup.  This soup was fairly simple to make and just involved a ton of onions (we also threw in some leeks) and white veal stock.  The onion soup was seriously the best I've ever tasted.  It wasn't too heavy and onion-y, but had great flavor and was sweet, but not too sweet (hard to explain, but trust me it was fantastic!).  We broiled croutes with gruyere to top on the finished, hot soup and it was perfection!  Chef Allen gave the best impression of someone eating hot, gooey french onion soup, with stringy cheese burning your mouth, big globs of bread that are hard to eat, and long strands of onions spilling on your prada outfit.  Soo true when you eat that soup, right?! (Well, except for the prada outfit part..) He told us that wouldn't happen with the soups we were going to plate, but I definitely still burnt my mouth from gobbling up the hot cheesy bread too quickly!

I had every intention of saving the rest of my soup to bring home for my dad to try since he loves french onion soup... but I couldn't resist finishing my bowl (sorry dad!)

We also made gazpacho today, which was definitely the easiest of the soups since it is basically just chopped up veggies served cold.  We pureed half of the soup instead of the whole soup so there were still nice chunks of fresh vegetables.  I personally liked it not pureed at all since the flavor was so wonderful and I loved the salsa-like texture of the mixture.  I enjoyed making the gazpacho because it didn't involve much measurement.  We just chopped up some cucumbers, tomato concasse, peppers, jalapenos, and green onions.  We mixed them up with some tomato juice, salt, pepper, sugar, and chopped cilantro.  The flavors extract more as it sits, so it is best the day after you make it.... but my mom and I already ate the rest of the soup that I brought home so we wouldn't kno :/    

Tomorrow's my practical exam and then I am officially done with Module 1!