day 16: herb roasted chicken with rice pilaf, and baked red snapper

Today was an exciting day! We made our first fully composed plates today. The only meat we've really used before this was some ground meat in our consomme, and some bacon here and there. But today we made actual meat. We made meat brown. To be eaten. It was great! So first we made an herb roasted chicken. My chicken didn't have a lot of extra fat on it, or I'd have started my pan sauce with that fat. Instead, I decided to render bacon fat to reinforce the bacon flavor in my pan sauce I'd make later with the chicken drippings. I also put the bacon lardons back into the rice pilaf I'd made, to be served with the chicken. That chicken dish was bacony goodness! Chef Brown complimented my seasoning, and he said my chicken had a perfect doneness..although I swore I'd overcooked it.  It went a bit over temp when I took the chicken out and I just prayed to the baby Jesus it would be okay while I went to work on my snapper.  He looked first at the bottom of the thigh, and said it looked like it was just done.  He said that sometimes means that means the breast can be overcooked since it's the top side that's exposed to more heat.  But he cut into it and tasted it, and said it was moist.  Chef Brown's only critique was that my sauce needed to be a bit warmer. He complimented the taste of my pan sauce, as he did mention earlier in lecture that he was a great lover of bacon...and really, who isn't? I think if I wouldn't have been fussing with taking pictures of my plate before presenting to him, it would have been warmer. Maybe I will start making two plates, one to photograph, and a fresh one to present. Please. That's ridiculous.  Oh, my pilaf.  The technique we learned for pilaf (finishing in the oven) has never worked for me.  But then today I remembered I was Asian, and I know how to cook rice.  I know how to cook rice perfectly.  On the stovetop.  So I did.

The chicken was a bit more involved, and I think it definitely makes a prettier plate, but this red snapper.  Mmmm!  I love fish.  I'm not a big fan of sushi, or sashimi, but I do love a nicely cooked piece of fish.  And the sauce we made from it was full of umami goodness!  Chef Brown said it was perfectly seasoned, moist and well cooked, and that I made a great pan sauce.  I totally did rock that pan sauce.  I was nervous when I was reducing the stock the fish had been cooking in, because it wasn't thickening.  It was still basically water consistency, and if I kept going, I wouldn't have had any stock left to make the sauce.  So I took it off the heat and mounted the butter and bam, instant sauce!  I'd concentrated my fishy flavors down quite a bit while reducing...it was absolutely delicious.  Once again, Chef Brown's only critique was that my sauce could be a bit more hot when my plate made it to him.  I'm gonna have to work on that one.  I also have to remember to start taking pictures of my plate from a better angle.  I wish I could see the mound of tomatoes and mushrooms I'd tried to pile as high and center as I could.  It was beautiful!  Tomorrow...grilled salmon!