Today was our last day of production before our final, and one of the dishes I drew for my final was this butternut squash soup. I don't really care for butternut squash, but Chef Brown said I did great. The first thing he asked me when I presented was who taught me this plating design to which I have Chef Shalchian to thank. I just took some sour cream, thinned it out with some manufacturing cream, squirted a pinwheel around the soup with my squeeze bottle, and then fanned it out with a skewering stick. When I do this for my final on Friday, I will do concentric circles instead of a pinwheel so it closes better, and be sure I have enough cream in my bottle so it doesn't go splat...you can totally see where that happened. Chef Brown also said it would be more elegant if it was a lot smaller, and I agree. As for the soup, Chef Brown said I had a ton of butternut squash flavor. He said my soup was really dark, and I told him the chicken stock was pretty dark to start with...he liked the flavor though. I also put a fair amount of nutmeg into my soup, as I already knew he was a fan of that. We had pumpkin seeds to garnish with, to which I also added my butternut squash seeds when I toasted them. I left out the apple, which was an optional garnish, as apples in savory dishes tend to make me barf.
Here, I've seared some scallops and served them with an orange beurre blanc sauce. Chef Brown said this was a harder sauce to get than Hollandaise...I beg to differ. This sauce is easily broken with too much heat. Duh, so just don't put it over too much heat. That's sort of the same problem with Hollandaise. However, I think my problem with Hollandaise isn't that I don't understand how to make it. It's that I don't have three hands. Sure...I just lack the human appendages is all. Anyhow, Chef Brown said I seared my scallops beautifully and that my sauce was great, but that I'd let too much color get onto my vegetables, which can overpower scallops and beurre blanc, both very delicate flavors. I agree with him on the veg, but I wasn't quite as satisfied with my scallop. It was perfectly medium and still translucent in the center. But it would have been nice if I got a good golden crust all along the top, like I did when we made filet mignon. Maybe if I just hit the scallops with some flour right before I sear them...I'll have to try that next time I make scallops. Also, I could have kicked myself. I saved three perfect supremes of orange I wanted to garnish with, and when I went to present, they were still sitting on my cutting board. Now I know how those guys on Chopped feel when they forget to plate something.
So I never knew that this was a true Weiner Schnitzel. I always thought they were those godawful hot dogs from that place of the same name. I've ate at that place exactly twice in my life...and the second time, I asked myself if I just forgot how disgusting it was the first time. This schnitzel though...delicious. We pan fried a veal cutlet that was pounded out, then breaded in panko. We used panko for our rack of lamb the other day, but today it was really delicious when we fried something in it! We have a similar beurre blanc sauce from before...only this time it wasn't strained so you can see the shallots, lemon zest and lemon bits in it. Once again, I didn't plate any of my lemon supremes, but this time it was because I'd thrown them all in my sauce and they sort of disintegrated. Other than that, Chef Brown said I did a great job seasoning and frying my cutlet, and made a good sauce. Tomorrow, we prep for our final dishes and Friday is fire day!
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