day 20: sole vin blanc with mixed grain pilaf and sauce supreme, and poached salmon with steamed vegetables and hollandaise sauce

Today was a bit of a mixed bag. My sole vin blanc came out great, but my poached salmon suffered a bit from overcooking. The sole plate had a lot more elements, but the salmon had a few twists that made it a bit more difficult. More on that later. The sole was wrapped with some salmon mousse and poached in a court bouillon. I started the court bouillon first, along with my wild rice as I knew those would take some time to cook/develop flavors. My rice pilaf came out great, and I just re-added the wild rice and some toasted flax seeds to it. Chef Brown asked me if I just plated the sauce supreme he made...he said it tasted identical. That's a great compliment, but I definitely took a few different steps making it than he showed in demo...mostly, because I was scurrying to get it done. I'd added way too much liquid, and it was taking forever to reduce down. I just added a bunch of cold butter to it to thicken it up, and actually, it did taste great. The fish was perfectly cooked, and Chef Brown also complimented my tourne cuts on the carrots. Of course, I did use three carrots until I found my most beautiful cuts to plate. However, as I found it was easiest to cut from the root end, it was a bit woody and undercooked. Chef Brown said it would be easier to tourne the carrot in its round form, but I just couldn't get on board with that. I needed the edges for a point of reference, and I don't have time to test new things on the clock! I might give it a try when we're not being timed.

Now this plate was just a disaster. Overcooked vegetables. Overcooked fish. Hollandaise was too thick and too acidic. Potato gaufrette (waffle-cut) never made it to the plate. Chef Brown was definitely trying to make me feel better by saying it looked like I had the execution down, but I just needed work on the timing. I say if the timing isn't right, you haven't properly executed your dish. Over the past week, I've been flying by with executing my second or third dishes after our first plate went in. I hate having food sit, and that's something I need to work on. I'm sure in a restaurant, you don't cook everything to order, and I need to start thinking about parcooking, or letting things sit in the oven rather than doing 50 things at the last minute. Aside from timing issues, my other Achilles' heel was the Hollandaise sauce. I've yet to properly make that damned sauced, and that's just something I'm going to have to practice repeatedly until I get it. Tomorrow, more steaming food (ugh).