Month: February 2026

In January 2026, my wife and I moved to Paris to attend the FERRANDI Paris Intensive Professional Program in French Cuisine. The program runs for just over four months. I decided to document our experience day by day. Below is an excerpt.

Here’s what we learned along the way:

FERRANDI Paris Week One

School started on Wednesday. It was a short week devoted to program orientation, including uniform fittings, a facilities tour, a kitchen walk-through, and an introduction to the cuisine toolkit, a ballistic, briefcase-like plastic case that holds all your tools.

On Friday, our team of eleven spent the day in the kitchen learning and practicing fundamental vegetable cuts, including julienne, ciseler, emincer, tourner, macedoine, and brunoise. Most of us did not cut our hands. It was a whirlwind three days, but a lot of fun.

I have to say the support from the staff, chefs, and everyone throughout the entire process was “top shelf.” In fact, it was astonishing how kind and supportive the FERRANDI Paris staff were throughout the entire onboarding process.

FERRANDI Paris Week Two

This was a full week. We had to be in the kitchen ready to go by 7:40 AM, earlier if you are the chef of the week or an assistant. I am glad my wife and I are just an eight-minute walk from school. We stayed at an Airbnb on Rue Saint-Séverin, so it is easy to get back and forth to school, which, after a long day when your feet are tired, is a good thing.

The FERRANDI sessions are 6 hours long and are divided into two parts: techniques, followed by applying those techniques to create classic French dishes.

Three chefs oversee our program. We were assigned to a team when we arrived, and you keep the same main chef through the entire program, punctuated by guest chefs. My initial take is that all the chefs in the program are top-notch and validate our decision to select Ferrandi Paris. The chef we have been assigned has decades of experience.

On Monday, we delved into vegetable preparation techniques, including turning. Vegetable turning is a technique where you rotate (turn) and cut vegetables into the exact same barrel shape and size to ensure a uniform look and even cooking. We practiced turning carrots, celeriac, zucchini, and artichokes. In the end, the vegetables must be the same size and fit inside a large tablespoon. The only good thing about my vegetable turns was that they were all the same size (more or less). However, with the chef’s demo. I did not make progress turning large artichokes into a “vessel.”

There are lots of kinds of artichokes worldwide. For our purposes at this time, there are primarily two types of artichokes. There are large artichokes, which you remove the stem, turn, and use as a “vessel.” And there are small artichokes, which are turned with the stems on and serve as a dish. Our chef demonstrated an excellent method for turning large artichokes into a vessel. I have tried this many times before with limited success. He took me to the next level.

We then learned to “cook in blanc,” a slurry of water, flour, lemon, and salt, to prevent vegetables such as artichokes, which are prone to oxidation, from darkening. We cooked two artichokes. We reserved one artichoke for tomorrow; we cut the other and gave it to the chef, who showed us how to make sautéed artichokes with oregano (a favorite herb of our chef). I think the dish is called “Carciofi trifolati,” which are perfect as a side dish with lamb, for instance.

Next, we learned how to finely chop mushrooms, clean pearl onions, break down a tomato, hard-boil an egg, white- and brown-glaze vegetables, white-cook mushrooms, and make bechamel sauce. We used these ingredients to make duxelles de champignons, œufs farcis Chimay, bouquetière de légumes, champignons à blanc, essence de champignon, fried artichokes, sundried tomatoes, and tomato powder.

Essence de champignon, or mushroom essence, can be used to enhance sauces and other dishes. It is the old-world version of Aroma Maggi. known throughout France. Maggi ingredients include: iodized salt, sugar, chili pepper, pepper, cloves, cassava, onion, corn starch, monosodium glutamate (MSG), palm oil, soy lecithin, caramel coloring, and lovage.

According to Escoffier in Le Guide Culinaire, essences are concentrated stocks. He continues, “The most one can do is to recommend, in certain circumstances, the use of essences extracted from particularly well-flavored products, as, for instance, mushrooms, truffles, morels, and celery. But it would be well to remember that, nine times out of ten, it is preferable to add the product itself to the stock during the preparation of the same, rather than to prepare essences.”

The recipe for mushroom essence is credited to Marie-Antoine Carême. Carême’s original recipe, translated by Google, is “After slicing two handfuls of mushrooms, you put them in a saucepan with two large spoonfuls of consommé, the juice of one lemon, a pinch of salt, fine pepper, nutmeg, and a little butter. Simmer and reduce over low heat; then you add a large spoonful of veal stock and the same amount of ham essence; after a few boils, you strain the essence through a silk sieve.”¹

A simpler way to make mushroom essence is to use small brown mushrooms.

After the session, my feet were killing me, so I ran off and bought a pair of BIRKENSTOCK Tokio Super Grip work clogs. My feet instantly felt better, and by the end of the week, after a 6-hour day, I had no trouble. My wife also bought a pair.

On Tuesday, we focused on steaming leeks in the oven, preparing and cooking julienne carrots, cabbage, and celeriac, making a basic vinaigrette, and preparing rémoulade, a classic French mayonnaise-based sauce.

We then used our new skills to make a French crudités platter, œufs mimosa, and poireaux vinaigrette mimosa (Leeks Mimosa).

On Wednesday, we focused on stocks. The foundation of French cuisine. We made brown veal stock (French: “Fond Brun de Veau”), Beef Marmite, fish stock (French: “Fumet de Poisson”), vegetable stock (French: “Bouillon de Legumes”), and white chicken stock (French: “Fond Blanc de Volaille”).

The key idea reinforced is that stocks are the “foundation” of French cuisine, used in many dishes and for making sauces. You would be hard-pressed to find a French main course served without a sauce. The fundamental ingredients of all stocks are protein, aromatics, and water.

Stocks can be divided into three classes: brown, white, and clear. In brown stocks, the protein is roasted; in white stocks, it is poached. It is a nonintuitive experience, especially when you look at Beef Marmite, a classic French stock made by poaching three types of meat. Typically: Plat de Côte (Short Ribs), Paleron (flat iron steak), and Quevedo Beef (Oxtail).

The end product is brown but is considered white stock because the meat was poached rather than roasted. This is important to know because, in the end, when you sieve the stock, you may press down on the ingredients to extract any extra stock held in the mixture with the back of a ladle, but NEVER press down on a white stock when skimming, because you will cloud the stock.

After lunch, we had a class on fresh herbs.

On Thursday, we focused on the technique for making a chicken jus with intense flavor. It is a slow process that takes patience, involves multiple passes, and requires working the chicken in the pan to develop “suc” gradually. Sucs are the small brown bits that form at the bottom of your pot or pan when you sauté, sear, or pan-fry food, such as meat, or when caramelizing onions due to the Maillard reaction. If you work too fast, you will burn the suc and introduce a bitter taste, which you can try to mitigate with a pinch of sugar or a sprig of thyme, but your jus will never be the same.

We also learned to clarify stock, in this case, our Marmite from the day before, from which we made consommé, pot-au-feu, and chou farci.

Friday, we focused on the “Five French Mother Sauces” (No, these are not sauces the chef’s French mother used to make). French mother sauces are the foundational sauces in French cuisine, defined by Auguste Escoffier in 1903 in “Le guide culinaire.” This book is considered a classic. It is still available. The text of the culinary guide is in the public domain and can be found here at the National Library of France (BnF)

https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k65768837/f22.item.r=Auguste%20Escoffier

Larousse Gastronomique is an encyclopedia of French gastronomy first published by Éditions Larousse in Paris in 1938, written by Escoffier.

https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bd6t54200623b/f15.item#

Escoffier traveled around France, spoke with many chefs, and wrote down (aka codified) French cuisine in a massive tome called “Le Guide Culinaire.” In it, he defined the “Five French Mother Sauces” from which all other sauces in French cuisine derive (and there are many).

For example, one of the “Five French Mother Sauces” is Béchamel sauce, a white sauce. It is a foundational sauce made by creating a roux (50% flour, 50% butter) and then adding milk, nutmeg, salt, and white pepper. Béchamel sauce can be used to make lasagna. But add cheese to it, and it becomes “Mornay Sauce” and “offspring of Béchamel. This is referred to as a “daughter sauce.” There are “Five French Mother Sauces.” They are Béchamel, Velouté, Espagnole, Hollandaise, and Tomato. More about these sauces and derivatives later.

FERRANDI Paris Week 3

On Monday, we spent more time on “les cinq sauces mères de la cuisine française” (the five foundational sauces of French cuisine) and on other emulsions and their derivatives, including mayonnaise and vinaigrette.

First, we focused on emulsified sauces that are stable at cold or hot temperatures. We made mayonnaise from which we then created tartar sauce, cocktail sauce, and remoulade, which is mayonnaise with mustard added; and since most mayonnaise today is made with mustard, mayonnaise is, by construction, a Remoulade. Then, we made Hollandaise, which we used to create Maltaise and Mousseline Sauces. Then we made Béarnaise sauce, from which we created Choron, Paloise, and Foyot sauces.

Mayonnaise…

Next, we focused on emulsified sauces that are unstable, cold, or hot. The chef demoed vinaigrette (we made it last week), from which he created sauce moutarde and Gribiche sauce. Then, we made Beurre Blanc sauce (White Butter Sauce). After that, the chef demonstrated Beurre Blanc with cider and Beurre Rouge with red wine.

Vinaigrette…

In terms of sauce, it is important to understand what an emulsion is, how to make it, how to break it (split your sauce), and how to fix it.

Fundamentally, when you make an emulsified sauce, you are taking two liquids that do not go together and forcing them together through friction. You’ve heard it before: “Like oil and vinegar” is an age-old expression that means certain things don’t go together.

Tuesday was test day. The first part was a 20-question written test, followed by a practical exam in which we had to complete tasks demonstrating the techniques we had learned to date, regarding vegetable cuts, tomato fondue, chicken jus, and fish stock. I did well and was proud that both my seafood stock and chicken jus scored perfectly.

On Wednesday and Thursday, we focused on soups, potages, and veloutés. Here’s how they differ: a soup is any liquid, typically a mixture of vegetables, but in the case of consommé, it may be only broth. Potage is a thicker soup that can be blended or left unblended and passed through a sieve to make it more refined. Velouté, on the other hand, is a French term for a soup that is usually thickened with egg yolks, butter, and Crème Fraîche or cream.

Over the two days, we made: potage cultivateur, vegetable broth soup; potage julienne Darblay, cream of leek and potato soup with vegetable garnish; velouté Du Barry, cauliflower soup; potage Saint-Germain, green pea soup; and, of course, soupe à l’oignon, French onion soup.

Making the soup and potages was fun and easy. I had made them before, so there was nothing new. However, the big takeaway was the garnishes, which add variety and give the soup more character. They also improved mouthfeel and aided digestion.

We also had two afternoon sessions, one on hygiene and the other on eggs.

Finally, we were broken into four teams for “reverse” teaching, or “flipped classroom” sessions. Each team was assigned a topic and must work together to research and prepare a presentation for the entire class. The topics are citrus, mushrooms, caviar, and Foie gras. My wife and I formed a team and were assigned Foie gras.

Next week, the focus is on cold starters, eggs, and we have a visit from an MOF fishmonger who will demonstrate how to break down a fish.

FERRADNI Week 4

I love eggs. So, in preparation for this week. First, I reviewed all the FERRANDI egg lessons they plan to teach. I have made them all before, but I am looking forward to going through them with a FERRANDI chef.

Then, I spent several hours reviewing the egg section of “A Guide to Modern Cookery” by A. Escoffier, a 799-page magnum opus of French cuisine.

Escoffier begins his formal discussion about eggs in Chapter XII. He states:

“Of all the products put into requisition by the art of cookery, not one is so fruitful of variety, so universally liked, and so complete in itself as the egg. There are very few culinary recipes that do not include eggs, either as a principal constituent or as an ingredient.” – A. Escoffer

Escoffier then goes on to outline 143 separate egg recipes (See Nos. 305 to 538). Now that is a lot of eggs. My goal one day is to make every one of Escoffier’s egg recipes and write about each. You can download for free the complete text version of “A Guide to Modern Cookery” from the “Project Gutenberg.”

After that, I was so inspired, I went shopping for a new omelet pan. I had asked the chef last week for the proper size of a French non-stick omelet pan and where to buy one. He told me the proper size is a circumference of 20 cm and a base of 16 cm, and that on Rue Montmartre, at the corner of Rue Étienne-Marcel, there are several professional kitchen-supply stores: A. Simon, Comptoir de la Gastronomie, and MORA. I visited each and bought the best omelet pan I could find by Cristel France.

After that, I raced home and made a French omelet (I have done so before, but not in a number of years). The classic French omelet, “omelette au beurre” (omelette with butter), is made with three well-beaten eggs, butter, salt, and pepper. It is colorless, rolled, and served, brushed with butter, soft in the center with tight curds. It is luxurious.

Building on the basic “omelette au beurre,” and perhaps the most popular, is the “omelette aux fines herbes,” made in the same way as outlined above, but with equal parts of the four classic French herbs: thyme, tarragon, parsley (persil), chervil (cerfeuil), and chives (ciboulette).

My favorite online video for making a classic French omelet is by Jacques Pépin. There are several versions. Here is one: French Omelet, Home Cooking with Jacques Pépin

No discussion of French omelets would be complete without a discussion of the “omelette de la mère Poulard” (“omelette of Mother Poulard”), which is basically an omelet soufflé, and made differently from above.

The omelet soufflé was developed by Anne Boutiaut Poulard, also known as Mother Poulard, in the 19th century in Mont-Saint-Michel, France. It is served at La Mère Poulard in Le Mont-Saint-Michel today.

Today, while editing this blog, I decided to take a break and make one myself. Here’s how to do it: First, preheat your oven to 200°C and prepare the egg mixture. Separate the eggs into two medium bowls. Whisk the yolks together and add a pinch of salt. The classic recipe doesn’t use cheese, but I added half a cup of grated Parmesan to see what would happen, and it turned out great. Beat the egg whites until they form firm peaks. Then carefully fold the egg whites into the yolks with a spatula—gentleness is important here.

Then, melt some butter in a non-stick frying pan. I used my new 20 cm pan and three small pieces of butter. Not too little or too much butter. Just enough so the omelet will “float” a bit as it sets.

Next, pour in the mixture and cook over medium heat until it starts to set. You can check by gently shaking the pan to see if it wiggles a bit (The “Jurassic Park” test); if the top is still raw but the bottom is setting, it’s ready for the next step.

After that, put the pan in the oven for 5 minutes. It will finish cooking and stay very fluffy.

Finally, take it out, fold it over, and serve. It should be hard to fold over because it is so fluffy. Gently use a spatula if you have to coach it over. The result should be lightly browned on both sides, and the omelet soft and airy like a soufflé. No flour required.

My favorite online video for making an omelette soufflé is by 3-star MICHELIN chef Donato Russo, from the restaurant Mirazur. Here it is: Omelette in a 3 Michelin Star French Restaurant with Donato Russo – Mirazu

Finally, what I found interesting in exploring Escoffier’s egg recipes was his perspective on hot and cold starters in Chapter XI. He writes:

“The preparations described hereafter all belong to the order of cold hors-d’œuvres. I did not deem it necessary to touch upon the hot kind, for, apart from the fact that these are very seldom served in England, at least under the head of hors-d’œuvres, they are mostly to be found either among the hot Entrées or the Savouries proper. Only ought to be looked upon as absolute… For my own part, I regard cold hors-d’œuvres as quite unnecessary in a dinner; I even consider them counter to the dictates of common sense, and they are certainly prejudicial to the flavour of the soup that follows.” – A. Escoffer

Monday, we focused on eggs. We made œufs mollets florentine, soft-boiled eggs with spinach and Mornay sauce. Œufs pochés bourguignonne, Poached eggs served with red wine sauce, and œufs à la coque, mouillettes, Soft-boiled eggs served with breadsticks.

This week, we moved to an afternoon and early evening schedule. For the first two weeks, your team starts at 7:15, and the other team starts at 13:15. After that, the teams switch, so for the following two weeks, we start at 13:15 and finish at 19:00. So, I felt a little off today with the new schedule and all you can do is basically come home, take a shower and go to bed.

Back to eggs. All the dishes we made today are classics I have tried throughout France. Before today, the best œufs pochés bourguignonne I tried was in Lyon at Les Fines Gueules (See my post “Best Bouchons in Lyon, France“), which had an excellent red wine reduction, garnish, and plating. FERRADNI’s wine reduction, garnish, and plating recipe, which I executed to the letter today, is better.

First, we ciselered a medium shallot and sautéed it in butter over medium heat until softened (no color). Next, we add a thumb-sized amount of “lardons scraps,” 350 ml of Cabernet Franc from Chinon, a wine I would actually drink, and toss in an aromatic bunch comprising thyme, a bay leaf, and parsley stems to the seated shallots, and reduce to 50 ml. Pay attention. This concept of “reduction” is a technique used to enhance sauces. If you want to make a good sauce, you need to learn and practice this idea.

Then, once the reduction was complete, we added veal stock that had been enhanced with “essence de champignons” (mushroom essence) and reduced it by half. While the veal stock was reducing, we made large croutons by sauteeing bread cubes in clarified butter. After that, when the veal stock had reduced by half, we removed the lardons used for cooking and the aromatic bunch, and added to the reduction, in equal measure, the lardons we had cubed, blanched, and lightly colored, the mushrooms cut and sauteed to a light brown, along with the pearl onions we had brown-glazed. Finally, we poached an egg

We put it all together, using the reduction as the sauce and garnish, along with large crotons to plate our œufs pochés bourguignonne, pictured below (I should have cut the poached egg open as in the picture above, but I forgot and just ate it).

As I drift off to sleep, I think about the recipes I made today. They seemed simple at first, but they were actually quite sophisticated. The steps we took to build up the flavors turned basic bistro dishes into something much more interesting. Tomorrow is fish.

On Tuesday, I began my day with a two-hour beginner French class, then spent the afternoon cooking. Even though I’ve lived in France for two years, I tested at the A0 level, the lowest on the CEFR scale, which means I’m a complete beginner. I’m fine with that. Learning French over 60 is very difficult and not worth the “brain drain,” in my opinion.

Honestly, I don’t think most French people want to talk to me about their lives in French, and I don’t really want to talk to them about mine either. I know just enough French to handle daily situations: “S’il vous plaît, je voudrais, [fill in the blank or point], je paie par carte, merci, au revoir.” That covers things like saying what I want, paying by card, and saying thank you and goodbye. If I need to say more, I use Google Translate and show it to people, like at the barber, so I don’t accidentally get a crew cut.

Just when I think FERRANDI can’t get any better, something new surprises me. This time, Arnaud Vanhamme teaches us how to clean and fillet fish. Chef Vanhamme, a fourth-generation fishmonger and shellfishmonger, has earned the title “Meilleur Ouvrier de France Fishmonger-Oyster Shucker” and wrote, “Poissonnerie, Leçons en pas à pas” (Fishmonger, Step-by-Step Lessons). He’s also just a genuinely nice person.

He showed us how to clean and fillet rouget, vive, and sole, and also demonstrated how to fillet a Conger eel.

According to the “Paul Ricard Oceanographic Institute,” The Conger eel is a “big fish that looks like a snake… The smooth, snake-like body of the conger eel has no scales and can be up to 3 metres long! It has a rounded snout, and its upper jaw protrudes over the lower jaw. Its dorsal, caudal,l and anal fins are confluent. Its body can be light or dark grey with a white border on the fins. Conger eels feed on fish, crustaceans, and cephalopods and live in crevices on rocky bottoms, in wrecks, and on sandy bottoms down to depths of 100m. They can be found in the Mediterranean, including the western part of the Black Sea, and from Norway to Senegal in the Atlantic… The conger eel spends most of the day in its hole, only coming out at night to hunt. Larger [conger eels]can be aggressive and may attack scuba divers.”² I am glad this one was dead!

How can you eat a conger eel? BBC Food summarizes it well:

“The tail end of a conger eel is notoriously bony and is best used for stock. The rest can either be grilled, pan-fried, or casseroled. The firm, strong flavour of the meat works well with bacon, garlic, white or red wine, and smoked paprika. Conger eels are sometimes used to make Caldeirada, a Portuguese fish stew. They are also popular in South America, Japan,n and China.”³

Chef Vanhamme held up the eel’s large, fleshy head and shared a story from his childhood. His aunt (I think) used the head to make a tasty fish stew that fed the whole family, with plenty left over. Even now, it’s still his favorite. Whenever someone offers him soup made with a fish head, he always says yes.

I hadn’t cleaned or filleted a fish in almost nine months, so I felt a bit out of practice and nervous with a MOF watching me. Still, I managed all right. I wasn’t completely happy with my fish knife, so since we’ll be working with fish a lot, I ordered a SHAN ZU Fillet Knife (18 cm, 7 inch, German stainless steel) on Amazon.

He wrapped up the class by talking about oysters and brought in some special Gillardeau oysters for us to try, which were paired with a nice Chablis from William Fèvre (See my post 36 Hours in Chablis, France).

The Gillardeau family has been producing these oysters in Bourcefranc-le-Chapus, near La Rochelle and the Île d’Oléron in western France, for more than a century. These oysters stand out for their large size, fleshy texture, and unique flavor. Each one is given plenty of space as it grows and is moved and turned over a thousand times during its development.

We took some photos with the chef and thanked him for his time. When I asked, he said his favorite spot for fish in Paris is Brasserie La Lorraine. We’re planning to go there soon. Right now, though, I need to get some sleep—it’s 5 AM, and I’ve been up since 2:30 writing this blog. It’s going to be a long day. We have a research lab in the morning and make bouillabaisse during our afternoon/evening session.

On Wednesday, we made a hearty fish soup called Bouillabaisse, which is the signature dish of Marseille, an ancient Phocaea port city in southern France. Fishermen there created Bouillabaisse on their boats to feed themselves with fish they could not sell. For our version, we used five types of fish: petite vive, carrelet, striped red mullet, red gurnard, and conger eel.

Traditional Bouillabaisse is different from other fish soups because it uses only local Mediterranean fish, Provençal herbs and aromatics, and North African spices. After simmering, the soup is strained through a food mill, then through a chinois, to create its signature texture. It is then reduced until it reaches the desired consistency. Whole fish are gently poached in the soup to finish.

Bouillabaisse is served with thick slices of toasted bread rubbed with fresh garlic and topped with rouille, a garlicky sauce made from egg yolks and olive oil, thickened with bread soaked in the soup or flavored potato puree. A small side of shredded gruyère cheese is also offered to add more flavor and richness to the soup.

People who are passionate about Bouillabaisse believe it should be only served in two courses: first as an entrée, then as a main course. The meal begins with the soup, served with croutons, rouille, and cheese as a starter. After a second helping of the soup has been offered, the whole poached fish used to finish the Bouillabaisse is brought to the table, filleted, and served with more broth as the main course.

Still, Bouillabaisse is often served as a single main dish, with a mix of fish filets in the soup, which is how we plated and served it, as I had at La Méditerranée, a fish restaurant in Paris, where it was made and served as a single dish.

In the 1980s, to protect the dish, the Rhul Restaurant, which has specialized in bouillabaisse in Marseille’s 7th arrondissement since 1948, led a group of restaurants that banded together to create the “Bouillabaisse Charter,” defining the basic ingredients and presentation to ensure the dish’s quality and service.

I like Bouillabaisse, but my favorite fish soup is Cioppino, an Italian American fish stew originating in San Francisco, California, full of shrimp, clams, mussels, crab, and more.

Cioppino was created in the late 1800s by Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese fishermen who worked off Meiggs Wharf and lived in San Francisco’s North Beach. If a fisherman returned without a catch, he would go around with a pot, and the others would add whatever seafood they could spare. This mix became known as his “cioppino.” The fishermen who helped out expected the same kindness if they ever came back empty-handed. As Italian restaurants spread in San Francisco, cioppino became a popular dish.⁴

Thursday, we made more eggs. We made a tartelette au saumon fumé et aux œufs brouillés (Smoked salmon and scrambled egg tartlet), tarte aux œufs brouillés et au saumon fumé (scrambled egg tart with smoked salmon), œufs cocotte (creamed eggs in a cocotte), œufs parfait aux champignons (perfect egg with mushrooms and hollandaise sauce), and omelette soufflée (omelette soufflé).

Before I started at FERRANDI Paris, my wife and I cooked our way through every recipe in Le Cordon Bleu at Home, a 500-page-plus book from Cordon Bleu Paris. The book has 90 lessons, each a three-course meal. It took us about three years to finish them all, so I was already familiar with every egg dish. Still, FERRANDI Paris brought its own twists.

We finished the class by making a classic French omelet. When the chef was younger, he worked at a restaurant where he made many omelets for brunch and was shown how to roll them in the pan using only his hand and the pan. I had never seen this technique before. So I tried it with limited success. I still prefer Jacques Pépin’s method or Donato Russo’s rolling technique from Mirazur.

The chef ended the class with a demo of the omelette de la mère Poulard, for dummies. A very simple recipe that requires three eggs, clarified, meaning the egg yolks and white are separated.

FERRANDI Week 6

On Monday morning, we had a three-hour art class. We received an art kit with drawing tablets, colored pens and pencils, watercolors, and other art supplies. The class focused on color theory and how it can be used to make dishes look more appealing. I found it interesting and understand why it matters, but I hope we also learn about the standard rules for plating food.

I learned that luminosity measures how bright something is, from white to black. Luminosity combines hue, which is the specific color on the rainbow, and saturation, which is how intense or pure that color is, ranging from pure color to grey. In cooking, flowers were added to dishes to help balance all the colors across the brightness and saturation scale on a plate.

Monday afternoon, we mise en place the ingredients for most of the week. Mise en place is an important French term meaning “put in place.” It refers to organising the equipment and preparing the ingredients needed before cooking before you start cooking.

We had a new chef this week, so class was a bit chaotic.

This week we will make: saumon fumé, smoked salmon, saumon mariné à l’aneth, marinated salmon with dill, saumon mariné à la betterave, marinated salmon with beetroot, tartare de dorade, seabream tartar, ceviche de dorade, seabream ceviche, carpaccio de dorade, scallop or seabream carpaccio, rillette de maquereaux, mackerel rillette, escabèche de maquereaux et rougets, mackerel and red mullet filets cured the escabeche way, saucisson en brioche, brioche saucisson, and feuillete de bar au beurre blanc, seabass eellington, served with a white butter sauce.

I recently purchased the SHAN ZU Fillet Knife (18 cm, 7 inch, German stainless steel) from Amazon, as previously mentioned. Unfortunately, my experience with this knife was bad. While the blade is flexible, the handle is thick and heavy. As a result, I was unable to achieve the control I was used to when filleting fish. Instead, for the first time, I cut through the backbone and butchered my fillets. That’s not normal for me, since I’m usually pretty good at filleting basic fish.

We also made puff pastry in a way I’d never made it before: by preparing the dough with melted butter, rolling it out, folding it, and letting it rest between folds. In some ways, it was very much like how we learned from Le Cordon Bleu at Home, as I mentioned above. We complete one turn, and then what the chef called a “wallet fold.” So, 1.5 folds in all? This is very different than what we learned in pastry school, but much, much easier.

But I think I did make one fatal mistake. When I placed the “dry butter” in the center, folded it, and rolled it out. I did not use long rolls from end to end. My rolls were choppy, which means my butter was most likely not evenly distributed through the dough, so my puff pastry may not rise well. I am very curious how it will all turn out.

On Tuesday morning, I spent two hours in French class. I really like my teacher. If I had met her when I was five, I’d probably be fluent by now. My wife, on the other hand, is doing great with her French. She studied it when she was younger and has been working on it again for the past three years. She just earned the DELF B1, which is a diploma from the French Ministry of Education. It demonstrates she has obtained B1-level French skills, and it’s valid for life.

Tuesday afternoon, we made tart shells from feuille brick and made ink tuiles. Using the mise en place we prepared on Monday, we assembled and plated four dishes: the tartare, carpaccio, ceviche, and smoked mackerel rillettes.

We also turned our puff pastry again 1.5 times and placed it back into the cooler. We also started to smoke the salmon.

There are several kinds of French pastry: pâte brisée, shortcrust pastry, pâte sucrée, sweet pastry, pâte sablée, shortbread pastry, which is sweeter and more crumbly than shortcrust pastry, pâte feuilletée, puff pastry, and pâte à choux, among others.

Brick pastry sheets are store-bought; they come in very thin sheets, separated by paper. Brick pastry sheets resemble filo pastry but are more robust and elastic when raw. We used them to make a tart shell for the rillettes, which worked very well. I had tried filo dough before with little success.

I also learned that if you peel and steam an avocado for two to three minutes, it will prevent it from turning brown. I asked the chef how I would steam at home, and he mentioned I could use a bamboo steamer or buy the ANOVA Precision Oven.

On Wednesday, we made the French classic starter “cassolette de rouget et maquereau escabeche,” a casserole of red mullet and mackerel in wine, oil, and vinegar. It is a French classic, eaten in the summertime, served and shared family-style with a French baguette, and pairs well with Sauvignon Blanc or a light rosé.

It is easy to make and fun to eat. First, you filet the Mackerel. Then you chop the onions, carrots, and garlic for the marinade. Next, you combine all the ingredients in a saucepot, add a bay leaf, thyme, and whole peppercorns, coriander seeds, and espelette pepper; bring to a boil. You remove it from the heat, pour it over the Mackerel, and let it rest. After that, you brunoise tomatoes, white cook small triangles of fennel in water, olive oil, and salt, fry sections of eggplant, pickle red onions, and skin and boil baby new potatoes.

Finally, the “cassolette de rouget et maquereau escabeche” is typically served in a large gratin dish, family-style. Everyone uses a serving spoon to take what they want, assemble it between two slices of bread, and eat it, mopping up the oil with more bread. We were told that for the French, it is all about the carrots and the onions.

On Thursday, we prepared saucisson en brioche, which we served with a wine sauce made from Madeira, Port, Banyuls, the veal stock we made earlier, and a small mirepoix. We also made feuillete de bar au beurre blanc, or sea bass Wellington, served with a classic white butter sauce.

Saucisson en brioche is a famous dish from Lyon, France, which I had often when visiting Lyon and made while at the Paul Bocuse school, now called Lyfe Institut in Lyon. See my post “Best Bouchons in Lyons, France.”

The key to this dish is ensuring the sausage sticks to the brioche when cooked. This is done with egg whites and egg white powder. First, you wash the sausage with a brush in egg whites, then sprinkle it well with egg white powder, roll it in the broche, before its final proof before baking.

On Friday, about 80 international students took a bus trip to Champagne. My wife and I didn’t join because we’re planning a private tour to Champaign in April. Today, we talked to some friends who went, and they said it was a great experience. They visited a Champagne cooperative, toured, tasted Champagne, and enjoyed lunch with hors d’oeuvres. Everyone had a lot of fun, and it was a good opportunity to meet and connect with others in the international program outside their usual groups.

FERRANDI Week 7

On Monday, our main program chef returned, which was great. As I mentioned before, he has been working in kitchens since he was 15 and has taught at FERRDANI for the past 25 years. He is a true French chef and really knows how to teach; no messing around.

He gets straight to the point, with hardly any unnecessary talk. This approach is very different from the first culinary school I attended in France, but I like the serious atmosphere here because it helps me imagine what it would be like to work in a real MICHELIN kitchen. Young friends of ours who have gone on to internships at MICHELIN restaurants have told us there is no extraneous talking or playing in the kitchen; it is all about getting the job done.

We made the iconic quiche Lorraine, cheese-and-bacon flan, and mise en place two puffy pastry doughs. One we will use tomorrow to make an asparagus, morel, and sweet bread vol-au-vent, which is about as classic French as you can get. The other we froze and will use to make “pithiviers de pigeon et foie gras” (pigeon & foie gras pie) later.

According to our chef, the best restaurant in Paris for vol au vent is Café des Ministères. The dish is called “Grande Tradition, Sweetbreads, free-range poultry, spinach, truffle jus.”

Quiche Lorraine is a dish from the Lorraine region of France, which borders Belgium, Luxembourg, and Germany. The larger area, Alsace-Lorraine, has switched between French and German rule many times. Today, Lorraine’s culture mixes both German and French traditions. My wife and I spent a month in Strasbourg, and I can say the German influence is strong there, especially when it comes to food.

According to Larousse Gastronomique, quiches, sometimes spelled “kiches,” originated in Lorraine, eastern France. The term may derive from the German word Kuchen, which denotes similar dishes. Numerous varieties of quiche exist, and Larousse observes that each region in Alsace and Lorraine asserts its own as the authentic version. Initially, quiche Lorraine featured a bread-dough crust similar to those used for pissaladières and pizzas, but contemporary recipes typically employ shortcrust or puff pastry.

Traditional fillings for quiche Lorraine include eggs, thick cream, and lardons or ham. The original recipe did not contain cheese. Notably, in Mastering the Art of French Cooking (1961), Simone Beck, Louisette Bertholle, and Julia Child omitted cheese from their quiche Lorraine recipes.

Our chef made a quiche tart shell that was perfect. He rolled the shortcrust pastry, or pâte brisée, freehand without a rolling-pin guide to ensure even thickness, then placed it perfectly into the pastry ring and molded it. The edges were the same all the way around when he formed the tart. I was envious.

We blind baked our tart shells before filling them, something I’ve done many times with great success. But this time, I made a mistake. I didn’t spread the beans and seeds evenly in the shell, so it warped a little while baking. When I poured in the custard, it settled at an angle.

I liked the quiche Lorraine we made, but my wife and I both agreed that our favorite is still the quiche aux épinards, quiche with spinach and ham filling, from Lesson 32 of the Le Cordon Bleu at Home cookbook. We have made many times and served friends.

Anyway, I am really tired today, and I am not sure why. I skipped French class because I didn’t think I could get through it feeling like this. Still, I went home and finished my two-hour French homework assignments. Yikes.

Tuesday, we made bouchée à la reine (English: The Queen’s Bite), which consists of a vol-au-vent, puff pastry bowl, and its filling. We had this dish in Strasbourg last summer (See my post “Best Restaurants in Strasbourg, France“).

First, we shaped and baked vol-au-vents using the puff pastry dough we prepared yesterday, which we allowed to rest overnight in the refrigerator. Chilling pastry overnight allows the gluten in the flour to relax and the butter to solidify, improving the dough’s integrity and resulting in a more uniform bake.

A vol-au-vent is a light, hollow pastry bowl made from puff pastry and shaped made like a bird’s nest. The name “vol-au-vent” means “flight in the wind” in French, which hints at how airy and delicate this pastry shell is.

The term vol-au-vent initially referred exclusively to the puff pastry bowl; however, its definition has expanded to include the filling as well.

The invention of the vol-au-vent is commonly attributed to Marie-Antoine Carême (1784-1833), a prominent French pastry chef and culinary author. But the term “gâteau vole-au-vent” (vole-au-vent cake) was documented as early as 1750, which predates Carême’s lifetime.

Nonetheless, Chef Carême established the vol-au-vent as the standard for both savory and sweet tarts and pies, which became his specialty. At that time, the term vol-au-vent referred exclusively to the puff pastry shell. While numerous savory recipes were developed, fruit-filled vol-au-vents were generally avoided because fruit tends to make the crust soggy.

Traditionally, the vol-au-vent was designed to serve multiple people and typically measured approximately 15 to 20 cm in diameter. Beginning in the mid-20th century, the size of vol-au-vents was standardized for individual servings, including the bouchée à la reine (10 cm) and the mini-vol-au-vent (4 to 5 cm), which are commonly used as hors d’oeuvres or appetizers.

Originally from France, vol-au-vent has become a popular dish in Belgium and is often featured on menus at traditional Belgian restaurants.

According to our chef, the best restaurant in Paris for vol au vent is Café des Ministères. The dish is called “Grande Tradition, Sweetbreads, free-range poultry, spinach, truffle jus.”

I digress. Back to what we made.

As our vol-au-vents baked, we prepared the filling: duxelles topped with chicken à la crème (chicken in cream sauce), asparagus, morel mushrooms, and sweetbreads (French: ris de veau). What are seetbreads? (No, they are not some kind of fun French pastry).

According to Larousse Gastronomique, the definitive reference book on French gastronomy, its history, and culinary techniques, sweetbread is “the culinary term for the thymus gland (in the throat) and the pancreas (near the stomach) in calves, lambs, and pigs.” Today, sweetbreads from the thymus of milk-fed veal calves are most commonly eaten. That is what we used: blanched and steamed.

In the afternoon, we had a knife-sharpening demonstration by a representative from KAMA-ASA, a boutique Japanese kitchen supply store in Paris.

Chefs sharpen their knives using different sharpening stones: wet or dry. They usually start with a coarse grit to reshape the edge, then move to medium grits to smooth it, and finally rub the knife on leather. This is called “stropping.” Usually, done on a leather strap to remove the last imperfections, making the knife even sharper.

He demonstrated the entire process of properly sharpening a knife. As home chefs, my wife and I just use a pull-through sharpener and get our knives professionally sharpened once a year. I found out this method is fine and much better than not sharpening at all.

But in the end, we learned that there is no single right way to sharpen a knife. Many methods can work well. The important thing is to find a technique you like that gives you good results and stick to it. He has a favorite sharpening rhythm: he starts with a 500-grit stone, then moves to an 8000-grit stone. This method, he claimed, is simple and works well most of the time. He challenged us to give it a try.

I also learned that VG-10, a type of stainless steel made in Japan, is considered the gold standard for knives and that the two most essential knives to own are a 21 cm chef knife and a 12 cm paring knife. However, because of something I call the ‘Stainless steel soap’ phenomenon, chefs who handle fish often prefer carbon steel knives. Wait, what exactly is the ‘Stainless steel soap’ phenomenon?

Companies that produce stainless steel soaps claim that odors from foods such as fish, garlic, or onions can be removed from the hands by washing them in water and with a bar of stainless steel soap. But how does this actually work? There are two main ideas, neither of which has been proven yet, and beyond the scope of this post.

Others in the class supported the idea that stainless steel soap removes odors, so I ordered a bar from Amazon to test it myself. My main point is that because stainless steel is supposedly effective at removing fish odors, some chefs who work with fish avoid using stainless steel knives, believing it affects fish. Believe it or not, this is a genuine concern among some chefs.

On Wednesday, we made a Pissaladière, a caramelized-onion-and-anchovy tart that looks like a pizza. It is a specialty of Provence, France. The traditional toppings are sweet caramelized onions, anchovies, and olives on a yeasty pizza-like dough. It is served hot, warm, or at room temperature. I have made Pissaladière many times before when I serve our “Taste of Provence” menu to friends. We also made a tart of fine de sardines.

That afternoon, we gave our Foie gras presentation to the chef and the class as part of FERRANDI’s reverse teaching exercise, which we first heard about in week 3. Preparing for it was tough since school keeps us so busy, so I was relieved when it was over. I felt the exercise had some value, even if it was limited, but my wife completely disagreed and thought it was a waste of time. Honestly.

On the way home, we stopped for some food, but I won’t mention the place. I ended up with a bad bacterial stomach infection that knocked me out with very unpleasant symptoms (if you know what I mean). By Thursday morning, I was still feeling awful, so I decided it was best to stay home from school. Luckily, had a dose of the antibiotic ampicillin in my “first aid kit,” and that took care of it. I was so exhausted that I slept for 20 out of 24 hours.

The only upside was that I missed art class. I want to be clear that the instructor is very nice, knows a lot about art, and has a clear teaching style, but I think the course misses the point. I was hoping to learn the basics of gastronomic plating and the rules used in restaurants. To be fair, his focus on form, color, shapes, and textures, and how they work together in plate design, is valuable. Still, I think he should have started with the basics of plating before moving on to more advanced creative topics.

Stay tuned, there is more to come…

Bonvivant365 is a retired couple that now writes about food, wine, and travel. They completed six months of training at a culinary and pastry school in southern France, followed by six months at a sommelier school in Bordeaux. They currently reside in Paris, where they are enrolled in the FERRANDI Paris Intensive Professional Program in French Cuisine. This four-month course focuses on technical skills in French cooking and examines the cultural heritage and creativity of the French culinary tradition.

1. Marie-Antonin Carême, L’Art de la Cuisine Française au Dix-neuvième Siècle (Paris: Au Dépôt de Librairie, 1854), vol. 3, pp. 257–258. ↩︎
2. Paul Ricard Oceanographic Institute. Conger eel. A big fish that looks like a snake! https://www.institut-paul-ricard.org/en/especes_aquarium/conger-eel/ ↩︎
3. BBC Food. Conger eel recipes. https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/conger_eel ↩︎
4. Wikipedia, Cioppino, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cioppino# ↩︎