Apicius Update

Well, if all went according to plan, we are currently in Egypt!  Here's a post about Husbear's progress at Apicius, now that the midpoint of the semester has passed.

Hey it's me!  Thanks for the intro Girlie, now mind your own business. 

It's been a busy couple of months here at culinary school.  Lots of cooking (duh.) and lots of using strange Italian ingredients.

Ooh.  What's this I see?  My teacher told us that we were going to prepare "breast of cow" so I figured, you know, like the chest?  No, no, of course not.  We're talking full on udder here people.  Udder that I personally stuffed with cured pig fat rolled in cinnamon, cloves, and fennel.  And it's served on a orange sauce.

It was pretty good it you could get past all of the glandy, bumpy things.

This is Sole Poached in Pear Sauce.  It comes from a five hundred year old recipe that was originally prepared by, I believe, Maestro Martino.  I could be wrong, but it was pretty damn good.

Crepes with Wine Poached Fruit and Creme Anglais.  Need I say more?

These are fun little Parisian Gnocchi.  Basically just  a dense choux paste piped out onto a baking sheet. 

Here they are filled with a seriously delicious Pistachio Cream and topped with Bechamel.  I have feeling that they should have plumped more, but the woman who wrote the recipe was there and she seemed pretty happy.

These are Chocolate Coffee Cantuccini.  Basically what they call biscotti in the States.  They were good, but I'm not sure why we had to make so many of them - I think the school is involved in some sort of black market pastry trade.

Hey a pigeon!  This one wasn't fast enough though and ended up as a cute little feathered teaching tool.

We boned him (her?) out whole and stuffed sage and rosemary inside, then wrapped it all up in pancetta.  Quite yummy. It tasted a little like liver.

Boiled Veal Tongue.

Veal Tongue Bella Vista.  Sandwiched with ham and truffle butter and then coated in a veal stock gelatin.  Not very tasty.

And finally, Duck with Apples and Cabbage Puree in a Chocolate Sauce.  What's not to like?  This was some seriously good eating, and surprisingly easy to make.

Well, that about wraps up the retrospective for the first quarter at Apicius.  Check back soon and find out about all of the yummy stuff we found in Egypt (what the hell? Egypt?!)  It should be fun. 

I'm probably on a camel right now.

L. Pants

Comments

[auntie]

Yo !! Did you automate this posting? If so, tres bien. Thanks so much for the food pix and description.. it's good to get a glimpse of what you're doing at that school of yours.

Hope the camel ride was comfortable !

ap

Wasn't/Isn't it Ramadan in the Muslim world? Y'all are gonna have to eat in dark curatined rooms, but I hear the parties after dark are fabulous!

That duck looked amazing...you know I'm quite partial to duck. The cabbage puree sounded cool, and who doesn't like apples with duck or chocolate with anything?I expect a similar dish if we make it to you, otherwise when ya'll finally come home :(

Sooze

[Boots in the Oven]

Auntie - yay for automation! Glad you liked the glimpse behind the vaulted corridors of Apicius. Would you believe.. no camel?

Anonymouslady, yeah, Ramadan was happening the first few days we were there... then Eid, the feast at the end. It was an interesting time to be there. And the streets were completely insane during the night!

Sooze, of course! Lots of duck, much much duck, will be your reward for getting over here. Husbear's loving cooking the duck...

[Jeanne]

To paraphrase, it's a brave man who first ate a cow's udder!! The textural issues would worry me a lot, I think... Duck sounds phenomenal though, as does the pigeon.

[Boots in the Oven]

Jeanne, hee! Yeah, he hasn't offered to prepare udder for me yet. Can't imagine why not...