Culinary School Lesson 3 - 6

How in the world am I supposed to set up my station and get “mise en place” ready for 5 mother sauces in only 15 minutes when each ingredient has to be located and carefully weighed? And where the hell is the flour? And how come my scale isn’t zeroing properly? Is this salt or sugar?
 

My brain completely stalls under pressure and I find myself in the kitchen, jerking back and forth on my planted feet, not able to pick a direction or decide where to start. On top of it all, half of the recipes are to be done with our partner and half are to be done alone. And half of the recipes are to be halved!

It’s a sh*t show trying to coordinate with my partner on which mise en place each of us will get for our partner-recipes and trying to decide if we should get a double mise en place for the solo recipes and split them up and which solo-recipes each of us will get prepped. 

Last week I was so behind on everything and wasn’t able to gather and prep my ingredients in time for Chef’s demos. Because I was in the weeds, I didn’t thicken my chicken velouté properly and in haste I over-salted and over-cayenne-peppered my béchamel; Chef had to spit it in the garbage, but he did it in the nicest way. 

So, this weekend, I practiced my velouté and béchamel at home, maxing out my grocery budget. My breakfast, lunch and dinner will be served with cream sauce all week long. I'm not looking forward to my béchamel beach body.