Level 2 Session 1

We made a braised lamb stew, which my new partner wanted to do most of the work on, while I tourneed the vegetables.

Then, we made Coq au Vin, or more appropriately Poulet au vin rouge, for our first session in Level 2. The dish is usually made with older, tougher chickens and stewed for a very long time to tenderize the meat. We just used the little purdue birds that we butchered during our practical and left to marinate in red wine for a few days. Since my partner did the lamb, I wanted to at least take over with the chicken.

One thing about working in a kitchen: most people are control freaks. He was perfectly fine with me taking over the chicken. That is, until he told me I had browned them enough, and could lower the heat. He even came over and adjusted my burner. And then he checked to make sure they were done. And he monitored the sauce. And for the few minutes that he left me unattended, he was away, "helping" other people, practically cooking their dishes for them. I literally(although lightly) slapped his hand when he came back over and tried to take the lid off my sauce. I'm all for teamwork and I do appreciate the help, but I just got the feeling he had no faith in me whatsoever.

So, I said to him, nicely, "I let you do most of the cooking with the lamb, and you said I could take care of the chicken. And I just want to point out that if I had let them brown as long as I'd wanted to, they'd have much better color."

He was caught a little bit off guard, but responded, "Comment duly noted. Now, would it be okay with you if I warmed up the Spatzle(these cool egg noodles that we made) with butter?"

"Yes, that would be wonderful."

I immediately felt bad, because he's nice and I know he just wanted to make sure our dish came out well. And it turned out alright, and hopefully we don't bump heads too much from now on.