Roast

So today in the morning, we started off running by putting the stock on to boil for another hour! Then we got down to making our basic bread, we made this with cooled melted butter, a teaspoon of caster sugar, some salt, yeast, and water! We mixed this quickly in a bowl with flour. We then kneaded it for about 15 minutes and left it to rise! I then quickly put some croutons in the oven for the Caesar salad, then got on to making meringues. For every egg white you add 55g sugar, so I whisked the egg to stiff peaks, then added some sugar in parts, and kept whisking it back to stiff peaks. I then piped some in a beehive form onto a silicone lined baking tray and put into the oven at 120'c, it should have been 110'c but the oven doesn't go that low at Leiths! They took about an hour! I have to say my piping wasn't brilliant, and they looked slightly like poos, but they still tasted good! I then whipped some cream, and sweetened it with icing sugar and placed it in the fridge - that was probably a mistake as when I took it out, half of it was over whipped and half was under! But I mixed it all around and it was fine - to Cool before sandwiching the meringues with it! I then got on to making my Caesar salad, for the dressing I infused some oil with garlic, boiled and egg for one minute, and gathered anchovies, English mustard powder, lemon juice, white wine vinegar, salt and pepper and whiz zed it all up in the magimix! I then washed my leaves and put some pancetta in the oven to crisp. I coated the leaves in the dressing and some Parmesan, then topped it nicely on a plate with croutons and the pancetta! Michael said it was good, but the dressing could do with a bit more zing, I did not know if we where allowed to do this, but now I do, which is great! By this time, I had already knocked back my bread and it had finished the second rise, so I put this in the oven to bake! The meringues were now finished so I selected 6 matching ones and placed them nicely on the plate, having been sandwiched together! Michael said it was all good, so great! Then the bread was taking ages to cook, so I went and changed, and then took it out for tasting tomorrow!
In the afternoon we had a dem by phill on roasts, which was great, probably the best dem so far! He showed us how to prep beef, chicken and pork for roasting! Pork needs 25 minutes browning at 220'c then it needs to be cooked longer according to its weight, 20 minutes per pound! this was slightly different with beef and chicken as they only needed 20 mins browning, but similar rules apply to length of cooking time, depending on how rare you want the beef! He then par boiled the potatoes and made them lively and fluffy and put them in the oven in hot duck fat! Then he blanched the carrots and beans, and refreshed them. He started to infuse some milk for bread sauce by piquing the onions with clove. He showed us how to make apple sauce and horseradish cream, which were lovely! He had stuffed the chicken with a mix of onions, breadcrumbs, apple, sage, thyme, parsley, salt and pepper! He then put in some parsnips in olive oil in the oven to roast! We got to see phill make a Yorkshire pudding batter, which needs chilling for 30 mins before he put it in some hot fat to cook for about 30 mins! He then went in to make some gravy (not as good as my dads) which tasted nice! And the final part was phil showing us how to carve, which was really great to see it done professionally! At the end it was laid out in buffet style, and we got to try some of everything! It was really nice, but I still say our family roast is better!