Day #3: Millefeuille and Running

Let's start with the less glamorous of the two. Running (sorry Howard!).

I was definetly not feeling glamorous today. I'm proud of myself for going again today, but am regretting it a little bit because as the day has progressed, my ability to walk normally has greatly diminished. I spent the afternoon waddling around the city, wincing in pain every time my inner thigh muscles needed to work (which is apparently every single time you take a step). Stairs are also a challenge now, but more so going down than up. I think I caused quite the scene on the metro.

But it was all worth it, because I got to go to another cooking class this afternoon. This one was a millefeuille class, where we learned how to use two different pastries. They were both pre-made doughs, and the chef said as long as you make sure the pate feuillté contains pure butter, the quality is fine.

We started with dessert (as all good meals should). The chef had precooked the puff pasty (pate feuillté) for us, and it baked in between two sheets to stop it from rising. When it was sufficiently cooked, she took it out, and we sprinkled icing sugar evenly over the tops of all of them. Back into the oven, under the broiler, watching carefully, and the sugar melted into a nice glassy finish. Then we moved onto the ganache. Pretty basic, heat the cream, use good dark chocolate, etc. But we infused the chocolate with a pepper. It looked a lot like cayenne pepper and added an interesting kick to the chocolate at the end. She told us that you could infuse the cream with any flavour you wanted, mint, coffee, vanilla, etc, allowing anything that will be removed (ie mint leaves) extra time to steep. The ganache was then set aside to solidify (but not in the fridge, as this would make it too hard).

On to our savoury dish. This one started with the prep work, chopping all the ingredients into miniscule pieces for the sauce. We also cut up a beet and blended it with oil, water and vinegar to make another sauce. The pastry this time was called feuille de brick, and they came in large circular sheets. It is described (on Amazon!) as a crispy, non buttery dough (check the spelling of 'dough' on the site). It reminded me a little of spring roll wrappers, but a lot larger. We brushed each circle with olive oil and sprinkled them with sesame seeds, and cooked them just until they were golden (we burned four. Oops!). To assemble the dish, we cut each half moon shape into four triangles, and layered the sauce, smoked salmon and beet sauce on three of them. Then we stacked them artistically and topped them with the most attractive remaining triangle. I have no idea how you would eat this meal gracefully, but it was certainly delicious!

The dessert was assembled using two pastry rectangles, and making a quenelle out of the ganache, and sandwiching it between the pastries. A bit boring, I thought, but everyone started suggesting additions, like ice cream, raspberries or mint.

There you have it. I am now feeling quite confident in my dinner party preparation skills. As long as the party involves three dessert courses (and why shouldn't it?).

Bon appétit!