First up is Mussels in Spicy Red Sauce... who knew tarragon was such an amazing herb! I love that Le Creucet pot... but at $220, I think I can do without...
Butter, shallot, chili flakes, tomatoes, tarragon, white wine, and mussels:
add cream:
and eat!
Note the sauce is perfect for bread-dipping!
Next up is the Caramelized Onion Pizzettes. We didn't have to make our own dough so that was easy... we just caramelized the onions, grated cheese and put it all together to bake in the oven.
Rolling dough, each pizzette will have its own character:
Grating cheese (and snacking on it with our Penfolds Shiraz):
And throwing it all together in the pan with our caramelized onions:
Now we wait for it to come out of the oven.
In the meantime, we're going to marinate the beef flank steak skewers:
Now we prep our Tempura Green beans. The tempura batter: flour, beer, and sesame seeds, so simple!
Apparently, bernaise sauce is one of the 5 "mother" sauces; its base is the hollandaise sauce but with a bernaise reduction of champagne vinegar, white wine, minced shallot and tarragon, add some lemon juice and cayenne pepper and voila: bernaise. It's so bad for you (3 egg yolks and 2 sticks of butter) and very tempermental: it breaks if it's too hot, breaks if there's too much or not enough butter, breaks if your butter is too hard (too cold), the list goes on...
Teamwork on the bernaise:
But it still broke:
The fixed bernaise (thanks to Peter, our chef instructor):
Finally, JJ is going to fry the tempura green beans while the steak skewers are being grilled:
And voila! The final product:
