“Taking one year program among pastry, cooking and French in Gastronomicom cooking school in France. During this period of time, I was more than happy to come to Gastronomicom, life here is complex with lots of dynamic elements for me to explore more and more in this professional field. Started with learning new techniques in kitchen (3 months pastry, and the other 3 months in cooking), after morning learning, I finished a day with funny French learning in the afternoon.
In pastry class, Chef Pol has guide us step by step with his well-organization disciplines for all of us. Each week we were given different topics to learn, in general we have 4 totally different categories to learn, first comes to the bread, cakes, plat decorations, and definitely the chocolate. This month, we reached the advanced level of bread-making skills then the very next week is one of my favorite “week of the CAKES”, we had made few classic sweets such as, “Religieuse Chocolat Orange, Cupcake Caramel Pécan, Tarte à la Praline Rose et Grué and Entremet Sesame et Banane.”
Religieuse is one of the traditional dessert, made by Choux pastry delicate decoration in France, but like what Chef Pol told us many times “The most difficult things to make usually is the simplest.” Choux pastry looking easy to make however it has been listed on the top three difficulties in pastry learning. How to whipped the perfect texture cream is not easy not even to mention about piping the patterns. It really takes time to focus and concentrate to make it perfectly. As an old saying says, “Practice make things perfect.” there’s no shortcut for this. What surprised me the most is the marmelade orange recipe, which tickles your taste buds enormously. Tarte à la praline rose et grué was the tarde we made with special flavor grué and praline rose (praline rose is specialty in Lyon), and finished with chantillie grué and nougatine grué on the top. On Friday, Entremet Sesame et Banane brought us the wonderful ending of the week, we spent almost 4 days to complete the entremet, sponge, caramel banana and ganache, whipped the mouse praline sesame, finalized with the glaçage and chocolate decoration!! The outcome is amazing not only the tastes but the looks.
About cooking, we also have different topics in every weeks, cold appetizer, hot appetizer, fish, and meat. Last week was the hot appetizer week, Chef Samuel prepared the recipes: “Frog leg cooking in two ways”, “Squid, mussels and shrimps like a paella”, “confit octopus with celery in lace”, “Langoustin and clam roudoudou with bloody orange juice and dill”, and “Cuttlefish and butternut linguini brined egg yolk”. Frog leg is a traditional but a little weird dish for the foreigners, in the class, we learned how to trim the leg gently, in order to make it much pretty, we also socked into the beetroot tempura to make this plate looks more delectable. For the cuttlefish, Chef Samuel taught us how to took the ink bag out and prepared the cuttlefish in different ways. When we saw the recipe Roudoudou was a new word for us, then he explained to us, which is so called the special candy in France, at first I had no ideas how is that possible to turn the seafood into a candy? then we used molecular technique by combining bloody range juice with agar agar which make a successful disguise for the shell.
All the staffs here are kind and warm to everyone. In this school we are just like family. I’m proud of choosing one year intake program in Gastronomicom, because we shared many experiences and gained a lot encouragement from chefs,teachers and even friends just met. I am much more confidence than my first arrival, I had obtained the professional skills and learned how to be an expert in kitchen as well. I believe I will be able to conquer any obstacles in the further. This will be one of my best memories in my life.” Yvonne LO (Shih Huan)
Thanks Yvonne for this great report! 👍😃
