Ballymaloe: Week three

24 Jun

The blog posts are getting later and later… apologies in advance!

It's just, I just can't describe how busy life is not just in the kitchen, but around it.

It’s rare enough finding a spare moment to myself, and so it’s even rarer to find me on the computer. I’ve said before, I live in a house of 8, overlooking a courtyard adjoining 4 other houses full of culinary neighbours aplenty. So every moment outside of the school kitchens or the demo room, we are together. From 7am until at least 10:30pm I am with people. I don’t miss solo time altogether, but I know that I haven’t had all that much time to process everything we’ve been through.

Last week was full of ups and downs ! I had probably my worst day in the kitchen so far, and also so many positives with some amazing teachers and delicious food.

I was in kitchen 1 last week, which is smaller than kitchen 2 + 3, but I prefer the smaller kitchens tenfold. Just because smaller kitchens usually feel like calmer environments. Although maybe it just felt calmer due to the fact we are 3 weeks in and no longer feel the first day jitters that seem to hang around. There was a calmness in the kitchen, and our teacher Finola, guided us with incredible precision, authority and above all kindness.

At first she terrified me. I was chopping apples for a chutney, to which she said were too large, then lifted them up to my classmates to tell you how not to chop an apple. Eek not good.

But I kept up my positive determination, and every criticism ended up being such a great learning. She was a fantastic teacher, with military precision, she loves a process, often stopping the group mid-lining a pastry tart or sweating onions to make a lesson, or share a set of rules to follow when continuing the said task. It became easy over the week to see the kitchen through her eyes. This is one of the hardest adjustments each week, getting used to a new teacher, a new set of eyes and a completely new set of tastebuds.

My kitchen disaster day happened on Friday. A simple day of cooking was planned in the works: Ballymaloe Chicken Liver Pâté with Crostini, Ballymaloe White Yeast Bread, Tomato Sauce & homemade butter.

All simple enough…

My morning of cooking started at 7:30 am in the bread shed. With this yeast bread, you must make a jumpstart on the yeast (if it doesn’t make a jumpstart on you…) so you can get it in and out of the oven within the 3 hours we have in the kitchens.

My dough all beautifully kneaded and balled up by 8am, factoring in a 1.5 hour rise, I was looking forward to getting shaped and ready for the oven by 9:30. But unfortunately, my dough had other plans. Fast forward 3 HOURS later…. NO RISE AT ALL !

The teachers were bamboozled, and I had to try and convince them I had added the yeast in correct proportions and followed all procedure. It was confounding, and really knocked me off my schedule for the day, no White Yeast Bread in sight I had to pivot and ended up rolling them out to make pillowy naan breads, cooked on a scorching grill pan. Not ideal. But delicious apparently.

Although not a complete disaster it really rocked me, I was put off the rest of my cooking and seemed to walk about the kitchen aimless, and to be honest on the verge of a breakdown. I ended up over-buttering my chicken liver pate ( I thought this impossible at ‘butter-maloe”) AND over-whipping my homemade butter ( again a hard feat to accomplish), and then over-toasting my crostini… In the end none of this really impacted my grades, but I whizzed out the door as soon as we got ticked off for lunch. At least the sun was out all week…

The weekend was bursting with activity as we all attended the Ballymaloe House Festival ! A weekend of demonstrations, talks, interviews, events, market stalls and book launches held at Ballymaloe House Hotel, and featuring a wide range of inspiring chefs and writers, many of whom i’ve admired for years !

It was an exceptional weekend. We walked to the grand house, which is home to the famous Ballymaloe House Restaurant, and is actually situated on separate grounds, taking about an hour to walk to from the cookery school. I attended some incredible talks, it was just so great to hear from people who are so passionate about food, farming and the food system we currently live in. There were food trucks, and late night Dj’s, & Our final event was a cooking demonstration held by none other than Darina Allen herself, next to Rachel Allen ( her daughter in law remember!) as they whipped up some soda bread and nettle soup. She was quite a natural on the stage, and it really reminded me about what a powerhouse she is. *bows deeply*

Thats all folks !

COOKED THIS WEEK:

Asparagus Custards with Chervil Toasts

Shepherd’s Pie With Garlic Butter

Rustic roast potatoes

Duchess Potato

Classic French Omelette

Tomato Fondue

Glazed Carrots

Mushroom Frittata

Ballymaloe Chicken Liver Pâté with Crostini

Ballymaloe White Yeast Bread *(NAAANNNS)