Work Experience - Part 1

A very happy me eating Shepherd's Pie!

 Not long after moving house to the far north end of Stirlingshire, Scotland, myself and a few of my older siblings went to a worship, music event at a small hotel. As I was walking past the outside, I spied through the window and saw the kitchen. It looked pretty top notch and I knew that someday I would get in there - don't ask me why. While we were there I met the chef who was only a youngish chap and very likeable and we also discovered that the people that owned the place were going to start hosting a musician's night once a month where if you were local and played music then you could come along and jam. My Dad and a few of us have played music together for a few years now so we went along and had a great time. During one of these evenings, I got to chat with the owner who readily agreed to me coming for some work experience. In the next week there were a bunch of musicians who were coming to stay for a writing project and so it was agreed that I would come during their stay. I was over the moon! 

 I was not going to be doing breakfast but I was to arrive just after and start the day from there. Up early and off I went. The kitchen was so cool. Stainless steel, a massive, six-ring gas oven and another fan oven. Draws filled with a bazillion sharp things and a walk in pantry with shelves bursting with hundreds of alien foods of which I had never heard. I knew that I would have to stay on my toes and absorb as much as I could.

The beautiful red stalks and green
leaves of the rhubarb plant

Jamie's own crumble

 The chef was in the middle of serving breakfast still and so the kitchen was in real bustle. (The chef usually takes care of the kitchen himself with the occasional hand from one of the other caretakers.) The first thing I was instructed to do was to get a chef's shirt and apron. That moment, buttoning that shirt up was truly amazing. I was a chef! 

 After we had cleared up breakfast, we were going to make a rhubarb crumble for later. The chef took me outside and showed me his herb baskets, veggie plot and greenhouses. I didn't realise how much he grew himself. We selected some sticks of rhubarb and cleaned them up before taking a board each to chop it all up. I knew his knives were going to be very sharp and so I asked whether he trusted me with one. He replied good-humouredly, "I trust you with a small one." As the day progressed, however, he did give me the chance to use one. We were prepping veg for a Shepherd's Pie and I remember him telling me not to watch which of course made me look up to see him empty two bottles of red wine into a huge saucepan. Anyway, the veg. All the while I was thinking, "I hope I'm doing this right, I hope I'm doing this right!" His words after observing me were, "You already have really good knife skills which is half the battle. The rest is easy." You can imagine my inner rejoicing at such praise.

As Tim Hawkins* would
say, "Liqour reference!"

 Now, it wasn't all cooking as you will probably know - the more you cook, the more you clean. We wiped down the kitchen often and washed up loads but it was not that different quantity wise to what I do at home. After we were cleared again, we started on some cakes and I was introduced to chocolate ganache. I had heard and read about it but never actually used the stuff. The chef gave me a recipe to do while I believe he started on hundreds of custard creams. The recipe was for a sponge that would in the future become one of my favourite all time recipes but I'll be doing a post on that sometime later. I buckled down and was OK until we put the icing on and then it became more of a delicious, chocolate mess!

 During this experience I also made sweet pastry for the first time ever for a frangiepane. I have never liked marzipan but we used Amaretto and it was a different story. That thing was gorgeous! Apparently, the pastry recipe we used is the best that the chef had come across so I shall share that with you here. 

 Time: 10 mins

 Serves: Yields 2 x 9" dishes 

 RECIPE:

 1) Sieve 200g icing sugar and 500g of flour into a mixing bowl, add 250g of room temperature butter and 2 eggs. Mix with a paddle attachment in a mixer until it just starts to come together and then stop it. Don't knead it whatsoever but just bring it together with your cold hands, (run them under cold water for a bit), divide in two, cling film and fridge. Simple as that!

I used this in a lemon tart thing a week or so later but I'll be posting that sometime soon...

*See previous post 'Cooking with Pooh'

Click HERE for Part 2

"To glorify my Savior, Jesus Christ, the Creator  

of the universe and spread further abroad His glorious gospel." - Yours Truly