The Chartreuse

I don't really know what to say about this dish. It's supposed to be the toughest one this session in terms of time, and there were a lot of tough elements within it - mainly the farce. Scraping raw chicken meat through a tamis (big round flat sieve) takes some serious muscle and patience. I was sweating WAY more than usual. You scrape and you scrape and you press and you scratch and then you turn it over and there's barely a thin layer on the other side. It's a little demoralizing. And when you have 25 minutes of demoralizing work with the tamis you kind of want to toss it in and go home early. But you don't. You keep scraping and keep sweating so that you make sure you have enough. Then you think long and hard about all that work you did when you throw out most of it after filling the molds. We need to get used to it. I think we do this farce fine 4 more times this session.

So inside a ramekin you chemiser with the carrots and zucchini (cooked) and then you line with the farce, put in cooked veal sweetbreads, top with the farce, cook in a bain marie, and ba-bing! done. I finished on time. Me and my friend were the only ones. At least we think we served on time....he was a little unclear. But we finished first (me) and second. I felt good today, though not exactly the cleanest I've ever worked...but it was crazy and I am proud of how I did.

Here is a picture of the inside. Look at that montage! Beeyootiful!