L'Atelier Des Chefs

For my birthday, a friend of mine invited me to join her at L'Atelier des Chefs, a cooking classroom in a department store, for a night of "nouvelle cuisine." So, finally the date arrived (it's Paris, where it seems like everything nice has to be reserved way in advance) and it was really great! Well, I got there late because of a security issue on the Metro and my bad decision to try to take the bus during rush hour instead. It turns out I missed the chopping of vegetables and peeling of citrus, so in a way I don't feel too bad.

The teacher was a cheeky (in a cute way, of course) Japanese woman, difficult to catch on film but fun to try to follow. She really moved with lightning speed, it's not a trick of the camera.



So, the first dish was "Langoustines rôties aux courgettes, sauce maïs, agrumes et coriandre" which involved some butterflied langoustines sauteed in olive oil and served with a sauce made from blended fresh corn, grapefruit, and oranges, with some coriander and hot pepper thrown in there too. It was all spread over a bed of lightly sauteed zucchini.



The next dish involved cooking foie gras, however this time there was no need for olive oil because the liver renders a shocking amount of grease as it cooks. My French friends assured me that there was still plenty left in the foie gras.



The final plating involved a bed of diced beets, and half of which were cooked and half of which were raw, and some of which were mashed up in the blender. Over the beets we put a griddle cake of cornmeal and fresh corn that also contained sauteed onions and a little hot red pepper powder, and topped whole darn thing with a piece of foie gras.



The food was beautiful and tasty (you get to take home what you make) and the class was fun, so I'm hoping to be able to take another one, especially because it's not really the kind of food that I have experience with. I was kind of disappointed after the class, because I didn't think I would be able to ever really do those dishes myself. Those feelings disappeared right away because, after the class was over, my friends decided to try to replicate the dishes at home for a bunch of people that were coming over THAT NIGHT. It worked and it was great! I guess that's what I get for keeping company with chemical engineers. I am completely in awe of the amazing hostess skills of the woman who invited me. Alice, tu es incroyable. (Et vous aussi, Cécile et Laure!)