Olive Internship - Day 2

Today was a bit more relaxed but still extremely hard work. We started off by making Vanilla Bean ice cream. In the final stage, Chef Girish taught me a way to check whether the ice cream was ready to take off the heat. If you had less enough liquid to tilt the saucepan over, you could check for a thin skin on the base of the pan however if this wasn't an option, using a spatula you could test the thickness of the liquid by running your finger down it.

Next we made Dark Chocolate sorbet, with a stabilizer which would help hold the sorbet together and prevent it from watering down too easily. Once that was ready, we poured it into a container and put it in the deep freeze.

Chef Babu and I then made Banana cake, but it was a special recipe. One that was moist and spongy, and brought out the flavour of the banana although the batter was smooth because the bananas had been pureed.

Chef Girish told me that at any culinary school, the first thing they ask you to do is to make Pastry Cream with absolute perfection; and that is what we made next.
He told me that the recipe doesn't matter as much as the method of preparation.
When making pastry cream, it has to be of uniform consistency. There can be no lumps and it has to be completely smooth. While it is cooking, you cannot stop whisking it as this causes lumps to form. Chef also told me that while you leave it to set, you should cover it with plastic wrap but place it directly over the pastry cream to prevent a skin from forming over the top because of the air space.

The last thing we made, were the chocolate coated pretzels. Yesterday we made pretzels, so today we cut them into smaller bits and dipped them in melted dark chocolate, placed them on a silicon mat over a large baking sheet, and left them to set.
When I asked Chef Girish why we coat the pretzel bits with the chocolate and how they were served, he told me that the chocolate hardens outside and helps preserve the crunch of the pretzel inside as the pretzel bit is placed inside the chocolate/salted caramel mousse that could soften the pretzel in the absence of the outer chocolate layer.

Finally, since I was done with all my work I got to watch Chef Babu plate up the Cassata dish at the order rail. He first placed a round of sponge cake over which he placed a larger round of strawberry ice cream and garnished it with different, pre-prepped elements like cut strawberries, vanilla mousse, nuts, and a pinch of chocolate crumble. Chef also clipped a couple of baby pea leaves and placed them alternately over the dish. The end result resembled a vibrant garden!

I was done for the day, and headed home.