A Different Kind of Art, FOOD!

Originally Posted by Mattocks

I don't have any pictures from school this week ready (I may be able to get some later) I did some other cooking. Princess_Zelda_ came over yesterday and I made her lunch.

Entree was simple speghetti alfredo. Garnished with a sprig of parsley.


For desert I made poached pears with home made orange whipped cream, topped off with some shaved dark chocolate.

The alfredo looks delicious and the dessert is absolutely beautiful


Can I hire you for my wedding

Originally Posted by Zarah

The alfredo looks delicious and the dessert is absolutely beautiful


Can I hire you for my wedding

Haha, I'm flattered, but trust me, there are much better people out there for that. I'm a secnd year apprentice, this stuff is all basics.

Great thread people!
All these things look way better than my daily plate of food I make myslf at home...

MMM crown roast. I had it one time. I felt all fancy, and man, it was good!

Originally Posted by Margar

MMM crown roast. I had it one time. I felt all fancy, and man, it was good!

Did it have a stuffing? If so do you know what it was?

Well now that the art contest is over I can post these.

Titled "Sea Food" (thanks to Holly for comming up with the name), this is smoked makrel with boiled mussels on a bed of vegetables. I used a lemon wedge and clove for the fish head, parsley for the fins and tail and dill as the seaweed.

Here is the same meal, but plated normaly.

Originally Posted by Mattocks

Well now that the art contest is over I can post these.

Titled "Sea Food" (thanks to Holly for comming up with the name), this is smoked makrel with boiled mussels on a bed of vegetables. I used a lemon wedge and clove for the fish head, parsley for the fins and tail and dill as the seaweed.

Here is the same meal, but plated normaly.

Are they oysters?
You trying to perk your sex life up are you?

I didn't like it I'm sorry. Vegie head.

Seriously, I liked it on the normal blue plate better actually Looked better to the eye imo.

EDIT: I just realised the picture is meant to look like it is underwater.. :3
Just a bit slow.

I'm not one much for seafood, but you've managed to make it look most delicious. :3 Very good, sir Mattsy

They're mussels, oysters are much bigger and uglier.

And thank you Lio.

I loved that food, especially the fact that it looked like underwater. And the head! I like sea food, though. =D
Seriously, great and creative job, Mattocks. The idea was awesome, the food looks delicious, and overall, it's just great.

^Thanks Nesi, it was kind of fun making it and plating it in a different way.

Also, I just made lunch and took pictures! Margar gave me the idea from her food thread of taking pictures of production too.


This is all the pans I had going. The top is browning some left over chicken, bottom left is the spaghetti and bottom right is the sauce.

The sauce is rather simple. Heat a pan with some olive oil (in this case I used my home made garlic and rosemerry olive oil) and chopped garlic in it. If you've got bacon throw it in there too. I didn't have any. Before the garlic starts to brown add some chicken stock and diced cellery. Toss in some pepper, and herbs (I used basil and an oregeno mix from my garden) and a splash of white wine. Bring it to a boil and let it reduce by about half.


Chicken, or any meat you want to add, is optional. There just happens to be a left over half chicken in my fridge, so I borrowed some. I browned the chicken off in a separate pan while the sauce was reducing. It was already cooked so I didn;t have to worry about finishing it. It's a good idea to use cooked meat because it won't be in the sauce long enough to cook it through. Even the bacon should be par cooked first and finished in the pan.


When the chicken is nice and brown toss it into the sauce, which should still be reducing. It will heat through and add a little extra flavour to the sauce as it cooks.


When the sauce has reduced, sprinkle in some parmesan to help thicken it and give it a nice creamy texture. Unfortuneatly all I has was Kraft parm, which for some reason doesn't do well in sauces. I forgot this...
So instead of thickening and making it nice, the parm just kind of half melted and clumpped up. Don't get me wrong, clumps of parmesan cheese are delicious, but not good for the sauce.

After that toss your pasta in and make sure it heats through if it's been sitting for a while. This sauce goes best with long pastas because it's relativly thin compared to other sauces.


I had some cheese bread sticks sitting around, so it made a nice garnish. Just top it off with another sprinkle of fresh parm and a little freshly cracked black pepper.

Originally Posted by Mattocks

^Thanks Nesi, it was kind of fun making it and plating it in a different way.

Also, I just made lunch and took pictures! Margar gave me the idea from her food thread of taking pictures of production too.


This is all the pans I had going. The top is browning some left over chicken, bottom left is the spaghetti and bottom right is the sauce.

The sauce is rather simple. Heat a pan with some olive oil (in this case I used my home made garlic and rosemerry olive oil) and chopped garlic in it. If you've got bacon throw it in there too. I didn't have any. Before the garlic starts to brown add some chicken stock and diced cellery. Toss in some pepper, and herbs (I used basil and an oregeno mix from my garden) and a splash of white wine. Bring it to a boil and let it reduce by about half.


Chicken, or any meat you want to add, is optional. There just happens to be a left over half chicken in my fridge, so I borrowed some. I browned the chicken off in a separate pan while the sauce was reducing. It was already cooked so I didn;t have to worry about finishing it. It's a good idea to use cooked meat because it won't be in the sauce long enough to cook it through. Even the bacon should be par cooked first and finished in the pan.


When the chicken is nice and brown toss it into the sauce, which should still be reducing. It will heat through and add a little extra flavour to the sauce as it cooks.


When the sauce has reduced, sprinkle in some parmesan to help thicken it and give it a nice creamy texture. Unfortuneatly all I has was Kraft parm, which for some reason doesn't do well in sauces. I forgot this...
So instead of thickening and making it nice, the parm just kind of half melted and clumpped up. Don't get me wrong, clumps of parmesan cheese are delicious, but not good for the sauce.

After that toss your pasta in and make sure it heats through if it's been sitting for a while. This sauce goes best with long pastas because it's relativly thin compared to other sauces.


I had some cheese bread sticks sitting around, so it made a nice garnish. Just top it off with another sprinkle of fresh parm and a little freshly cracked black pepper.

I wish I could cook like you.
Although, I don't like spaghetti and don't eat chicken. It looks quite tasty.
I LOVE your blue plates. I want them.

MATTOCKS!!!!!

This thread is absolutely amazing!! I've recently taken an interest in cooking/baking.Lol, I'm like an amateur. But I love to read new recipes and try them out when I can. Or, invent something of my own. So I just went through your thread and everything is just mouthwatering. I defnitely want to try some of these dishes out, man! For real. That last dish you made, with the pasta and bread? Looks divine.

because I don't have white wine... could I possibly replace that component with beer? It's the only form of alcohol in my fridge. >> << >> << lol

Thanks Azzy!
Liah mentioned that you like cooking, I tried to convince her to try it too, don't know if she ever did.

For you question, no I wouldn't use beer. It's not really that you're adding alcool, it's the flavour of the wine. Then again if you have a light beer it could always be worth a try, it could work. Just don't add too much.

Butchery class today was....informative. Interesting, but as far as smell and taste went, it was pretty awful. Or shoudl I say offal. Yes we got to do offals today? What are they you ask? They're all the fun innards like liver and kidneys. Oh and this fun little organ. Who can name it?


And here it is cook with some roasted beets, roschti potato and beuree noisette.


Then there's this fun one. It's sliced up so I would expect anyone to recognise it. It's liver. Seeing how to break down the liver, what to remove and all that was really interesting, but if any of you have ever cooked liver, you know how bad it smells. I also hate the taste. To add to that we also got to see a demo of kidneys. Equally smelly and not so great tasting. Any ways, here's pics.


The liver got served witht he same stuff as the other one.

I'm kind of upset my chef isn't letting us actually plate anything. It's always to go containers and they always look crappy.

Originally Posted by Mattocks

Did it have a stuffing? If so do you know what it was?

Oops, I just now saw this. No, I don't think it had a stuffing, but that was a long time ago...

As for your most recent pics... *BLECH!*
I actually like the way cooking liver smells (with onions) but I hate liver. I wouldn't eat anything else, either... probably.

Baking Class!
First up was a seafood quiche.


Then we also did an apple crumble pie. The apples shrank a little while baking. When we first made it the pie was huuuge!

Topped off with a little icing sugar of course.


In butchery we didn't get to cook, but we got to cut up a beef short loin.


The first one is the sirloin end (where porterhouse steaks are cut) and the second is the head (T-bone steaks)

And here are said steaks!


We get to eat those for our lunch next week after cooking up the rest of it. *drool*

Dammit, Mattocks, I just ate, and now your food is making me hungry again! ;_;

In all seriousness, though, that's pretty incredible. You're an excellent chef, keep up the good work!

Well I missed pastries class last week, and although we did cook the steaks in butchery class, I didn't have time to get a picture in class and ate it as soon as I got home. It was delicious.

However this week we made fruit flan in pastries.

It was the first time I've made custard (it's the base under the fruit) and it turned out really well. So good. The fruit is covered in apricott glaze to give it the shine and keep the fruit fresh.

In butchery we got to do duck! Again didn't get to actually plate it, but this togo container looks a bit nicer than some of the other ones.

That's a roasted duck breast with pan sauce, barley rissotto, sauteed baby bok choy and carrots with a blueberry-cranberry sauce.


And finally I found some picks of lunch I made at home a while ago. It's a shirred egg with fries and sauce. The sauce is just ketchup, mayo chipottle sauce and a touch of garlic powder. The fries are sprinkled with chilie-lime seasoning.

Butchery this week was fish! We did a round fish (red snapper) and a flat fish (dover sole).

The snapper we did en papilotte, which basically means it was baked in a parchment paper pouch with some veg and butter. The pouch is wrapped tight so the fish steams inside.


We filleted the sole, then made sole bonne femme. It was cooked with butter and sliced mushrooms, fish stock was then added and it was put in the oven to finish. The sauce was made from the left over stock with cream.


That was before we poured the sauce over, I just think it looks a bit tidyer, and you can actually see this fish.



Today I decided to make a nice lunch. It's mozzerella and cheddar grilled cheese on marble rye with chillie-lime home made fries.