Thursday March 24th 2022
Written by Amy Reddan
Today was week 7 of our culinary course. We made some delicious food such as
- Sausage rolls
- Choux buns- with pastry cream and strussuel
- Lemon curd
Below are the recipes and methods for each piece of food we made.
Sausage rolls
Ingredients
- 250g pork mince
- 2 apples sliced
- Shallot
- Thyme
- 1tb sp whole grain mustard
- 40g fresh bread crumbs
- 3 Garlic cloves
- Chopped flat leaf parsley
- ½ Lemon zest
- Butter
Method
Firstly preheat your oven to 210 degrees. We cook the shallot in the butter, garlic and thyme and we leave that aside to cool. Then we mix the shallot mix into the pork mince, add the breadcrumbs and parsley,mustard and diced apples and season with salt and pepper. And then we roll the mix into a 5cm log. Then we roll the pastry out and cut a rectangle out of the puff pastry. After it is rolled out we place the sausage meat into the centre leaving enough pastry to completely cover the filling. After that is done, brush the edge of the pastry with a little egg wash and fold over the pastry ensuring that all the meat filling has been covered. Then we press the edges with a fork to give it the sausage roll appearance and egg wash the entire log. Then place on a lined tin and place into the oven. After 10 minutes drop the temperature to 180 degrees and continue until cooked through.
I really enjoyed making the sausage rolls. I thought they tasted delicious and the making of the meat mixture and pastry was very new to me and it was fun making new things.
Choux buns
Ingredients
- 120g water
- 105g milk
- 112g butter
- 6g sugar
- 4g salt
- 112g flour
- 205g whole eggs
Method
In a saucepan,heat the water, milk, sugar and salt until butter is melted and mixture is boiling, remove from heat. Then place the flour into the pan and mix gently until it forms a dough then place back on the heat, keep stirring quickly to apply the heat evenly, cook until the dough is shiny and there is thin film on the base of the saucepan. Next, beat eggs in a bowl then place the dough into a bowl and gradually start to mix until the temperature starts to drop to 55 degrees celsius. Add the eggs gradually into the mixture and then pipe onto a baking sheet. Baking time 160 for 30 minutes.
Pastry cream
Ingredients
- 265g milk
- 65g egg yolks
- 65g sugar
- Vanilla
- 21g flour
- 21g butter
Method
In a saucepan, heat the milk, half of the sugar and vanilla, bring to the boil. Then in a bowl, mix the egg yolks and flour. Then pour hot milk over the egg yolks,whisking all the time. Place the mix back into the saucepan and cook until the first bubble appears. Then remove from the heat and add butter. Then place cling film on top to prevent the pastry cream forming a crust. After the buns are ready you fill the buns with cream and pour melted chocolate over and place into the fridge until chocolate is hardened.
I enjoyed baking the buns. It was a new and fun process and it is still very new to me but with practice it can be perfected
And lastly we made lemon curd.
Ingredients
- 4 egg yolks
- 2 whole eggs
- 125g lemon juice
- 100g sugar
- 85g butter
1 egg yolk is 18g so 4 egg yolks are 72g- (18x4=72)
1 whole egg is 50g so 2 whole eggs are 100g- (50x2=100)
The lemon curd was very easy and fast to make. All you needed to do was whisk the eggs, sugar and lemon juice in a bowl, cube the butter and set it into the mix and finally whisk until combined.
This week was a fabulous week. We got to make all different varieties of food and learnt many new methods and how to fill a choux bun- it is not as easy as it looks. It is a messy process but thanks to the help of Tom we managed to make them look appetising. It was also interesting learning how these foods are made. I am looking forward to next week and excited to find out what we are making next.
I recommend the culinary course to everyone. It is very educational and fun and opens up a lot more opportunities in some career fields.