Susan's Shanghai Blog - Week 88

Another month, another cooking class at Jade on 36! This time, my friend Joann went with me, so you'll see her in a bunch of the pictures. This week the menu was Pan-seared Sea Bass with a mashed potato/leek side, blue mussels and Paleta Iberico ham, and then Crepe Suzette for desert. Ironically, that morning I was watching an episode of "Avec Eric" which is a cooking show with Eric Ripert (a famous French chef at Le Bernadin in New York City) where he makes different things in his aparment in NYC. This episode, he was actually making Crepe Suzette!!

For the crepes, we started by peeling the oranges and then removing the pitch (the white part) so that all you have is just purely the thin skin. This is done using a little paring knife and very precise little cuts. Then we julienned them (as shown here). They then got blanched and set aside for later. We then took the orange and segmented with a little knife so that you only got the insides, none of the membranes, and squeezed all the juice out.

Next came the sauce. We took sugar and put it in the bottom of a pan and heated it (only sugar, no water, nothing) and cooked it until it was a light caramel color. Then we deglazed the pan with orange juice and brought it to a bowl, making sure the caramel (which had now somewhat hardened) melts again. Then we added the julienned orange zest and the orange segments, reduced to a nice sauce. Then as with all good French recipes, we added butter and some Grand Marnier. This got then set aside, since the crepes get flambayed at the table later.

Next came the actual crepes. You take the batter and swirl it in a hot saucepan making it a thin later. Then when the edges are getting brown, you flip it over (yea, I got little burns on my fingertips since we were all trying to flip them like the chef did with just fingers). When done, then went out on a plate also to wait for desert at tableside.

Preserved lemons were next. Not that I had really ever heard of preserved lemons, but they are rather interesting and supposedly used alot of French cooking. They are pretty easy although you have to prepare in advance since the chef says it takes 3 months to make them correctly (so he provided us with them). But to make them, you cut them into basically 4 segments although you don't cut them in half. So here we've cut the final one in half, but you can imagine the cut that is only 3/4 of the way up the lemon is also done on the other side as well. Then you soak them in water for 24 hours before straining and drying them off. Then you mix salt and sugar (equal parts, or a bit more salt than sugar ... he says it totally depends on how you like them) and then you mix the lemons in well. Then into a jar with hot syrup (1 liter of water and 500 grams of sugar) and you close tightly and sterilize .. I imagine it is like canning. Then in the refrigerator for 3 months (not on the back shelves like we did when we canned veggies as a kid). Then we took one and, using the same technique really as the orange, we got down to JUST the very outer yellow rind (no flesh, no white pith). We julienned it and then very finely diced half.

For the potatoes and leeks, we cooked the potatoes first. Mind you, I quickly got told I had been cooking potatoes wrong for my entire life, since you NEVER peel them before cooking (never never ever he says). For the leeks, we took the majority of the stalks and learned how to cut them to wash them well, since they tend to have sand and dirt stuck all over in the green parts. The leeks were then finely sliced and into a pan with butter and olive oil to cook slowly. Then we roughly smashed the potatoes (like mashed potatoes but only with a fork and NOT smooth) and tossed them into the leeks along with the finely diced preserved lemon rind.

For the mussels, we took butter and olive oil and sweated some finely sliced shallots, garlic, and fresh thyme. Then we added the mussels and some white wine and steamed them until they opened (about 7 minutes or so). The juice was strained off (as you can see, the holes in the pan below the mussels) and reduced to 1/3 of the volume, and then cream and butter was added. This will be used a bit later.

The next pictures are a bit blurry (obviously I need to upgrade to a better iPhone). For the sea bass, make sure you score the skin-side down the middle (look closely in the first picture). This keeps the fish from curling when it hits the hot pan. We then seasoned with salt on the non-skin side. Into the pan with a bit of olive oil and bring it almost to smoking. Here is a trick he showed ... how not to get the oil to basically pop and burn your hands. You have the oil on the outside part of the pan and you basically roll the piece of fish in from the outside to the inside. Your hand only comes close to the pan then on the inside, where there isn't oil. Sear it to get a nice crispy skin. Then you add LOTS of butter (yea, did I mention French cooking equals lots of butter?) and the cooking technique here is where you spoon the hot melted butter on top of the flesh-side of the fish. You never actually turn it over so that the flesh side is every on the pan. Then when done, you flip it onto a paper towel so that the now crispy skin side is up.

Lastly, we plated. So the potato/leeks went in a round ring in the center of the plate (then ring removed to just have a nice round bed). The fish added to the top and four mussels placed around the edge. The fish then was topped with the julienned lemon that we prepared before. Then remember the mussel juice with cream? We whipped it up with a little hand blender and JUST used the foam, spooning it around through the mussel. Then tiny pieces of the Iberico ham was popped in the middle spaces between the mussels.

And voila! The finished dishes!

For the desert, they brought a small cook table out and into the pan went (you guessed it) butter! Then each crepe is put in and folded into quarters (four per person). Then in went Grand Marnier and the chef flambayed them. Then he added the sauce that we had prepared earlier and brought back to a boil and cooked for a minute or so. Then the crepes in the middle of the plate with the sauce, orange segments on the side, and a dollop of ice cream.

As I said, I'm in LOVE with this class and am signing up for every month!!