My second day of Pierre Hermé class in Chicago -- Part 1

When I woke up that morning I felt very good, I was better rested than the previous day. I forgot if I've mentioned that I had sore throat since Thursday. I took Airborne for 2 days and on Friday afternoon my sore throat was gone. I was so happy that I felt better, otherwise I wouldn't be able to enjoy all the wonderful food, especially PH's macaron.

After I was ready in a full chef uniform, we went down to get our car. Again it was not there yet eventhough we had called 15 minutes earlier, they said we should call 10 minutes before we needed the car, what a bad service! We had to wait for 10 minutes, I was so disappointed but wouldn't let this ruin my day -- even though I was getting nervous that we would be late. We went to pick up Patty and then straight to French Pastry School.

We arrived just before 8 am, so I quickly changed to the school chef jacket and then went straight to the table for breakfast. For breakfast we had potato latkes with smoked salmon, caviar and creme fraiche, bread and apricot jam. The potato latkes was very good, not greasy at all, but I didn't try the bread nor the jam, I don't really like to eat a lot for breakfast. I had midnight jasmine bloom tea, orange juice and sparkling water. By the way, look who's sitting across from my table!

Left: Basket of bread and butter
Right: Apricot jam

Left: Potato latkes with smoked salmon, caviar and creme fraiche
Right: Looking across my table

Left: Midnight jasmine bloom
Right: Sparkling water and Orange juice

Then the class started with a wonderful surprise gift from Chef Pierre Hermé. Jacquy said that PH was nice enough to give us one more recipe from one of his latest creations which will be release in December. Later I found out from Mickaël that PH really liked teaching our class -- glad to hear that.

He began showing us how to make that product. I couldn't go into detail about this now, but I will post an update when he has the official press release. All I can say is it was amazing!

Moving on to the next demonstration which was finishing the tomato puff pastry from yesterday -- we went back and forth several times to the sheeter machine since the dough needed to rest (chilled in the refrigerator) in between step. By the way, on this second day PH mostly did the assembly and put the finishing touch.

Passing the tomato puff pastry through the sheeter machine

From here he started to assemble Tarte Ispahan and Vanilla Tart. He said to prebake the tart shell all the way, otherwise it would taste floury.

Assembling the Tarte Ispahan and Vanilla Tart

The next one he did was finishing Chocolate and Foie Gras Macaron. I love foie gras a lot, but I was not sure if I would like this, so I was very curious to taste it.

Finishing the Chocolate and Foie Gras Macaron

We went for the morning break and I had a chance to try his pâtes de fruits that he brought from France. I might be biased, but I liked them since they were not too sweet like others do. The interesting thing was all his pâtes de fruits comes in two layers of different flavors. The ones that we tried were Satine (orange, passion fruit, apricot), Montebello (raspberry, pistachio) and Ispahan (litchi, raspberry, rose). I had first flush darjeeling for drink, it was good especially since I love darjeeling tea. There was espresso too, but I don't drink coffee anymore.

Assortment of pâtes de fruits and First flush Darjeeling tea

Espresso and Honey

After the break he assembled the new creation, as well as both Emotion Depayse and Emotion Ispahan. He weighed each components for the Emotion -- except the top part he just filled in the glass since everything else had been weighed in. He said the weight is important for the balance of the flavor.

Assembling the Emotion Depayse and Emotion Ispahan

He assembled Miss Gla'Gla Ispahan Glace and then we went to the dining table for lunch.

Assembling Miss Gla'Gla Ispahan Glace

The lunch was prepared by Chef Jean Joho, owner of Everest and Brasserie Jo: charcuterie and pâté, salad, braised salt pork belly with potato and horseradish sauce. I liked them all, so yummy! I had fields of France rooibos tea, it was too strong for me. We also had morbier cheese, bread and grilled corn ice cream with hazelnut cookies. I didn't really like the cheese, but I loved the hazelnut cookies that came with the ice cream -- if only I could get the recipe for it. About the ice cream itself, it was good but I couldn't really taste the corn on it, for me it tasted like regular vanilla ice cream.

Left: Charcuterie and Pâté
Right: Assortment of salad

Left: Salad
Right: Braised salt pork belly with potato

Left: Fields of France rooibos tea
Right: Morbier cheese and bread

Grilled corn ice cream with hazelnut cookies

I'll continue the story on my next post since this is already a long one.

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Pierre Hermé Paris
http://www.pierreherme.com

French Pastry School
226 West Jackson Boulevard
Chicago, IL 60606
(312) 726-2419
http://www.frenchpastryschool.com