Is there such thing as Ratatouille Soup?

Culinary Arts Level One Day Three: Product Identification. I arrived early. I was the first one there. I was as prepared as I’d ever be. I had a list of equipment and ingredients. I had done a mental check of where in the kitchen everything was and planned how I would most efficiently stock my station. Ingredients in one circle of the kitchen: bowl for produce on right front prep shelves, non-refrigerated produce on shelf above front left sink, refrigerated produce in refrigerator along left wall, onions and garlic under back right sink… one more round for my equipment and I should be set.  I was ready to take out my equipment, get my produce, and start cooking away like a pre-programmed machine!

One of Chef’s rules is “No books in class, so write your recipes on note cards.” Get your mis en place… including your mind in place. Check.  

Recipe cards for Ratatouille

Wooah hold up. I have been assigned a partner? The recipe (quantities) changed? We’re not doing this in the order I wrote down?  Why did I bother writing these recipe cards to “organize myself”? Well, Chef, you just destroyed any mental mis en place! 

Recipes: Nicoise-style vegetable ragout (Ratatouille), Roasted beet and goat cheese timbale with apple and vinaigrette. Great, but let’s throw these damn cards in the compost.

Fast forward….

Chef yells, “Seven minutes”.  This is like Top Chef or something? “Seven minutes” means SEVEN minutes to finish, plate, and present your dish to the Chef for tasting and evaluation. He might yell fifteen minutes or three minutes, but it was seven minutes. I open the pot of Ratatouille … and it looks NOTHING like Chef’s. There is way too much liquid. It has not reduced. I need fifteen minutes. I take a spoonful, blow on it to cool it down, and sip it in my mouth. My mouth is burning. I begin a dance around the kitchen. BURNING! How do I spit this out in the kitchen without being a total clown and breaking EVERY sanitation rule we just learned? I continue my dance, with an open mouth watching the steam rise. I burnt my mouth. BAD. And swallowed the semi-very-warm liquid moments later.

I finished my dance and went back to my station which looks no better with a burnt mouth.With too much liquid the ratatouille will not stay in its form (timbale or round mold). I quickly think of and suggest two options to my partner: (1) turn up the heat (2) strain it before serving. He seems indecisive and I'm the consultant so I turn up the heat and in five minutes end up straining the soup anyway.

Unsuccessful. After lifting the ring mold, liquid seeps out from below our beautiful round and takes over the beautiful white plate destroying any attempt at presentation! Every effort at making our Ratatouille look remotely appetizing has failed. We quietly present the dish to Chef.

Chef only has constructive feedback. The “flavor profile” has not developed because it did not cook long enough. I respond, “Yes Chef, but you said seven minutes. Can we cook it through dinner?” Another twenty minutes and that Ratatouille was DELICIOUS. Forget the pork Level Fours sent down for family meal. I had Ratatouille and croutons.

Leftover Ratatouille for lunch

Oh, but the Beet Salad? "Delicious!" as reviewed by Chef. GREAT success! Except for when I decided to take it home and wrapped it in foil… and got on the train only to learn that the beets had drained into my white bag, all over my white shirt. Good thing I stocked up on OxyClean.