L'Academie de Cuisine, Week 3

When one realizes that one's reputation as a gastronaut and a chef has begun to outstrip one's actual abilities, one would do well to enroll in L'Academie de Cuisine's 20-week semi-professional program. Culinary Techniques 101, which is offered twice a year, focuses on learning to cook without recipes; instead, learning the techniques and thought processes that one needs to become a creative chef. I'll be updating occasionally with what I've learned from each session.

Week 3 focuses on soups, and because it is too hot to talk about butternut squash soup with maple, sage, and bacon (wait till October, and remind me if I forget), I'll now share with you how to make a gorgeous white gazpacho, which is a much better summertime dish. My instructor shared with us the list of ingredients, and I looked at epicurious.com for the approximate proportions, but didn't really measure anything, so please don't take the measurements as gospel.

White Gazpacho
half a stale baguette, ripped into bite-sized pieces
1 cups ice water
2 cups chicken stock
handful sliced almonds
2 cloves garlic
3/4 pound seedless green grapes
3 tablespoons white wine vinegar
3/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
several healthy shakes of Tabasco
1/2 cucumber, peeled, seeded and diced
6 oz sour cream (do not use fat-free; that stuff is revolting.)

Put this all in a blender and whirl it around. My blender wouldn't fit it all, so I put half the stuff in with the stock and half with the water, and stirred it up together in a big bowl afterwards. I now have enough gazpacho to last me through the week, unless someone else finds it in the fridge and snarfs it down first.

(The author started this entry with a rather grand tone involving what "one" ought to do, and ended with "snarf." She finds herself so entertaining.)