Paris Cooking Class: Christian Constant
 

Today we spent a most enjoyable morning in Christian Constant's kitchen in Le Violon D'Ingres. Things start with welcoming croissants and beverages at 9:30, then everyone is aproned up and led into the kitchen for a demonstration/participation. Today we peeled asparagus and shelled petits pois and feves. He made a soup of the petits pois shells which are sautéed in olive oil, then boiled down in salted water, sieved, and enriched with a little cream and served with freshly fried tiny croutons made from pain de mie from Poujauran. Then we were given an up close and personal introduction to an agneau du lait, he demonstrated removing the loin from the saddle, dosing it with rosemary, thyme, parsley, etc., before wrapping it in crepinette, then foil and placing it in the oven. While the lamb roasted, he prepared the garniture from baby veggies...peas, carrots, onions, asparagus. The feves were served as a simple salad dressed with shallots, chopped Serrano ham and a vinaigrette. We moved into the patisserie and prepared strawberries with marscopone cheese, enhanced with vanilla, and a reduction of honey, ginger and lime. After we dispatched with great enjoyment the morning's efforts, we then de-aproned and walked just down the street for lunch at his tiny seafood restaurant, Les Fables de la Fontaine...oysters, smoked haddock, shellfish soup, Merlan Colbert or roasted cod, then a fine light chocolate terrine. M. Constant is a delight, gracious and full of humor and his charming Scottish wife did the necessary translating.

I wanna do that! Cooking is my joy so maybe one of these fine days I'll be there.

I read about this on ParlerParis. That article didn't announce the price,either. So Laid? What? Does one say budget between 150 to 200 E's for this? That's what I would imagine...

oui? Non?

Just for the experience of a class with a chef of his reknown, I'd do this in a New York minute.

The cost including a full lunch is €185. We started at 9:30 and it was about 2:30 when we finished lunch.

Laid,

You prepared all that, ate it (or 'dispatched' it as you say), and then went to lunch ?

Mon Dieu ! Sounds like a mighty lot of food, n'est-ce pas ?

Sounds like an excellent course, Laidback. Isn't peeling asparagus fun? And was it the white or green variety--I'm gussing green, since white mostly appears in May (and is harder to peel!).

The food prepared during the course was fairly small amounts,and there were 11 of us, so we nibbled on it as amuses bouches. Jean you are correct, the green variety is the 1st to come in, but it was choice and delicious.

Jean,
did you notice the similarity of the feve salad I described above to the one you had at Bistro Jeanty?

Correction; not Bistro Jeanty but the CIA Graystone restaurant; sorry