Dinner at Home: Le Cordon Bleu Paris

Last week, I had the great opportunity to cook for a day at
Le Cordon Bleu Paris! We prepared three chicken recipes, Poulet En Papillote A La Saugle Et Au Citron, Fricassee De Poulet A L'Estragon, and Poulet Facon Sate. All three were delicious.

When I arrived, I checked in and we had breakfast of croissants and coffee. We were then taken upstairs to our cooking room for the day....we cooked in the classroom dedicated to Julia Child!

Our chef, Marc Thivet, spoke in French the whole time but there was an interpretor. We started with the 1st dish, Chicken with sage and lemon en papillote. Then moved on to the Chicken fricassee with tarragon sauce. We started with a whole chicken, cut it into pieces and got busy. The chicken was labeled Loue, the region it came from. Fresh chicken, free-range, never sealed in plastic!

Once we had two dishes completed, we were treated to lunch.....what a spread! Terrines, pates, cheese galore, wine, bread....It was really good and a treat.

The third recipe we made was Satay style chicken. We were given all the food we had made to take home with us. We had also made a lovely potato dish and the chef had made a vinaigrette dressing to go with salad greens, also given to us to take with us. Since "home" was a hotel room, I had some of the food for dinner that night in the hotel cafe and shared with the young man working the desk. He said it tasted like his grandmother's cooking. I took that as a compliment. The rest I shared with the hotel staff working the next day.