Level 1: Culinary Arts Fundamentals
Price 4000euro

The Level 1 “Culinary Arts Fundamentals” welcomes all beginners, without any pre-requisites or prior cooking experience. You will cover a vast amount of material in a short period of time, including the basic concepts, properties and applications that are the essential “toolkit” of a chef.

You will start with essentials such as professional knife-handling, safety & hygiene, then as the program moves forward, you will progress with cooking techniques that are constitute the core elements of French cuisine, such as stocks and sauces, cooking methods, or pastry doughs. Through practical sessions and demonstrations, you will begin to explore the classics of French culinary traditions, and learn to create a wide range of recipes.

Skills & techniques covered in “Fundamentals of Culinary Arts” include:

• Introduction to the professional kitchen: Understand professional kitchen organization (Brigade system, cold and hot workstations), become familiar with professional equipment tools, learn about technical recipe sheets, order management systems, and the essential hygiene, sanitation and food safety practices used in the kitchen on a daily basis. Various food storage and preservation methods are explored (including brining, confit and dehydration).
• Knife skills: Professional knife handling and introduction to diverse cuts for raw ingredients, for instance the various “taillage” cutting techniques for vegetables, such as potato curving, émincer (thin slice), batonnet (small sticks), brunoise (small dice) and paysanne (tile-shaped).
• Stocks, sauces and soups: Learn the Saucier’s art, combining ingredients such as meat bones with aromatic vegetables to create various stocks (brown stocks and white stocks), and mixing stocks with binding to create Escoffier’s five mother sauces and their numerous variations (Velouté, Espangole, Hollandaise, Béchamel and Tomato). In turn, these sauces form the basis for an exploration of a full range of soups.
• Fruit and vegetable-based side dishes: Side dishes are a fundamental element to a successful successful recipe, alongside meats or fish, allowing for a balanced and healthy dish. Learn to identify and classify a wide range of vegetables, starches, grains, herbs and spices, and become familiar with seasonal produce calendar. Prepare a vegetarian menu, and adapt the composition of side dishes to the nature of the item or piece that they will accompany.
• Cooking methods: The use and adaptation of cooking methods plays a critical role in revealing and expressing the subtelty of ingredients (meat, fish, vegetables). The three main categories of cooking techniques are explored: “concentration” (frying, grilling, poaching in hot liquid, pot-roasting, roasting, sautéing, sous-vide, glazing, steaming), “expansion” (braising without browning, poaching in cold liquid) and “combined” (braising with browning, stewing).
• Eggs: An unassuming ingredient, eggs are in fact a cornerstone of French cuisine and pastry. The omelet – a dish that was first recorded in France in the 17th century – represents the perfect intersection of a precise technique and a pristine ingredient. They can also be poached, used in sauces, or whipped into soufflés, for instance. You will explore various eggs cooking techniques and recipes, from eggs Cocotte to eggs Mollet Florentine.
• Fish and shellfish: From learning about categories of freshwater, seawater fish, and shellfish, to fileting a flat fish or cooking a seabass in a sea salt crust, you will explore various cutting techniques, cooking methods and classic recipes for fish and shellfish.
• Meat and poultry: The richness of French culinary heritage takes on its full meaning and expression with the use of ”noble ingredients” such as prime red meat cuts. From deboning a chicken to understanding beef labels, or reviewing meat colour, muscle and fat content, you will learn numerous cutting techniques, cooking methods and classic recipes for beef, pork, lamb, veal, chicken and duck.
• Introduction to pastry: Basic pastry ingredients include various categories of flours, sugars, chemical and natural yeast, butters, eggs, fruits, chocolate and dairy. Discover classic techniques such as making choux dough and shortcrust pastry, as well as savoury creams, ice cream and fillings.

Recipes covered in Level 1 “Culinary Fundamentals” include:

• Beef Consommé with vegetables brunoise
• Velouté Dubarry
• Eggs mollet Florentine
• Asparagus with mousseline sauce
• Beef Tournedos Henry IV, béarnaise sauce
• Poached chicken, Supreme sauce and Madras rice
• Green crust lamb rack, pesto, tapenade and vegetables “tian”
• Duck breast orange style, curved baby artichokes and potatoes
• Veal loin stuffing and wrap in cabbage leave, polenta with reblochon heart.
• Seabream filet with vegetables scales, duxelle mushrooms stuffed lettuce, “Beurre blanc”
• Dover sole “Colbert” style, cauliflower gratin
• Lemon Meringue tartlets
• Raspberry charlotte cake
• Apple tart Tatin upside down, vanilla ice cream