In Case You Missed It: Day 1: What's an Olympian doing in a Kitchen?
I'm way too white.
For those of you who have been with me for some time, you might well have read this - an account of my first day in a profession Michelin starred kitchen. I set myself a goal to write up all 100 Days, but only got to Day 30 before Life got in the way. Life has now got out of the way, again, and I’d like complete the goal and write more of chef stories. There have been a lot of new subscribers recently, who haven’t read the first episodes, so I thought I’d resend a few of them again. Here is Day 1 (plus some tips on peeling langoustine)…
I’m way too white.
Today is the first day of my first chef stage. Day 1 of ? (I don’t know, the goal is 100, but that depends on many things. More of all that later.)
And as I stand in the kitchens of El Monastrell – a one-star restaurant in Alicante – and I look around at the other chefs, I realise something is amiss: I’m way too white. My whites are too white. My apron is tied too carefully. My trousers too neat. I stand out like a big sore white thumb. But I hardly care.
I can barely contain the excitement. I’ve been searching for some years to find something to replace the buzz of being an Olympic judo athlete. Who would have thought that I would find it by working in a kitchen?
To understand any of this I need to take you back to the start, and the day we cooked a soufflé to order at Leiths; when I think it all began.
I never saw it coming, this chef thing.
I’d enrolled in a nine-month professional diploma course at Leiths Food and School of Wine looking for a new challenge, maybe a change in career. Becoming a chef was not on my radar.
When people asked me what my plans were after the course, my answer went something along the lines of ‘well there’s no way I’ll end up in a kitchen…’
I liked the idea of becoming a food stylist. Or maybe I could try my hand at food writing. At worst, I figured, I was going to come out of the nine-month course knowing how to cook.
But then came the day of the damn soufflé.
At some point, during the class, we are tapped on our shoulder. This is the signal that we are to begin making our soufflé. We have 15 minutes to produce it from scratch, and a two-minute window on either side of the deadline to deliver it to the table. More than two minutes late and we will have failed the test.
My tap comes, and I’m off. Oven goes on. Eggs are separated. Butter and flour into the pan. A white sauce is made. Ramekins are buttered. I check the clock. I whisk the whites. The clock ticks down. I mix. I pour, and I place my soufflés (ever so gently) into the oven, and now I hope. Will they have enough time to rise?
And as I wait for them to rise or fall, I realise I am smiling.
Adrenaline is rushing through my veins.
Life after being a top sportsperson is hard to get used to. You miss the tension of the arena, the daily drive, and motivation, the buzz when you win, the frustration when you lose. Well, it turns out that adrenaline tastes and feels the same.
No matter if you are delivering a soufflé to order or preparing for a judo contest the adrenaline rushing through your veins feels very much the same.
Chef Life
Parallels between chef life and sports life are quickly drawn.
The daily grind. Sacrifice. Routine. The search for self-improvement. Focus. Drive. Creativity. Technique. Not to mention the adrenaline rush.
Shortly after the soufflé short order, we had to do our first placement – a chef stage – and spend a week in a professional kitchen, working without pay.
I chose a week in El Monastrell, a kitchen near where I live in Alicante.
Allowed to do all sorts of jobs; I worked with liquid nitrogen, peeled lobsters, and prepped sea urchins, and by the end of the week, I was plating up for service.
On my final day, leaving the restaurant, I stepped out into the fresh early morning air, returning to the real world from a bubble of excitement and focus that had absorbed me for the last few hours. I pretty much knew then I was hooked.
And so it is that I find myself, today in a kitchen.
I’m back in El Monastrell in Alicante – a one-star restaurant owned by Maria José San Roman.
New, white and awkward. It’s in everything, in the way I stand, the way I hold a knife, and it’s in the way that I move around the kitchen.
And as hard as I try to disguise it, and blend in, I’m sure those who have been in the kitchen for any amount of time, can spot I’m a novice chef stagiare a mile off.
First job. Prep the langoustines.
Marcos takes the first langoustine and shows me how to turn it on its side and firmly with the heel of my hand to press and crack the shell before twisting its head off and tail off, making sure I pull its intestine tract out as I twist.
Marcos nods over to the crates on the countertop. About a hundred langoustine, some as long as my forearm, poke out of the crushed ice.
We get going. Marcos peels about five langoustine to my two. Now and then, as I twist the heads off, dark, red langoustine brain squirts over my chopping board and onto my jacket.
And just like that, my whites are no longer quite so white, the journey has begun.
Want to join me on this journey?
For the next 100 Days I’m staging in Spanish Michelin star restaurants. In the next episode, I learn how to retain all fingers and thumbs while chopping at speed.
How to Prep Langoustine
Langoustine / Dublin Bay Prawns / Norway Lobster / Cigalas / Scampi.
How to Peel Langoustine
Want to extract the body from a raw langoustine? These crustaceans are not so easy to peel as their softer prawn-like cousins. Here’s how:
Method 1: Crack and Peel
If you read my ramblings about my first day in the kitchen above, (and I thank you if you did) then you’ll already know about the Crack and Peel method. It’s not as fast as the Snap and Slide method, but it is easier.
Here’s how
Twist the head off and pull the intestinal tract out.
Lay the langoustine on its side.
Place your hands over the top.
Apply pressure with your hands until shell cracks.
Peel the shell.
Keep in Mind
As you twist the head aim to pull the intestinal tract out with the head.
When you crack the shell don’t be too heavy handed or you will mush the langoustine.
Save the heads and claws to make a shellfish stock.
Method 2: Snap and Slide
This second method is faster.
Here’s how
Hold the langoustine in your finger tips.
Snap the shell on both sides by bending it to both sides.
Turn the langoustine over.
Place your thumb on the tail (to trap the end of the intestinal tract.)
Push the body upwards with your thumb.
As you do, use your other hand to gently pull the body away.
The intestinal tract will come away with the tail.
Slide the rest of the body out of the remaining shell.
Keep in Mind
Take a look at the back of the langoustine body and you’ll see the shell is made up of six parts. Hold the first three parts in one hand, and the other three parts in the other hand.
You really don’t need much strength to snap the shell - just a sharp but gentle bend one way, then the other. This breaks the anchor making the rest of your work easy.
Once you’ve done the thumb on the tail bit, you can simply slide the rest of the body out from the shell by poking a finger from the head end down.
Save the heads and claws to make a shellfish stock.
👨🍳 I’LL BE BACK SOON WITH ANOTHER EPISODE OF OLYMPIAN KITCHEN AND ANOTHER DEEP DIVE. OVER THE NEXT MONTH I’LL BE LOOKING AT GAZPACHO, BAKING FISH WHOLE IN SALT, AND HEALTHY PANCAKES!
👨🍳👨🍳 IN THE MEANTIME, DO LET ME KNOW HOW YOUR 17 MINUTE PAELLAS* ARE COMING ALONG!
NIK X