Cook school confidential: cooking with bread

Food waste is important to consider in any kitchen, be it professional or at home, and it’s a topic Merlin is particularly passionate about. That’s why his second dish made use of something that is all too often ignored – calf brains.

While the cook school was all about the versatility of bread, it was clear that the brains were going to steal the show. Offal has a sense of bravado about it and brain is possibly the most visceral of the lot, despite being the least ‘in your face’ in terms of flavour. It’s actually very mild and creamy, with a foamy texture similar to sweetbreads. They’re simple to cook, too – once the brains have been soaked for twenty-four hours in milk to remove all the blood and poached in stock for ten minutes, they can just be dredged in seasoned flour (again from Gilchesters Organics) and fried in butter and lemon juice.

Merlin then whipped up a simple sauce made from veal stock, capers and parsley, which added another layer of flavour. There was still one thing missing from the dish, however – the bread. A slice of very crusty, flavourful sourdough was toasted and placed on the plate, with the perfectly cooked calf brain plonked on top. If you want to give the recipe a go yourself, take a look at the recipe here.

Once everyone had polished off their brains on toast, it was time for Le Cordon Bleu’s own chef Dominique Moudart, a master baker who knows how to create some of the finest loaves in the world. He demonstrated how to make a sweet Easter bread, plaited and filled with sweet dried fruit. It was like the nicest, lightest brioche the group had ever tasted, and certainly looked the part. Everyone left with a new appreciation of bread – both baked from scratch and incorporated into recipes – with a realisation of how important quality ingredients are when baking at home.