A gourmet Christmas meal served at Balzac

Cosne-Cours-sur-Loire. Christmas meal at the Balzac restaurant. Olivier Pereira, chef at the Pierre-Gilles-de-Gennes vocational high school in Cosne, and his kitchen brigade, made up of a dozen apprentice chefs, had the immense honor of cooking with Guy Gateau, trained by Henri Trottier from La Celle-sur-Loire and former executive chef of Alain Chapel, three stars in Mionnay (Ain).

The project took shape at the beginning of September with the selection of menus for this Christmas meal.

This result is the fruit of the work of the students who began to be prepared on Tuesday, with Guy Gateau's credo in mind: “We must know how to transmit the greatness of our profession”.

The meal prepared by this team was divided into three main plates. After an Alain Chapal-style appetizer “chicken liver cake” with Spritz Saint-Germain then gargouillou style Michel Bras and Anne-Sophie Pic, it is a hymn to autumn, a farandole of vegetables, mushrooms, condiments, all immersed in a chicken broth washed down with a viognier from Saint-Guilhem-le-Désert.

Paul Bocuse was at the origin of the second plate, an Élysée soup for Valéry Giscard d'Estaing washed down with a white Côte-du-Jura. Alain Passard's meat dish is local free-range chicken on hay with Château-Chinon de la Bonnetière. A cheese platter before a dessert fruit of Pierre Hermé's imagination, the Ispahan, which is a macaron made from rose, raspberry and lychee with its sweet cream and its crunchy shell, a Clairette de Die is perfect for this dessert .

This high-quality gourmet meal was served by the restaurant brigade with its nine students coached by Éric Doussaint.