Saumon Grillé : Grilled Salmon, Beurre Monté a la Ciboulette : Chive Butter Sauce

Just a quick entry 'cause I've got to go out and do some book-shopping before class (which runs from 3:30 to 9:30pm).

It's a Demo pic of course - with my usual excuses for not having one of my own plate. Plus the fact that mine was un unmitigated disaster. The chef's comments:

• Spinach: undercooked, undersalted
  
• Potatoes Byron: unmentionable (I'll explain below)
  
• Salsa: excellent
  

There was some discussion of whether the sauce was a "beurre fondu" or a "beurre monté"; my but aren't we getting esoteric - after just 10 days. Speaking of which - 10 days! the course is 1/3 done! It's going way too fast.

Not in the pic above but included in the practical session are Potatoes Byron (this pic of Roast Pork Ribs has them).
The potatoes...oh my goodness. Made an unrecoverable error. The idea is: a mound of pureed potato, dimple on top, fill with bechemal, top with cheese. Simple enough, right?

Well, while reading my recipe I was doing the sequence as I'd written it: potatoes, smash/mill them, add butter, add egg yolk, top w/ bechamel... and that was the problem. I put the full pot of bechemal, which I had ready and was sitting right there on my counter, right on top, into, the potato mixture - instantly created potato soup! One dollop is supposed to go on top of each dimpled potato mound - not the whole thing into the mix.
Scored a zero on that part I think.

The recipes were actually pretty simple: grilled salmon (marked on the grill & finished in the oven); fancied up cooked potatoes; wilted spinach; a dead simple butter sauce with 1/2 a lemon's juice in it. But somehow we all had trouble bringing it together. I mean, I was born in Canada; have grilled salmon all my life; literally hundreds - and today I screw up. Go figure.

I guess that's my quota; my one bad day this week. So tomorrow ought to be great - Stuffed Veal Rolls.