A One Day Cooking Class

[kbjesq]

Our local community college recently started offering one day "creative cooking" classes, held on Saturdays, in the same facility where the culinary arts students study during the week. I've always been interested in culinary school, but never had the opportunity to take any classes.

The first class focused on Italian cuisine.

Here is the kitchen - it was fun using the professional cooktops, ovens, walk-ins, etc.:

While some of the other students made soup, our group worked on an antipasta. I inadvertently added some sun-dried tomatoes that were supposed to go in a later pasta dish, but the chef didn't yell at me:

The chef showed us how to properly break down a chicken - we made boneless butterflied breasts for one dish, separated thighs and drumsticks for another, and the remnants went into the stock pot:

I sauteed the mushrooms for the Chicken Marsala:

Here is the Chicken Marsala:

Since I used up the sun-dried tomatoes in the antipasta, the chef showed us how to make oven-dried tomatoes, which we used in the Chicken Calabrese. They tasted great, but they didn't do anything for the appearance of the finished product:

We also made fresh pasta, including ravioli and tortellini. The chef gave us a tasting of this wonderful cheese that I had never tried before: white gorgonzola with dried apricots. I thought it would have made a great ravioli filling with browned butter and walnuts:

Here is the finished ravioli with garlic cream sauce:

We also made fettucine:

I'm not big on desserts, but we made tiramisu and cheesecake and both were good:

The chef's assistant was a 2nd year culinary arts student with a great deal of enthusiasm.

Her duties for the day included doing the dishes, so several of us stayed behind to help her clean up, which wasn't too bad since we had these sinks to use:

Next week is Pacific Rim Cuisine, where I'm promised to "learn about the many different cultural influences on food of the Pacific region".

[K8memphis]

Wow, you really got a lot packed into your day. Gorgonzola with apricot wow.

Didja make the sausage?? How was it?

The sunflowers really perk up the kitchen too. Nice happy touch.

[kbjesq]

Wow, you really got a lot packed into your day. Gorgonzola with apricot wow.

Didja make the sausage?? How was it?

←

Yes, we did make the sausage, but another group was in charge of it. We ran out of time towards the end, so we skipped the garlic peppers and simply added the sausage to one-half of a marinara sauce that we prepared.

The experience was great, except that the first time that I entered the walk-in (a new experience for me), I had a flashback to scenes from Kitchen Confidential. I got in and out of there as quick as I could without looking around too much.

Preparing all of this food in just 6 hours was exhausting - I have a new appreciation and heightened respect for those who toil in professional kitchens.

[K8memphis]

Cool. I'm looking forward to next week's installment.

[Anna N]

You certainly did pack in a lot of interesting stuff into a single day. Thank you for sharing!

[Pan]

I enjoyed the report, and the food you made looks good.

One small thing that surprised me: I'd expect Manicotti to be listed under Primi, not Secondi, since it's a pasta dish. But you didn't make any of those, anyway, right?