Cooking class

I attended a cooking class through Leisure Learning on Monday, and it went really well! It was my first hands-on class, and I didn't really know what to expect. It was held at a house, but this is no ordinary house. The house has a large kitchen with the stove arranged so that it overlooks the next room where there were two long tables set up for us to sit at. Surrounding the stove is a HUGE counter, great for prep work. Above the stove and work space are mirrors set so that we can see what is happening in the kitchen from our seats. It is a demonstration kitchen owned by a chef and rented for such classes by our chef-instructor.

I love Asian food so chose to take a class called "Spring Roll Workshop" and I was not disappointed. First we made four different sauces (one person made each of the sauces). I made a sweet and sour sauce, someone else made a peanut sauce, classic sauce, and an oriental sauce. We did the sauces first so that when we made each of the dishes we could eat them with one or all of the dipping sauces. I tried all four sauces, and my favorites were the sweet and sour and the classic sauce.

Once the sauces were made we moved onto the food - we made spring rolls and also made classic Chinese eggrolls, and dumplings. I definitely need to practice the rolling, but was pleased with how well they turned out, and they tasted great too. I love that this food is forgiving, especially the spring rolls its really put in it whatever you like (glass noodles, shrimp, cucumber, carrot, etc). Here is a twitpic of the last of the spring rolls that I made: http://twitpic.com/251po4 I was so pleased with how they looked and tasted.

It took me til the end of the night, but I finally realized that the oriental sauce reminded me of the sauec they serve with dumplings at this great dumpling place in downtown Houston. mmmm, dumplings

I will definitely be practicing these dishes at home!