Week 2: Intro to Cooking Techniques

So!! This was my second class in this course and on my drive in I told myself, "you know what you gotta do, you gotta be vocal when you need help, don't feel insecure, learn as you go and fuckin' rock it!" I now knew how things went at this school, you get thrown in and you roll with it! If mistakes come your way you pick up, learn from them, and move on. It's kinda like life actually...

This weeks class I also learned how awesome, forgiving, and patient my fellow co-students are! :)

So! What was on the menu for tonight? DELICIOUSNESS!!!! haha

So, like I said in my last post, there are 6 of us in this class, so tonight's class we were split into 2 groups of 3 :) we had hmmm 4 courses to prepare:

Pork Ragout with Tomatoes and Rice
Braised Chicken Legs with Tart Green Apples
Mussels Steamed in Beer 
Poached Pears with Brandied Chocolate Sauce 

So, my team, we made the Pork Ragout with Tomatoes and Rice and Mussels Steamed in Beer. First what we did was cut everything up that we needed for each recipe. We did two Mussel recipes! One with Beer sauce and the other with Wine sauce! We had a shit ton of Mussels so we thought we might as well double it up!!!

Pork

(Since I can't take pics during class because we cook and eat and cook and eat I'm doing google searches for things that look similar to what we made in class...this pic has prunes but you get the hearty feel of it yeah?!! mmmm!)

For the pork we cut the pork in 1in cubes, diced up some bacon, minced some garlic, onion and jalepeno, cut up some green olives and added basil bay leaf rice parsley, tomato puree, balsamic vinegar and chicken stock.
- we first cooked the diced bacon on the pan....
- then we cooked the pork cubes, in batches, in the bacon fat... put the pork and bacon in a pot
- then if needed we added some more oil in the pan and sauteed the garlic, onion and pepper
-In the pot combine all the ingredients except the rice... let is boil then reduce to simmer and cook for 20 min
- add the rice and simmer for another 20 min

DELICIOUS!!!! It seriously was!!!! It was a delicious hearty stew, perfect for this fall/winter season!!


Mussels!


mmm mmm mmm!!!

So, I missed the cleaning part of the mussels because I was working on the pork... I wish I hadn't missed this step! Anyways, you clean them.. but they came pretty much cleaned already but I think my partner like ran them under water and I think disposed of the open ones.

Alright, this recipe calls for diced bacon, minced garlic, leeks, jalapeno pepper, beer, crushed tomatoes, fresh thyme, bay leaf, and butter.
- in a large pan cook the bacon over medium head until golden brown.
- add the garlic and sautee for 30 secs
- increase the heat and add the leeks and jalepenos and sautee for about a minute
- add the beer (or wine), crushed tomatoes, sprigs of thyme, bay leaf, and mussels.
- bring to simmer and cover for 4-5 min or until mussels open
- remove mussels and continue to cook/smmer the liquid until its reduced by half
- add butter and seasons to taste and pour that sucker over the mussels and BAM! delicious!

So, like I said above, we made 2 batches, one with beer and one with wine. We all liked the wine you could actually taste it, it had more of a kick... a sweet kick at that. Couldn't really taste the beer in that batch so it was good but no extra kick to it.

The other dishes were delish!! The chicken was AMAZING!! I wish I made it because the sauce was to die for!! It seriously just slid soo smoothly down my throat and tasted soooo good! It was seriously amazing!

The poached pears were good... I love desserts, hence the Pastry Arts focus, but I'm not a big fruit dessert person... the pear was poached, there was some glaze on it and some chocolate sauce, but I felt it needed more umph...it was good none-the-less

but that chicken!!! seriously can't get over it!! hahaha!

okay! I'm hungry!

Time to cook something up for dinner!

Enjoy your food ya'll!!!