My birthday presie from Pat this year was a cooking class at Le Gourmet in Orange. We've both been obsessed watching Master Chef lately so talk about a perfect presie for both of us!
We arrived, signed in and when everyone arrived we were herded to the back where there was a kitchen area with a semi circle like counter around. The class had 12 people and it was a very fun group.
I feel terrible because I never did catch our chef's name, but he led us through a very cool class with tips and tricks to cooking.
Our menu was:
Crab Cakes wit Corn Puree and a Jalapeno Lemon Aioli
Pan Seared Ribeye with Chimichurri
Homemade Fries
Roasted Brussel Sprouts
Oreo Bread Pudding with Creme Anglaise
His 1st tip was keep the fat. He said he always keep all the fat then re-uses it for things like flavoring up stuff. We snacked on some little fried pieces of fat he cut off the ribeye we were making later. Pretty tasty!
Another tip I found interesting - was he keeps all the skin off onions. He then drys it, cooks it on a baking sheet for about 30 min - crunch it up - your very own onion powder! What a cool idea!
Before we got started we got the one pic of ourselves!
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| Cooking Couple |
Next up he had us all cut up onions. I hate cutting onions. I just can't not cry when doing so. I was probably one of the biggest criers in the class. Sigh. He showed us some creative ways to cut though. This big guy next to me was also a crier so we shared in each others sorrow. I told him when I cut onion I usually go outside with a pair of sunglasses to cut. LOL
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| Cut those onions babe |
He then kind of assigned different people different things to do. Some came up and worked on the Aioli, some started on the brussel sprouts, and so on and so forth. It was a lot. I helped ball up the crab cakes. Pat ended up being the Paprika man. It was pretty funny. This chef uses alot of Paprika. Said he prefers it to Garlic Powder and other spices usually. I found that interesting.
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| Paprika Pat |
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| Our chef is the guy in the baseball cap |
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| Mixing up the Crab Cakes |
When the real heavy duty cooking started, me and Pat were assigned seasoning the steaks. Hell yea we were! Then Pat was one of the main cooks of the steaks.
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| Yeah baby |
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| The chef has us use more pepper than we would have used, but still delish! |
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| Getting there! |
Once it was all done, it was all laid out ready to carry into the dining area. We all grabbed a dish or two and headed in.
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| Our finished dishes! |
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| Finally sitting down to eat |
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| Oreo Bread Pudding. I'm not normally a bread pudding but these were amazing! |
All the food was spectacular! The dining room was a little snug for 12 of us, but everyone was very cool. My only complaint was that the night was really really long. We started at 6:30 and didn't sit down to eat until 9:30pm. That is way too late for me to eat so my stomach started cramping up and I could only eat a tiny bit. Either they need to start the class much earlier, or we should eat some of the dishes during the cooking class. But other than that it was really fun and we learned some new tricks and got some great new recipes that we certainly plan to make again. I've posted some of them below.
I'd love to take another cooking class or many. I truly am loving venturing more into the culinary world!
Crab Cakes:
1lb fresh crab meat
2 oz red bell pepper
2 oz green bell pepper
1/4 cup mayo
2 eggs
2tbs Worcestershire
1tbsp lemon juice
1cup bread crumbs
In a bowl, mix all ingredients except crab. Gently fold in cramp meat. Season with salt and pepper. Roll into 2 oz balls. Proceed to roll crab cakes in flour, egg wash and more breadcrumbs. Saute in a pan until cooked.
Lemon & Jalapeno Aioli (For Crab Cakes)
1/2 cup mayo
2tbsp lemon juice
1/4 jalapeno (no seeds)
Blend together lemon juice and jalapeno. Mix in mayo. Season with Salt & Pepper.
Chimichurri Sauce (We put on the Ribeye)
1/2 cup olive oil
2 tbsp red wine vinegar
1/2 cup chopped parsley
4 gloves of garlic
2 red chiles
3/4 tsp dry oregano
Mix all ingredients together in a bowl. Allow to sit for 5-10 min before serving.
Oreo Bread Pudding
2 cup cream
1 cup of oreo bits (he had us separate out the oreo cream and throw that into the Creme Anglaise)
6 eggs
1/2 cup sugar
Bread
In a bowl, whisk together eggs, sugar, cream and oreos. Cut bread into cubes. Fold bread into mixture and bake for 30 min at 350 degrees.
Creme Anglaise (For Bread Pudding)
1 cup cream
4 egg yolks
1 tbsp vanilla
1/2 cup sugar
In a pot, bring sugar and cream to a simmer. In a separate bowl whisk egg yolks and vanilla together. Slowly pour cream over egg yolk mixture. Bring back up until thick over low heat
Enjoy!
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