28th June 2008 - Cooking Lessons

Went for cooking lessons yesterday from 10 - 12nn and 2 - 4pm. Very reluctant to wake up after all the rain on Friday. ;p

Did 6 dishes in total but took only photos of 3 dishes. Learned a few simple stir frying / deep frying techniques.

1) Fish slices with Kale. This was delish but a tad salty. Can try this at home if I can find some good white fish around. Now, know how to cook without the dish being too watery and how to prevent the fish slices from disintegrating.

2) Seafood medley. Similar cooking style to item 1.

3) Deep Fry Lychees in Strawberry Sauce. Finally, know how to do the batter. Saw a show last year where the chef did fried fig in batter and after than eat it with ice cream. Looked delish then. Tried the fried lychee hot off the cooking pan and quite liked it. Pity the lychee i tried wasn't very sweet.

The recipe called for strawberry puree sauce but saw the instructor using strawberry jam instead. Anyway, the sauce was good.

Since i wld be coming back in the afternoon for the 2nd session, I left the lychees in the frig. Surprisingly, it tasted even better when chilled.

4) Pan Fried Pork Chops in Tomato Sauce. The tomato sauce can doubled as pasta sauce as well. Next time, dun have to buy bottled pasta sauce. :) We just marinaded the pork with salt and pepper and fried it. It tasted very delish and juicy without any other seasoning.

5) Pan Fried Beef Steak Salad. This was easy to do with same marinade as pork chop.

6) Lime Cream Dessert. This was suppose to be dessert but it was whipped cream with lime juice,grated lime skin, sugar, corn starch! Can be a topping for fruits etc but not consume it alone.

These were our yummy dinner last night.

Anyway, signed up for another three sessions in July and Aug to learn choc cake, blueberry cheese tart and ham/seafood pizza. Can't wait. :))