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Tuesday, April 15, 2014

Week 12 at San Francisco Cooking School

Week 12 has come and gone, and I still have all my fingers.

We've started working on pastries!  We kicked off the week with more pasta and pastry dough.  We made a savory tart for quiche, and a sweet tart for a dessert tart.  I made an awesomely delicious quiche with caramelized onion, mushrooms and garlic with gruyere cheese, and then I came home and made another quiche! 

Brandon Jew, of Bar Agricole, came to our class and we worked on a duck recipe.  We didn't have an actual recipe, Brandon gave us direction and we filled in the blanks.  We of course got to cut up ducks again.  I was on the team that worked on the duck breasts and we had a really awesome spice combination that was rubbed on the duck.  We then smoked the duck breasts and while that was happening we worked on quick pickling some tokio turnips.  It was an interesting day to say the least.  Everyone got to through in their ideas and opinions about what kind of spices we should use and the best way to combine everything.

Sonoko Sakai came to class to teach us more about umami and introduce us to dashi.   It was a bit of a chaotic day but in the end everything we made was delicious.

The rest of the week was dedicated to menu classes where we put up a three course meal.  We made one of the most amazing appetizers ever, a scallop salad with fava beans and turnips in a lovely buttery sauce.  Sooo delicious.  (Pictures courtesy of my classmate Mandy.)


We used our sweet tart dough for a strawberry tart and man was it beautiful.  I can't wait to see what we do with the rest of our yummy pastry doughs.


We're kind of worked into a rhythm in class, it's wonderful to be able to rely on everything to get things done.  We're so much faster and more efficient than we were in the beginning.

:)M