Private Cooking Lessons: Client One
Last night I completed my first series of private cooking lessons. My client and I met three times over these past two weeks, and clocked in about 15 hours of kitchen work. It was a great learning experience for myself and I'm happy to say for my client too. I loved creating a customized syllabus of dishes that I knew would work for my client's needs, and seeing her excited and eager to learn. I think the best thing about learning to cook through private lessons is the fact that it is one on one. We are in this together and there are truly no wrong questions or answers. There's no reason to be shy about admitting you don't know how to do something in the kitchen. I think this makes the person learning a lot more at ease and able to take on their cooking tasks. I broke this blog post up into the three sessions I had with my client, and through the pictures you can visualize what it would be like if YOU were to be taking lessons and learning some of those cooking techniques you have been dying to master ;)
Session One:
For session one we made chicken salad over a garden salad, a cucumber salad with roasted salmon and a fruit salad. We also made a classic vinaigrette and a tarragon dijon sauce to go with the salmon. All very basic but very useful skills.
We began the night seated in the dining room going over printouts that my client took home with her that included basic knowledge like what tools and equipment you should have in your kitchen, the types of knives you should use, along with other helpful information she can now refer to when she needs it. In the kitchen we sharpened knives, and learned all of the different knife cuts, and how to clean and cut different kinds of fruits and vegetables.
The Fruits of our Labor, if you will.
Session One is always going to be a lot of work, not a lot of glory. You are learning very important skills in the kitchen that may not be too exciting, but they will make you a better cook and they are very necessary to learn. We won't cook very much in session one, the focus will be totally skill based, not flavor based, but the following sessions will become fun and exciting and you will definitely taste your achievements!
Session 2: Coq Au Vin
Session two was cooking my version of Coq Au Vin, a manageable yet really delicious dish that is sure to impress your guests, and also make you very proud of yourself. We started out by breaking down a whole chicken. Then we sautéed our mushrooms, rendered the fat from some thick cut bacon, browned our chicken in the bacon fat, cooked our mirepoix (onion, celery and carrot) and added our braising liquid, some seasoning and the browned chicken to braise in the oven. Once the chicken is done, we remove it, strain the sauce and reduce it while skimming the excess fat off the top. My client did a great job and handled all of these directions very well. I also think she plated the dish very nicely, I gave her full freedom with it. It was a session that we both felt really happy with.
Session 3, 6 hours of cooking:
Our first recipe was a turkey sausage and sweet potato hash with a poached egg. Our session took place on a Sunday afternoon, so we started with a little brunch. A hash is a great thing to learn, because it is so versatile. Once you learn how to dice and chop you can come up with endless combinations of ingredients. Poached eggs are also a great egg to learn how to properly cook. They are healthy but taste decadent, and really what beats that?
The next recipe was an Italian meatball cooked in a nice spicy marinara sauce over some creamy polenta. We had a lot of fun making this dish, and I think this was my client's favorite dish, to cook and to eat. It's such a satisfying and comforting dish it was hard not to eat a bunch of it and call it a day ;) This is a great meal to learn and have in your repertoire, you can cook it early in the week and make a couple of meals out of it. It's also a crowd pleaser.
Next up was some grilled zucchini with a lemon, caper and mint dressing. My client did a great job grilling the zucchini and she loved learning to make supremes with the lemons. This was a fast dish that turned out really well that taught her some good techniques to learn.
Last but not least was the risotto. We made our own seafood stock and prepped all of the components, this is known as mise en place. It's good to train yourself and spend time prepping all of your ingredients before you begin to cook, and your food will turn out that much better. We seared the scallops, made the risotto and plated it. We enjoyed a nice bottle of wine, the risotto and zucchini and discussed our sessions. My client took notes throughout and she knows she can always email me with questions.
As I said in the beginning of the post, we both were very happy with the way things turned out and it was great to see my client grow and learn in such a quick amount of time. I wish her the best of luck in her future cooking endeavors!