Cooking

So. Cooking class.

Honestly speaking, i like to be the one eating, not the one cooking. xD

Especially so when it comes to finger food. It's a major thrill to be knocking back piece after piece after piece but when it comes to preparing them bloody unnecessarily pretty things... Bah!

I enjoyed the lesson immensely nonetheless.

Voila!

This is what the class churned out after.. about 5 hours. Spectacular, ain't it? Well, mostly done by Nathalie (Arbefeuille, apparently a professional French chef) who was our teacher. Sorta. Lecturer. Instructor...

The thing about finger food is that they can be easily be improvised, or modified into mains / starters / desserts and so i jumped at the chance to learn how to make 9 types of finger food from Nathalie.

#1 Coffee Liegeois.

Some sorta coffee caramel cream dessert, and is pretty fantastic.

#2 Pear and Gorgonzola Toasts

Strange combination. But surprisingly tasty.

#3 Crab Toasts with Chili, Lemon and Parsley.

Nothing to say about this. You can easily imagine the taste, right?

#4 Tomato Tiramisu

The best! Ever! wtf! The tomato tiramisu is the most pesky one to make. Pesky! Each layer requires some attention to ingredients. Two types of tomatoes, vinaigrette etc. But the end product is something... remarkable. Very very delicious, and rich.

#5 Thin Apple Tarts

Oh this one i can definitely make! Ahaha! Easy peasy. It's a thin sorta apple tart without any custard filling in the middle, but it's crisp and has a slight sourish apple tinge to it. Not bad.

#6 Pumpkin Cream and Goat Cheese Ravioli

By right the ravioli wasn't supposed to puff up like that but due to some unprofessional ravioli wrapping skills, some air got trapped and it expanded like hell when deep fried. Goat cheese ravioli was cool combo, something like a cheese wan tan and it's absolutely delicious when hot from the frying pan.

Pumpkin cream was passable, but pales in comparison to the one my mum can make. xD

#7 Quail Egg Tapenade Toasts

Oh this was way fun. The quail eggs were nicely cut out into round shapes. And gently laid onto tapenaded toast. Tapenade is basically some black olive anchovy pate. V. salty.

#8 Smoked Salmon Potato Toasts with Dill Chantilly

This is pretty simple also la. Just potato with smoked salmon. The chantilly needs a bit of work [see below].

#9 Prawn Skewers with Lemon Soya and Coriander

This is the only dish that required actual stir-frying on a pan.



To make the finger food above, one does not really have to have much advanced cooking skills (like wok-flipping, stir-frying, deep-frying etc) but it does require quite some whisking and even more baking. So you can fare pretty well with a trusty oven, and a electric hand-whisk

Whisk whisk whisk. This is the dill chantilly which is whisked cream, pretty much the same concept for the Coffee Liegeois. Sinful.. Sigh.

Golden brown toasts, as the toast base for #3 and #7. Toasts, lightly smeared with olive oil and baked for 5 minutes. Like i said, once you have this, you can easily modify with whatever toppings. The sky's the limit. Just pop open one of those canned tuna mayo and boom! It's done. No need to grab chili-ed crab meat into balls.

Getting ready for the Quail Egg Tapenade Toast. Apparently she once made 200 of these for some event at the French embassy. Ganas. XD

Nyahaha! Triple quail omelette, Evolution Style!

Sliced gala apples for #5 thin apple tarts. She had a whole OCD about neatly sliced, neatly stacked apple slices to be neatly arranged on the tarts. :P

The pro herself, squishing mascarpone mixture onto the tomatomisu.

imo, the best ones were the ones that were more pesky to make. These two in cups. The tomato tiramisu and the coffee liegeois. :P

am interested to experiment. and more interested to take up something that requires real cooking skills, i.e. frying stuff. geez, i still remember the exploding butter incident. will just ask dad to teach me.