Cooking 101

I got to experience my first ever cooking class tonight at the Whole Foods store in Napa. It was a lot of fun. I can't say that I learned too much, but it was something nice to do with Jim. The class was entitled "Cooking With Beer." We did a beer braised beef stew, a cheddar and beer soup, and a Guinness beer chocolate cake with Creme Anglaise. I was pretty devastated that I ruined the Creme Anglaise, and that bummed me out for the rest of the night. Jim tried to be nice and say it was his fault since he was whisking, but I knew that he wasn't going to pay attention to it, and so I shouldn't have let him whisk or else I should have watched it more carefully. It started to curdle, which was a big no-no.

Anyway, to back up, the class was male dominated (wonder why), with 5 men and 4 women. We got to wear chef jackets, which was pretty cool, although the frog clasps were beyond difficult to button. So we started with the beer stew first. I should preface this by saying that the recipes are super simple, with only a few ingredients and not a whole lot of chopping. For this recipe, it only required a chopped onion and a couple of red potatoes. They were sauteed together in EVOO and then the beef was added before the beer went in, and that was it, with the exception of salt, pepper, and a couple of bay leaves. Very simple and almost boring (one of the other participants actually said that it was boring).

The Guinness cake was next. I did the dry ingredient measuring while someone else melted the butter and chocolate and combined it with the beer. Interestingly enough, this cake had the sugar and flour mixed together. Anyway, the eggs and sour cream were beaten together in the KitchenAid and then the chocolate mixture got mixed in before I dumped the dry ingredients in to finish it off. It was a huge recipe, making three 8 inch cakes.

The soup was equally simple, although I could immediately tell that it was going to be pretty good based on the ingredients. I also chopped up the onion and someone else did a green bell pepper. Those were sauteed in some butter, and then in went beer, flour, thyme, and a bay leaf to make a roux. After the chicken stock was added, it simmered for a while before being finished off with some heavy cream and sharp white cheddar cheese.

While the soup simmered, the Creme Anglaise was made. I whisked together 6 egg yolks with some sugar. I learned tonight that organic eggs are way different than regular ones. The whites are much waterier and thin in consistency. I lost my first egg yolk as a result. I was so embarrassed--I couldn't believe I failed at separating an egg, since I've been doing it for something like 20 years now. I just wasn't expecting the white to be so slippery. Anyway, I took more care with the rest of them and was fine thereafter. The yolk mixture was combined with a warmed milk and vanilla bean mixture and then whisked over the stove until it became a custard. Or in this case, a curdled custard. Sigh.

I was little disappointed that I didn't learn more in the class. I mean, I had a lot of fun, but I didn't learn anything new. I thought we'd be learning about what flavors in beer paired with what kinds of food. Our instructor was nice, but way too kick back and not instructor-y enough. She's not the regular instructor, so I'm definitely going to try other classes. And I did get a couple of great recipes out of it. Jim didn't stop raving about the beer soup. It's certainly easy enough to make, so I'll be whipping it up sometime. And the chocolate cake was pretty amazingly moist. I couldn't taste the beer in it, but maybe it added moisture. Who knows. All I knew was that it had a great flavor and wasn't overly saccharine sweet. Maybe that's what the beer did--enhance the depth of the flavor?

Afterwards, we went out to Pizza Pirate with L and his friends A and T. Good times. Those three went wakeboarding today. It was T's first time, and he's now hooked. And A did better the second time.