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| The dish of the day on Friday: Lion Head Meatballs |
As we finished our short 'trip' in Europe and Mediterranean our next destination is Asia. The first stop was China, or to be more detailed Chinatown in Oakland. On Tuesday, the first day of class, we went to a field trip. We visited Ranch 99 Chinese grocery store in Berkeley, Dim Sam Palace Chinese restaurant in Oakland, Koreana Plaza market Korean grocery, and Chaat and Market an Indian store and cafe in Berkeley.
This field trip was interesting, but we spent way too long time at grocery stores. Our instructors needed to buy some ingredients for class and we got 45 minutes time to discover unfamiliar ingredients. In a normal day, when I do grocery shopping it rarely takes 30 minutes for me. Here I got 45 minutes, and I did not buy anything.
Dim Sam Palace was
a good experience, the way food served to the customers is different. Waiters there are moving around the tables with carts. Each cart has different set of dishes, or just one dish. Guests at the table are offered dish from the cart and if they want it, the dish moves from cart to the table. In this case the waiter will mark special form on the table, that the dish was served.
Chaat and Market was not really remarkable. There was a grocery store with assortment of Indian spices and canned sauces. They also has cafe there. The lassi was good, but how difficult is to make it? A few small dishes we tried there were just OK, nothing outstanding. I guess the reason we got there was the same - the need to purchase something for the school.
So we had just three days in the kitchen last week. As Monday was a faculty day at the school (free day for students). Tuesday we had the field trip.
Wednesday.
We started cooking Chinese food. For the first week I was a team sous chef, which was all right, a little bit extra work. Our menu was:
Shanghai Fish Soup
Stir-Fried Chicken with Glazed Walnuts
Mu-Shu Pork with Pancakes
Steamed Whole Fish with Seared Scallions
Quick and Easy Chinese Greens
Steamed Rice
My recipe was Shanghai Fish Soup. The menu in general was not complicated at all. As to compare wit the previous classes, here we have so much time in general, as Chinese cooking is usually a very quick. For my soup I had to get all ingredients, cut them accordingly, and then wait for just 30 minutes before the service time to start cooking the dish. The chef said the soup was good, with a clean flavor. I did not like it. I think only because I am not an asian guy, and also because there was tofu in the soup. I do not like tofu at all.
Thursday.
The menu changed, the country was the same. Our menu for the day was:
Stir-Fried Chicken with Glazed Walnuts
Mu-Shu Pork with Pancakes
Steamed Whole Fish with Seared Scallions
Quick and Easy Chinese Greens
Steamed Rice
My recipe was Shanghai Fish Soup. The menu in general was not complicated at all. As to compare wit the previous classes, here we have so much time in general, as Chinese cooking is usually a very quick. For my soup I had to get all ingredients, cut them accordingly, and then wait for just 30 minutes before the service time to start cooking the dish. The chef said the soup was good, with a clean flavor. I did not like it. I think only because I am not an asian guy, and also because there was tofu in the soup. I do not like tofu at all.
Thursday.
 |
| Pan fried dumplings |
Pan-Fried Dumplings
Shanghai Noodles with Pork and Cabbage Canton Roast Duck
Crisp Swimming Fish
Braised Spicy Tofu
I cooked dumplings. It was a fun to make a dough, make a filling, assemble these dumplings. What was not fund is to find some ingredients. We have two groups doing the same Asian class in the afternoon. Instructors made their life easier and there is only one order from purchasing department for two classes. So we git It was a bit easy for me, as I spoke with a girl in the morning class while she was making these dumplings. I saw how she did it and she explain it to me. So when my instructor showed me how to make them (as he said he is not great at this), I already had an idea what I am doing and how it suppose to be. Good thing is that I made a sampler for the filling to taste. It was not seasoned enough, so I adjusted the seasoning.
The final dish was good, the chef said that there suppose to be a dipping sauce, but the recipe had no mention of this.
Friday
We had the same menu with an addition of Lions Head Meatballs.
I cooked Crisp Swimming Fish and together with Sam we made Lion head meatballs.
The fish was super easy. Prepare fish (scale, clean), make a sauce (just cut, mince, and mix all ingredients), 15-20 minutes before service cook the fish in a wok. It took about 7 minutes to cook it. After that cook some vegetables in a wok, add sauce, bring to boil, pour over the fish.
The meatballs were more collaborative. We had to soak dried shiitaki, mix ground pork with a lot of other ingredients, make taster to make sure the seasoning is fine. Start making the sauce (to cook dried mushrooms, then adding aromatics). Deep fry meatballs for a short time to seal the outside. Place them in the sauce and cook in the oven till just cook. At this stage I had to move to my fish and left the dish to Sam. He removed meatballs from the sauce, added mushrooms, thickened the sauce with corn starch, checked the seasoning, and plated the dish. Meatballs were the dish of the day. As per our chef he have not seen proper cooking of dry shiitaki for a long time, the flavor and consistency of the sauce was spot on.
Shanghai Noodles with Pork and Cabbage Canton Roast Duck
Crisp Swimming Fish
Braised Spicy Tofu
I cooked dumplings. It was a fun to make a dough, make a filling, assemble these dumplings. What was not fund is to find some ingredients. We have two groups doing the same Asian class in the afternoon. Instructors made their life easier and there is only one order from purchasing department for two classes. So we git It was a bit easy for me, as I spoke with a girl in the morning class while she was making these dumplings. I saw how she did it and she explain it to me. So when my instructor showed me how to make them (as he said he is not great at this), I already had an idea what I am doing and how it suppose to be. Good thing is that I made a sampler for the filling to taste. It was not seasoned enough, so I adjusted the seasoning.
The final dish was good, the chef said that there suppose to be a dipping sauce, but the recipe had no mention of this.
Friday
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| Crispy Swimming Fish |
I cooked Crisp Swimming Fish and together with Sam we made Lion head meatballs.
The fish was super easy. Prepare fish (scale, clean), make a sauce (just cut, mince, and mix all ingredients), 15-20 minutes before service cook the fish in a wok. It took about 7 minutes to cook it. After that cook some vegetables in a wok, add sauce, bring to boil, pour over the fish.
The meatballs were more collaborative. We had to soak dried shiitaki, mix ground pork with a lot of other ingredients, make taster to make sure the seasoning is fine. Start making the sauce (to cook dried mushrooms, then adding aromatics). Deep fry meatballs for a short time to seal the outside. Place them in the sauce and cook in the oven till just cook. At this stage I had to move to my fish and left the dish to Sam. He removed meatballs from the sauce, added mushrooms, thickened the sauce with corn starch, checked the seasoning, and plated the dish. Meatballs were the dish of the day. As per our chef he have not seen proper cooking of dry shiitaki for a long time, the flavor and consistency of the sauce was spot on.
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