In the last three weeks I have been able to cross off two major items on my never-ending culinary bucket list: learn how to make homemade pasta and roll my very own sushi.
I realize it鈥檚 an odd combination of flavors, but our gastronomical tour over the past 10 lessons has spanned from Sardinia and Naples to Tokyo and New Delhi. We finished our lessons on traditional Italian cuisine, with each of us preparing a daily portion of fresh pasta dough in place of doing knife skills. I consciously try to keep my 鈥渙oh鈥檚鈥 and 鈥渁hh鈥檚鈥 to a minimum during chef demos, but my excitement got the best of me as I watched Chef Mike roll out a perfect ribbon of fresh pasta. There was one very audible 鈥淭his is INCREDIBLE!鈥 heard from the back of the room. My inner food nerd, who apparently isn鈥檛 so inner, just couldn鈥檛 contain herself. I wish I could say I kept it together through our tour of Asian cuisines, but today鈥檚 lesson on how to roll sushi got the best of me.
Thankfully, I at least kept it to a (barely) whispered 鈥淥h. My. Gosh.鈥 But with every new technique and every new recipe, I find my excitement growing. I mean seriously, we鈥檙e talking about a girl with a life goal of learning how to make Beef with Broccoli, so as you can imagine, Module 3鈥檚 tour of the culinary globe has been a dream come true. We prepared fresh curry powder, stir-fried our way to mu shu and sizzled our newly acquainted Far Eastern palettes to fresh scallion pancakes.
We wok鈥檇 and we feasted, and each day the food tasted better and better. I find myself looking less at full recipes and more at the general techniques. I feel confident knowing that I can read one word and know that 鈥減an-fried鈥 means that the oil should be halfway up the item I鈥檓 cooking. I鈥檝e thrown caution to the wind and even prepared an original dipping sauce based on Chef Mike鈥檚 instructions to include the Asian flavor profile of salty, sweet, sour, bitter and umami. While more confident than ever, I still feel as if I鈥檓 right back to Module 1 where everything is new and incredibly exciting. The phrase, 鈥渓ike a kid in a candy store鈥 couldn鈥檛 be more appropriate ... Module 4 pastry here we come!
Coming up next: Module 3 Practical Exam
