Back to school...in the Kitchen
By Giff Recarte

Gone are those days when I would wake up early in the morning where I don't have to drag myself out of bed to attend a class.. on a Saturday morning (discounting the 10 instances where I tried pulling it off almost a year ago by enrolling myself in French class).

That all changed when the opportunity to attend a very inviting and (I think) interesting course came my way -- Cooking.

Last Saturday, I was given an opportunity together with some of my friends Jason, Giles, Fifi and Ruby to attend a Discovery Course offered by the one and only Center for Culinary Arts (CCA).

Just a brief background, CCA's Kitchen Discovery Course was initially exclusive and is a pre-requisite course to all those students who want to apply in any of CCA's diploma courses. It is a course geared towards verifying your interest in culinary arts. Building on that mantra of "discovery", they started offering it to the public to better introduce them to what culinary arts could do for them.

This was one perfect excuse to go back to school, for a day.. and get the chance to choose the best classmates I think I ever had at this day and age -- my friends.

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Me and my friends met up at CCA at around 9am. A short registration and attendance check, and we were on our way to our classroom to begin:

The 8-page material we would be working on for the entire day.

A couple of brief self-introductions broke the class' ice and Chef Menoy Gimenez. "toque-ed" away with his lecture. Chef grouped us into 3 groups and were given the task to go over our recipe for the morning and discuss amongst ourselves how we were going to proceed. I was lucky to be grouped with Jason and Giles but later realized that we might end up with boils in hands or maybe ruin our recipe since neither of us can be called domesticated in terms of um.. cooking. Good thing though, we were with Ian, who's a mom of five, has a good working knowledge on our battle for morning --

Caramelizd Salmon with Orange-Shoyu Glaze with Sautéed Mixed Vegetables, Soba Noodles Lemongrass Beurre Blanc, and Balsamic-Soy Reduction


Chef Menoy "toque-ed" says food should be: Clean, Zen-like, Appetizing


We were grouped into three: The cooks (Left), The students (Bottom), The Newbies (top)


We the newbies were trying to figure out our strategy for our mouthful recipe.

To add a little more pressure, we were led to the kitchen into our working tables and were given the goal to prepare and complete our recipe before 12noon, just in time for lunch.

GULP! Ito na ang lunch natin? =( Galingan natin teammates!!

I felt like I was in a pressure cooker -- prepare and come up with an EDIBLE product by morning's end.


Chef Menoy demonstrates how to cut vegetable shillings correctly.


Our vegetable shillings cut to perfection. They ain't cooked yet, but they already look tasty.


Chef Menoy lectures the class in the most interesting way -- beside a knife and a boiling pan.


Giles prepares the Balsamic-Soy reduction sauce of our dish


While Laarni marinades our salmon in a ginger-sichuan peppercorn-OJ mixture


On other hand, Jason and Ian prepared the Lemongrasss Beurre Blanc sauce of our dish


After marinade, our salmon got a sugar-pepper treatment on top (meat side) to get that sugar-crusted look and taste


In between pans, and while waiting for our sauce reductions to finish, we can't help but satisfy some of the camera whores in us.


Jason points out to Laarni which side of the fish needs more frying.

Unlike any other instance where you would want to receive all the credit you can get, in this class, I lowered my expectations and at least hoped to hear and know that what we did was edible enough to be eaten.


Chef Menoy wrapped up and gave his evaluation in the dishes the different groups produced. For some of us who were first timers, not bad. The dish was really tasty and really good.

I love how the color of the vegetables compliment the color and the taste of the sugar-crusted salmon on top. This just brought my confidence level a notch higher and I can't wait to attempt and cook this on my own!

Next stop, dessert.

Read more at http://gipsterph.multiply.com/journal/item/133/Back_to_school.._in_the_Kitchen_Task_1_Salmon.