Thursday, April 3, 2014

Cooking Class- Knife Skills



In Book Club last September we read the book, The KitchenCounter Cooking School, by Kathleen Flinn. This book is about a chef who takes a group of women (all in different places in their lives) and teaches them basic cooking skills that will help them eat more healthy and natural.  We all loved this book so one of my friends, Tanaya, arranged for us to have our own cooking class.  Her neighbor, Nate, is a chef at Colterra, a very fancy expensive restaurant in Niwot, and he agreed to come and teach us some things.  

Our first class was a knife class, in which he taught us how to properly hold a knife (I have been doing it wrong) and how to cut different veggies.  We cut onions, peppers, celery, carrots and potatoes and Nate demonstrated cantelope and tomatoes. I learned a TON of stuff and really enjoyed the class.  Here are some of the things I learned:
- If you chill your onions they will hurt your eyes less and make you cry less. Onions should always be cut horizontal, not vertical. 

- You can lay a pepper flat and cut out the seeds/white part and then you have a flat surface to cut (usually into spears and then to dice). 

-You can do the same thing, as peppers, with tomatoes. Lay it flat and scrape out the seed part (which often is not used in professional cooking because it is hard to digest).  Then it is a flat surface to dice and makes clean cuts and works great in guacamole or salsa

- You should peel your celery- this takes off the top layer and the stringy parts that make it hard to cut and eat.  You can do this no matter what you are using it for- even veggie trays. 

- You should always cut one side of the veggie/fruit flat to give yourself a balanced and steady object to cut.  
Jaime is afraid of onions- so she wears goggles! Hot New look!




*I put all my chopped veggies in one bag to take home and sauteed them with cummin for dinner last night.  We ate that (as the rice) with some flavored chicken and it was delicious and super healthy. 

We are hoping to have another class and we will be focusing on meats (he is going to teach us how to cut up and use an entire chicken)!

2 comments:

Stones said...

How cool is this?! How come my neighbor isn't a cool, educated chef?! Or maybe they are and I just don;t know! To meet the neighbors! Glad you enjoyed your class and got to learn something so interesting and helpful!

Tanaya Larsen said...

Cute pictures; my arm even made one! The one of Jaime is a classic. Thanks for documenting!