Day 1: Bibimbap (Basic group)

Above is my beautiful bibimbap! 

Bibimbap: Today marks the beginning of "The Art of Cooking!"

A blog by Kenzie Frazier



 First, the entire J-Term group met in a classroom at 8:30 to debrief on the course, in which Maestra Novak gave us the rundown on her expectations for us for the next nine days. Then, the basic group left for the Bissonnet Campus while the intermediate/advanced group stayed behind to work with their own chef at the Museum District Campus.


Chef Jessica showed Niko, Harper, and 
the rest of the kids how to properly cut vegetables.
Upon arriving at the Bissonnet Campus, we made our way to the school's kitchen and met our instructor, Chef Jessica. She gave us a brief lesson on some knife techniques before we got into cooking, where we learned how to cut all sorts of vegetables, like carrots, onions, garlic, and more. Then, once we had the basics down, we proceeded to prepare everything we needed to make our bibimbap; bibimbap is a Korean dish composed mainly of vegetables and rice, as well as meat on occasion. We split up into groups and started cutting all of the vegetable ingredients that Chef Jessica provided us with.


Camila, Ellie, and Khadijah were pro's with the knife!

Charlie was quick to get the hang of things once we got to chopping.



 
I took the lead on the finishing sauce...
which is why it was so delicious! ;)

   Once everyone finished cutting their vegetables, we began making the sauces; there were two sauces we made, a gochujang sauce, and a finishing sauce composed of oyster sauce, scallions, and soy sauce. Once we finished making our sauces in our groups, we individually selected the vegetables we wanted in our final dish for ourselves and cooked them with our meat (some students, including me, substituted the beef with tofu). Meanwhile, Chef Jessica cooked some rice for us to eat with everything else we had cooked. 




Khadijah, our other vegetarian, decided to grill some bell peppers to go with her tofu. 


Evan loooooved his bibimbap!

     When everyone finished cooking their vegetables and Chef Jessica finished the rice, we plated everything and ate! The food was absolutely delicious. After finishing our lunch, we went back to the kitchen to clean up our mess before we rounded up outside the kitchen to discuss the day.

Mr. Grisbee led our post-clean-up round-up, where we shared our thoughts on the cooking experience.


I think I speak for everyone when I say today was a huge success and we all had tons of fun!

Evan, Niko, Owen, and Harper were having a blast at the cutting board.




Strike a pose, Jacobs! Even the teachers got in on the fun.
Thank goodness for Chef Jessica! While we took the lead on our own cooking, she made sure to help us out when we needed it. Here she is giving Charlie some tips.

Things can get hectic in the kitchen, which is why it's important to take a break sometimes! Evan made sure to stay hydrated throughout the day by taking plenty of Gatorade breaks.





Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Day 3 Beginner: Pastry Crust - Charlie Brisch

Image
All the groups' quiches and fruit tarts Pastry Crust Makes Many Different Things    By Charlie Brisch   Today on Art of Cooking, the beginner group worked on making pastry crust for quiches and for fruit tarts (I also made lemonade). The similarities between quiches and fruit tarts are astounding, especially since they share the same pastry crust. Each has its own filling, the one for a fruit tart being a lot sweeter than the quiche. Quiche filling is more customizable, with different veggies and cheese. I personally wanted to make ours spicy and use jalapeños, but one of my group mates disagreed and suggested potatoes which we then settled on (I fixed the spiciness problem with hot sauce). Khadijah separating egg whites and egg yolks We used havarti cheese on our quiche, and other groups used different cheeses. While our quiches were cooking, we worked on designing our fruit tarts. We looked up different pictures for inspiration on the fruit tarts, and each group had a wonderful d
Read more

Day 7 Cupcakes and Cooking Competition

Image
  Cupcakes and Cooking Competition  By Harper Young Red velvet cupcakes Sienna 1st place Camila 1st place We started off the day by making the batter for the cupcakes. We learned how to use a new kind of flour and the reactions vinegar and baking soda have when baking. Chef Jessica also explained the science of baking which was very interesting to learn and know more about. The hardest part of the day was separating the egg whites and the egg yolks putting them into separate bowls. Each group was required to do that process for 15 eggs. We then put our batter into trays and put them in the oven After 18 minutes in the oven the cupcakes were ready to be taken out and decorated. Before we decorated the cupcakes, we stopped right before lunch to present our individual products for the cooking Contest. After we ate and presented our projects we returned back to class and started the decorating process and making our frosting. After we made our frosting it was time to put it in a bag and to
Read more

Day 4: Nigerian Meat Pies: A Handheld Treat! (Advanced Group)

Image
The finished savory empanada topped off with the turkey filling. Alice coating the empanadas with egg. Although today started off with a chilly bus ride, the day shortly got better as we walked into the kitchen. The meal that we made could be looked at as an empanada, but the technical term for the ones we were making were called Nigerian Meat Pies. As we walked into the kitchen, we were surprised to find out that an extra chef would be helping us out today! The recipe we were following to make these delicious pies actually belonged to Chef Jessica’s friend, who was so kind to come in today and cook her own recipe with us. We started off by cleaning the surfaces of the kitchen to keep our food clean, and we split off into groups and began cooking. Alex peeling and cutting apples. At the end of the meal, we would have sweet empanadas and savory empanadas, so each group had to make lots of dough. Kneading the dough was a strenuous task, so while some members would knead their anger out,
Read more