Cooking classes continued: Potatoes, rice, pasta

This must have been my favourite class out of the three I got to take (first two here and here). It made for a very filling lunch with our:

• Fresh pasta dough
• Scalloped potatoes
• Cranberry pecan rice pilaf
• Zucchini parmesan latkes
• Sun-dried tomato risotto

I was beyond excited when I heard that we were making fresh pasta dough as I had never done that before! My husband’s aunt gave us with a pasta maker over a year ago and we haven’t even touched it. With my “experience,” we’re planning to make pasta this weekend or next with homemade pesto.

Mixing the eggs into the flour – we used this Polish flour Chef Anthony wanted to try. Apparently SEMOLINA is the best flour to use for fresh pasta!

Dough nearly completed – just needed to rest for an hour

Thinly slicing the potatoes

Layering the potatoes

Look at that!

The onion + cheese + cream + stock mix we poured over the potatoes with cheese on top. Then off into the oven it went!

Grocery list

Starting on the rice pilaf

Straining the grated potatoes for the latkes to remove excess liquid and starch

Chef Anthony showing us how to cook the latkes – they need to be moved around and flipped quite a bit

We cooked our own latkes

FLIP

My beautifully browned zucchini parmesan latke

Chomp chomp

Letting the rice pilaf dry and the pasta dough to rest

Now my favourite part – making fresh pasta

We made both fetuccini and angelhair.

 

Cooked in boiling water for a few minutes then served simply with olive oil, parmesan cheese, and parlsey so we could really taste the difference of this fresh pasta vs. dry pasta. And yup, there really is a difference in texture and taste!

Fresh pasta is best served with delicate sauces where the texture of the pasta can take front stage (like above), whereas dry pasta is best suited for hearty dishes like ragu sauces, soups, and casseroles since its firm structure will hold up better with other ingredients. (Source) Store fresh pasta in the fridge and use within two to three days. Dried pasta, of course, can be stored (pretty much) indefinitely.

The finished scalloped potatoes fresh out of the oven! Comfort food at its best~

Delicious sun-dried tomato risotto – my favourite

Unfortunately this was the last class I could take before leaving for Québec City. I shared some of the great food we made with my family at home:

Many thanks to Chef Anthony and Home Chef School for making my first cooking class experience so much fun, informative, and filling! At one point during this starches class, a lady from Culinaria Restaurant came in the kitchen and asked me, “Oh dear, what’s that on your neck?”

In my head I thought, What? What thing on my neck? I felt that comfortable in there that I even forgot that I had a broken neck and a neck brace on! I then snapped out of it and told her my little story.

As my culinary adventures now continue in Québec City where I currently live with my husband (and where 95% of people speak French as their first language), I plan to take more cooking classes. (Of course, being the hyper-planner that I am, I’ve already looked all of them up online.) As of now I’m going to French school to improve on my French – maybe next month I will be functional enough to survive a cooking class! #goals

UPDATE, October 2015: I did it!

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Home Chef School at Culinaria Restaurant is located at 5732 Kennedy Road, Mississauga, Ontario L4Z 1T1. They run various cooking classes year-round (except during the summer) for adults (including couples), kids, teens, and office groups of all levels.

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