Cooking Basics for Adults at Rainbow Recreation Center Culinary Academy

Saturday, June 8th was the commencing of Rainbow Recreation Center's Culinary Academy's Cooking Basic for Adults, which will total six Saturdays ending July 13th. The class starts at 11:00 am.  Arriving early gave me the opportunity to introduce myself, settle in and have a brief discussion with Chef Scott. I found out that Chef Scott graduated from The Culinary Academy in San Francisco and he worked in many Bay Area restaurants for years. Adults attending the class will learn basic techniques to help prepare restaurant quality dishes at home. Skills learned in this class include dicing vegetables, sauteing, roasting, searing meat, how to make pan sauces, and how to make healthier substitutions of ingredients.

Chef Scott had everything prepared for our first session. Raw chicken thighs were laid out on a tray, diced vegetables in separate containers which consisted of onions, celery, carrots, garlic, portabello mushrooms, parsley, salt, pepper, butter, cooking oil, tomato paste, broth, and wine.

Class started with Chef Scott going over basic rules of the kitchen and how important it is when many individuals are in the kitchen to announce to everyone when moving about with hot skillets and sharp knives to prevent injuries.

Chef Scott demonstrated how to season and sear the chicken then moving it to the oven,  next he added the different chopped vegetables in the skillet along with the other prepared items to complete the sauce. We were all able to taste the sauce and boy was
it delicious.

Next, every student duplicates the process Chef Scott demonstrated at separate stations with cutting boards and sharp knives. With aprons on and clean hands, Chef Scott gave techniques on dicing then we all we went to work dicing carrots, celery, onions, garlic, portabello mushrooms, and parsley. Next, we seasoned the chicken with salt and pepper added a little oil to our individual skillets and began the searing process. After searing the chicken it was moved to a pan and placed in the oven until done.

With the leftover oil from the seared chicken, we added the vegetables, stirring until almost transparent adding the remaining ingredients to the complete the sauce. Every student was able to lay out the chicken and sauce in a plate for presentation.  We all enjoyed our prepared dish and boy was it delicious.

My Motto is "Always be Open To Learn Something New" 

Stay Tuned, we will share our Journey with Chef Scott.