Highfield Hall Cooks!

Sushi, Spring Rolls, and Thai Fried Bananas

When I asked the Young Epicureans what they wanted to do for the last class Stephen piped up with a quick, "SUSHI!" Chloe, from the Kids Café is also a huge sushi fan and had been asking for it since the first session. I'd put them off because sushi requires a little bit of extra focus. Not to mention some tools I didn't yet have in the kitchen. Namely, these:

Rice paddles and bamboo mats. It's quite possible to make sushi without either of them, but I knew the plastic wrap method would be much too difficult for the kids, so I ordered a bunch from Ming's Pantry, which turned out to be right up the road in New Bedford, of all places!

When I told the Kids Café and Young Epicureans kids that we'd be making Sushi some of them were a little worried because they thought they were going to have to eat raw fish. I let them worry until the day we were scheduled to do it, and then explained to them that sushi is actually just "vinegar rice." It is often garnished with raw fish and vegetables, but it doesn't require raw fish. Sashimi, on the other hand, which we weren't making, is raw fish.

I gathered together some sushi rice (a medium grain), nori, a rainbow of bell peppers, celery, cucumber, avocado, carrots, tofu, and some fresh herbs, and we made sushi. The rice is easy to make. Just rinse the rice in water until it is no longer cloudy, steam it, and then season it with a mixture of rice vinegar, sugar, salt, and mirin. Some people recommend fanning the rice so it will become shiny and have a pearl-like appearance, but I wasn't particularly concerned about that for this exercise. I figured we'd be lucky to get something the even approximated the look of a California roll.

I have to say that the kids, all of them, surprised me. The Kids Café cooks really enjoyed the prep. There were even some moments of extreme silence, which hasn't happened since the first day of the first class ever when they were all too terrified to do anything but stand silently at attention. The peeled and julienned and chiffonaded (is that a word?) their little hearts out.

They had the focus of a herd of Ninjas. And they made some pretty fantastic-looking sushi rolls.

We also made fresh Thai spring rolls

My teenagers did a great job the Friday before too

In addition to Sushi and fresh rolls, the Young Epicureans got to make Thai fried bananas—basically just bananas wrapped in eggroll wrappers and pan friend. I suggested rolling the banana in Chinese Five Spice powder and sugar first, but no one was brave enough to try.

Henry's a very nonchalant chef. Calm and collected.

Emily, on the other hand…I'm not sure who took this picture, but it's a beauty!

Stephen thoroughly enjoyed his Thai fresh roll (although I think the peanut dipping sauce was a little too spicy for him). AGAIN we missed Dominique—she was in a chorale competition. Her group won, so I guess it was worth missing all of us for something a lot less tasty.

 

Spoil ‘Em Then Shock ‘Em

I've kind of adopted this little policy in my head that if I know I'm going to challenge the kids' taste buds one week I'll spoil them a little bit the week before. Call it a false sense of security, if you will. This is not to say that we go crazy and make, say, candy houses and chocolate flowers (although now that I've said it the idea intrigues me) or break out a box of mac and cheese (I'm not the least bit intrigued by that idea), but I'll usually give them a break with something I know they're going to love—like things made with enriched bread dough. The only trouble with yeast bread was that I couldn't figure out how to accomplish some good artisanal loaves in these short, once-a-week classes. First of all, we don't have a mixer big enough to handle a large amount of dough and all that mixing and kneading by hand would more than likely be too difficult for all the kids (including my Young Epicureans) and secondly, there simply isn't enough time for all the mixing, rising, punching, rising, and proofing in one class.

And then I found this:

 

What a great book! The mixing is minimal and the dough does all the hard work by itself. All the kids have to do is combine the ingredients in a bowl, make sure everything is incorporated, and then leave it on the counter to rise. Then it goes in the refrigerator for up to five days. It's so easy that I was even able to have the Kids Café class mix small, individual batches and combine them in one big plastic container for later use. There were variations in each little batch, but together they made a great dough.

For Friday's Young Epicureans class I mixed the initial batch of dough (they mixed another one later for the Kids Café class). While I was mixing someone came into the kitchen to talk to me and I lost track of what I was doing. As a result I halved the amount of water I needed and doubled the amount of honey. Since we were doing sticky buns in that class I decided to let it go, but cautioned the kids that it was going to take extra time to rise. Because of my error we didn't bake any that night and instead everyone took them home to rise overnight for baking in the morning. Just so I could see the results myself I brought a batch home too and was pleasantly surprised.

(I'm most likely going to adopt the accidental recipe and use it instead of the recipe from the book!)

That same night the Young Epicureans made Souffléed Banana Pancakes with caramelized bananas and every one of them came out great. (Unfortunately I was camera-less that night, so you'll just have to take my word for it.)

Two days later my Kids Café kids made pecan sticky buns too, but they also made Challah bread.

They enjoyed rolling and braiding the dough.

And they decorated with poppy seeds.  A few of them seemed underwhelmed with the size of their loaves, but their disappointment dissolved the moment the hot, steaming, golden breads emerged from the oven.

My favorite part of the day (and I think it might be theirs too!) is when they get to taste what they've eaten. Inevitably a group of them ends up under the small table having a conversation while they devour the fruits of their labor.

It’s a Long Way from Three to Thirteen

It is, really. Thirteen year olds are light years away from three year olds in so many, many ways, but when it comes to handling dough they're closer together than they might think. They also really, really like pizza.

In this class, of course, there's a lot more freedom (and time) to come up with some unique creations.

I was glad to see them using their sautéing skills to cook onions, and their newfound knowledge of stovetop pepper roasting to roast and peel peppers to use as another topping. Sliced mushrooms were also a popular addition.

As always, there was friendly goofiness, fun conversation, and lots of giggling, all of which I am not allowed to blog because I'm sworn to secrecy in spite of my whining that they are leaving me with very little blog fodder.

 

Instead of telling you about teenage romance, friendship dramas, and general goofing around I suppose all I have left to report is that we also made Italian sugar cookies, but none of us was particularly impressed with the results. They were dry and, in retrospect, could have used a generous drizzling of icing.

 

Stir Fry-day

Friday nights are fun in the Highfield kitchen. That's the night I have the teenagers in to cook. When I first started teaching this age group I wasn't sure I'd be able to relate to them all that well since it's been…um…let's just say a while since I was a teenager, but truthfully, these kids are pretty terrific. They rib each other mercilessly, but they are incredibly respectful. They may whine occasionally about the copious instructions on some of my recipes, but they're all in the kitchen with me because they want to be. They love to cook. There are no cliques, no popular kids vs. not-so-popular kids, they're equals.

(Henry did not want his picture taken. Stephen insisted. Luckily I was a quick shot because Henry got away a fraction of a second later.)

During our last class we made Chinese Chicken (tofu for our vegetarian) Stir Fry with brown rice, Chinese dumplings, and fortuneless fortune cookies.

The atmosphere was positively jovial. Everyone was relaxed and happy and it was great watching them work while they laughed and joked with each other. There was a lot to do in three hours, but just about everyone got everything done with a little time to spare.

Emily's mom declared Friday nights her favorite because Emily is nice enough to share her goodies. The only thing these kids need to work on is their cleaning skills. Fortunately, I've got some ideas for motivating them to work harder in that department. [Bwahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!]

 

 

End of Session: Young Epicureans

I will admit that I was a little nervous about taking on the teenagers every Friday night, but they were honestly a joy to be around. They truly seemed to enjoy the social side of their cooking classes—playfully ribbing each other about things they'd done in school that day; trading stories about bus drivers or teachers; and even gleefully tormenting each other about mistakes they'd made in previous classes (that green tea ice cream kept coming up, much to Henry and Ove's chagrin—and to be fair, it wasn't entirely their fault). It was wonderful to watch them bond the way I bonded with my fellow culinary classmates all those years ago. There's a unique friendship that grows over the kitchen's work tables and behind the line in front of the fire, and that was evident even in my laid back classroom environment here at Highfield.

Last week was so busy in the kitchen that I didn't get a chance to blog the previous week's class. We made a variety of things with Phyllo dough, which is one of my favorite things to work with because the result is almost always beautiful. I gave them four recipes, but most only made it through two. Not surprisingly, everyone managed to make a batch of Banana Pecan Strudel.

Several also did the Spanakopita or the Apple Brie Walnut triangles.

Stephen literally had the focus of a ninja during that class and he broke with his classmates who all began the evening with the strudel by opting to start with the Apple Brie triangles.

At the end of class Stephen and Emily requested Apple Pie and Crème Brulee for their final class, so that's what we did.

Emily was the only one who really knew how Crème Brulee is made, so she did hers first. Everyone else started with apple pie. Consequently, about an hour into class Emily got to burn her Crème Brulee. As soon as the rest of them saw that torch come out they all ran over to see what was going on and immediately asked when they could do theirs. Suddenly there were 10 Crème Brulees in the oven! All in all a great job by everyone this session, and Stephen definitely wins the award for most interesting looking apple pie. Unfortunately I wasn't able to get a picture of it, but to me it looked like an igloo or the top half of a beehive. A very tall pie, indeed.

For all those who have asked, the next session begins right after April vacation and registrations are being taken now. Have a great break and I hope to see you in my next session!

Green Tea What?

Stephen wanted to learn to cook salmon, so this week I settled on a menu of pan-seared Asian-style salmon, steamed broccoli and basmati rice.

The fish was marinated in rice vinegar, fresh ginger, mirin, and soy sauce and was accompanied by two sauces—wasabi and sweet honey-soy. Stephen and Dominique teamed up and prepped the salmon and sauces while Gabriella took on the rice and broccoli. Nicolette, David, and Matt got to work on some hippenmasse (or tuile) cookies to go with dessert. What was dessert, you ask? Well, you know, here's where I could distract everyone with a discourse on the humble tuile, because tuiles are interesting and fun. Their sweet, sometimes almond-y, thin, crispy goodness is loved by one and all. And they can be molded into a variety of interesting shapes, which makes for some good old-fashioned kitchen fun. See? There you were, right there, running off on your own personal tuile tangent, right? Me too!

Alright, alright, the dessert. I'll admit that until Friday I'd never made Green Tea Ice Cream, but it seemed like the perfect end to our Asian-inspired menu with the bonus of being green for the upcoming St. Patrick's Day celebrations. I'd also recently had good success with Chai Tea chocolate, so I ran with it. I even did my matcha (green tea powder) research and found one produced expressly for creating green tea ice cream and desserts. I figured if they made it just for ice cream it had to be good.

Henry and Ove were eager to take on the task of making a custard-based ice cream in spite of (maybe because of) my warning that the ice cream was far and away the most difficult item on our menu. They took their job seriously and once they got past the initial confusion over egg whites and yolks they mixed and measured and whisked and tempered and they did it with some serious panache. Henry dutifully kept watch on the temperature while Ove stirred and stirred. The eggs cooked a little, but we managed to save the custard, cooled it, and put it in the machine to freeze. At that point all we could really say was that it was very, very green. We left it to do its thing while everyone took a turn cooking their salmon, then we stopped to eat.

Right around the time that last picture was taken the ice cream was ready. I tasted it and knew it was going to go over like a ton of bricks, but encouraged everyone to try it anyway. To my surprise, they all did, even after several of them ran to spit it out. The verdict? Green Tea Ice Cream tastes exactly like….green tea! Really, really strong green tea. The recipe is definitely not a keeper, but success is in the eye of the beholder and I beheld 11 budding chefs (Emily was in a big figure skating show and we missed her!) approaching this experiment with open minds. They were willing to challenge their taste buds and THAT is what this is all about.

(That said, I promise to make a tastier ice cream next week since they were such good sports about the Great Green Tea Experiment of 2008.)

 

Young Epicureans Make Chicken Quesadillas

And they did it completely from scratch! Tortillas, salsa and all. During this class everyone seemed a good bit more relaxed. Some arrived early and got started grating cheese before moving on to mixing dough for their tortillas. It took a while to roll those tortillas to appropriate sizes and thicknesses, but everyone was successful. The paper thin ones, like David's, turned out the best. You could literally see through his uncooked tortillas.

It seems that David, whose mom drives him all the way from Yarmouth for this class, has some mad tortilla-rolling skillz—unlike my not-so-focused tortilla-photographing skillz. You'll have to trust me that this was by far our most gorgeous tortilla. Large, round, thin, and quite clearly focused in person. (Maybe it's the camera?) That cutting board is 12 inches wide, just to give you an idea of how hard he worked a little 2-inch ball of dough.

While the dough was "resting," before we rolled and cooked the tortillas we made fresh salsa.

I was overjoyed to see all of them using all the ingredients in the recipe—even the scarier ones like jalapeno peppers and cilantro. Some even bravely tasted the raw jalapenos. The results of that little experiment were, let's just say, mixed. The cilantro we had, incidentally, was gorgeous and almost intoxicatingly aromatic. It filled the kitchen with its unique scent while we cooked. Some of the kids even took a bunch home, which pleased me to no end.

Their sauté skills are improving. This week we sautéed chicken, red bell peppers, onions, garlic, and tomatoes for the quesadilla fillings and many of the kids are beginning to get the hang of flipping their ingredients in the pan to mix without using a spoon.

That's Emily demonstrating her two-handed technique in the first picture. Those pans are heavy and Emily may be small, but she's mighty! In the second picture you can see Gabriella (in the middle) frying her tortilla on a dry sauté pan.

After the vegetables and chicken were cooked it was time to add a little olive oil, stack the quesadillas (tortilla, a few tablespoons of cheddar and Monterey jack cheeses, chicken, vegetables, and the final tortilla) and pan fry on both sides. Then onto a plate and time to add the garnish (salsa, reduced-fat sour cream, and avocado).

Behold the final product:

Spectacularly unique and tasty! Everyone ate some, some ate everything, and others took home about half of what they made in our new and fancy Chinese takeout containers. A great time was had by all! Next week we'll work on our recipe reading, measuring, and dish washing skills (I'm not sure, but it may have been a shock to find out that there are no pot-scrubbing gremlins living inside the Highfield dishwasher)….

A special thanks to Nichole Litchfield for volunteering her Friday night after a long day of landscaping to help us out.

Have a great week everyone!!

 

 

 

Young Epicureans Off to a Great Start!

Last night I welcomed twelve new budding chefs (ages 10 to 16) into the Highfield kitchen. Some sauntered, some swaggered, a few chattered away right from the start, and the rest quietly found a spot around the large stainless steel prep table at the center of the kitchen. The boys outnumbered the girls two to one. As they lined up side by side in front of their cutting boards they were all suddenly quiet. Really, really quiet. Unnaturally quiet. So quiet that I asked whether they planned on always being that quiet, because that kind of silence is really kind of unnerving. Especially in my kitchen.

No doubt you already know this, but they really aren't that quiet.

We started with some basic knife skills—how best to hold the knife, how to use a guiding hand, and how to dice vegetables. The first vegetable? A culinary staple. The humble onion. And lo, they did cry. Tears streamed down their faces and the laughter and chatter began. The shared experience of crying over onions brought them out of themselves and got them all talking. We moved on to carrots, took a break and made some dough, then cut up some celery and the chicken I had cooked earlier in the day. They were well on their way to making a dozen unique chicken pot pies.

The first five jumped at the chance to take a turn at the stove. Butter sizzled in their hot sauté pans as I moved down the line filling them with the onions, carrots, and celery we'd cut earlier. All of them were eager to learn to toss the contents of their pans the way the chefs on TV do, so they took turns flipping and shaking their pans until the onions were translucent. Then came flour for the roux. A few minutes later stock and milk. Suddenly their pans of vegetables and gooey flour were beginning to look familiar. They began comparing the colors of their sauces. David E. and Henry chopped the fresh parsley and thyme, which were added right before everyone tasted their filling for seasoning. Salt and pepper were added and five ramekins were filled. Five more kids took their places at the stove and the process was repeated until all the ramekins were filled and it was time to roll out the pie crust. Between turns at the stove kids washed dishes and checked voicemail and text messages.("Does everyone have a cell phone?" I asked. Apparently they do.).

While we waited for the pies to come out of the oven we talked about the things they'd like to learn to cook. Not surprisingly, at first they clamored for anything with sugar, but then they thought about it and even surprised me with their requests. Many of them are interested in learning to cook fish—even the ones who don't particularly like it. Emily wants to learn to cook some vegetarian dishes, and Gabriella requested salads. Others asked for more specific dishes, like chicken quesadillas, cheesecake, and tiramisu. Looks like we've got some fun times ahead!

Just before parents arrived the pies, whose glorious aroma had filled the kitchen all evening, emerged from the oven, crusts golden, fillings bubbling.

P.S. Mike? Next time we use onions I'll try to get sweet ones so you won't cry as much.