COOK - A very belated post!

Here's a very, very belated post. My Christmas present this year was an incredible cooking class at a local restaurant offshoot, COOK. 

COOK brings in chefs from around the country to teach small groups a special technique or style of cuisine. Sometimes they even focus on a single ingredient, like beer or pasta.

Menu

This class was on Molecular Gastronomy and was taught by Alex of  Aki and Alex from Ideas in Food. I've actually seen these two on Food Network and was SO excited to taste some of their food!

First course: Celery Cesar salad. Yes, I was so excited that all you get is a little smidge of dressing in the bowl... Delicious! They bruised the celery in a vacuum bag and topped with a yummy yogurty Cesar dressing.

Second course: Cured madai (fish). The fish was coated in two different rubs and served on top of chewy grain. The green rub is a green chili powder and the red is a red miso/red pepper paste mix.

Pasta Course: Tortilla Radiatori - during this course Alex described a "potato chip pasta" he was experimenting with. I'm going to give it a shot and report back now that I've finally got all the ingredients together. 

Fourth Course: Corned squab and tortellini. I'll admit, I was not enthused with the appearance of the squab, it looked super raw and a little off putting. However, IT. WAS. AMAZING. They used a corning solution very similar to what you would expect from corned beef and cooked the squab in a sous vide machine (we've got to get one of those). It was so tender and juicy! I'm hungry just thinking about it. I also really enjoyed the braised leeks which were slow cooked in pork broth. 

There was no way this was going to be bad... That's a whole big chunk of fatty pork still on the bone.

Fifth Course: Fatty pork with kimchi and applesauce. Both the kimchi and applesauce were homemade and incredible. I actually don't usually like kimchi, but this had very little "funk" to it. It was spicy and crunchy with a little tang. The real star was the pork though. So good. It was hard to stop and take pictures!

Cheese Course: Mahon with three citrus marmalade. Yummy cheese course. I never say no to cheese! The marmalade is made with grapefruit, lemon, and orange.

MMMM, homemade soft serve!

Cornbread pudding with drunken milk jam soft serve. As a whole this dessert was delicious. I think I could have eaten a gallon of the soft serve on its own! "Milk jam" doesn't sound nearly as delicious as this stuff was. It's a little like dulce de leche. 

Party favor: Preserved meyer lemons. Luckily they gave us two jars... Mine shattered on the way home!