(no subject)

[camwyn]

I finally got around to using the gift certificate my parents bought me for Christmas. It was for a food enthusiast course at the Culinary Institute of America (http://www.ciachef.edu). I've had a few enthusiast courses there before- Chef Griffiths' American Regional Cuisine, Chef Cheng's Introduction to Asian Cuisines, Chef von Bargen's Fusion Cooking for Two, and Chef von Bargen's Flavors of Southeast Asia. (He's Dutch, but he lived in China for a long time, married a woman from Sichuan Province, and was a high-ranked chef at a five star hotel in Jakarta for years.) This time I decided to go for something a little different, so I will be spending September 15th of this year at the Culinary Institute's "Timeless Desserts" course.

Won't be going to their restaurants afterwards, but I will be hitting the campus book and supply store, so I may wind up having to make a willpower roll to resist coming home with knives that cost more than their weight in human corneas.

Comments

[darthrami.livejournal.com]

I didn't even know they offered those. How cool.

*now has most excellent gift idea*

[lasa.livejournal.com]

What a fantabulous gift!

[mm_madb]

Bwee, that's my birthday.

Anyway. Enjoy!

[chn-breathmint.livejournal.com]

Chef von Bargen is sounding more and more like my kind of person. I sure as heck hope he's still teaching there when I wind up doing my degree in Culinary. I'd love to learn from him.

- Mel

[camwyn]

The Flavors of Southeast Asia course recipes he gave us:

Day one: Thai chicken and coconut soup, pad thai, Thai style beef massaman (which was really nice), Thai beef salad (recipe from a friend who was executive chef of a resort on Ko Samui), Vietnamese fresh cold spring rolls, shrimp in yellow curry sauce (recipe from a five star hotel in Hanoi), clay pot chicken with plums (he allows that the plums are not a common addition in Vietnam, but are not disliked, either), and spicy Thai cucumber salad.

Day two: jiao zi boiled pork dumplings to be served with black vinegar and garlic dip as per New Year tradition, hui guo ro made with fresh pork belly, stuffed lotus roots (his mother-in-law's recipe), Singapore style fried noodles, lamb curry (Malaysian banana leaf restaurant style), Kuala Lumpur street corner style beef satays, Hainanese chicken rice, stir fried wheat gluten (starting from making your own wheat-meat by kneading the dough and washing it and poaching it), Malaysian style beef rendang.

Day three: Lentil soup with ginger, cumin and chilies, tandoori chicken (as best you can make it without an actual tandoor), poori bread, vegetable kurma, paneer, Indian cheese and red peppers in fragrant spinach sauce, pork adobo, beef vindaloo (Goa recipe, where there are enough Buddhists to be willing to eat cows), pakora, stir fried egg noodles with chicken and shrimp (Indonesian recipe).

The last part of the booklet is all spice recipes so you don't have to buy mixes in the market.

CIA no longer offers three weekend courses, more's the pity.