Inspired cooking

One of the best movies I've seen this year was Jon Favreau's CHEF. And I was so excited when I heard there was going to be a cooking class inspired by the food in the film, Cuban food truck food. Food that looked amazing on screen. Food that looked like nothing I'd really eaten before. Food that I really really just wanted to taste.

And taste I did. Wednesday. After I cooked it. Yep, me. I cooked some of the amazing food you see in the film and had an amazing time doing it!

Because yesterday was the kickoff of Birthday month (yep, comes around this time every year!), Angela decided I should go to the cooking class so she signed me up and off I went to Sur La Tab, the cooking store at The Grove. And that's where me and nine others spent two and a half hours learning proper cooking techniques, learning how to make tostones with chile vinegar, cubanos with mojo-marinated pork shoulder, yucca fries with banana ketchup and french quarter beignets.

The class was taught by a real chef, with real chefs assisting him, and it felt like a real kitchen. The atmosphere was professional and fun and oddly enough, just the perfect mix of people who would chat enough and people who were really serious about learning to make this food.

We began by making a marinade for the pork. We chopped and diced and zested and worked in teams of three to get the job done. I worked with two very nice women and we were all super polite in letting each other take a turn which was really nice. We tasted the marinade then tossed it as the class's pork was already cooking. But that was just the beginning.

Next we moved on to making tostones out of green plantains (not brown plantains, which are sweeter) and the accompanying bright green chile vinegar. The tostones had several steps, peeling, slicing using the mandolin (which scared me but we had these really cool no-cut gloves and it was easy-peasy!), blanching then smashing then frying and salting. The green chile vinegar was simpler, just put everything in a bowl and use the immersion blender. Simple. Until you took a breath. A kitchen full of fumes from three different kinds of chilies left us all coughing and running for air. And then we had to taste it. It was HOT. And amazing. And while I'm not usually one for hot things, or trying new things so so quickly, in that environment I was completely open. This was something I'd made. Watching being made. Of course I was going to try it. Of course I was going to add salt when we determined it needed more and then try it again. And? It was actually very good, and yes, very spicy.

After prepping the plantains we moved on to the yucca fries and banana ketchup. This was something
I'd been curious about when I signed up. I had never had yucca before, a brown root vegetable that when cut, looks like potato. But we started chopping and blanching and then moved on to the ketchup. In went bananas, in went onions, in went pickled jalapenos, in went garlic, in went ginger, in went basil. And out came something AMAZING. Seriously. I love ketchup. Love it. And this stuff? With bananas which really, I'd be okay never having again in my life? So so good. It did not taste like bananas. It tasted like just the sweetest, spiciest, best sauce I've ever had. Honestly, could not get enough with the yucca fries.

We made the beignet dough as a group as well. There wasn't much to it, some yeast, some flour, some sugar, egg and milk. And then we fried everything up at the same time. The tostones, which we then proceeded to smash and fry again. The yucca fries which were blanched then fried, and the beignets. The frying scared me a bit too. There were just these big pans of canola oil heating away on the stove and we were to slide (away from us, always away) our food into the pans. We took turns again, and surprisingly no one was hurt, nothing splattered, and everything came out crispy golden brown. The green chile sauce went right on the tostones, the beignets were covered in immense amounts of powdered sugar, and everything was plated, ready to be tasted. And tasted we did.

Everything was really, just so good. And to know each little ingredient that went in to each sauce and each dish was just really interesting. To know how methodically and how intentionally each item had been selected and prepared. To hear the chef say we were using jalapenos because the Fresno chilies didn't seem just right this morning at the market, all of it was fascinating. I know it's nothing like working in a real restaurant kitchen but it certainly was made to feel that way.

After we snacked on our first course, and dessert (we voted as a class to fry the beignet's in the same pan as everything else, so we could do it at home without the assist of a deep fryer and a few of the beignets did not get cooked through; however, that did not stop any of us from indulging in them). We moved on to the pork shoulder and the cubanos.
Chef showed us the proper way to slice the meat, how to remove the casing, and how to fry it in the fry pan if it wasn't quite cooked through in the
middle. Then he laid out everything for the sandwiches and had each group assemble their own. The sandwiches were then slathered with butter (just like in the movie) and pressed to heat on the cast iron pans. Sliced in thirds. Then handed over to us. And honestly?

Maybe the best sandwich I've ever had in my life. The french bread. The mustard. The ham. The swiss cheese. The pork. The pickles.

And I don't even like pickles. But I liked these pickles.

As we stood around the kitchen, mouths full, eating our sandwiches, we all just kind of looked at each other. I smiled at the guy across the table who hadn't shown much emotion the whole day and who I hadn't heard speak at all, and he smiled back like, "yeah, exactly". Perfection.

All in all, an amazing afternoon. Class went almost 45 minutes long and not one of us minded. We left with coupons, a DVD of the movie, and most of all, a new-found respect for this culture, this food, and the art of creating it. Mostly? I can't wait to make it all in my own kitchen.