Day 1: Ramen ( Intermediate group)

Day 1: Exploring an Asian delicacy: Ramen 



On the first day of the Art of Cooking course, Post Oak students in the intermediate group tackled the challenge of making ramen. Before we began the process, all students in the course met at the Museum District campus for an intro to the course from our group leaders. We discussed the menu for the dishes that we will be cooking over the next two weeks, as well as the expectations for the course. After we received our recipes the intermediate group boarded the bus to the Bissonet campus eager to begin cooking. 


Once we arrived at the Bissonette campus we met with Chef Jessica, our group leader. We reviewed the recipe and then divided it into groups according to dietary restrictions. Each group made a slightly different type of ramen according to the members of the group, but they all followed a similar process. First, we began by chopping up vegetables and creating the broth with chicken stock, or vegetable broth.


Tori's group cutting onions for their broth
Tori's group cutting onions for their broth
Nuria cutting her pasta 


Some students wanted to make their noodles from scratch, so they began by creating the dough. They then rolled it until it was flat, and cut it into pasta-like strips. They then cooked it, and added it to their soup! Other groups decided to use pre-made pasta because their recipes required more steps due to dietary restrictions.  


Then each group made their protein of choice consisting of chicken, pork, and tofu. In my opinion, this step was the most time-consuming, because we had to wait for the inside of the meat to be the correct temperature before we could take it out of the oven. I have never cooked chicken in the oven so this was a new step for me, but it turned out really well, and I will definitely use this step in the future. 

Mateo stirring pork broth 
Ariela stirring chicken broth 


























Once my group had compiled all of our ingredients we tasted our ramen. We definitely made a mistake while measuring the correct amount of salt to add to our broth because our batch was extremely salty. Luckily Chef Jessica came to the rescue and let us try one of her batches to see what it was supposed to taste like. We will definitely be very cautious when measuring out ingredients for the rest of the course! 

Ariela and Sofis final product 

Nuria and Max enjoying their ramen 
Sofi with Chef Jessica after she came to the rescue with non-salty ramen


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Day 1: Dumplings (Advanced Group)

Image
 Dumplings Day! Dumpling dough      We started off the day with a few announcements and an introduction to the course. We went over expectations for the course. We also went over the menu for all nine days of the course. After we went all of the basics for the course, the intermediate group left to the Bissonet Campus, while the Advanced Group stayed at the high school. The Advanced group split into three groups of three and got to work.  Niko, Isa, and Aiden making the salt rub      Today the Advanced group made dumplings from scratch. We started off by reading over the recipe, so we could have an idea of everything that we need to get dome. To make the dumplings we started with the dough. When I first heard we were making dough from scratch I though that it it would take a long time, so I was surprised by how simple the ingredients are for dumpling dough- its just flour and water. Each group spent about 10 minutes kneading the dough, then set it aside to rest. Alex and Lulu making du
Read more

Day 4: Fried rice - Carson (intermediate)

Image
 Fried Rice: Art of Cooking day 4 (Intermediate group) 1/9/2023 (Final image of Chicken Fried Rice)     Today in Art of Cooking, we made Fried Rice with a side drink of Boba to go along with it. Today's recipe was concise and straightforward, only taking little to no time to prep the veggies and eggs, to then make the fried rice.  Although today's recipe may have been very simple, for someone who isn't very experienced in cooking like myself there can still be a lot to learn. One of the things that my group struggled with was the right amount of Soy Sauce to add to the rice to get a perfectly rich taste. We at first put too little Soy Sauce and couldn't taste it very well then put too much that it was way too overpowering. We ended up restarting and with the help of Chef Jessica she taught us a trick to finding the perfect amount of Soy Sauce to your liking is to take a small portion of the rice that's cooking and add Soy Sauce to that until you like how it tastes,
Read more

Day 7: Quiche & Fruit Tart (Advanced)

Image
Day 7: The Duality of Pastry One Group's Finished Spinach Quiche One Group's Finished Fruit Tart Today began with a brief gathering before we split into groups and Advanced headed off to the Bissonnet Campus. As we all filed into the kitchen, Chef Jessica began to explain that the process of making dough for Quiche and Fruit Tart is very delicate. Because of this every group started by fully reading through the entire recipe a couple of times, and preparing for a busy day. Talulah and Mackenzie making custard The first thing we all began working on in the kitchen was the cream for our fruit tarts. It had to sit in a bath of ice water before use for quite a long time, so we got right to it. Every group had some difficulty with boiling ingredients down for the custard. My group did not have a sufficiently powerful cooktop so the dairy ingredients just slowly started to separate. As for the other two groups, theirs cooked too quickly which caused it to burn. Once Chef Jessica help
Read more