I learned ten new facts about cooking when I recently attended my very first Los Angeles MasterChef Cooking Course. The title of the 3-hour course was “The Ultimate Appetizer Party” at the MasterChef Colorado Center in Pasadena, CA. The cooking course instructor was a Le Cordon Blue Chef and his appetizer menus sure beat my usual chip-and-dip appetizer.
The MasterChef course instructor demonstrated how to make Panzanella Crostinis, Empanadas with both a mushroom and a ground pork and vegetable filling made with frozen puff pastry and baked in the oven, and clam and corn fritters. All were delicious.
My MasterChef cooking course instructor was on the staff of the MasterChef Los Angeles school, and he had worked as a chef in France and Italy as well as the States. He was willing to answer students’ questions about cooking as he demonstrated how to make appetizers. Because of that, here are ten cooking facts I learned along the way.
1. I should not saute or fry food in olive oil, because its temperature rises quickly to hot and that can result in an overcooked surface and a raw inner core to a food item.
2. If I want that lovely olive oil taste in a fried item, I can fry it using some olive oi, but I must add some vegetable oil to bring the oil temperature down.
3. The same thing goes for butter-I shouldn’t saute or fry food with butter without adding some vegetable oil to lower the oil temperature.
4. Appetizers are supposed to stimulate the palate but not fill people up. So vegetables make perfect appetizers. Fried appetizers will leave my guests too full to enjoy dinner.
5. The instructions for the class included me providing my own Chef’s knife. I didn’t know if my knife set even included such a thing. So I brought our biggest knife, and it worked. However, professional chefs own their own knives. The class teacher suggested the Global brand of chef’s knives, which come with a life guarantee if bought at Nordstrom’s.
6. Our MasterChef instructor required us to caramelize the onions for out Panzanella Crostinis. That meant chopping an onion into small pieces and sauteing it in vegetable oil until the onion was translucent. He said our guests would be impressed when we tell them we used caramelized onions in our appetizers.
7. Seeds need to be removed from cucumber in the preparation process because they have no nutritional value and the seeds’ texture can be distracting to the palate.
8. The best way to saute mushrooms is in unsalted butter and adding a small amount of vegetable oil. All of the liquid should be absorbed before the mushrooms are removed from the fire and used to fill Empanadas, so I need to simmer mushrooms until all liquid has evaporated.
9. Vinegar brings out the flavor of food and can be used instead of salt.
10. Lemon removes garlic odor.
Wish I had a MasterChef instructor to answer my cooking questions every day.
I’m checking out the course list now to chose my next MasterChef course. Follow this link to do the same: http://www.chefs.edu/Programs/Chefs-Series