French Cooking Class

For Paul's last birthday, I bought him (well, us) a French cooking lesson. We finally redeemed our class last Friday evening. We attended a class at Cook Au Vin, which is in Chicago. They make it very clear that while we are actually going to be cooking, we're able to drink some wine and have fun at the same time.

We cooked the Vuitton Menu, with a couple changes. We did a roasted mixed vegetable dish instead of the Tournee vegetables -- and we had a prune pudding instead of a lemon pie.

Our prune puddings cooling -- we had to make these first.

Paul and our chef/teacher for the evening

Prepping all the ingredients

Putting together our scallop appetizer (cooked in a ceramic shell)

Paul stirring the main dish (Hunter's Chicken)

The roasted vegetables awaiting dinner

The finished scallops!

Overall, I thought it was a fun and interesting class. We did learn some helpful techniques during the process, like the easiest way to dice an onion, which herbs should go in at the start of a sauce versus the end, and learned more about making a roux. I am always worried that my roux is too thick, but apparently that isn't as big of an issue as I made it!

I thought the food turned out pretty good (considering a bunch of novice chefs were the ones cooking everything!). Our chef was kind and very thorough in explaining why he did things. He also did a great job of managing all the craziness that ensued once people had taken down a couple bottles of wine! I would be interested in doing another class like this in the future and learning some additional techniques.