My wife and I recently took part in an eight week cooking course hosted by a local chef who owns a restaurant near where we live. The course was for beginners and marketed towards home cooks. He also does an intermediate course that takes everything a step further and teaches some fancier skills like plating and the dishes are more elaborate. It would be nice to give that course a try in the future.
The chef started teaching cooking classes shortly after covid and quickly realized that they were in high enough demand that he could shut down his restaurant and transition to just catering jobs and teaching. He was a good teacher and made the classes a lot of fun, joking and bantering back and forth with everyone. He told us a lot of the insider tricks that restaurants use to charge more money and roughly what products might cost vs what they can be priced at on a menu. I found all of that to be very interesting. His two helpers were also good. One of them always made us baked treats, like bread pudding, cinnamon rolls, biscuits and a few other tasty pastries.
The course was eight weeks in total and each week focused on a different food group and/or a different skill.
The first class focused on knife skills, which was important and useful but probably the most boring of the eight weeks. We spent the 2-3 hours sharpening knives, chopping vegetables, and learning the different types of cuts. We used the chopped veg to make Asian style summer rolls at the end and took home any leftovers.
The next class was appetizers. We made arancini (risotto balls) and Caesar salad and homemade salad dressings and more. I was really bad at taking photos in the begining so i don't have a photo of that class. I left with 5 different salad dressings that night.
Next was breakfast, where we made eggs Benedict with homemade hollandais sauce, omelets, fried eggs, bacon, sausages, pemeal bacon and hash browns. I think I ate at least 5 eggs that night and still took some home for lunch the next day. It was a lot of eggs in one sitting.
Soups and sauces was next. We made the 5 mother sauces minus hollandias because we already made that (bechamel, velouté, demiglaze, and tomato). For soups we made minestrone, mushroom and Italian wedding. The trick to consumé is to use 75% onions and 25% carrots and celery, along with your chicken carcass or off cut meats. To keep the liquid clear you don't stir it but rather remove any floating fat from the top and then ladle the consumé into another pot or bowl when its done.
Pasta and starches came next. My wife was the best in class at making the pasta, by far.
She received praise for her skills by the baker that night. We also made homemade gnocchi with potatoes. I was surprised at how easy they are to make.
Next was meat. We made filet mignon, and another thick cut steak that you can see in the photo (sirloin maybe, I forget the specific cut). We also made sweet and sour pork using pork tenderloin, and beef stew using the off cuts from butchering. It was so much meat that night. I joked that the beef stew was our vegetable course that evening because it had carrots in it.
Next was poultry. We each got a full chicken that we de-boned. He taught us to cut between the bones right at the joint, which was basically the equivalent of cutting a carrot. We then made chicken supreme, grilled chicken breast, chicken wings, chicken tenders, and two other dishes using the thigh meat. He taught us how to make a simple honey garlic sauce and an Asian sesame ginger sauce.
The last class was fish. Here he we learned how to filet a fish using the the red snapper. Below is a photo of the same red snapper as above but take on my wifes IPhone.
The chef portioned out the salmon and taught us how to cook that.
Lastly we made a mediterranean octopus dish with tomatoes, capers, and shallots.
I found this class to be one of the most interesting and there were the fewest people that night so I felt more comfortable taking photos.
I learned a lot from the course both in skills and cooking technique but I have yet to make anything that we made during the eight weeks. If you want to know the real secret to restaurant cooking and why everything tastes so good, the answer is plain and simple - Salt. Shit tons of salt actually. We tried everything before and after seasoning and the food always went from bland and flavorless to so so tasty just from that one addition. I don't cook with salt at home so most of my food is bland. For me, seeing someone put in handfuls of salt in the food was like, whoa!