This hands-on, skills-focused series covers all the essential techniques you need to feel confident and creative in the kitchen. Each class emphasizes specific cooking methods, using multiple ingredients to reinforce the techniques, so you leave equipped to prepare most any dish in your own kitchen with assurance.
Each class concludes with a full sit-down meal, allowing you to enjoy everything you have prepared and share in the learning experience with others.
Day 1: Knife Skills and Advanced Vegetable Techniques
Skills Covered: Advanced knife skills, vegetable braising and stewing techniques, cooking with legumes, balancing salt, fat, and acid in seasoning, making fresh herb sauces
Recipes Include: Classic minestrone with herb pistou, sauteed leafy greens, and fresh garlic bread
Day 2: Chicken Techniques
Skills Covered: Roasting a whole chicken, braising chicken legs and thighs, blanching vegetables for finishing
Recipes Include: Whole roasted chicken with onion pan gravy, chicken braised with wild mushroom ragout, string beans amandine
Day 3: Meat Techniques
Skills Covered: Understanding different meat cuts, searing and browning techniques, brown braising methods, preparing pan sauces, roasting vegetables, working with sweet potatoes
Recipes Include: Classic meatballs with marinara sauce, roasted pork tenderloin with apple-onion pan gravy, roasted broccoli, sweet potato puree
Day 4: Fish and Shellfish Techniques
Skills Covered: Preparing mussels and clams, cleaning and preparing squid and calamari, roasting fish fillets for optimal texture and flavor
Recipes Include: Steamed mussels with tomatoes and herbs, crispy-skinned fish with fresh green herb sauce, Mediterranean squid salad, parchment-roasted fish with citrus and herbs
Day 5: Vegetable, Legume, and Egg Techniques
Skills Covered: Cooking legumes from dried form, building depth of flavor in chili, making cornbread, preparing vinaigrette dressings
Recipes Include: Three bean chili with anchos and butternut squash, buttermilk skillet cornbread, warm French lentil salad with poached egg
