Saturday Date Night

Happy Saturday!
Tonight, Daniel and I finally made use of his Valentine's Day gift to me.  He got me the gift of a Sur La Table cooking class for two, and we decided to use it to take a class on Asian dumplings.  As you know if you read my blog, I cook and bake quite a bit, so I love to learn new techniques and recipes.

When we got to the store for our class, we realized that we were the only ones signed up.  It was awesome to have Chef Tom (who was a load of fun by the way) and the kitchen all to ourselves for the two hour class.  Some of the things Chef Tom went over were things I already knew how to do (basic knife skills, making a yeast dough for the steamed bun dumplings) but were things Dan were not as comfortable with.  It gave him a chance to practice chopping, mincing, and kneading while I stepped to the side to watch.

The best part of the class (besides tasting the dumplings of course!) was talking as we cooked.  It was a low-key class that we truly enjoyed, and I learned that the two types of dumplings we made were actually really easy; things I could easily do on my own in my own kitchen.

Here's what we cooked:

Vietnamese Mushroom and Chestnut Buns
These were my favorite of the three dishes.  I really liked the texture of the steamed dough and the flavor of the filling.

Korean Pork and Cabbage Butter Dumplings
These were good, but we forgot to season the filling before we filled the dumplings.  We should have added a bit of salt.  Also, there was WAY too much butter in the recipe.

Chinese Long Beans with Chile and Garlic
The supplier for my local Sur La Table couldn't get the long beans, so we used regular green beans.  Honestly, I would probably only get regular green beans at my local grocery anyway, so I was fine with that.  This was a really tasty dish.









So will I make these recipes again?  I'm pretty sure I will.  I will probably look for a different filling for steamed buns, since my kids aren't into mushrooms.  But now that I know the technique, I can really do anything.

Next I'd like to learn to make macaron!