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Chinese Cooking Class in NYC
One thing I said I would do before I moved out of New York City is to attend a authentic Chinese cooking class and learn the proper way to cook the food. I finally had my chance last night, as the Institute of Culinary Education of NYC has a recreational class called “Chinese Take Out” that Kristen and I attended the class last night.
The only cooking classes I had attended before this one was a barbecue smoking class in Lubbock and a Dutch Oven cooking class hosted at Texas Tech. I never knew what it was like to be in a real restaurant style kitchen, using a real convection oven and stuff like that. The ICE kitchens were very professional and had all the tools we needed to cook whatever Chinese food we could dream up. We used seasoned woks, actual wok ladles, giant Vulcan gas stove tops and proper chef knives.
The class was lead by the institute’s head Chef Instructor, Loren Banco. His style of teaching was informative, and he really just let the groups run wild on the receipes until he had a chance to intervene and get a rogue team back on course. He kept the mood light when we were discussing the receipes, and when the cooking started he kept his thumb on everyone pretty closely. But it worked out for the best, because everyone’s dish turned out great partly to the fact that he kept such a close eye on all of us.
The dishes we prepared that night were:
- Hot and Sour Soup
- Kung Pao Chicken
- Pork Lo Mein
- Beef with Garlic Sauce
- Peking Duck with Mandarin Pancakes
- Ginger-Scallion Fried Rice
There were 14 students arranged in groups of three, so each team took two items that took the whole 4 1/2 hours to prepare.
Our group had the Hot and Sour Soup, along with the Pork Lo Mein. One thing that I never knew about Chinese food was the insane amount of ingredients involved in each dish. For example, our Pork Lo Mein had 26 individual ingredients! The bulk of our time was preparing our ingredients for cooking, or as the French would say, “Mise en place”. After our “Mise en place”, we had to julienne and chop about 10 lbs of various vegetables and meats to get them ready for stir fry.
The actual cooking process only took about 30 minutes for both of our dishes combined. The trick to stir fry is getting the wok (or saute pan) screaming hot and cooking all the parts of the dishes separately in small batches. That was a rookie mistake I have made trying to make fried rice in the past. Just remember, HOT WOK SMALL BATCH!
Unfortunately I don’t have pictures from the event because I forgot to put my camera in my bag, but I found some photos online of what we cooked. They are pretty close representations of our dishes.
Hot and Sour Soup
Pork Lo Mein
If you’ve never taken a cooking class, I highly recommend it. Because of the price, it’s not something you could do every other week but it will definitely improve your cooking skills over time. In addition to the recipe packet, we had a quick knife skills lesson as well as a quick food history lesson of all the ingredients used in Chinese food and their origins, why they are used, etc. For example, the “Holy Trinity” of Chinese food is: ginger, scallions and garlic.
Kristen and I both really enjoyed the class and of course at the end we had a Chinese feast from all of our efforts with plenty of leftovers. After I “mise en place” all the elements for my sandwich for lunch today, I’ll have some great home-cooked Hot and Sour soup for dessert!
Thanks for the infos! Your article actually assisted me.
Looks tasty.
I’ve been interested in taking a recreational cooking class at ICE and your post is taking me one step closer! How much and how long was this class? Also, do you think you’ll take another class at ICE?