In this class we learnt about pan roasting and grilling meat, and we also learnt about dry rubs and wet seasonings. Chef Dede is of the opinion that unless you have a big piece of meat, like a pork shoulder, you do not need to marinate over night. You can do a quick wet seasoning that can add a lot of flavor to your meat.

Dry Rubs
Ratio is 8 (sugar):3(salt):1(spice):1(custom)
This ratio is good for chicken and fish. For pork, you can do 5:3:1:1.
Dry rubs last for a couple of months
Types of spices – Cayenne, Paprika, Cumin etc..
Type of custom – Ginger, onion powder, thyme, any herbs for that matter.

Recipe – I did a dry rub with salt, brown sugar, black pepper, cayenne Pepper, ginger and some onion powder, on chicken. Pan roasted it for few min on each side and then cooked it in the oven at 375degrees for 4-5min. It wasp pretty well cooked. Chicken cooks at 135degrees.

Wet seasoning

Ratio is 10:1:1:1 
where the 10 is Umami (pungent. spicy something..) and other items are the tangential flavors. We wet seasoned a flank steak and grilled it –
Chef’s wet seasoning – 
Honey
Salt
Black Pepper
Sugar
Rice Vinegar
Cayenne pepper
Shivi’s wet seasoningBalsamic vinegar
Mustard
Honey
Black Pepper
Salt
Some misc tips

1. First heat the pan. Then add oil to it. Then pat the meat dry (if the rub had sugar in it), and then add it to the pan. This will give you some time before the sugar starts caramelizing.

1. Do not cover the meat with a lid. That will be steaming and it is another way to cook meat. But dry rubs and steam don’t do so well together.

Class 5- Soups and Blanching

In class 4, we learnt about leftover strategies. The strategy was quite simple – make soups out of them. We made a soup out of roasted fall veggies. The recipe was quite simple. Take some left over veggies in a pan. Add some minced garlic and shallots for bold flavors. Add some vegetable stock to the pan, just enough to cover the veggies. Cook until the stock boils. Blend using Vitamix or blender. Season with coconut milk or olive oil. 
We learnt about the technique of blanching veggies in the rest of the class. We blanched carrots and spinach and used them as a topping for our bibimbap. The sauce or the dish was – Korean fermented spice with some soy sauce, rice vinegar and sesame oil.

• Spicy siracha

• Mirin

• Soy sauce

• Palm sugar

• Sesame oil

Stir Frying can be really simple if one follows the steps –

• Heat the pan

• Add a lot of oil (do not use Olive oil for stir frys. It’s low smoking point is not desirable for this method. You can mix half olive with half vegetable oil. You can also use coconut oil)

• Pan should not be more than a third full with ingredients.

• Be mindful about cutting your veggies. Same shapes, same sizes.

• First cook the main ingredient that you want to be your dominant flavor. In this case – shiitake mushrooms.

• Once they are almost cooked, add the broccoli. Once the stems of the broccoli become translucent, add the sauce to the veggies.

• Stir for 20seconds and take them off the stove.

For spinach we simply followed the same steps, and instead of a sauce, squeezed some lemon in it, just before taking it off the stove. seasoned it with Feta and chili pepper. I loved how it turned out.