Cooking Class for SCU Alumni at ICC - Campbell

From Zhenya's phone

An unexpectedly enjoyable evening happened last week that warrants this quick post. My SCU MBA alumni friends and I signed up for a cooking class at the International Culinary Center in Campbell, hosted specifically for recent SCU MBA alumni. It was $40 for 6 courses which turned out to be 8 courses served buffet style and an open bar for 3 hours. What a great deal! As always, any experience I have with the ICC is delicious, professional, and fun. I don't think they host these classes regularly and this was a special deal for SCU alumni. If they host classes in the future, I'll be sure to let my followers know.

From Rupa's phone

We were broken into teams and each team cooked one dish. The chefs prepped all the ingredients in the right quantities for us and left direction sheets at each station. Then the chef walked around to each station explaining the directions and monitoring throughout. This was our team and we cooked the eggplant parmesan. Alvin in red helped us out while also helping his own team cook the chicken fricassee.

This is the menu we cooked.

Country Style Salad
Rice Pilaf
Haricot Verts
Chicken Fricassee with Tarragon Wine Sauce
Baked Salmon in a Citrus Beurre Blanc
Eggplant Parmesan
Mousse au Chocolate
Strawberry Shortcake

My plate with a  generous helping of everything.

The salad was good. It had bits of real bacon in it and light vinaigrette dressing.

Rice Pilaf was cooked perfectly and buttery.

Haricot Vert green beans are my favorites. They're so simple and delicious yet so fancy because of the name. The team who did these green beans with shallots made them just the way I like it - tender with a slight crunch.

The Chicken Fricassee (free-cah-say) doesn't look like much because the mushroom and sauce are on top of the chicken pieces in the picture but trust me, it was so good. 

The Baked Salmon with Citrus Beurre Blanc was my favorite dish of the night. Salmon was moist and juicy in just the right portion sizes. But that sauce though, the balance of citrus and butter, yum.

I can't hate on the eggplant parm because my team made this and I think we did a good job. However, this was my first time making eggplant parmesan and I finally know all the fatty greasy steps it takes to dress up what should be a healthy vegetable. It's salted, rinsed, battered with flour, then egg drenched, then panko and parmesan crusted, then fried, then topped with marinara and mozzarella, and finally baked. I feel like the end result adds so many extra calories. 

The strawberry shortcakes were just ok. The cakes were a little dry and flavorless. Same with the whipped cream and well strawberries just taste like they usually do.

The chocolate mousse however was to die for! I'm not a fan of chocolate, which means when it's done well and wins me over, it must be really good. Appearance wise, some of them may be topped with more cream or chocolate shavings than others but the cold mousse filling underneath is sweet, and creamy, and more cocoa-tasting than it is chocolatey. Great job to the dessert team!