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!

Vietnam - Tourist Food in Hoi An and Cooking School

We enjoyed 4 days in Vietnam away from family when we jetted off to Hoi An. In recent years, Hoi An has become very touristy and popular for its cultural tours. For us, we just wanted to rent bikes and hang out for 4 days relaxing. Here are a few of the highlights from Hoi An.

Tyical morning scene with Vietnamese coffee and beer (spelled bia). The beer was only $0.25 USD!! 

Banana flower salad


Lanterns at the central Hoi An area


They labeled this gelato but it was just ice cream



We spent most of the time biking around to the beach to hang out.


One of the popular Hoi Anese dishes was this chicken rice which is rice cooked in chicken stock with shredded chicken pieces and herbs. This one at the beach was pretty good. It tastes like Hainanese chicken rice.

On one of the days, we took a bicycle tour and cooking class combo. The bike tour lead us through the back roads and rice paddies of Hoi An. We learned how herbs were grown and I had the chance to try old school watering cans.

The tour also took us to a bean sprout farmer's house. He had piles of sand in his backyard used to grow bean sprouts. The nutrients in the sand are only good for one crop then a new pile of sand needs to be shipped in for the next crop. The old sand can be sold to make bricks and for any other purposes. At this point it decreases in value by 1/5 the price the farmer bought it for growing.

Back at the cooking school, everyone who signs up for the class gets an all-you-can eat breakfast buffet with all these Vietnamese goodies like pho, broken rice with pork, mini banh xeo crepes, and bun cha ca (fish cake noodles). The flavors are a bit mellow and generic but most of the food was good for a buffet.

Old school noodle making machine.

I got to try a silk worm larvae for the first time. Tastes rich and creamy and nutritious. It's like eating a minty, oniony salad with creamy tofu pockets that burst in your mouth!

Hoi An is known for the white rose steamed dumpling made from rice flour that's flattened and molded around shrimp and pork paste so it looks like rose petals. Here I am failing at flattening the dough.

Phil Lau eats cao lau noodles.

Yeah, making fresh spring roll wrappers in cooking class. No rips in my wrapper!

Class finished with two scoops of ice cream per person. Phil had Cinnamon and chocolate chip. I had passion fruit and coconut. Satisfied! I highly recommend Morning Glory cooking school if you're in Hoi An. It is very touristy and Westernized but for $43 per person, you get a well planned day. The cooking is not as hands on as I wanted, or as we experienced in Thailand. The bike tour is fun and the experience in general is entertaining.

Bye!