We had about eight student assistants for the consumer class and a "day in the life" class. This was great because we are able to effectively pull ingredients and prep the chef's presentation and still have time to really assist the students in the class, which is one of my favorite parts. We had most of the regulars there, but also a couple of students who had just finished the first week of course I. It was good to get a chance to meet and work with them since the students in different courses so seldom interact.

Today's consumer education class was on moist cooking techniques, such as poaching, braising and stewing. This is sort of a tough class to do in just a few hours since many of the moist cooking techniques take a great deal of time to really do their job. For example, sometimes you want to braise that lamb leg until it is ready to simply fall apart. However, that takes many, many hours, more than are available for the class. So, a few shortcuts are necessary.

For example, the meat for both the Braised Lamb and Beef Vindaloo were first seared and browned before going through the moist cooking process. Using a dual process is actually quite common, of course.

Note the "beef" vindaloo. The original plan was to use pork, but dietary restrictions for some of the students meant that we used beef instead. I thought it sort of ironic that a traditional Indian dish would be prepared with beef instead of pork due to dietary restrictions.

No shortcuts were necessary for the poached salmon in a basil cream sauce. Fish do cook much quicker than nearly any other protein, as far as I can tell.

Once again working on Saturdays at Kitchen Academy is an excellent learning experience. In course II we haven't gotten to the moist cooking methods yet. Watching Chef Guevara's demos and hearing his lectures is like getting part of those classes ahead of time. I also learned a number of other things, such as how to make the Indian clarified butter known as "Ghee". Minor stuff, perhaps, but experience is experience.