Cooking Classes

We took two Chinese cooking classes! Oh my! 

When traveling, I found a class in Dali in our guidebook, and we started getting really excited. The class included a tour of the market and shopping for good ingredients, even a restaurant visit. I signed up and... the lady was out of town. So we couldn't do it.

But, the idea was to good to pass up, so upon our return to Beijing, we did some internet research and found a few options. It was hard to decide, but we settled on two: Sichuan and dumplings. 

Sichuan

We took the Sichuan class Wednesday evening. The class was located in a hutong not far from where we first stayed. We stopped by our old place to visit with Qun then walked to the class. This place, called The Hutong Kitchen, offers multiple cooking classes every day. They had a rooftop patio, classrooms, tshirts... it was the real deal. We sat at a big table with a lady from India, a foursome from France, a couple from Finland, and a pair of Canadian teachers working in China. Our teacher, Miya, was Chinese, and she has mastered the finest sarcasm in English. 

We visited Sichuan when we went to Chengdu (pandas). Sichuan cooking is known for its spiciness, and the most famous dishes (which I feel like I've had a dozen times already) are mapo doufu and gongpao chicken. Josh and I tried to make mapo doufo once, and failed. Miya, I hope, set us on the right path. 

I could not look like more of a dork stirring this tofu sauce. 

We also made a stir fried cabbage that was excellent. None of the food was too spicy, fortunately for me and the French woman behind me. She was very worried the food would be too spicy, and she cringed every time Miya threw in another handful of Sichuan peppercorns (numbing peppers). We all ate way too much food (again) and took turns at the woks. We took a bunch of notes, so hopefully we can recreate the dishes back in Boulder. I also got to use a giant cleaver, like the kind in cartoons. 

Dumplings

This morning (Friday), Josh skipped out on work so we could take a dumpling class. Josh is obsessed with a special soup dumping called xiao long bao which we also failed at making for a group of hungry friends. We had very delicious xiao long bao at a restaurant, and he took pictures of me eating it "properly," so I will let him post about that. Josh is right to be a fan. 

This dumpling class focused more on Beijing or Northern China style dumplings, and it also took place in a hutong. Our instructor was Chao, and his wife scurried around washing dishes. The classroom was in part of his house, and he had a big dining area and an outdoor patio. 

Chao broke us into teams. Josh, a woman from Shanghai, and a woman from Indonesia made boiled pork dumplings. A woman from Germany and I made steamed vegetarian dumplings, and a couple from England made pan-fried beef dumplings. Chao also whipped up some cucumber salad while we were working. 

Making dumplings is hard. We didn't get any pictures of the process because we were covered in flour, filling, and Chao kept correcting our technique. There is a very careful way of rolling out the dough and folding in the filling, and he did it with such speed and perfection. We also again used giant cleavers, and I am the world's slowest cleaver chopper. No one was injured. 

Chao was very good at explaining why you stir the filling a certain way or why the dough has to be rolled just so, changing the temperature of the water, etc. Unfortunately, the print outs from both lessons failed to include this information (as well as some of the cooking techniques), so I really hope my brain decides to be cooperative and hold this stuff in there.

Now, I feel like we can probably fairly (at least) successfully make some dumplings at home. But, I promise to practice on myself first before sharing with guests. Unless someone wants to come help me next week.