Today, Chris Gulker and I headed to Village Pub in Woodside for Chef Dmitry Elperin‘s cooking class on “Classic and Contemporary Cooking Techniques for Meat”. Eight of us spent a couple of hours in the Pub’s kitchen with Dmitry as we prepared Roast Chicken, Striped Bass, Leg of Lamb and accompanying vegetables – before sitting down to a wonderful lunch of what we had cooked!
Dmitry started out simply seasoning the Leg of Lamb and getting it into the oven. Next, we prepared roasted eight chickens (Fulton Valley Farms “air chilled” free range, organic, etc.) – stuffed by each of us with different veggies and herbs. We roasted them on a variety of different settings – some veggies, etc.
The striped bass was also stuffed with some fresh veggies and herbs, lightly oiled and seasoned with salt and pepper, positioned on a rack of veggies – with fresh asparagus as an anchor. Dmitry also demonstrated a salt-crusted technique for one of the striped bass – egg whites and LOTS of kosher salt make a paste to seal in the fish for high heat roasting.
We had 3 wines to accompany lunch: Melville Chardonnay from the Santa Rita Hills near Santa Barbara, an Oregon Willamette Valley Pinot Noir from McKinlay, and a Mendoza region Malbec from Tomero. A special chocolate soufflé and an accompanying scoop of vanilla bean ice cream finished us all off!
What a way to spend a Saturday afternoon! Dmitry is a great teacher for these sessions – watching his easy flow as he led us through the prep was a delight. All of it was delicious – but that salt-crusted striped bass was especially great – light, great flavor, surprisingly unsalty – just wonderful! Another great lesson that a wonderful meal is mostly about using high quality ingredients simply prepared.