I'm taking international cooking class.

I'm excited in taking international cuisine/cooking class! Had our first session and we cooked classic american food. We made few different recipes: shrimp and grits, potato salad, Caesar salad, and chocolate chip cookies and bratwurst sliders. We paired up and each group picked which recipe they want to make. My partner and I made choco chip cookies and grilled the chicken breast and bratwurst. The chef circle around and gave mini demonstration and facts.

I learned for any cookie making first always mix the sugar and butter together. then add all the other ingredients except the choco chip and fold with spatula. Our dough looked a bit dry so the chef added a bit of olive oil in. then add the choco chip. cookie dough complete. He suggested bake at 350F but he likes to bake at low temperature like 325F which would bake at a longer duration. He also said while baking and almost done, he suggest to turn the baking pan around.

For grilling the chef demo seasoning the chicken breast with plenty of olive oil, pepper and salt. Mix them around and let it sit so the salt would dissolve and be soak up my the meat. For the brat, he showed us to cut it in half not all the way through hotdog-wise and then cut it in half which you would get 2 square-ish brats. when done grilling he also instructed to bake them in the oven so its cooked through well.

I wanted to learn how the other groups made croutons, they tasted fabulous. and wanted to learn how to caramelized onions. I saw bits and pieces of what the others were doing but not completely observing.

I found few recipes we used and followed or seems similar. next time I would take picture of how the chef plated the foods.

http://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/caesar_salad/ -- I remember hearing the chef said substituting anchovy with something else or just omit it.

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/bobby-flay/shrimp-and-grits-recipe.html