Sydney Seafood School
Jade and Muriel Chen
As I mentioned last time I posted, I received registration at a Sydney Seafood School class as one of my Christmas presents and so along we went last Monday.
The classes are held upstairs at the Fish Market. There is a demonstration room, which is much like those you see on TV or elsewhere with a counter and an overhead mirror so you can see what's going on. You then move through to the kitchen, to have a go yourself, before moving to yet another room to eat what you've just cooked.
Overhead mirror
Our class was being run by Muriel and Jade Chen, the mother and daughter team from Blue-Eyed Dragon, our local Taiwanese restaurant. We've been to this restaurant several times as it is just down the road from us (just past Viva Goa) and they have recently updated their menu to include salt and pepper soft shell crab. We are now going even more often.
Jade (also known as "mum") runs the kitchen at Blue-Eyed Dragon, while Muriel is responsible for front-of-house. This meant that we had seen Muriel before (and she recognised us) but not Jade, as she'd been hidden in the kitchen. They worked really well as a chef demonstration team - Muriel explained what Jade was doing, while making jokes about how she never had to cook because she could just get her mum to cook for her.
The two dishes of the evening were Calamari Salad with Taiwanese Five Spice Garlic Sauce and Prawn Omlette (Chinese Style). We learnt how to clean, peel and score Calamari to make it curl up excitingly and how to marinade prawns before making the omlette with them.
Then through to the kitchen.... This turned out to be much harder than I thought. I cut my squid through the eye, resulting in black aqeuous fluid all over my chopping board. Not a good start. Jade came to give me a hand, but even after she'd shown me what to do I still couldn't remember and had to watch Sean being shown by our more observant table-mate before I really understood what was going on.
I also learnt how to chop things without cutting my fingers, courtesy of Muriel. It's quite hard to explain via text but basically involves bending your fingers to arch your hand. I'll have to practise this at home.
All the food was really tasty and we were provided with a bottle of wine between 4 (except of course on our table it was between 3) and some steamed rice, which made it into a proper meal. We'll definitely go back; we're just considering which course to go to next.
Jade and Muriel Chen
As I mentioned last time I posted, I received registration at a Sydney Seafood School class as one of my Christmas presents and so along we went last Monday.
The classes are held upstairs at the Fish Market. There is a demonstration room, which is much like those you see on TV or elsewhere with a counter and an overhead mirror so you can see what's going on. You then move through to the kitchen, to have a go yourself, before moving to yet another room to eat what you've just cooked.
Overhead mirror
Our class was being run by Muriel and Jade Chen, the mother and daughter team from Blue-Eyed Dragon, our local Taiwanese restaurant. We've been to this restaurant several times as it is just down the road from us (just past Viva Goa) and they have recently updated their menu to include salt and pepper soft shell crab. We are now going even more often.
Jade (also known as "mum") runs the kitchen at Blue-Eyed Dragon, while Muriel is responsible for front-of-house. This meant that we had seen Muriel before (and she recognised us) but not Jade, as she'd been hidden in the kitchen. They worked really well as a chef demonstration team - Muriel explained what Jade was doing, while making jokes about how she never had to cook because she could just get her mum to cook for her.
The two dishes of the evening were Calamari Salad with Taiwanese Five Spice Garlic Sauce and Prawn Omlette (Chinese Style). We learnt how to clean, peel and score Calamari to make it curl up excitingly and how to marinade prawns before making the omlette with them.
Then through to the kitchen.... This turned out to be much harder than I thought. I cut my squid through the eye, resulting in black aqeuous fluid all over my chopping board. Not a good start. Jade came to give me a hand, but even after she'd shown me what to do I still couldn't remember and had to watch Sean being shown by our more observant table-mate before I really understood what was going on.
I also learnt how to chop things without cutting my fingers, courtesy of Muriel. It's quite hard to explain via text but basically involves bending your fingers to arch your hand. I'll have to practise this at home.
All the food was really tasty and we were provided with a bottle of wine between 4 (except of course on our table it was between 3) and some steamed rice, which made it into a proper meal. We'll definitely go back; we're just considering which course to go to next.
posted by Zoe at 6:02 PM
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