Fruits and "nuts"

Third day into the course, it was not as stressful as I thought. However, I psyched myself a bit on the first two days and had restless sleep. It is a small class which I like. As usual, almost immediately I labelled each of my coursemates into cliche categories. There's the bored housewife who was a former trolley-dolly (I'm not the oldest there...haha). She's obnoxious, show-offy and asks too many stupid questions. Then, there's a weevil-looking teenager who was home schooled for the last 8 years. I believe she has a mild ADD and she actually freaks me out. An Ah-Beng who immediately spells trouble and always late even though he stays like 5 minutes walking distance from the school. Finally, a likely high-achiever who is working part time at a bakery and seems like the one who is most likely to be successful. Yes, I am judgemental. And, of course myself...half-closeted, goodlooking, smart and blah blah blah...

This week we learn how to cook with fruits. As much as I love fruits. I don't really like them cooked. I got to learn the different methods of cleaning and preparing a variety of fruits according to each recipe. Besides the easy clear syrup, we learnt to make sabayon. A sweet and creamy sauce served with fresh fruits or any cooked fruits. Sabayon is a egg-based sauce with whipped cream. Easy to make and storable for a few days.

Most importantly, I was introduced to decorate and garnish the end products. Garnishings are important to make the food looks delectable. I wish there are more stuffs available for us to decorate our completed dishes. Another important lesson is of time management especially making multiple dishes at the same time.

We made poached pears using red wine. I don't think I will like it but it seems easy and I got to learn to turn the red wine syrup from the poaching into sauce by thickening it using corn flour and water. Most of the sauces used were encouraged to add in spices such as cinnammon stick, cloves, black pepper corns and bay leaves.

One of my favourites got to be the fruit fritters where we dipped selective fruits (banana, apple, pineapple, breadfruit and cherry) into batter and fried them. Then coating them with icing sugar. Looks great but I would not recommend eating them too much. Finally, there's the Rote Grutze. A German dessert with sago and raspberry sauce. Looks yucky but tastes refreshing. Drizzles of sabayon brings some colour to the otherwise, monotonous red. I am looking forward to next week where we will be doing our first baking.