Cooking class with Terry Paulding

I joined my friend Kat for a class last night with chef Terry Paulding... she's got this great industrial kitchen in Emeryville...

The menu for the evening was French Onion Soup, fish cakes with remoulade and mixed green salad, and a berry pavlova.

The fish cakes were lovely, and a great recipe to have - although it's tough for me to fry stuff like this b/c we don't have cross vent in our kitchen, so the whole loft would stink of frying fish... ick. But it's still good to have. Plus, the remoulade was AMAZING. I think i'm going to have to make it as a sandwich spread, and for other creole-style dishes.

The French Onion soup recipe was ok, but I would have liked to have some nice veal demi-glace added in to thicken and richen the soup... It's seem to thin to me. Also, I think it NEEDS to be boiled with a nice bone to get some of that glycerin-y mouthfeel... Finally, I think the onions were cooked perfectly, but were too sweet - I probably would leave out the walla-walla onions next time. I think I'd also sub some madeira or sherry for the cognac... it would make up for not having the sweet onions, and the either of those would really pick up the nutty flavors of the cheese. mmmm.

The pavlova recipe was WICKED. PAvlova is like a meringue but slightly chewier and not as dry. Lovely textural and flavor base for whatever you want to put on top. We did LOTS of whipped cream and berries (straw, black, rasp and blue). This was REALLY lovely, and would be a great recipe to do ahead - you can keep the pavlovas in an airtight container and top right when you're ready to serve.

I can't wait to take some more of Terry's more advanced classes - i'd LOVE to do a knife techniques class, a long-cooking techniques class (like roasting, braising, etc). and maybe a class or two specific to particular cuisines... caribbean, moroccan...

many thanks to kat for inviting me, and to tuan for going out of town so i could take his spot!