On a recent Wednesday night I sit down to
enjoy mousseline of broccoli with mushroom sauce, salmon baked in
heart-shaped parchment paper, and a lemon tart with fresh
raspberries, all of which I’ve prepared myself — well,
sort of.
As one of a group of 10 attending a cooking
class at the home of caterer Carol Jean Fraase, I get to spend four
hours learning a lot, talking with new friends, eating, and, yes,
doing a little cooking.
Fraase and her niece Sara Workman are the
owners of Another Cooking School. For most of the year, they focus
on their catering business, providing food for private parties and
receptions of 20 to 200 people. In the winter and spring months,
when the catering business is slower, they offer their expertise
and gourmet recipes during two months of cooking classes held at
Fraase’s home, a cozy red ranch-style house located in a
serene country setting near New Berlin.
“It’s like a little tiny
vacation,” says Phyllis Brissenden, who has taken several
classes. “There are a lot of people I don’t know and
some people I do know.” She’s brought a friend, Marcia
Salner, who is making her first visit.
The class is an interesting mix of social
gathering, culinary instruction, and hands-on experience, followed
by a several-course gourmet dinner. The classes begin at 6:30 p.m.
sharp. After everyone has donned an apron and introductions are out
of the way, Fraase gives a quick overview of the evening’s
menu, the ingredients, and the duties involved. Members of the
class are invited to participate as much as they like. Some of us
dice shallots and mushrooms and others roll out pastry dough and
stir cream sauce as Fraase and Workman quietly monitor the action,
offering friendly advice and keeping a keen eye on everyone to make
sure things are done properly. Professional yet relaxed and
welcoming, the pair make you feel as if you’re in a favorite
relative’s kitchen, helping prepare a holiday feast. As we
stand around a large butcher-block table in the center of the room,
we dice and slice, talk, and sip wine.
I’ve taken other cooking classes before
and thoroughly enjoyed them, but this one is a new experience. What
surprises me most is how much fun it is. The class comprises an
interesting mix of people, including a former caterer, an
investment banker, a bed & breakfast owner, a couple who enjoy
gourmet cooking and entertaining as a hobby. Our shared love of
food becomes even more obvious once we began preparing the meal as
we discuss everything from how to grow watercress to the proper way
to pronounce papillote.
For our first course, we steam broccoli and
purée it with eggs and cream, then pour the mixture into
buttered molds and cook them in a water bath. The mousseline is
served with a rich cream-based morel-mushroom sauce. We also
prepare a cauliflower gratin with grated Gruyere cheese. Our main
course is salmon papillotes, consisting of a salmon fillet topped with kalamata
olives, potatoes, fennel-bulb slices, lemon, fresh thyme, garlic,
white wine, and seasonings, then folded up in parchment paper and
baked. Dessert is a lemon tart comprising a sweet pastry filled
with eggs, sugar, lemon, butter, and blanched almonds.
After preparing the meal, we convene at a
large round table in the dining room. Although most of us have met
for the first time just a few hours earlier, we engage in a lively,
wide-ranging conversation that includes topics people are generally
advised not to discuss over dinner (and certainly not with
strangers), including politics and sex. The food is superb,
the hostesses are gracious, and the wine and conversation flow freely.
Classes are held several times a week through
March 31, with menus featuring such dishes as shrimp-and-asparagus
cakes, eggs poached in red wine, roasted-asparagus lasagna, spicy
garlic-lemon shrimp, chicken breast Benedict, fillet of beef Oscar,
medallions of pork with prunes, and zabaglione-cream trifle.
Brissenden, who has already signed up for
several more classes this spring, is right — this class is
like a four-hour vacation. And I’m ready to go back.
For more information on Another Cooking
School, call 217-546-3091.
Mousseline of Broccoli with Mushroom Sauce
Ingredients
Mousseline
1 1/2 pounds broccoli florets with some stems
1 cup heavy cream
8 eggs
Salt
Pepper
Nutmeg
Lemon juice
Sauce
4 shallots, minced
1 1/2 pounds mixed mushrooms
1 cup vermouth
4 cups cream
Salt
Pepper
Lemon juice
1/2 cup butter
Instructions
Steam broccoli. In a skillet, combine broccoli
and cream and cook, stirring until cream is absorbed. Purée
mixture in food processor, adding eggs one at a time, and season to
taste. Fill 10 to 12 buttered molds; place molds in water bath and
cover with buttered waxed paper. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 to 30
minutes.
For sauce, heat 4 tablespoons butter, add
shallots and mushrooms, and cook until liquid evaporates. Add
vermouth and reduce by half. Add cream and cook until sauce is
thickened. Season to taste. Just before serving, whisk in remaining
butter.
— Recipe courtesy of Another Cooking
School
Taste of old New Salem
Historic clothing maker and author Nancy
Torgerson presents “19th-Century Foodways” from 9
a.m.-noon Saturday, March 19, at the visitors-center conference
room of Lincoln’s New Salem State Historic Site, near
Petersburg.
The classes are free and open to the public,
but class size is limited to 30. Torgerson — the author of Food Preservation before the Mason Jar and a custom tailor of reproduction period
clothing — has been conducting educational presentations and
training for 15 years. Call 217-632-4000 for more information.
This article appears in Feb 24 – Mar 2, 2005.
