Final Week, Final Event And My Experiences in Kitchen Class

Finally it comes to the last event. Everybody was excited about it and wanted to do their best to finish this class.

The best part of this class and events was that we have to learn how to follow recipes. We should know what we have to prepare and we should do. If we can follow each step carefully we can also make it.

First we have to bake the items we prepared last class, and the all items we need for the event.

Our display was about sports, our group members prepared it very well as last times. It was nice to decorate our stations to show our food and our display.

This our final food items, it looks really nice with the dark flame color on it. Everybody liked it. It shows our efforts and hard working for the last event. But we still have fun on it.

This is the best part of the event. Cook the sugar with flame. We burned it to dark and it begin to burn. You can smell the sugar with high heat, it was a amazing experience as it is the first time to see such thing.

This is our last event and last class, I have learned a lot of things through HA 243. It is the most interesting class at NAU. The kitchen operation was very mystical before this class. If I went to a restaurant I never have chance to look at the kitchen, and never know how the people work in the kitchen. But during this class I have learned how to operate here and the rules here.
The most important that I have learned from HA 243 is team work. Everybody has to follow rules and steps, if one of us did not do that, we will not get good result for the whole team. There are a lot of rules in kitchen and we have to work together. That is the important part I learned.
As we cook everyday at home, HA 243 is also very helpful to our daily life. Each time after I learn something through HA 243, I will do that again at home: to handle with a whole chicken, make dough and noodles or cooked a egg roll. I have learned a lot things that will also help me for cooking myself.

Week 13 Eggs Day & Mayonnaise Day

Today is egg day, we have learned how to make and cook eggs. As we all eat a lot of eggs at home it was very useful class this week.

The chef showed us how to cook a egg. The chef used butter instead of oil, because we use oil at home so it is a little different.

The chef made a egg roll and it looked very nice. After that I made one by my own at home but I failed, I think it because of the butter as I used oil instead.

After that we cooked eggs by ourselves. It was really nice to cook it a nice kitchen with good pot. And the process was easy and fun.

Then we cooked a egg white, it was the first time to cook only egg white. The flavor was good and easy to cook.

The video shows how to make a egg roll. The process was not too hard but you have to follow each steps. Specially for the heat and amount of butter. If you took less butter and the heat is too high it will not good.

I was not there on the last part of this week because I was sick and I feel very sorry about it.

During this week I have learned how to cook eggs and make a egg roll. I made many eggs for breakfast but the color was either too brown or too dark. But after the chef showed us, I find out that we do not need a high heat to cook eggs and we need butter instead oil. That impact my egg cooking way, because with lower heat and butter I can make the egg with more nice color and flavor.

This class related to HA 280, it teach us that we should know the best materials we need for our cooking to avoid wasting and for good operations. 

Week 12 Preparing Day & 3rd Event

In this week we have to prepare for our 3rd event, but before the preparing we have to learn how to make pasta with a machine. The picture shows that the chef cut the pasta we made last week.

The chef used the machine to cut the dough into pasta, that was really cool as it is the first time I have seen such machine by making pasta. Because it is hard to make pasta at home.

This is what the pasta looks like after using the machine. It looks very good after using the machine, and some cookers will make noodles with their own hands, I think that is very nice, and I will learn about it someday.

During this class I have learned the important steps how to make pasta after made the dough. I always what to learn how to make noodles as we eat so many in our daily life. But it is very hard to make, so we will buy the noodles which is already been made in the supermarket instead to make it by ourselves.

  This video shows how to use the machine to make pasta. That was very convince than make it with hands, and it make is also more quickly.

 Then comes the pasta event. We had nice bread with cheese on it and nice pasta as well. Our group members was very good at preparing our stations for the event, we have balloons  and Mexican hat for our shows.

The display of other groups were also very nice, all students worked hard and we can find a lot of interesting things in the event.

The video shows our group is preparing for the event, the best part for this class is that we know what we could do and what we couldn't do. But we have learned a lot of things that we couldn't do before.

During this week I have learned a lot of things, the most important is how to make pasta after made a dough. Because it was very difficult to make it at home. They were either too dry or too dilute, but after this class I have a lot of information how to make it.
This is our 3rd event but each group were also very excited about it, that impact me a lot. Each group worked very hard and displayed very well.
During this class, I remember somethings from professor Mann's class, we should always know what we should do and what we should not do, specially about the food safety , because at the beginning of the preparing I handled with food items without wearing a hat. It was very bad in a kitchen operation. After remanding of the chef I got it that is not allowed in the kitchen. 

Week 11 Cooking Potatoes & Making Pasta and Preparing for 3rd Event

In this class we learned how to cook potatoes, I was very excited about it because we cooked a lot of potatoes at home. But during this class I have the opportunity to learn how to cook potatoes well and cook them in different ways.

 The above is the steps how to make duchesse potatoes, this teach us very clear what we should do and what we should focus on. By following the above steps we can make it easily and clearly.

 The above are all materials we needed, it was always hard to translate the names of materials, because there are so many different words in English. It was also the hardest part of this class as well.

We cooked potatoes after that, because it was hard to cook, we decided to cut it into pieces so it can be cooked more quickly.

After the potatoes has been cooked well, we mixed it in a pot. I looked really nice, I always like to eat potatoes in every ways, french fries or just cooked potatoes. They are one of my favorite food.

The chef was always helpful, the video shows that the chef was helping other group how to recognition spices and how make potatoes more flavor.

In the second class, we learned how to make pasta which is also my favorite food. The above picture shows all materials we needed. I think make noodles is the hardest part of cooking, because you have to handle with flour and know how to make it to a dough.

Then was the hardest part I think, the chef mixed the flour with water and eggs, after that we can make dough.

I think the most important part is to separate egg white and yolks. And water was also important, if we took less water, the dough will be too dry, we need to know how much water we need to make the dough more nicely.

 The chef showed us how to mix them all by steps to steps. When I cook at home, the noodles was always the hardest part. When I make it at home, it was either too dry or too dilute.

Because we had to prepare for our event, so we mad it by our own. And the chef helped us a lot. Pasta is always good to eat but hard to make. During this class I had better understanding how to handle with flour and dough. That was really nice.

The video shows that the chef mixed all materials with flour at one time. And he mixed it in the central first and then mixed them all. I think it was the best part to look at chef, to learn how to make it right. Because if you know every step and all things you should do, make dough is easily and also fun.

We have learned how to cook potatoes and make pasta after this week. I think make dough was the hardest part of cooking before this class. But I have learned that if you know what materials you need and all steps you should follow with, making dough and noodles will be very easy and fun. 
And the second best part was learned how to cook potatoes. Because we all cook potatoes a lot at home, it was very nice to know different ways to cook it. 
I have taken HA 240 class before, and I think it was the same thing that the most important thing in cooking is know what you have to do, so you will know what materials you will need. Preparing materials is so important in cooking and you will also know how much it costs you by making your food if you know the materials well. 

Week 10 MEP for Vegetables and Fresh Herbs & Cooking Vegetables

Today we observe the boiled vegetables, this lesson can make us a better understanding of how long a variety of vegetables can be cooked. First of all, we will be different vegetables into the two pot, respectively, after the observation of cooked. 

 After that, we cooked the beans and we put one pice out of the boil after every minutes, we have 19 in total. Then we eat them to know how good they have been cooked. I think it is very important for cooking, because we have to know how long we should cook, we just want the food have been cooked well, not too less, not too much.

Week 9 Sausage and Preparing Day for 2nd Event

The chef let us see how to cook the meat grinder. There is a machine to do all the work for you. This makes it easier to do.

Then we see how sausage was made. With meat and pig intestines. Really cool machine that you have to be patient with.

Then comes our meat event, this time we are all cow boys to serve our food. 

In order to make the steak moderate temperature, we'll put in the electric stove roast steak.

The whole event was super. I have seen the arrangement from our and other station was amazing. This was the second event, but I still can feel the enthusiasm of all students. Before I took this class, I can hardly imagine that we can make such a event, every table has it own style and feelings. I think the best part of this class is to show us about our energy, how far we can go and how many things we can handle.

Week 7: Event and Chicken

Today is the soup event day. All my group members are very excited! 

As this is the first event, I was very nervous, it will be bad if I do something wrong. But during the event, everything was going perfect. I think that all of us did great job and our soup was great!

This is my first cooking event, and I have seen a lot of good ideas from other stations, all students were excited and worked hard to have the best soup and show. From the event I have learned that everything begin with small things, if we can do all small things and finish them with effort and patience we can do all we want.

On the second day we learned to deal with the whole chicken. The teacher used a skilled knife to cut a chicken into different parts quickly. I often cook chicken at home myself. But I never knew how to handle a whole chicken. We will put the chicken wings, chicken legs, chicken breast separated.

I cooked chicken at home many times, I like the chicken soup. But the hardest part is how to handle with the whole chicken. I just cut it into pieces then cooked it in the past. But after this class, I know how to do it, the chef has showed us step by step as above video. It is really great.

Week 6: Preparing day for 1st Event

Today, we are preparing for the coming event, we first used the corn flour and butter to make cookies. Because we think cookies are the best combination. And then our main job is to get the soup ready.

We are making the sauce for the soup, this may let the soup
more thick.

We mixed everything for the sauce.

after that, we cooked celery and bacon for the soup.

Week 5: Stocks, Soups and Sauces

This week we learned to observe changes of starch and flour in the heating process. The teacher asked us to put the flour and oil heating. Then in a dish painted in different time mark, every 30 seconds after heating, we will use a spoon to get out of a point on the plate, and finally to observe in different heating time, the change of flour. This is really interesting, but also very practical, because it let us know how long time can achieve what kind of effect.

To begin our vegetable soup we cut celery, carrots and onions. Put them in a pot, and we are waiting to translucent onion, carrots and celery to get a little brown. When the vegetable stock is finished the carrots, onions and celery made its way to the top of the pot and into a clear liquid because once cooked vegetables tan.

When each group complete their soup, we tasted each flavor, which can help us to better understand how to make better soup.

The best thing for this week is we learned how to use the knife. It is difficult during cooking at home because of the cutting thing, the meat or potatoes are always to thick.