Chicken is one of the great foods students learn to prepare in cooking class. It’s high in protein, low in fat, reasonably priced and can be cooked in a variety of delicious ways.

In past classes, chefs have learned to bake chicken to eliminate the salt and fat found in fast foods — but still keep the flavor.

In our Week 3 class, students got to experience a different kind of chicken recipe. Instead of baking it, they prepared it as a stir-fry with orange peppers and green beans.

“We never got to make that!” former Bayard student Ariana Johnson exclaimed when she visited before class. She was one of a parade of former chefs who have dropped in to say hello this fall — a reminder of how much students enjoy cooking class year after year.

 

This semester’s chefs were eager to see how the meal would come together in a pan instead of the oven. And they quickly got the message that the key to good stir-fry is cutting the ingredients into the same size and shape.

“We cut them into strips,” Pablo Gomez said.

Pablo and Austin Caballero were so eager to get cutting that they had sliced the orange peppers in half before Mr. Peter had finished explaining what the meal involved. Genevieve Brush and Alison Reyes quickly followed by washing the green beans and learning that “snap” means breaking the beans in half with your hands.

Maya Ramos, meanwhile, was getting a lesson in measuring to mix the ingredients for the stir-fry sauce. She got experience with both liquid and dry ingredients: 3 tablespoons of low-sodium soy sauce, 2 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar and 1/4 cup of brown sugar were all stirred together with a whisk and set aside.

Then everyone was on to the chicken. Because our chefs had never worked with raw meat, they first learned it’s important to keep the meat and everything it touches separate from other ingredients. And they learned that cutting meat requires a smooth, sliding motion instead of the up and down method used for chopping vegetables.

 

 

Everyone wanted cooking gloves to avoid the “squishy” texture of the meat, but they quickly turned a package of boneless chicken thighs into a mound of even strips.

Pablo and Austin took the lead laying the strips into a flat skillet coated with hot oil. Alison, Maya and Genevieve used a neighboring skillet to get the green beans and peppers cooking to the right texture.

We had a little trouble getting the chicken ready on a cranky hot plate, but fixed the problem by putting the meat into our high-powered oven, where it quickly cooked through.

With good timing, the chicken and vegetables came together just as the quinoa side dish finished simmering to a rice-like texture in a sauce pan.

At our table in the cafeteria, the chefs got to assemble their own plates, spreading the chicken and vegetables over the quinoa.

And how was it?

“This is good,” Alison said after taking her first bites. “I like this. I would make it at home if I had all the ingredients.”

“I liked the chicken with the vegetables,” Maya added.

“It was great,” Genevieve said.

The best praise of all came from Austin, however.

“It was really good,” he said. “I think in my mind ‘Oh my God it’s good!’ I’m going to take some home. I’m going to give it to my mom or my dad.”

“I had fun today,” Maya said.