In every class of Cooking Club, discoveries are just waiting to happen. Young chefs discover that foods they don’t expect to like taste good when cooked in new ways. They discover that ingredients that don’t seem to match create new flavors when mixed together. And they discover that there are always new skills to master when you work in a kitchen.
In Week 4 of Cooking Club, students made all kinds of new discoveries. They discovered that fish soaked in milk can turn crunchy when dragged in bread crumbs and baked. They discovered that vegetables can be made to taste like pickles when soaked in salt, sugar and lime juice. They discovered that apples (and cabbage) can have new appeal and texture when cut into thin slices with a process called “julienning” (JU-lee-EN-ing). They even discovered that if you slice an apple across its middle (rather than down from the stem), it reveals a secret shape.
“It’s a star!” the class exclaimed, when shown the cross section of the apple core.
There was lots to do making Fish Tacos with Quick Pickled Slaw, plus a cold Apple, Orange and Parsley Salad. But the chefs of Bayard Taylor were up to the challenge.
They started with the pickled slaw, made by slicing purple cabbage into thin, colorful strips. Rosalee Sanchez and Elvin Jimenez discovered it takes a lot of knife control to make really thin strips correctly. Meanwhile, Arielis Lopez (“Ari”) was chopping up the cilantro that would give the slaw its special herb-y taste, and everyone took turns tossing the combination with the lime juice, salt and sugar.
Then it was on to the strips of white fish and the unusual approach to soak it in milk. Rosalee and Jayden Jimenez took the lead there, discovering how soft and flexible fish can be by playfully swinging pieces in the air in a kind of martial arts duel.
Jenaliz Valerio wanted rubber gloves for handling the fish, but everyone wanted hands-on experience dipping it in the milk and “dredging” it in the bread crumbs and cayenne pepper to give it a coating on both sides.
“This class was really fun and really good,” Jayden said later. “I liked the fish.”
While the fish cooked at a hot 400 degrees, the class finished up the salad by dividing the oranges, cutting the sections into bite sized pieces and tossing them with the julienned apples, parsley — another herb! — and a dressing of lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper. Ari carefully grated the parmesan cheese that would top the salad — and it turned out to be a huge hit.
“The cheese was amazing,” Rosalee would say later. “I could eat it I all day, every day, it was so good.”
When the fish came out, Ari thought it looked too moist, so we put it back in the oven for a couple minutes more, creating a perfectly browned centerpiece for the tacos.
Then everyone lined up to make tacos of their own, placing the baked fish on a tortilla with a spatula and topping it with the pickled slaw. For extra oomph, they added a special sauce they had made from lime juice mixed with mayonnaise.
The topping was indeed special for Elvin. “I really liked that sauce,” he declared when asked to sum up the meal.
Jenaliz, as usual, was at no loss for words to describe the class. In fact, she used some of them over and over for emphasis.
“The food it was just delicious,” she said. “I liked every single, single, single, single, single, single part of it, especially the fish. … This is the most dangerous, dangerous, dangerous, dangerous snack because it’s so delicious.”
Even better, she said she loved how Cooking Club makes her feel.
“This is like home,” she said. The best words of all.
