Craftsy Class Review: Secrets to Cooking Fish: Eight Essential Techniques with Joel Gamoran

As I've referenced in other posts, my husband and I periodically talk about how we really should eat more fish. I'm a bit iffy on fish in general; I have a few types of fish and a few ways it can be prepared that I can almost say I enjoy. He likes fish better than I do, but it's still not something he really looks forward to. I have been wanting to learn more about different ways to prepare fish (in the ever-diminishing hope I'd ever find something I really, truly loved), so I was thrilled when I saw that Craftsy now has a second class on fish. I had already done Fire up the Fish with David Bonom and enjoyed it (here's my review of that one). So, here's my review of Secrets to Cooking Fish: Eight Essential Techniques with Chef Joel Gamoran.

Joel Gamoran is executive chef at Sur La Table. You can tell he's used to teaching classes--he's very easy to watch: he's dynamic without being over the top, and makes you feel immediately comfortable. One very nice twist to this class is that he brings in a student for each lesson; the student serves as a visual "stand-in" for you as the viewer, of course. It's nice to see someone slicing and chopping as slowly as I might, and giving him the occasional uncertain look. I enjoyed how that made this class feel a bit different from other cooking classes I've done on Craftsy. 

Because he's associated with Sur La Table, there is a certain amount of product placement in this class. And I did almost "bite," so to speak, because my fish spatula is a very cheap one that's not at all flexible when I try to get fish out of the pan, so I tend to end up with crumbly bits on the plate rather than a pretty filet. Still, I decided I'd wait to treat myself to a decent fish spatula for if I ever start cooking fish on a more regular schedule than Once in a Blue Moon.

Each lesson introduces different ways of cooking fish by going through a recipe for that technique. There were only a couple of the recipes that I thought my husband and I would be able to agree on, so I ended up making the Sole with Browned Butter, Lemon and Almonds recipe, although I substituted tilapia for sole. In the grand scheme of fish, I will say I enjoyed this fish more than most, and it was certainly a very easy recipe to throw together on a weeknight. Next time I make it, though, I think I'm going to throw a little Panko crumb on that fish as my husband and I both like our fish to have a bit of a crispier outside. 

On the other hand, by the time it's soaking in that very tasty butter/lemon sauce, you've probably negated the vast majority of the health factor to eating fish in the first place. But that's beside the point.

I did really enjoy the class, despite my half-hearted feelings about the main course. I feel like I understand a little more about fish and what types of fish work best with what kinds of preparations, and I really appreciated his discussion of sustainability in the second lesson; great information there. There was a decent amount of information in regards to blending flavors and what kinds of sauces, salsas, or side dishes work well, although I always wish for more along those lines.

Still n' all, I do really recommend this class. For this non-fish-aficionado (see what I did there?), it was a good class. For someone who actually likes fish, it would be a great class!

The Basics

• 8 classes; absent the 2 1/2 minute introduction of lesson 1, the other 7 range from 14 minutes to 26 minutes.
• Lesson 2 is an excellent overview of types of fish, what to look for when buying fish, and sustainability; it also has a no-cook recipe included.
• Lessons 3-8 go through grilling, roasting, poaching, sauteing and pan-frying, steaming, and curing and smoking. The recipes range in complexity but none are very difficult--they're all quite achievable by the average home cook. Some excellent tips for testing for doneness and how to slice and serve certain fish dishes are also useful.

I can't allow my two-thumbs-sideways attitude about fish to color my review of Secrets to Cooking Fish: Eight Essential Techniques with Chef Joel Gamoran, so I'm giving the class two thumbs up. And if you act fast, it's on sale right now!

(Using Craftsy links in this post helps support this podcast and blog. Thank you so much!)

#BFSI Craftsy Class Review: A Modern Take on the Mother Sauces with James Peterson

Yes, it's Black Friday, and once again I'm refusing to shop. However, I'm also not really hosting my usual #BFSI (Black Friday Sew-in) because I dropped my machines off for cleaning/tune-ups already--since I'll be gone three weeks, I figured this was the best time to do without. Unfortunately, I ended up with more time on my hands today than I thought I would and I'm really missing those machines!

However, it did give me time to finish up a Craftsy class, and I figured I'd quick post the review today since Craftsy is having a big Black Friday sale with all classes $19.99 or less. So grab the ones you've been looking at now!

This morning, sans machine, I took the time to finish A Modern Take on the Mother Sauces with James Peterson. To a certain degree I've been working on this class for awhile, watching lessons here and there, waiting until I had the time to try out one of the techniques. This one was a little trickier to decide what to try than the other sauce class I took awhile back, Homestyle Pan Sauces with Martha Holmberg (see my review here). Homestyle Pan Sauces is geared more at simple and relatively quick sauces you can make even on a weeknight when time is short. Mother Sauces take more investment of time, and willingness to wash a few more pots and pans afterwards. To tell the truth, some of what I learned from this class is, "Unlikely to make that one at home!" But that's part of the learning process--discovering what your limits are. None of the sauces are difficult, really; it's just a matter of time and, again, being willing to wash a bunch of pans. 

Holding steady...

However--one of his lessons that I was willing to take on: I made myself a cranberry rosemary mayonnaise this morning to use on my leftover turkey sandwich for lunch, it being the day after Thanksgiving and all. I've made homemade mayo before, but I wanted to try his technique. I've used my food processor for this before; this time, I did it by hand. I picked up a nifty technique from him for keeping the bowl in one place on the counter while you're whisking--wrap a damp cloth around the base. My bowl was so lightweight it still bounced around a little unless I held onto it but it did make it wander a lot less than usual. He made some great suggestions for mayonnaise variations and how he serves them at barbecues that I may need to call on sometime over the summer when we've got a crowd over--they sound tasty!

I may do his aioli technique at some point--it's in the same lesson, and takes the same time and number of bowls (one) that the mayo takes. I could see myself doing a Hollandaise sometime, on a weekend or for a brunch. I thought all of the other sauces looked quite wonderful, really, but they're mostly going to have to wait until I have a stay-cation or retire.

I enjoyed James Peterson's teaching style quite a bit. He's very laid-back and can come out with some very funny expressions here and there--he referenced stealing the soul of a particular ingredient, for example, which tickled me. I did find that some of the lessons I was able to watch on 1.5x speed because he speaks relatively slowly, so if I was just wanting an overview of the technique to determine if it was something I'd do again, speeding it up a little was great. Besides, it's fun to watch someone whisk that quickly. Once I decided I wanted to use a technique, I went back and watched it again at regular speed to make sure I hadn't missed anything. Plus, of course, I took lots of notes--one of my favorite parts of the Craftsy platform.

Cranberry Rosemary mayo--tasted far better than it looks.

The lessons are very comprehensive--in addition to teaching how to make the basic sauce, he gives several variations (sometimes demonstrating them, sometimes simply talking about them), and in most of them he also gives one quick recipe or demonstration of how you'd use the sauce--a cauliflower gratin, for example, or poached fish, and so forth. 

If you're a foodie and are willing to invest some time in getting great results, this would be an excellent class for you. Even if you're not into cooking, I actually found it very interesting to learn what goes into sauces I like to order at restaurants--now I finally know what they're made from and what makes them special, even if I don't ever tackle making them at home. 

The Basics

• 8 lessons; the intro is 3 minutes, but the remaining 7 lessons range from 20-30 minutes long.
• Lesson 1, the introduction, does the usual teacher introduction, but then explains what a "Mother Sauce" is and why they're good to learn how to make.
• Lesson 2 is Béchamel Sauce; Lesson 3 is Beurre Blanc (another one I'm likely to try at some point); Lesson 4 is tomato sauces, although not necessarily "your grandma's Italian pasta sauce cooking on the stove all day," but other types of sauces using tomatoes; Lesson 5 is Brown Sauce, Demi-Glace, Glace de Viande, and Bordelaise; Lesson 6 is Velouté (this was a new one on me!); Lesson 7 is Mayonnaise and Aioli--inclduing a brief discussion of why much of what you see called aioli in restaurants isn't actually aioli; and Lesson 8 is Hollandaise and Béarnaise sauces.
• The class materials are also very comprehensive. Not only do they include the recipes he demonstrates in class but a ton of variants on a lot of the sauces, and a glossary of terms at the end. 

Even though, the day after Thanksgiving, I'm watching this class and saying, "Nope, not gonna wash that many pots again," the likelihood is that once I'm a few weeks removed from kitchen chaos I'll decide on some relaxed weekend that spending a few hours making a really wonderful, fancy French sauce for dinner sounds like a lot of fun. I would definitely take other classes from James Peterson. Two thumbs up.

Again, that's A Modern Take on the Mother Sauces with James Peterson. And yes, it's on sale today!

Craftsy Class Review: Artisan Breads with Peter Reinhart

I know, I know. This is "OT" when it comes to quilting. But a quilter's gotta eat, right? And if she's eating, she might as well be eating really, really good bread.

I believe I've mentioned before that I grew up as a child of the Back to Nature Movement. In 1970, my parents moved our family from the city out to a house in the country on seven acres--a house Dad built himself (well, more correctly, "was building" himself as it was little more than a frame when we first moved out there--but that's a story for another blog). Dad lived by the Farmer's Almanac and Mother Earth News. I often joke now that Dad would mow the lawn and we'd get it for dinner: Lamb's Quarters are something vegetarians could eat, if you didn't know. Put enough butter on it....

But more than the canned-just-about-anything, the homemade maple syrup, and definitely more than the homemade wine (a subject for that same other blog), what I appreciated about my growing-up-hippie years was Mom's homemade bread. Every Saturday, 15 loaves. The woman had serious biceps. Kneading, punching down, putting in the oven to rise*, then baking batch after batch well into the dinner hour...it was a weekend ritual. My favorite moments were Saturday nights, when Mom would let us slice into one loaf fresh out of the oven and have a big, thick hot slice slathered with butter (well, those were the margarine years) and strawberry jam (usually also homemade).

As an adult, I rarely had time to bake homemade bread . I did it once or twice, using Mom's techniques and recipe, and the kids loved it. To try to fill the need, I owned a bread machine a couple of different times--until, well, see the rather tragic blog post about the demise of my most recent one.

Now that the kids are grown and my schedule has seriously eased up, I felt the desire to start baking bread again. Enter Craftsy and Peter Reinhart and Artisan Bread Making.

Mom's method was great...but oh, the bread I've been baking! Peter's method is quite different, and produces a very different type of bread. I've been making baguettes, boules, and batards (O My). I plan on making a chocolate babka for an upcoming guild meeting. I'm putting the information about marbled ryes in my back pocket for future reference. Great stuff.

But even beyond the bread recipes which, arguably, you can find on the Internet or in any of Peter's books, there's Peter himself. He's an excellent teacher. His passion for bread-making comes through so clearly that he makes you want to jump up and run into the kitchen as soon as you're done watching a lesson. And his statement that bread is a metaphor of transformation imbues each loaf you shape with your hands with a depth of meaning beyond just, "Hey, this tastes pretty dang good."

And yet, it does taste pretty dang good.

So, the basics:

• 10 lessons in all, most 30-40 minutes (a couple are shorter, one is 47 mins).
• The first lesson talks about baker's math and gives a tremendous amount of background information that lays an excellent foundation for everything that follows, the second talks about supplies, definitions, and the 12 steps of bread making.
• In each lesson following, Peter gives very clear directions on how to measure and mix ingredients, shape, and rise the dough, bake the bread; as well as how to be ready to make adjustments based on your room temperature and relative humidity.
• The lessons go from straight lean dough, to country variations, rustic breads, enriched breads, marble rye, and that amazing chocolate babka that I'm going to make this weekend.
• The downloadable materials are excellent reference when you're actually in the kitchen and don't want to get flour or oil on your iPad. Ahem. (Don't ask how I know.)

I had to make a judgment call as to when I'd consider this class completed for the purpose of my tracking. If I had said to myself that I'd have to bake one of every type of bread he teaches before I call the class finished, I'd either be done in 2017 or I'd be the size of a house. I've now baked three batches of bread, using one method twice when the first results weren't what I'd hoped (second results turned out fantastic after I made a few adjustments as per his suggestions to take into account the cold snap we're now living in up in these parts). I'll be baking one more batch in the next couple of weeks--the aforementioned chocolate babka. I've watched all the lessons and made copious notes. Therefore, I've decided to call it done, knowing I'll keep going back and referencing this class for years to come.

I'm putting all the pictures into a gallery--just click on the picture to see the next photo in the gallery. If you're reading this by email, the gallery may not come through. If not, use this link to see it in Flickr.

Haven't tried out Craftsy yet? Use this link to find out more.

Want to check out Peter Reinhart's Artisan Bread Making class? Use this link!

(Full disclosure: Using those Craftsy links helps support this blog and podcast--thanks so much!)

*Backstory: Mom would put the huge batch of dough in a big plastic bucket in the oven to rise. We were all strictly warned never to turn on the oven without looking in it first. When I was somewhere around middle-school aged, one day my sister and I decided to bake a cake. "Flick," went the oven switch to bake, and "Swish" went the temperature control knob. About half an hour later, Mom came running up from the basement where she'd been in her quilt studio. "What's that I smell? What do I smell burning?" She raced into the kitchen and threw open the oven door, to reveal a mass of dough and melting plastic. I don't exactly remember what happened next. I don't, however, recall that my sister and I played any role in helping to clean up. My guess is that, in those moments, Mom didn't particularly want to even lay eyes on us so sending us to our rooms was likely the better option for her. Frankly, I'm surprised I lived to tell about it. To this day, I always open an oven door before I turn it on. Some lessons do stick.