Our "Italian Romance" date night cooking class
For Christmas this year, Sean and I decided we would each gift each other an experience as part of our gifts. My gift was a cooking class at a local Sur La Table store in Boulder, Co. This was both our first time taking a cooking class.
The recipe for the class was: lemon and saffron risotto, rosemary grilled chicken under a brick, roasted broccolini with garlic and lemon and basil-limoncello sorbet.
Is your mouth watering yet?
We had no idea what to expect walking into the class how the class was going to be set up, or how difficult the class was going to be. But we were pleasantly surprised how fun and easy the class was!
When we walked in we found that they assigned us a station and paired us with another couple. The entire meal was made working as a group and then we combined everything with the other 8 couples in the class and ate together, family style.
Our only complaint was that we didn't get to make everything for the meal. It was all split up between the four people so there wasn't much for each person to do. But it did allow us to talk with the other couple and observe what everyone in the class was doing.
The instructor, Cory, was very helpful and did a great job explaining each step and then walked around showing us how to do it.
Now it was time to cook!
We were given all the ingredients laid out - for the chicken, we were given the chicken thighs, and the ingredients to create a marinade with garlic, rosemary, pepper flakes, lemon and olive oil. We let the chicken sit in the marinade for awhile while we prepared the risotto.
Once the risotto was cooking in the dutch over, we removed it from the heat and began cooking the chicken under a "brick." Or in our case, we just used another pan on top of the chicken. The chicken cooked on the stove until it was browned, and then the instructor moved the chicken between the two pans into the oven to finish cooking.
The last step was the brocollini. Instead of roasting it, we steamed it in a wok with butter and lemon.
Once everything was done, we transferred everything to large plates and everyone in the group served themselves, family style.
We all were very impressed by the feast we just made! It was super fun to cook in a group setting and meet new people.
Can't forget dessert!
Because the dessert was a sorbet, it was created ahead of time for us. I wish we were able to make the dessert ourselves, but I understand why it was made before we got there. The basil flavoring was a little over-powering. It also wasn't made with fresh basil but dried basil leaves instead. So it wasn't my favorite. But the lemon flavor was refreshing!
Overall, it was a fun night out for Sean and I and I would definitely try another class that they offer.
How fun! I’ve been wanting to try their pasta making class. Now I might have to. Also, I love the matching shirts! You two are too cute. 😍