Cooking School, Days 2 and 3

We had three dishes to observe and prepare on Tuesday: baizai chicken (a cold dish dressed with a sauce based on pixian chili bean paste), mala dry-dried beef strips (another cold appetizer), and tomato egg drop soup. Our instructor of the day, Chef Cai, also showed us how to make chili oil, aromatic soy sauce, and strange-taste peanuts (which are perhaps the most perfect thing in the world to snack on while drinking Chinese beer).

Here's Chef Cai showing us the ingredients for making chili oil, along with our ever-cheerful interpreter, Crystal Hu.

The beef that Chef Cai used to make the mala dry-fried beef strips was pre-cooked and fairly salty--almost like corned beef.

Chef Cai appraises his handiwork with a critical eye.

The finished mala beef strips. Chewy but tasty.

Chef Cai insisted that the best chicken for baizai chicken is a scrawny, free-range rooster. Here he is, having just been poached for about 20 minutes.

The finished baizai chicken. The meat is mounded over a bed of scallion chunks and then drizzled with the sauce.

Like much of downtown Chengdu, the neighborhood around the Institute is thick with high-rises. But just across the street from the campus is this lovely little vegetable garden.

You see gardens like this wherever there isn’t something else occupying the space.

On Wednesday, owing to an state of befuddlement caused by an unfortunate combination of Ambien and melatonin, I forgot to bring my camera to class (*sigh*). But Adrienne Lo has kindly offered to share some of her photos, so I’ll post them as soon as I get them from her. I will say only that the day’s activities included stunning, killing, scaling, gutting, and deep-frying a two-pound grass carp. I am now officially a fish-murderer.