Jersey Girl Takes Classes - Chinese Cooking with Chef Jaden Hair

Last night, Cary and I had the opportunity to learn how to make Chinese food with Chef Jaden Hair, the owner of Steamy Kitchen, an online resource for Modern Asian Recipes and Cooking. The class took place at The Rolling Pin Kitchen Emporium, a cooking resource in Brandon, FL.

I first met Chef Jaden, or as I know her on Twitter, @steamyktichen, back in July when I was introduced to the world of online social networking by my friend and colleague Mark Tafoya (aka @ChefMark on Twitter). I loved her wit and personality, and knew that I wanted to take classes with her, even if it meant driving down to her neck of the woods (Sarasota County).

Low and behold, another friend of mine from Twitter, Debbie Frangipane (aka @dolcedebbie), showed up for the class as well! Cary and I tried to sit with her, but there was not another seat by us. Debbie has a business called Savory Adventures, where she and her husband take people all over Italy. Debbie and I had been talking about getting together for lunch, as she lives not too far from me. Well, this was the perfect opportunity to not only get together with each other, but also start developing a business relationship that could be useful down the road.

Getting back to the food *lol* (well, I do have a habit of getting off topic)... the menu for Thursday night's class was as follows:

• Vegetable Sticky Buns
• Seafood Wonton Soup with Bok Choy
• Pork Egg Rolls

Chef Jaden divided us into groups of 5, and we started off by making the dough for the Sticky Buns. Cary bravely mixed the batter, and I was quite proud of my husband for the way he was kneading the dough. We then set it off to the side and started on the Seafood Wonton Soup.

After quickly combining, sauteeing off , and cooling down the wonton mixture, Chef Jaden showed us the proper way to fold the wonton wrappers into wontons. I never knew how to do that, but now that I do, there's no buying them frozen anymore! We then cooked the wontons in a seafood stock (broth would be good in a pinch), and then served them with a cooked bok choy leaf.

We then split the next two tasks - one group would prepare and make the Sticky Buns, and the other group would make the Pork Egg Rolls. Both groups worked on quickly combining, sauteeing, and cooling down our mixtures for the items we were preparing.

Cutting the Sticky Buns dough into 12 equal parts was quite the challenge. We first divided the dough into two equal parts, and then divided each of those logs into three equal parts, and finally those three equal parts in half. We then rolled each of the pieces into circles, which were then filled with the mixture and then formed into dumplings that would be steamed.

While we were doing that, the other team worked on rolling the egg rolls, which was a lot of fun. We learned from Chef Jaden that the tighter we roll the egg rolls, the less likely it is that oil would get into the egg rolls, thereby not allowing them to get all mushy.

Finally, after steaming the Sticky Buns in two 2-level steamers, as well as deep frying the egg rolls in a separate wok, we were able to enjoy the fruits of our labor with wine provided by the hosts of the cooking class, Rolling Pin Kitchen Emporium in Brandon.

All in all, Cary and I really enjoyed the class, and I look forward to taking more classe there in the future.

And without further ado, here is the photo album from the cooking class:

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Enjoy!