Monday, March 16, 2009

Day 1 @ Ashburton - Smoked salmon risotto

First day at the cookery school....what a day! We covered a lot of techniques. I'll post a pic of each dish and give you a brief run through.

The teaching is fantastic. We had Darrin looking after us today. He has worked in Michelin starred restaurants so I think it's safe to say he knows his stuff. Our group was nicely balanced with really friendly people from a variety of professional backgrounds.

So the risotto......first we had to hot smoke our salmon (as you do)......make a vegetable stock........chop our onion + garlic into teeny tiny pieces......make a saffron infusion. Then began the risotto process adding the stock bit by bit to the rice to a lovely creamy finish. add butter at the end then the peas/dill/salmon. The result was a beautifully balanced dish. A pretty good start to my two weeks of training!