Today was the Food Intensive Learning group’s first day not traveling off campus. We began by watching an episode of Anthony Bourdain’s Parts Unknown, which gave us a glimpse into Senegalese food culture. We then started our first cooking challenge of the week: a breakfast meal which needed to include Asian fusion. Our group created a Nutella dorayaki, a spin on a traditional Japanese dish which is made using pancake-like patties to create a sandwich usually filled with red bean paste, but we substituted red bean paste for nutella.
Other dishes included: crepes filled with sweetened carrot and topped with mascarpone, served with an egg and scallion pancake; a white rice and fried egg stack, surrounded by a stir fried egg and tofu scramble with peppers and a thai pepper sauce; and a “British fried rice”, which consisted of fried rice, eggs, bacon, eel sauce, and stir fried root vegetables, which ended up winning our competition.
We were then permitted to go uptown and enjoy lunch at any of the Main Street establishments. We returned to school and worked in the Dining Hall Commons kitchen with the assistance of our friends at Sage Dining, who assisted us in creating different dips, including a honey vanilla yogurt dip and a traditional salsa.
Tomorrow will consist of another challenge involving ramen, and a demo of desserts with the Sage Dining staff.