Millennium Cooking Class: July 2009

From one o'clock: Rice crepe with marinated tofu and vegetables;corn-potato cake with spicy cilantro sauce; potato cake with cashew-cream shiso sauce; sauteed fresh chickpeas; yellow curried vegetables and, center, Indian-stuffed okra.

The bounty of another fun and educational Sunday cooking class in the kitchen at Millennium, the gourmet vegan restaurant in San Francisco, with Eric Tucker, Executive Chef, presiding.

I was pretty focused on the recipes I worked on for this class. I was delighted to make two versions of the potato scallion cakes, as they reminded me so much of the potato cakes my grandmother used to make for supper from Sunday lunch leftovers. She'd serve them with a fried egg and salad.

The fluffier corn version were made with Little Farms Carolla potatoes, boiled then broken by hand with fresh corn kernels and scallions. The cakes were then pan fried and served with a green sauce was a combo of cilantro, serrano chili, pan toasted macademias, water and salt. Very easy and incredibly delicious. We used Yellow Fins for the potato only version, which produced a much denser cake.

I have to admit, I completely missed the making of these wonderful rice crepes filled with marinated tofu and vegetables:




My cooking buddy C tells me they were made with tapioca flour, rice flour, soaked white rice (8 hrs), minced scallion and coconut milk. Perhaps one of our classmates would care to post/email me the details? They were totally amazing and filled with marinated tofu and vegetables:


We also enjoyed a summer vegetable yellow curry:



and Indian-spiced stuffed okra with caramelized onions:


Stuffed broccoli leaf rolls filled with either broken up tempeh or walnuts with cooked brown rice, shiitake mushrooms and fermented black beans, wrapped like dolmas with a spicy lemongrass tomato chutney:



And several variants of this melon, tomato, and endive salad with a coconut-methi (fenugreek) vinaigrette ( with radish, with purslane, or with mint)


I regret that I missed photographing dessert: a peach flan (one version with pureed corn) with either rose geranium ice cream (one of my all time favs) or sungold tomato ice cream with basil syrup swirls.

This class had a particularly wonderful group of cooking students, who all adapted quickly to the format and were keen to learn and get their hands dirty. Many thanks to Thomas and Veronica for their assistance, to Ann for her encouragement, and to Eric for sharing his expertise.

This was my 12th cooking class at Millennium. Here are links to previous Millennium cooking class write-ups:

June Cooking Class 2009

Spring Cooking Class 2009

Mushroom Cooking Class

Holiday Cooking Class

Fall Harvest 2008

Indian Summer

Southern Comfort Cooking Class

Spring Cooking Class

Fall Harvest Cooking Class

Chiles Class

Tomato Class