SEAFOOD COOKING SCHOOL REVIEW: WITH GULLIAUME BRAHIMI

Today is Bastille Day - the French public holiday and I get the pleasure to watch a French chef, Gulliaume Brahimi from Gulliaume at Bennelong.  Gulliaume is a real charmer with a sense of humour who can definitely entertain the audience during his cooking demonstrations.  Sometimes you can get bored just watching and learning someone cooking but you get to learn new techniques and ask away questions so for $155 for three meals, it was worth it.

Seafood cooking school with Gulliaume and Kristy the assistant

We made three dishes that are on the entree menu at the restaurant.   The easiest of them all is the scallops with herb butter.  Cooking and preparation probably takes about 10 minutes.  6 minutes to melt butter and chop up the herbs to mix with the butter and then baking them in the oven for about 4 minutes.  The herbs used were chives, chervil, french tarragon (Gulliaume emphasised that french tarragon is better than the ordinary ones because of the texture and smell), flat-leaf parsley.  Garlic and butter were also essential ingredients.   The herbs are finely chopped and not processed through the blender.  I found that baking it in the oven for 4 minutes was a little bit too raw for my liking, maybe just another minute would be perfect as suggested by the recipe by my cooking group decided to do 4 minutes at 200 degrees celcius instead.  Gulliaume suggested to allow the scallops to be translucent not overcooked so timing of when you take it out of the oven is important.  With the extra herb butter that is left, you can wrap it like a sausage using glad wrap and re-use for steaks or as garlic bread.

Scallops with herb butter

Scallops with herb butter

Next we made the red mullet with cavolo nero, chestnuts, olives, grapes, anchovy oil.  I never tried cavolo nero before.  It is an Italian cabbage and can be found in Leichardt.  Can probably substitute this with cabbage if you can't find it at the grocery stores.  This dish requires a bit of effort because you need to roast the chestnuts and almonds and blanch grapes and cavolo nero.  You also need to chop brussel sprouts, chives, anchovies and bake ligurian olives.   My team believes that if you don't have the dressing the red mullet would have been bland.  The red mullet was just seasoned with salt, nothing else.  When it comes to cooking the red mullet, you would need to press hard against the pan as the fish starts to shrivel when you cook it, and it won't lay flat.  Cook the skin side first until it goes golden brown then you can flip over to the other side but only for about 10 secs or so because the fish will be overcooked otherwise.  I kind of left it too late but the fish was cooked overall.  Red Mullet has quite a profound taste and its best to cook it the day that you bought it.  A fresh one will have a firm translucent texture.

Red mullet with cavolo nero, chestnuts, olives, grapes and anchovy oil.

Our last dish was prawn ravioli.  I think this has got to be my favourite mainly because I'm not a fan of brussels sprouts and I can't have too much butter from the scallops. The tomatoes were so rich and sweet and goes will with the cute cucumber balls.  The lemongrass oil is very fragrant and you can actually add more to enhance the flavours when making the oil.  The prawns were fresh and whipped cream was great.  When plated, the dish looks sensational.  The interesting part of this was that pasta was not used but wonton wrappers for the ravioli.  Gulliaume mentioned it lasts longer than pasta and the texture is a lot better than using pasta.  I'm definitely going to try and make this dish as some other couple in the team made this exquisite dish.

Prawn Ravoili with tomato,cucumber, finger lime, lemongrass vinaigrette

After a long two hour demonstration, it took us as a group two hours to complete the three entrees before we set up to dine.  At this point you can also purchase a signed copy of Guilliaume's book as well - one called Gulliaume for $75 or the French Safari with Mauve for $55.  I bought one for a friend who loves cooking and eating.  She's the one that introduced me to the love of food.  The French Safari is really easy to follow so thought I'd get the one for her as simply to follow is better than having complicated recipes to make.

Dining room

The Seafood Cooking school has daily classes.  You can find them on their Sydney Seafood School website.  Popular classes get booked out quickly so make sure you book in advance.  I wanted to do the Justin North class but given that his restaurant's last day was Saturday 14th of July, I don't think he'll be going to teach at the Seafood cooking class.  I'm kicking myself for not going to eat at Becasse before it shut down.  Oh well, at least I managed to eat at Quarter 21.   A lesson learnt, try and eat at the recommended restaurants before they close down.  You'd think that if it's good that it will continue to operate but some things do happen in life as it's not all rosy.