A Bad Cook (aka me) Learns to Cook a Gourmet 3 Course Seafood Dinner at Dirty Apron with Villa Maria Wines

Yes, I’m a Bad Cook!

Dinner time sometimes involve real tears at my house. As I’ve mentioned before in the first post from my Easy Meal Recipes series, dinner time involves quite a bit of drama sometimes. I am not a good cook and when I try a new recipe, I’m often scrambling to complete each step like a mad woman with no clear direction. My kitchen is often a complete mess afterwards too. I just can’t seem to multi-task in a calm and focused manner like I do when I bake. I’ve often wondered why there is such a dichotomy between the way I bake and the way I cook. I think some of it may be due to a lack of confidence handling raw meat and the fear of poisoning myself (meat at my house is always overcooked), the dislike of splashing hot oils and the fear of creating a kitchen fire, and a general lack of passion for it due to so many failed attempts at cooking on my own. So if you told me I would be creating a 3 course gourmet seafood meal in 3 hours all on a gas stove top, I would not have believed it but that was exactly what I did when I was invited to a cooking class at The Dirty Apron hosted by Alicia Fashionista and Villa Maria Wines.

The structure of the cooking class goes like this. First, we sit down for a cooking demonstration by the chef instructor and then we head to our own cooking station, which we share with one other person, to start cooking. The ingredients for each course is carefully laid out on a tray so all you need to do is focus on cooking with the materials in front of you.

I don’t know how it happened but I transformed into a little gourmet chef for a few hours under the direction of Chef John. Sure, on several occasions he asked me why I was standing so far away from the flames (Um… because I could burn myself! If anyone can, I can!) and he also swapped my small paring knife which I was perfectly content in using for an “intimidating” big French knife. But it was exactly that no-nonsense push that I needed from him to whip me into shape.

And, of course, we couldn’t have seafood without some white wine! It’s always been my personal preference to have Sauvignon Blanc with shellfish and Villa Maria Wines introduced us to their version along with an off-dry Pinot Gris which was paired with our third course of pan roasted halibut with charred tomato vinaigrette.

All the ingredients we need are clearly laid out on the tray before we begin cooking each course.

Tomato Coconut Mussels. This was amazing and the sauce was so good on its own too! It was surprisingly easy to cook and I loved how it did not involve splashing hot oils. Here, we are having it with a Villa Maria Sauvignon Blanc which makes a perfect pairing.

Maple Seared Scallops over Chorizo Ragout and Pea Coulis, plated by yours truly.

Pan roasted halibut over sauteed spinach and fingerling potatoes. We used a metal ring to first place the potatoes and spinach inside for this pretty presentation. The fish was then placed on top with a charred tomato vinaigrette. This dish was paired with an off dry Pinot Gris from Villa Maria.

Cardamom caramel poached pear with chocolate sauce. The chocolate sauce was thick, creamy and rich. It’s worth sabotaging your diet for!

Hey, I Can Cook (?) !

For me, I think failures don’t breed success, success breeds success and luckily for me, the evening taught me that I was capable of cooking a delicious gourmet meal without burning anything down. It was a surprise to me that in a few hours, my confidence for cooking grew immensely. Chef John showed me to cook with more passion instead of viewing cooking as a practical means for survival each day. I have the recipes of our dishes from the night stashed away in my recipes folder, I’m excited to cook the mussels again for a dinner party and open a bottle of Sauv Blanc from Villa Maria Wines as well. I’ll also try not to burn the house down 🙂

Until our next dinner date.

XOXO,

Mimi

Many thanks to my cooking partner, Emma of VancouverFoodie, for holding my hand at every step!

Disclosure: This was an invite event. All food and drinks were complimentary. All opinions are my own.

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