Glossary

Sunday, 12 June 2011

Preserving class at Oded's Kitchen

At 10h45 this morning, sunglasses firmly on and clutching my super sharp knife, I arrived at Oded's Kitchen at the Old Buiscit Mill in Woodstock for their preserving class with Oded. Greeted by super cheerful Ming (a part time worker bee at the kitchen) who speedily got a mug of filter coffee into my half asleep hands (I don't operate well without coffee in the mornings in 2 or 3 mug quantities to get me going) Turned out it was MOI Moo, and 5 others (one of them being Indigo Girl who I blame for my early appearance on this bright morning) Once we were all there (clutching beverage of choice) Oded began the class.

Oded teaching with Ming on the camera.
Starting with the Oded's Kitchen preserves and relishes, we worked our way through the tasters. Aubagine Relish, Carrot and Almond, Caramelised Onion. Also on taste was the Oded's Tahini (interesting recipe to follow using this thanks to one of my fellow preservers, Sasha) I know most of them from the food markets, but it was nice to get to try the one or two I haven't seen before. The brown sugar marmalade was DELICIOUS.


We then partnered up and moved onto the cooking part of the day. I had a fantastic partner by way of Sasha, a very cool modern Martha Stewart. She makes cakes from SCRATCH.... not from box mix. I mean so can I but I'm just to lazy most of the time. This woman works and  does REAL cakes. Superwoman delux.
Yes the one on the right is me!
We got started on the Cucumber preserve while the other 2 teams made Tomato Relish and Lemon Marmalade (this was Indigo Girl and Andrew's) Unfortunately Oded was unable to stay with us for the course, so Ming carried it on. We cooked and grated, and sliced and diced madly.

Putting boiling water over the onions and carrots
After salting the cucumber it needs
to stand for 15 mins
The layering of the jars is the only really involved bit in making the Cucumber Preserve, with all the jars needing to be neatly layered. This is NOT my forte'. I'm more of a toss in and shake kinda girl!




My fellow preservers.
My partner, Sasha is the Brunette back left
Oded with Indigo Girl and Andrew....
 the Lemon Marmalade Team

Left: Tomato Relish, Back: Onion Marmalade
Right: Cucumber Preserve

And just to top the fantastic day off, we got to snack on Oded's snacks that I take great pleasure in eating at the fairs. We were treated to Spinach sponge roll with cream cheese & blue cheese; Snoek Cigars; Aubagine and almond half moons, Spinach & cream cheese mini sausage rolls. Droooool. Please believe me when I say that should you ever come across a stall or the Oded's shop, do yourself a favour and BUY AS MANY OF THESE SNACKS AS YOU CAN. You will be sorry if you don't.

(left to right) Tomato Relish, Lemon Marmalade, Cucumber Preserve
The days lesson ended with our each getting one of each of the products made. We walked out happy, clutching our goodies and having spent an amazing day preserving and making new friends. Thanks Oded's Kitchen. It wasn't quite the day as planned, but it did make good memories and hopefully, in a few days, we'll have tasty preserves to eat too. :)

3 comments:

  1. Ooh, those all sound delicious! Sounds like you had a fun time in the kitchen! :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ok now I'm excited. One of my food blogging hero's left me a message on MY blog. Thanks Karly and keep up the great work on your amazing blog.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Cute first blog, cant wait to see more to come :)

    ReplyDelete