Cooking Classes

Joining a CSA or shopping at the farmers markets will get you great, fresh produce from your local farmers, but how do you make the most out of these ingredients?  Building your cooking techniques can help transform your CSA bounty into beautiful and creative dishes.  To help you enhance your culinary skills, we’ve teamed up with New Amsterdam Market and Chef Will Griffin of I8NY to curate this series of cooking classes.
*All our classes are capped at 10 students to ensure a hands-on experience and interaction with the instructor*

Pictures from our previous classes can be found at our flickr page

October 21, 2012, 12pm or 5pm
Basic Knife Skills

The knife is a chef’s most important tool in the kitchen. Becoming more comfortable using your knives will make you a faster and more efficient cook, enhance the appearance and taste of your food, and will make cooking at home more enjoyable!

In one of our most popular classes, we will explore the knife techniques that form the basis of modern cooking. These are the cuts that inevitably come up in the preparation of a meal:
- Peeling and dicing onions, shallots, and garlic
- Working with oblongs and cylinders: potatoes, carrots, etc.
- Dealing with unusual fruits and vegetables
- How to approach herbs

Time allowing, we will cover topics such as knife maintenance, safety, honing, and sharpening, as well as discuss the different types of knives and their uses. Students are welcome to bring their own knives for discussion.

All ingredients and materials (knives and butcher blocks) will be provided.
Sponsored by Brooklyn Butcher Blocks.

Class capped at 15 people and is 2 hours long. Students have the option to purchase a ticket which includes a butcher block courtesy of Brooklyn Butcher Blocks.

TICKET OPTIONS:
General – Admission to class ($40)
General Plus – Admission to class plus a cutting board from Brooklyn Butcher ($90)
General Supreme – Admission to class, cutting board, $10 proceed to New Amsterdam Market ($100)

CHEF WILL GRIFFIN is a professional cook in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. He has cooked in restaurants in Connecticut, Brooklyn, and Manhattan. He has lived and worked in Paris, France, as well as on a heritage breed pig farm in the Gers. He grew up on Bainbridge Island, WA and studied literature at Yale University, where he learned to cook as a way of procrastinating on his thesis. He believes that good food is an imminent reality for all New Yorkers.
NEW AMSTERDAM MARKET is a nonprofit regional economic development organization, whose aim is to revive the East River Market District in Lower Manhattan. The market is held every Sunday from April through December and brings our region’s pioneering farmers, food producers and purveyors to the Fulton Fish Market on South Street, Lower Manhattan, in New York’s oldest neighborhood – a site of public markets since 1642. New Amsterdam Market mission is to revive the old Fulton Fish Market as a year round regional food market and as a hub to foster and support small food businesses, cultural exchange and public education.

Past Classes:

August 12, 12pm

Fresh Pasta Basics


Learn to make fresh pasta from start to finish with Chef Will Griffin.  Each student will walk out with at least one ball of pasta dough to cook at home. Once you see the technique and pick up the finesse, you’ll discover how easy it is to build a meal around fresh pasta. It doesn’t take long either!
Topics include:
Mixing and kneading dough by hand
Rolling and cutting fettuccine, tagliatelle, and pappardelle
Techniques for filled pasta such as ravioli and agnolotti if time allows

TICKET OPTIONS:
General $40 – Admission to class
General Plus $50 – Admission to class and $10 proceed to New Amsterdam Market 501 (c) 3

September 23, 12pm or 5pm
Fish Butchery Essentials


Dive into the world of fish butchery in this interactive class.  The skills you’ll learn will allow you to buy whole fish from the market instead of pre-cut fillets and portions.  Cooking with whole fish is not only fresher and better tasting, but is also more sustainable.
Students will have the opportunity to learn and practice fish butchery on high-quality fish that we will provide from Pierless Fish, a Brooklyn based fish provider which many of the top NYC restaurants source from.  Participants will be able to bring home their cut fish fillets to show off to friends.
We will be butchering round fish from start to finish.  These serve as a useful template for most of the fish found at markets.
Each student will have 2 fish to practice with; this is a hands on class.
We will cover the following topics:
- gutting, cleaning, and de-scaling
- filleting
- removing the skin
- removing bones and forming appropriate portions

TICKET OPTIONS:
General $60 – Admission to class
General Plus $70 – Admission to class and $10 proceed to New Amsterdam Market 501 (c) 3

Have an idea for a cooking class?  Email us your suggestions!