Hello friends! I’m so excited to write this post because it’s about two things I’ve never done before. We went to True Nosh Kitchen to…
- Take a cooking class and
- Make Hainanese chicken
While there are numerous places to take cooking classes in Vancouver, I decided to go with True Nosh Kitchen because it felt like it would be the most personal. The cooking classes at True Nosh Kitchen are small and only open to up to 6 people at a time and they are located inside a house. Now the house isn’t just used for the cooking classes because our cooking teacher Renee also teaches yoga lessons.
Grayson and I arrived a little early to True Nosh Kitchen. We were given the opportunity to participate in painting on the giant paint-by-numbers canvas in the dining room. I can only imagine how long it has taken to complete. It was well on it’s way to completion by the time we had our visit.
True Nosh Kitchen Cooking Class
Once everyone arrived, Renee led us to the kitchen where we went over the ingredients for making the sauces and marinaded the chicken. The chicken was then put into the pot to be cooked and we got the ancient grains rice mix ready. Instead of making all the marinades and sauces ourselves, Renee had a demo table she made everything on. I haven’t been to other cooking classes before but for most of Renee’s class, Grayson and I thought we were watching a demo more than making it ourselves.
Preparing the chicken
Once the chicken was ready, Renee taught us how to de-bone it. This way the meat would come off nicely for the plating. It wasn’t as hard as it looked but I wouldn’t do it again if I didn’t have to.
Plating the chicken
The chicken was topped with a sweet soy sauce to make sure each piece was nice and juicy. We got to choose between the green and red sauces we made earlier to top our chicken off with. As expected, the chicken was flavourful. The garlicy ginger sauces we made complimented the sweet soy sauce well.
Ancient grains and rice
The ancient grain rice mix was made out of a combination of quinoa, flax seeds, and brown rice. It was a hearty blend and it was lightly seasoned with turmeric for colour. To make the rice all the more flavorful, Renee used some of the chicken stock from the chicken to cook the rice. Miso and kelp was added to the rest of the broth to make a miso chicken soup.
Bok choy
The last dish of the evening was the lightly sauteed bokchoy topped with the rest of the sweet soy sauce. If you’re not a fan of your veggies, this is the perfect way to have it because the veg was so flavorful!
Once everything was set, we all got to sit at a table where to eat. Renee had a few sauces from her line at the table for us to try. Four of them were hot sauces and the other four were Chinese sauces. All the sauces are naturally sweetened and made with ingredients you can pronounce!
Hainanese chicken meal
The two of us ended off the night with insanely full bellies and a bag of leftovers to take home for the next day. There was more than enough food for the 6 of us dining to share and it was a great experience overall. I would say that this is a cooking class for people who are more hands-off when it comes to cooking because not everyone gets to be involved every step of the way. It is however an excellent choice for people who are looking for a more intimate cooking experience. Renee also does private cooking classes and birthday parties if you’re looking to do that as well!
