Southern Cookin’ class at Viking Cooking School

I’m a sucker for banana pudding and fried chicken, so signing up for the Southern Cookin’ class at Viking Cooking School in Lyndhurst was a no-brainer for me. Viking Cooking School is located in the Viking Store at Legacy Village, and they offer a variety of fun hands-on cooking classes and chef demonstrations. I have attended 9 hands-on classes there so far, my favorite being the Steak, Roast and Chop class and my least favorite being the Vietnamese Cooking class. I am on a cooking class kick at the moment, so I have attended cooking classes at both The Chubby Cook and Viking recently. This led to some confusion on my part when I showed up for the Southern Cooking class at The Chubby Cook. I realized my mistake when they started passing around edamame, and I apologized and ran out of there to drive to Viking. Luckily they are close to each other, so I was only five minutes late. I had missed the introductions, but quickly grabbed a seat next to my friend A., put on my apron, grabbed a sweet tea and took a deep breath (not necessarily in that order).

Viking always puts out a snack to nibble on while we cook, and the “sample recipe” this time was cheese straws. Not being a big fan of cheese straws I ate one and then concentrated on the recipes at hand. We started out making banana pudding with vanilla wafers, because it needed to set in the refrigerator for a while (at least 1 hour, but preferably up to 4). We whisked the ingredients together, added egg yolks (carefully tempering them into the heated mix), and made a custard. We especially enjoyed pushing in the bananas and vanilla wafers into the serving dish.

Next up were the slow-cooked collard greens, because they needed to cook on the stove for at least 20 to 30 minutes. We cooked the bacon and onions (in A.’s case, because she is Jewish, she cooked the onions in a separate sauce pot and made her very own bacon-free collard greens), washed and chopped the greens, added them to the bacon and onion, added water and let them cook down until tender while we focused on the mashed potatoes and fried chicken.

The mashed potatoes were fairly straight-forward. We cooked and riced the potatoes and mashed them with warm half and half and butter, adding salt and pepper. The interesting technique we learned is that you can make them ahead, wrap them tightly with plastic wrap and keep them in a 200° oven or warming drawer for up to 4 hours. They were still warm once they were served with the gravy later.

I had most anticipated learning how to fry chicken in a Dutch oven. I recently inherited my grandmother’s, so I was anxious to learn how to use it properly. The chicken had been brined in a buttermilk mixture overnight, so all we had to do was heat up the oil in the Dutch oven (checking the temperature constantly with a candy thermometer), coat the chicken in a bag of flour, cornstarch, baking powder, cayenne, paprika and black pepper, and fry it up two pieces at a time. The toughest part about frying the chicken was maintaining a steady heat, because the heat drops once you add the chicken. I was the fry master, learning how to scoop out the little bits that broke loose while frying using a fine-meshed sieve to use later for the gravy. I only burned myself once when A. accidentally singed me with the sieve. The chicken was then put into the oven to finish cooking.

Our instructor Brie then showed us how to make a quick skillet cornbread and sent us out into the store while she and her assistant whipped up some gravy using some leftover oil and crispy chicken bits, cleaned up, and prepped and set the table. Class attendees get 10% off on most items in the store during classes. I used my discount to buy a sieve, a good Viking Santoku knife and a scone pan.

We then came back into the classroom and took our seats for a delicious meal and a glass or two of wine. I wanted a chicken breast, so I had to wait a bit until it wasn’t raw on the inside. I ended up taking another one home for the next day. The food was delicious. There is something about enjoying the fruits of your labor over a glass of wine with friends. No one went home hungry, and I couldn’t wait to go home and try making the banana pudding on my own. It was a very enjoyable and delicious evening.