Newtown Continuing Education Course

Teaches Culinary Skills

By Eliza Hallabeck

As Newtown High School culinary teacher Stephen OShana shared the menu for the night with members attending the second session of his Newtown Continuing Education course, Cooking — Italian, Latin and Asian Style, words like “love it,” “great,” and “one of my favorites” could be heard in reply.

 The night’s recipes were chicken piccata, prepared with chicken stock instead of wine for the night, ricotta gnocchi, and mushroom risotto.    

Over a course of six nights, Mr OShana’s classes help course takers further their knowledge of cooking, according to Newtown Continuing Education. Two nights’ courses are still open for Asian style cuisine; if interested contact Newtown Continuing Education at 426-1787. The Asian style cooking classes start November 5.

Tuesday’s course met in one of the culinary room’s of the high school, and participants choose the ricotta gnocchi for their first lesson of the night.

Mr OShana shared the one secret not to miss in the recipe for the dough, made out of flour, potatoes, and ricotta cheese.

“The only thing you can’t do is you can’t be scared of the dough,” said Mr OShana after demonstrating how to make the dough. “You can’t be scared of it. You can’t be afraid to mess it up. You just have to try it again. Just simple stuff. Just try it all over again.”

When preparing dough for gnocchi he said people should monitor the consistency.

“Do you guys see the dough?” He asked while demonstrating how to prepare the dough. “Right now, can you feel the dough?” he passed some around. “It’s getting really soft right now. Just feel the dough. Do you feel how dense it is? You’re going to start getting that feel to it, and generally right after this you really don’t want to add too much more stuff to it.”

Mr OShana said his father was a pastry chief when he was younger, and being able to cook and teach students brings the best of two worlds together for him.

“Cooking is part of my life,” he said. “I’ve been doing it since I was really small.”

Participants on Thursday, October 15, Deb Reid and Kendal Deakin said they thought the course was quite enjoyable.

Speaking about the first class featuring Italian cooking, Ms Reid said, “We thought it was a lot of fun. I guess the nice thing about it was we just did simple thing, like mashing garlic. A lot of times we just chop garlic up, so he just taught us how to make garlic paste.”

For more information on courses being offered by Newtown Continuing Education go to www.newtowncontinuinged.org. To see video from Thursday’s lesson on how to prepare gnocchi go to www.newtownbee.com.