I had the pleasure of attending my first ever Indian cooking class with my friend Becky recently. If you live in the Cincinnati area, you need to get yourself over to OTR and Findlay Market right away. The Panda Chefs are Bolly Bears, Sushi Bears, and Basil Bears.
You could always buy some of the food they offer at the market but how much more fun is it to learn how to make it yourself?! You can take Thai cooking classes, a sushi class or the Indian food class from Chef Dan and his crew.
Chef Erin (awesome name!) taught ours and rocked it. I learned so much. It’s a hands on class and you get to chop, pour, stir and mix it up while you learn. We made a basic yellow curry base and then divided that into thirds to make saag and tikka masala. YUM! Three curries from one.
You also get to bring your own wine, beer or whatever you’d like to drink. Now, that’s just FUN! You can tell by the almost empty wine bottle behind my plate, that my friend, Becky, and I had fun! (I had a little more fun because she was the driver!) haha!
Here are the other people in our class and Chef Erin. It’s so fun hanging out with strangers, drinking and learning and cooking and eating!
You get a copy of the recipe to take home and a DVD of everything you learned…. just in case you forget. 🙂 You can also buy all the spices you need to make this at home right there. They’re already measured and ready for you to put in your own curry at home. It saves you from trying to locate all 10+ spices needed to make this delicious curry base.
The curry we make during the 90 minutes class is fresh and delicious. But, Indian food is typically stewed for hours and hours and hours. So, Chef Erin had the same curries that we made in class, but that had been stewed for 5-7 hours ready for us to try. You can see on the plate below the difference between the fresh and the stewed. The color difference was amazing. But the taste difference was OUTSTANDING. You just can’t believe it. It’s like two different tastes all together.
After we cook! We eat! And.it.was.GOOD! In fact, now that I am typing this post and seeing the pictures again….I am getting hungry and want some Indian food NOW!
Do you want some Indian food now, too? Great! You can enter to win a 90 minute cooking class for two right here! That’s a $99 value! Awesome!
But, if you don’t want to wait for my giveaway to end, you can buy your very own here. AAA Member deals is running an awesome deal for this class right now. It’s only $40 for a 90 minute class for two people! YAY! Share it with a friend, only 20 bucks each. Or have a fun hands-on-learning kind of date night. $40 bucks is a bargain for a date night that includes dinner! But hurry, that deal is only good for a week.
I’ve tried my hand at cooking Indian food before. Check out my Chicken Tikka Masla or my Homemade Naan. I had success and loved my old recipe, but the one I learned at the cooking class is SO much more versatile and simple. It will be my new go to, for sure.
Not sure I can pick a favorite Indian food…might be a tie between Saag Paneer and Tikka Masala! Yum!
We have taken that class. It was fun! And we have since made Indian at home too!