Food, Home & Lifestyle

A Market Fresh Dinner: Finish and Serve

Lesson time 15:30 min

Finish preparing Alice’s dinner party menu with a last-minute burst of cooking over the fire or stovetop. Then learn how to plate and serve each course.

Students give MasterClass an average rating of 4.7 out of 5 stars

Topics include: Flavors From the Fire • Balance Your Meal With Salad • Be Conscious of Portions • Plate and Serve

Alice Waters

Teaches the Art of Home Cooking

In 16+ lessons, learn to cook beautiful, seasonal meals at home from the James Beard Award-winning founder of Chez Panisse.

Preview

Now, I'm preparing you for the guest to come. This is the last moment of cooking, which of course you can always do with your family or friends helping. Cooking over a fire is where I feel most at home. I know it can be intimidating, but learning how to build a fire and use it, not just grill but to truly cook is exciting. And it gives food an irresistible taste. After the fire matures, the flames die down, and you're left with hot coals to pull forward and cook over. - We're just at that moment before dinner when I'm ready to cook the chicken. The fire is very hot and coals not too hot. I had a friend who gave me a little basket of the most beautiful, the most beautiful chanterelles, and I feel like I should cook them on the grill as well. So I have one for testing right on there now. And I'm going to put the chicken breasts skin down right there on to cook. And I think the way to get the skin really crispy is to keep it most of the time on the skin side and then to turn it over for the last third of cooking. Now one has to be a little patient and not to touch it until it gets a little crispy, but I'm always wanting to see if it's getting too crispy and whether I need to move the fire around. So I'm just going to take a little peek here. It looks good. WOMAN (VOICEOVER): As much as I love cooking over the fire, I don't expect everyone to have access to a fire. You can just easily do this meal on the stove in cast iron pans. I'll tell you how to do that in the workbook. - I'm going to put a little olive oil on the potatoes that I parboiled and a little salt. And I'm going to put them just flat side down on the grill. Just all around. The really hot part of the fire is to the back. If anything needs a little extra color on it, I'll move it up there. I'm always sort of moving things around on the grill. I want it to have a very even color from one side to the other. So I'm just moving it around a little bit. See already it's getting some color. I can tell the fire is very hot because I'm having a hard time turning my potatoes. But this is the look of the potatoes that I want. And fortunately for this meal, it doesn't really matter whether it's hot, hot. Because they're potatoes, and aioli, and salad. This could actually be a room temperature chicken dish like a picnic-- I really could. So I'm not so concerned about the temperature of those potatoes. I just like them to have a sense that they've been on the grill-- the taste of that. Maybe I could put some of these mushrooms. I'm a little bit afraid to do this really big one. Look at it. Amazing. I think I'll save that one. And I think I'll just halve that in two pieces just like that. I'm going to peek under my chicken again. Oh, it's getting very brown. And it's always a good point that when the chicken comes off the grill, it wants to rest for a few minutes-- maybe five minutes. So you can kind of finish the other cooking--...

About the Instructor

Alice Waters started America’s farm-to-table revolution. When she founded the iconic restaurant Chez Panisse, her local, organic ingredients sparked a movement and earned her the James Beard Award for Outstanding Chef. In her first-ever online cooking class, Alice opens the doors of her home kitchen to teach you how to pick seasonal ingredients, create healthy and beautiful meals, and change your life by changing the food you make at home.

Featured MasterClass Instructor

Alice Waters

In 16+ lessons, learn to cook beautiful, seasonal meals at home from the James Beard Award-winning founder of Chez Panisse.

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