Chris McSweyn, the long-time chef at Wesson’s once world-renown Porches Restaurant before taking over as Executive Chef for Co-Lin’s Aladdin Campus Dining, serves one of the five signature food specialties he taught some 30 participants to make in an Institute for Learning in Retirement (ILR) workshop at the college’s Thames Center.
At the workshop, McSweyn shared start-from-scratch recipes for buttermilk biscuits, turkey cranberry sliders, brie, asparagus and prosciutto wraps; cherry (or blueberry) cream cheese tarts and shrimp creole; showed class participants how to prepare them from fresh ingredients, cooked and served the food to them in the tradition of his grandmother and shared thoughts on how to make the dishes extra special.
McSweyn, who grew up in a cooking family and still recalls his grandmother’s tutoring, engaged in conversation with his ILR students throughout the workshop, revealing his own secrets as they tested their knowledge and understanding with him. He said he likes to brine fish, poultry and other meats and blanch fruits and vegetables.
Brining before starting to cook meats moisturizes and tenderizes them, enhances their flavor and reduces their cooking times, he explained. A simple brine is a mixture water and salt, but brines may include sugar, spices and other seasoning mixed with broths, buttermilk and juices as well as water. Usually, meats are refrigerated in a brine overnight.
Blanching -- immersing a vegetable in boiling water for one to two minutes in cook it rapidly and then abruptly stopping the cooking with an ice bath -- preserves the flavor, color, texture and nutritional value of vegetables and fruits like cauliflower, green beans and tomatoes.