Sur La Table Cooking Classes: The Perfect Steak * River City Belle

I love to perfect my cooking technique at my local Sur La Table Cooking Classes. We have a family tradition of taking a class together once a year. This year, my brother and I purchased tickets to The Perfect Steak Dinner course for our parents as part of their Christmas present from us. The menu for the course sounded amazing! The dinner would include a cast iron steak with red sauce, truffle mashed potatoes, pear and hazelnut salad with champagne vinaigrette, and espresso chocolate mousse with whipped cream.

Sur La Table Cooking Classes

We arrived a few minutes before class and settled into our table. Once all of our classmates arrived, we began our class with Chef Brian. This was my third or fourth class with Chef Brian, and he is by far my favorite chef at the Richmond location. Our first task for the course was to prep our expresso chocolate mousse, once prepped the mousse would chill while we prepared the remainder of our meal. After the mousse, we moved on to preparing our pear and hazelnut salad.

For me, the pear and hazelnut salad was the highlight of the meal! I loved the savory and sweet flavor combinations. This course was also the first time I had attempted to make a homemade vinaigrette and I can assure you that I will be making this dressing all summer long.

Once we finished sampling the salad, we moved into two groups. One group prepped the truffle mashed potatoes while the other group began work on the skillet steaks.

The skillet steaks were difficult but delicious! The red wine sauce did have a tendency to pop up and splash the cook as the steak was seared.

Overall, the meal was fantastic and I loved learning to make the espresso mousse and vinaigrette. If you have not yet experienced a Sur La Table cooking class, you are missing out! The class took about 2.5 hours and every participant received a store discount.