Taiwanese Cooking Introductory Class
Class content
Drink
Basic ingredients introduction
Taiwanese dressing
Soft tofu with Taiwanese dressing
Ginger dressing
Toasted mushrooms with ginger dressing
Cucumber with white sesame oil
Hot and sour soup
Sesame and spicy dressings
Green vegetables with black sesame paste
Konjac rolls with white sesame paste
Spicy Sichuan flower pepper oil
Gong Bao sweet and sour dressing
Gong Bao eggplant
About the class
In this class we will learn basic Taiwanese cooking ingredients, use them to make different sauces and dressings, and create the flavors for appetizers and soup. The experience you gain during the class will enhance your own Asian cooking.
We will start making home-made soy milk with black sugar and sesame seeds. This is a very common local breakfast drink, you can find this healthy drink in every little breakfast shop in Taiwan, and even at convenience stores like 7-11.
We will be learning how to select basic ingredients like soy sauce, vinegar, and sesame oils. And then make three simple Taiwanese dressings, flavored with ginger and garlic. Finally we use the dressings to conjure up some dazzling tastes from simple grilled mushrooms or tofu.
Hot and sour soup is many people's favorite Chinese soup, but they never know how easy and quick it is to prepare. We will use tomato and pineapple to create the natural sour taste of the soup broth, and combine this flavor with white pepper and black vinegar to create the contrast between hot and sour of this soup.
Sesame paste is very common in Taiwanese and Chinese cuisine – it can be compared to Tahini in Middle Eastern cuisine. This very fragrant paste takes no more than a few minutes to make. We will try it with some salad with konjac noodles. Taiwanese people often use sesame paste as a general flavoring like pesto, for example served on top of cooked noodles, or as a dipping sauce for hot pot, chicken salad, or grilled dishes.
Next we will make Sichuan spicy oil, which will allow us to bring the remarkable taste of flower pepper to almost any dish. This time, we will serve the spicy oil on fresh pineapple – the contrast between sweet, sour and spicy is an eye-opening experience. Sichuan spicy oil is found on the table in noodle restaurants, dumpling restaurants, sticky tofu stands, and many other local food stands in Taiwan. You can use it quite like Italian spicy oil, to quickly add interest to all kinds of dishes and ingredients, but Sichuan spicy oil takes no more than 1 minute to prepare.
After this we will not only be making spicy Gong Bao sauce with dry chilies, garlic and black sesame oil, but we will also combine it with sweet, sour and salty dressings made from sugar, vinegar and soy sauce. The result is one sauce with many different layers of flavor. And we will serve this layered sauce on steamed eggplant (aubergine). To suggest just a few ideas for your future cooking experiments, this versatile sauce can be used on barbecues, grilled fish and meat, sate, noodles, and so on.
The goal of this class is to make creating the flavors of Taiwanese cooking simple for anyone. By the end of the class, you will have learned at least 5 different sauces and dressings to put on your kitchen shelf, so can just grill, steam, boil or sautée extremely simple meat or vegetable dishes, add the sauce to them and create an authentic Taiwanese flavor.
Flower pepper and sesame
In this introductory class we'll look at about four recipes for sauces based on flower pepper (Xanthoxylum) and three or four more based on sesame seed. I will tell you how you can use these as the basis of a variety of other dishes, and we will cook a few of them together, and try them. I focus on using vegetables and other natural, healthy ingredients in my classes.
The flower pepper sauce or dressing can be made quickly and easily and you can also use it with entrees or stir-fried dishes. Flower pepper is actually a common ingredient in cuisine from Sichuan and Yunnan in Western China. Chinese people call it flower pepper, but it is also known as xanthoxylum.
Sesame seeds are another very commonly used ingredient, 
which have a widespread influence throughout Asian food culture too. The sesame sauce is very quick and simple to make, and also very easy to serve with noodles, uncooked vegetables, or meat. Both these flavors, flower pepper and sesame, have been adapted to Taiwanese cuisine and are very popular in Taiwan.
The class will take about four hours.
Class Information
Language: English (Chinese or Taiwanese if required)
Cost: Our price for this standard one day (about 4 hours) class is NT$4,000 for one student (about US$130 or 95 Euros), NT$7,000 for two students, NT$9,000 for three students, and NT$11,000 for four students. Sorry, but we do not offer discounts.
Class size: 1 - 4 students (larger classes may be possible). Always let us know exactly how many people will be coming with you. Private classes may be available on request, for an additional charge.
Children: Before you book, please let us know if you are bringing children and their approximate ages. Usually we will require you to book a private class if you bring young children, as they may affect other guests' enjoyment of the class.
Time: Classes usually start at 10am or 2pm and last about four hours. We will try to arrange the classes to fit your schedule.
Note: These details apply to the standard classes which you can see on this page. Some custom designed classes or classes with more expensive ingredients may cost more or last longer.
Telephone: (02) 2720-0053
Address: 2F, 29-1 Zi Yun St, Taipei, Taiwan 台北市信義區110紫雲街29-1號2樓
Website: kitchen.j321.com
Email: 