“I have never cooked anything in my life,” a young woman hesitantly said to her friend before entering The Dining Room Restaurant  at the Bimasena Club in Jakarta.

“Me neither … don’t worry, let’s go in,” her friend said.

I overheard the conversation prior to a cooking class organized by Life is Sweet,  an event planning company that arranges life style events centered in high-quality culinary exploration, cooking, traveling and entertaining.

Life is Sweet was founded by Rubiana Fajar, the most sought after event conceptor in Jakarta; Lita Hamzah an entrepreneur who is passionate about Indonesian heritage; and Michael Soetantyo a creative director and renown food stylist. They have a noble plan to preserve Indonesian culinary heritage and help promote the country as one of the world’s culinary destinations.

That day class participants, including myself, learned how to make Maryland crab cake with corn, zucchini and fresh mint; lobster Thermidor with angel hair pasta; and fresh fruit tart with pastry cream.

The Dining Room Restaurant at Bimasena was prearranged into three areas for the class: the cooking area, the dining area with elegant table setting, and the promotion area for cooking appliances.

Chef Vindex Tengker, the Executive Chef of The Dharmawangsa, and Joanna Lasmono, the host of Dapur Jo cooking show, patiently and expertly led the class.

We received an apron each, a personalized recipe box with recipes of the day in it, as well as recipe sheets placed on a clipboard.

Eventually 20 participants, assembled in groups of four, would not only learn the basics from how to select premium ingredients to cooking methods, but also get their hands dirty.

We prepared Maryland crab cakes by using canned 500 gr of jumbo lump crabmeat for each group.

Other ingredients include egg, mayonnaise, mustard, seasoning, lemon juice, breadcrumbs, parsley, unsalted butter Worcester sauce, salt, olive oil and lemon wedges.

The complete ingredients and how to prepare the dishes are available here and here. 

In making lobster Thermidor, a popular French dish, each group worked with lobster tails cut in half. After boiling the lobster tails for about 8 minutes we put them in a bowl of ice cubes to cool.

We cooked by sauteeing the lobster chunks in a skillet and added sauce made of butter, chopped onion, all purpose flour, wine, milk, cheddar cheese, and paprika, seasoned with salt and pepper.

It was really exciting to pour the cooked lobsters into the shells, arranged them in caserole dishes and top the food with parmesan and bread crumbs. The chef and his assistants then broiled them in the kitchen.

The ingredients and how to make lobster Thermidor are available here.

Joanna Lasmono gently guided the class in making sweet short crust pastry from flour, chilled butter, caster sugar, icing sugar and egg.

To cook the pastry cream we used large egg yolks, caster sugar, granulated sugar, plain flour, fresh milk, double cream, and vanilla bean.

The key in baking, according to Joanna, besides following the precise measurements and methods (such as lightly beat, whisk, fold, blind bake) is to concentrate and not multitasking.

A recipe to make a similar fresh fruit tart and pastry cream is available here.

There is no better way to enjoy what we cook in class, especially for those who have never cooked anything, than chattering about our cooking experience, sitting in chic chairs matched by tables decorated with quaint plates and charming table linens.

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Images: Omar Niode Foundation