Episode 63 : Turn Your Burner Down

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Episode 63 : Turn Your Burner Down

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Send us Fan MailChef Audra Bell of NICHE, the National Institute for Culinary and Hospitality Education at WSU Tech, joins Jen Cole and Rachel Chappelle on So THIS Happened, the Wichita podcast for real talk and local culture. Her hands-on evening cooking classes in downtown Wichita are open to anyone. No application, no culinary background, nothing to prove.Recorded inside the brand-new WSU Tech Multimedia Studio, this episode covers the five French mother sauces, the knife mistakes Chef Audra spots in the first ten minutes of every class, and the one kitchen tip that would save most failed dinners: turn your burner down.🎲 THIS OR THAT: KITCHEN EDITIONFresh blood in the This or That chair! A few highlights:- Follow the recipe or wing it? Chef Audra: "Recipes are suggestions." (Baking is a different story.)- Sweet or savory? Savory all around. Chef Audra measures with her heart, Jen brought up buffalo sauce and Chiefs game-day chili, and Rachel would rather have a glass of wine for dessert.- Cooking for a crowd or for one? The chef feeds everyone, including the random teenagers at the door. Rachel champions girl dinner (pickled okra, goat cheese, Project Runway).- Cooking show binge or in-person class? Chef Audra can't watch without critiquing ("there's no way that cooked in 45 minutes"), but Nailed It gets a pass.🏛️ INSIDE NICHE: CULINARY SCHOOL BOOT CAMPNICHE lives in the historic Henry's building at 124 S. Broadway in downtown Wichita, with a student-run restaurant, a food hall and a coffee spot. The public classes run like a culinary school boot camp: you get an apron, tie your hair back, set up your station and learn the how and why behind every step, just like the full-time students do.Chef Audra also talked about "chaos management": staying calm when your skillet is literally on fire, and why the skills you learn in a kitchen carry over into the rest of your life. Plus, the husband-and-wife class that turned into marriage counseling. 😂🔥 CHEF AUDRA'S HOT TIP"Eight times out of 10, on the stovetop, a dish fails because their burner's too hot. Just turn it down."Your knob has 10 settings. Use them.🥄 THE FIVE MOTHER SAUCES, DEMYSTIFIEDMaster these five bases and you can make almost anything:- Béchamel: your white sauce, the start of mac and cheese and white gravy- Tomato: we all know this one- Espagnole: not tomato! A rich brown sauce, think brown gravy- Hollandaise: egg tempering and all the butter- Velouté: "a white sauce and a brown sauce had a baby" (another chef would kill her for saying that)If you only learn one, make it béchamel. Biscuits and gravy, mac and cheese, lasagna: "there's 100,000 different ways you can spin it." The class dish that surprises people most is the humble vinaigrette. Four pantry ingredients, impossible to mess up, and "champagne vinaigrette" sounds very fancy. 🥂🔪 KNIFE SKILLS: JUST ENOUGH CONFIDENCE TO BE DANGEROUSThe first thing Chef Audra notices in any class is how people hold a knife. Grip it with your knuckles wrapped and your thumb in the groove, no finger on top of the blade, and definitely no choking up on it like a bat. (Yes, there's a red Sharpie involved.)Her advice if you only take one class this fall: start with Knife Skills. "That's half the reason people won't cook." Once you know how to hold a knife and which one to use, cooking stops feeling intimidating. And you still cook and eat a full dish in class.👩‍🍳 OPEN TO ANYONE. SERIOUSLY.Chef Audra has taught 12-year-olds alongside their parents and an 80-something guest who was "chopping circles around everybody." Skill levels get paired up, from home cooks to people who "use their oven to store sweaters."The twist: no recipes during class. Everything is prepped mise en place style, the whole room cooks at the same pace by sight, smell and sound, and you get the recipes at the end to take home.📅 UPCOMING CLASSES AT NICHEThursdays, 6:30–8:30 PM | 124 S. Broadway, downtown Wichita- Knife Skills ($80): Thursday, October 15 and Thursday, November 19- Culinary Foundations: Kitchen Mastery & Modern Sauces ($85): Thursday, November 5Register at gettrained.wsutech.edu. No application, just pick a date.Seasonal classes run through December, with pies, French pastry and a holiday beef Wellington.👯 PLANNING A GROUP NIGHT?NICHE also builds custom classes for girls' nights, date nights, coworker outings or a houseful of visiting family, from chicken fingers and mac and cheese all the way to beef Wellington and duchess potatoes. Reach out to NICHE with your dates, ideas and budget, and they'll build a class around your group.⏱️ CHAPTERS00:00 Welcome to the ShockStarter studio + sponsors02:00 This or That: Kitchen Edition13:50 Walking into NICHE16:30 Chaos management in a teaching kitchen19:20 The marriage counseling cooking class21:00 Why Chef Audra teaches22:00 Hot tip: turn your burner down23:15 What she notices in the first 10 minutes25:15 The five mother sauces27:20 Why ...

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