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Basic Cookery Diploma
A
day on the course
We start at 9.30am at the cookery school with
a group discussion on the menu for the day – a starter
of crab and avocado salad with sauce remoulade then pan-fried
rib eye steak, with pommes pont-neuf and pesto-roasted tomato
followed by a classic tarte montemarte.
The first morning jobs will be the baking and pastry work
- today we’re making Italian foccacia and sun-dried tomato
breads. Then we’ll be working in teams of two on the
tarte montemarte, preparing a chocolate pastry and lining
individual tart cases ready for baking later in the day. The
practical work on the cookery diploma includes pair and group
tasks, but you’ll be working individually much of the
time.
After a demonstration on cooking and preparing crabs we’ll
be working individually to dress the crab for dinner. Cold
sauces come next - making mayonnaise, pesto dressing and the
classic sauce remoulade in pairs. At about 12.30, we sit down
for lunch - crab bisque that we made earlier from the leftover
crab shells, with freshly baked breads.
After a break – which will give you a chance to have
a walk around Ashburton or just relax at the cookery school
- it’s back to individual work, finishing the tarte montmarte
ready for dinner. Fish preparation follows, and after a demonstration
on filleting skills, we prepare and fillet fresh mackerel
ready for home smoking. We smoke our fillets using traditional
hot smoking methods but we’ll have to wait until tomorrow
to cover that – there’s a lot of advance preparation
on the cookery diploma course.
Next comes the beef master class – a theory lesson that
takes you from forequarter through to hindquarter with cookery
methods and classic accompaniments too - while the Basic Cookery
Diploma course is largely practical, there is some essential
theory work to do too. Today we are working with the hindquarter
and wing rib, preparing rib eye steaks and cooking them to
order for dinner. We’ll learn to recognise cooking degrees
in beef from blue and rare to medium and well done.
For the rest of the afternoon we’ll concentrate on vegetable
and salad preparation, working as a team to finish the menu
of the day. Pommes pont neuf, mixed salads and pesto-roasted
tomatoes are part of today’s preparation. After a well-earned
dinner in the cookery school dining room, we put time aside
for theory and a recap on all the day’s events.
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