Despite my ability to bake, I have to confess I have no idea how to cook. My new year resolution is to find out if I can cook and if I actually enjoy it. Hence, the decision to sign up for a one day course at the Edinburgh School of Food & Wine, unsurprisingly named Panic Free Entertainment. To make sure I knew what I was signing up for, I emailed the School to find out if it was appropriate for a complete beginner which they assured me it was for.
I have to confess I was really apprehensive on the day itself and I turned up to a class of 11. The menu for the day was chicken casserole with puff pastry to start, pork tenderloin 'espana' for the main and orange cinnamon creme brulee for pudding. The idea behind this menu is all the dishes can be made in advance and just reheated on the day of entertaining.
The day started with a demonstration of how to make the creme brulee and then we were paired up to do it ourselves. I think making the pudding was the easiest dish out of 3 with the boiling of cream, milk, cinnamon and orange zest and then add in egg yolks, sugar & vanilla extract. The final mixture was then baked for 20 mins. Fortunately, I didn't need to light the blowtorch myself but I did caramelise the creme brulee.
Next, we had the demonstration for the chicken casserole. The puff pastry was ready-made so just had to cut and bake. The chicken casserole turned out very yummy with chicken, bacon, mushrooms, shallot and carrots with cream. It is easily scalable to main course portions and I think it can be accompanied with rice if I cannot be bothered with the puff pastry. To reheat, just add more cream.
The main course was the most fiddly. We started with dauphinoise potatoes which were not that tasty probably due to the fact that I forgot to add salt and pepper to season. :) I think I will stick to buying them from the supermarket. We then started with braising the red cabbage, which boiled happily away on the stove for 40 mins.
As the cabbage was braising, we started work on the chorizo which was fried with peas and shallots. The tenderloin was butterfly-cut and stuffed with the chorizo mixture before getting wrapped up in parma ham and then cooked in the oven.
Lessons learnt
1) Remember to season - salt and pepper really makes all the difference.
2) Ingredients are substitutable - tarragon can be changed for basil/thyme & grain mustard can be changed for horseradish.
3) It is very much easier when you have all the ingredients weighed and measured before you start cooking. One of my biggest fears is having to search for ingredients in a supermarket and not being able to find them!
4) The best thing about these dishes were that you can leave them longer than timed in the oven and they will still survive the experience.
The only regret is that I forgot to take pictures of the dishes to show off! Maybe the idea is to reproduce the dishes at home and then I can take the pictures for show.
Now....maybe I should start thinking about a Thai Cookery class....
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