Cook Like A Professional
Northcote’s Cookery School is where home cooks can hone their skills learning from some of the best chefs in the industry, writes Jan Woolley
Northcote’s Cookery School masterclasses are renowned throughout the UK – the chefs who front them are ultimately skilful and knowledgeable. While many who attend admit to being ‘foodies’ some are total novices, as I discovered when I went along to ‘Northcote at Home’.
Arriving at Northcote all the attendees gathered for breakfast before being taken through the working kitchen by Richard (Rick) Ogden who is the cookery school’s head tutor.
Rick, who has a wealth of catering experience, has trained in some of the UK’s top Michelin starred restaurants. He is passionate about training and developing his own skills and has outstanding technical knowledge, which shines through when he talks us through the recipes we are going to make.
On our menu was a starter of warm cured salmon with a dill emulsion, white balsamic butter sauce, dill oil and served on a tiny bed of cubed pickled cucumber.
A main course of aged fillet steak topped with a marrowbone crust and served with mushroom Bourguignon and Pomme Anna sounded delicious and for dessert was ‘apple cheesecake’ which turned out to be a showstopper! It required quite a few technical skills – but it can easily be executed at home and is guaranteed to impress your guests!
Rick, with fellow tutor and chef Ben Hinchliffe, started the class with an informal chat, which through the day developed into lively interactions, with the home cooks encouraged to ask questions and talk about the extent of their own personal cookery skills and experiences.
It was informative and certainly entertaining. One of the most interesting things I learnt is cooking is not about time – it’s about temperature and we all came away vowing to acquire that most valuable of chef’s cooking tools – a thermometer.
We went on to learn about sauces making a delicate white wine sauce for the fish and a more robust red wine and mushroom sauce for the Bourguignon. When making sauces we learnt that if you ‘boil you spoil’ as prolonged boiling destroys the flavour profile. Reduction has to be done swiftly to achieve a good depth of flavour.
The day-long cookery courses also include lunch in the restaurant, which was simply delicious and particularly interesting as we had seen the chefs preparing the dishes. The cookery masterclasses are held in a glass-panelled space, which overlooks the busy Northcote kitchen – it’s a hub of quiet but industrious concentration.
Going into the afternoon we put the final touches to our dessert, creating delicious chocolate-coated spheres that were sprayed to look like apples, our salmon was cured, the sauces all done and the best bit – sampling the dishes that Rick and Ben put together to show us how they should taste (delicious) and be presented (perfectly).
All the sauces and the desserts you make in the class are labelled and packaged along with the main ingredients – the salmon and steak – for you to take home to re-create.
What an experience and a fun way to learn!
To find out more about forthcoming masterclasses at Northcote go to the website: northcote.com
