The day after a visit to the Scottish Juniper Festival is probably not the best time to learn some new cookery skills! However, I’m glad that I made the effort.
Located within Edinburgh New Town, not far from both bus and railway stations, is Edinburgh New Town Cookery School Ltd.
Inside it was warm and cosy, with lots of things to buy from local and national companies. I made my way along to the demonstration kitchen for some tea and freshly-made shortbread. After a short wait, our lecturer Collette arrived to introduce the school and outline the schedule for the day.
We all received a copy of our menu with instructions inside. I will say I was excited to see gyoza listed as I love these little guys (as well as har gow, pierogi, varenyky – OK I think I like dumplings!)
After being shown how to made both maki and inside out sushi, we made our way upstairs to the kitchen. A good sized space with everything we needed at hand. Each workspace had its own drawer and cupboard filled with all the items we would need.
With a work station each, we were ready to go. Trying to add sticky rice to non-compliant nori isn’t fun – I now see why it takes so long to become a sushi master (up to 5 years making rice alone then another 5+ making sushi)!
My “Giants Causeway” of sushi, I must say my spatial awareness that Saturday was a little impaired, however Collette passed on some tips!
Next was something a bit more traditional: Soba Broth. We were to prepare a Dashi, which is a stock. Kombu (edible kelp) and bonito flakes. What a smell! After completing the dish it was time for lunch, handily we had just prepared our soup!
The soba broth was definately Umami. A salty, savory-tasting broth with chunks of chicken, leek and soba noodles. This was a lot quicker to make than I imagined. One for a weeknight dinner or lunch.
Colette brought through the most delicious tasting prawns ever: Katsu prawns with two mayo dips. One was a chilli dip and the other Kewpie Mayo – the best to my mind.
We relaxed over some wine/tea/coffee and a pudding – the perfect chill out after working hard that morning. It was also a great time to learn more about my fellow students, we were a mix of eager amateurs and total newbies. One thing we all agreed on was the value for money of the course. At £155 it does seem steep, but for the quality of tuition, quality of produce, amount of cooking carried out, we all agreed it was good.
The highlight of my day was making Gyozs. Starting with creating the pork and vegetable filling, we then moved onto wrestling with the pastry and learning how to make those little crescent shapes of deliciousness. I appeared to have the knack – two packets of pastry gone!
It was soon all over, (class runs from 9:30am -4:30pm) the time just flew by. I took home two bags full of delights to eat on the train back through to Glasgow.
I would love to try some of the other classes, and Mr Foodie was jealous of my day out. We will be checking the courses online to see what classes catch our eye next.
Edinburgh New Town Cookery School can be contacted via:
By Telephone: 0131 226 4314
By Email: info@entcs.co.uk
By Post: 7 Queen Street, Edinburgh, Scotland EH2 1JE
There are a whole host of classes from bakery to Thai cooking, for the amateur to the professional.
Many thanks to Edinburgh New Town Cookery School for the opportunity to come along and visit the School and learn some Japanese cookery.
