May 2012
10 posts
2 tags
Celebrating National Vegetarian Week with...
To celebrate National Vegetarian Week we’ve joined up with Riverford Organic. Sign up for a Cookery School class from the More From series during National Vegetarian Week (21-27 May) and receive a free copy of the Riverford Farm Cook Book.
More From: Your Greens
More From: Your Meat
More From: Your Pulses
More From: Your Fish
What’s more Riverford Organic will be at the More From: Your...
5 Sustainable Eating Tips
Sustainability is a central part of our cooking approach at Cookery School, and we’re thrilled to be sharing our 5 sustainable eating tips on Start UK’s blog.
Tip #4: Use every part of your ingredient
Our chicken salad recipe uses meat left over from roast chicken, our asparagus ends are saved for soup. We all should do our part to minimise food waste, and make the most of the...
1 tag
Saying goodbye to Rosalind's Kitchen
We’d like to give you the news that Rosalind’s Kitchen will close up shop on Wednesday 9th May.
It has been an enjoyable year for us, extending the Cookery School ethos to Rosalind’s Kitchen and sharing our love of food with the local community.
There are many exciting things on the horizon for us. To name a few: our ongoing sustainability work, our first cookbook, a new advanced cookery...
3 tags
4 tags
April 2012
3 posts
2 tags
10 Sushi Tips from Kimiko Barber
Kimiko Barber was recently here at Cookery School teaching a chef training course in sushi making. Kimiko is fantastic - amazingly talented and a terrific teacher. We learned a bunch from her and she kindly gave us permission to share some of top sushi-making tips here on the blog.
Kimiko will be back teaching her Sushi Masterclass here on 22 May, and again on 26 September. and keep an eye on...
3 tags
Our 3-Star Sustainable Standards in Fork Magazine
We’re super chuffed to be featured the May/June 2012 issue of Fork Magazine for our sustainability credentials and recent three-star rating from the Sustainable Restaurant Association (SRA). We’ve worked very hard to earn the three stars and it’s a thrill to get some recognition in this fabulous magazine.
Excerpt:
From the rigorous attention to sourcing local and organic...
2 tags
Food and the 2012 Olympics
NomNomNom, one of many Olympic-themed foodie events happening this year to celebrate London 2012. Photo credit: tikichris
Today marks 100 days until the 2012 Olympics starts here in London (Londonium MMXII!!). And if you’ve been watching Great British Menu at all, then you know that Olympic-themed foodie events are cropping up all over Britain.
We confess we’ve caught a bit of the...
March 2012
3 posts
3 tags
Three Star SRA Sustainability Champions
At the beginning of 2012 we set ourselves a target: to obtain the highest possible rating from the Sustainable Restaurant Association (SRA), the organisation that recognises sustainability within restaurants. We’re barely three months into the year and we have just been awarded 3 STARS!
What’s more, we’re the only London cookery school to have applied for and picked up an SRA rating,...
1 tag
Pies for British Pie Week... And Every Week
We’re in the throws of British Pie Week - not that we need an excuse to celebrate pies, but it was as good a reason as any to gather our students in the kitchen for our All Manners of Pies cookery class.
Ghalid led us through pies of all sorts ranging from chicken and mushroom, beef and ale, and apple pie through to pasties. Our own salami-making-maven Charlotte was there to pass on a few...
2 tags
Who's making their own sausages?
Well, we are - and so are our students. Last Thursday evening we hosted a corporate cookery event in which the students made, amongst other goodies, their own turkey sausages (pictured above). The recipe is based on a Mrs. Beeton recipe, made with Sheepdrove’s organic turkey, bread crumbs, sunflower oil and seasoned with lemon rind, mace, salt and peper – They came out light and delicious...
January 2012
7 posts
5 tags
Mackerel and Pollack: How to Use our Favourite...
We use mackerel and pollack heavily at Cookery School and at Rosalind’s Kitchen. At Rosalind’s Kitchen, pollack fish cakes and goujons are a mainstay of the menu (always served with a delicious homemade aioli or salsa). At Cookery School, pollack and mackerel are a major part of our Sustainable Fish Class where we show people how to make such lovely dishes as fish pie and pickled...
2 tags
Healthy By Design
One of our Twitter followers asked us about how “healthy” our various lunch options are at Rosalind’s Kitchen in Central London. This question is hard to answer in the short space of a tweet, so I thought I’d sum things up in a blog post.
Here’s the story, Rosalind’s Kitchen is called what it is because it’s the type of food that Rosalind herself would...
Sustainability Update: Green energy, recycled food...
Sustainability has always been a big part of what we do, but this year we’re really upping the ante. There’s always room for improvement. Here are a few things we’ve been up to lately, and if anyone has any advice or tips that can help us do even better, please let us know.
On the trail for sustainable prawns…
We have found farmed prawns that we think tick all the boxes...
Sofia Craxton on Mexican Street Food
What exactly IS Mexican Street Food and why is it gaining popularity here in the UK? Sofia Craxton, accomplished cookery teacher and writer on Mexican cuisine, tells us about Mexican markets and why she’s bringing the delights of Mexican Street Food to Cookery School and beyond.
We’re very lucky to count Sofia Craxton amongst our cookery teachers here at Cookery School. A specialist...
1 tag
Sustainable Cooking Classes
This Wednesday we hold our first class in our new series of Sustainable Cooking Classes. Entitled “Scrumptious and Sustainable”, the series focuses on how to create beautiful, delicious food whilst having as little impact on the environment as possible. This first sustainable cooking class called Eat Your Greens and is all about cooking from the veg box. We’re also doing...
Why We Are Different
It’s been nearly a decade since I first opened Cookery School at Little Portland Street in London and my what an exciting, busy and delicious decade it’s been. As we enter into 2012, I’ve been reflecting on the qualities of Cookery School that have kept it going so well over the years. These are the things that keep new students coming in, and old students coming back. I hope to keep these...
Everything you've ever wanted to know about...
With the first lesson of our Intermediate Cookery Course starting this Thursday, we’ve we’ve been thinking a lot about how this course originated. The word “intermediate” doesn’t really convey the breadth of learning and the excitement of the lessons that Cookery School is all about.
In previous years, we used to call this course “Everything You’ve...
December 2011
7 posts
1 tag
Valrhona Chocolate launches its first UK classes...
We had an exciting press day at Cookery School this week with French chocolate company Valrhona and its chocoaltier Andrew Gravette. Andrew will be running the first of Valhrona’s exclusive chocolate classes on March 15th right here at Cookery School, and it was a thrill to have him here for a preview of what the classes would be like.
The press event was just wonderful. Andrew is a mine...
1 tag
The ingredients of a good Christmas party
We’ve been busy with one corporate Christmas party after another. The kitchens are decked with tinsel and holly, looking very festive in keeping with the spirit of the parties.
The menus on these events reflect the season with lots of butternut or pumpkin ravioli, soups, mulled wine cabbage, guinea fowl, Christmas ice cream (homemade ice cream with liquor-marinaded dried fruits) as well...
3 tags
In Praise of the Christmas Cake
It’s that time of year when everyone talks about Christmas cakes, and we’ve seen lots of you chattering about who has the best. Well, we must say, we think we did a pretty good job this year with our cakes, which we’re currently selling at Rosalind’s Kitchen.
We’ve made our Christmas Cakes with Shipton Mill flour, Yeo Valley butter, organic eggs, Fairtrade sugar,...
2 tags
Why we love Original Beans chocolate
Just in time for Christmas, we’ve just added Original Beans “The Story of Cacao in Four Bars” chocolate set to our shop window at Rosalind’s Kitchen. Yes, loads of people are pushing chocolate this time of year, but we thing these bars are truly special and that if you’re going to buy chocolate this season, Original Beans is a company well worth giving your money...
Stellar Feedback on NomNomNom Cookery Party
We recently hosted a cookery course for winners of NomNomNom 2011, Victoria Glass and Miriam Nice (aka Nice Glass). Miriam, a food writer and editor of Cakes & Canapes, had some wonderful words to say about the evening:
“We all had an absolutely fantastic evening. The whole event was organised so well and was perfectly pitched to all levels. Some of us are quite good at cooking and...
“If the very idea of a cookery lesson conjures up a dowdy, middle aged woman at...”
– Alexis Caught, writing about us in a lovely review for this week’s So So Gay magazine.
We appreciate kind words and apt comparison! Read the entire review here:
You should know about… The Cookery School
November 2011
4 posts
2 tags
1 tag
Prepping for pasta making
Prepping for a short course on pasta making for a company event. Shorter events are becoming popular (more economical for these recessionary times?). The team will learn to make pasta then sit down to enjoy the fruits of their labours thereafter. Their aprons are already sorted into teams, each with matching colour coded hats – as they are a competitive lot and want to see who can make the best...