Would you say you are a good cook? If you’re like us and end up watching Masterchef: The Professionals in the hope of being a tenth as good as the chefs, then you might want to take note.
We attended a cooking class at Lainston House in a bid to sharpen up our food skills.
The cookery school experience, which is located in Winchester and is part of a hotel, gets the public involved with live-fire cooking in their kitchen gardens.
As part of the masterclasses, you get to learn tips and secrets to creating the perfect dish. Albeit over a flame, including woodfired cooking, coal and gas.
The class was in celebration of Big Green Egg’s 50th anniversary where they have collaborated with Season Cookery School.
Not only did we get to learn how to master ceramic barbecue cooking in several ways, but we also got to eat some of the delicious food afterwards.
We got to cook food that we wouldn’t normally at home, including Scorched cedar plank ChalkStream trout and a Texan-style slaw.
Other dishes we also got to cook were smoked baby back pork ribs, Sumac chicken with garden asparagus and the ultimate beef steak and chimichurri which melted in the mouth.
However, if the smokehouse cooking class isn’t your thing, there are other options also available.
Some of the indoor classes on offer include world cuisine and knife masterclasses as well as Christmas cookery, baking and bread.
Even better, every one of these classes is tailored for all levels so you don’t have to be a novice.
The class lasted for just under five hours which flew by and saw us smoke the trout whilst getting on with other jobs such as creating a chimichurri sauce from scratch.
Thankfully, we had help from an expert chef who could guide us along the way. Some of the techniques we learnt included how to select and light the right barbecue and the cooking techniques to use to bring out the best of your ingredients.
Overall, the experience makes you feel as if you are a chef for the day and what it would be like serving paid customers. In particular, the trout dish was out of this world and was nothing like anything we’d tasted before. This dish alone was worth the trip.
We definitely felt like we had upped our cooking skills ready for our next garden BBQ. Now all we need is some good UK weather.
