Leiths: Week 6

6 weeks! That’s a half term or whole school summer holiday in my brain, still slightly stuck in secondary school mode. No half term break at cookery school though, just a 3 day weekend to give us a slight breather. So, what happened in week 6?


· This week brought a new winner for the title of Most Strongly Scented Thing To Bring Home On The Bus. Despite heavy competition from warm pizza on Friday, the mackerel recheado (containing 12 chillies) of week 3 has lost it's crown to the dry spice mix I took home on Tuesday…and can definitely still smell in my bag today. To me, it smells exactly like a branch of Wagamama which is not necessarily a bad thing but definitely got people looking round the bus expecting to find someone tucking into a takeaway. Nope, just me and 50g of freshly ground spices!


· Wednesday was a prime example of the extreme nature of cookery school – healthy eating demo in the morning, then making crumble, custard and deep fried plaice goujons in the afternoon. From a morning based around avoiding/reducing salt in your diet, to an afternoon of sprinkling it all over every breadcrumbed and delicious piece of fish. The cooking session made me way less scared of deep frying which could actually be a bad thing as now I kind of just want to deep fry everything…


· From the great high of the plaice goujons to the low that was Thursday. Don’t cook whilst tired, kids. Who knew cooking pork tenderloin would be the thing to push me over the edge? I managed to set fire to things. Twice. One of those being my oven gloves, with my hand inside. Luckily although I was completely oblivious to it happening my teacher noticed me in time, whipped it off and stamped it on the floor and thus nothing happened to my hand. But still. Not ideal! Especially when followed 10 minutes later by accidentally setting the piece of paper intended to keep my pork warm firmly alight. That was when I left the kitchen for 5 minutes – slightly concerned by what might happen next if I didn’t take a break! I think it taught me that cookery school is just a bit of a rollercoaster full of mainly good, some great, and then the odd bad days.

· In contrast, you know it's going to be a good day when your morning starts by blind taste testing 5 vanilla ice creams. We were trying them to examine the different textures, flavours and appearances and therefore effect that dairy, fat and air have on the final result. They were all shop bought and it was interesting to see how distinctive different brands were – the bright yellow of Walls and creamy vanilla flecked Green & Blacks were instantly spotted. These were followed by more from scratch ice creams and a selection of jellies and it was definitely an enjoyable way to spend Friday morning and round off the week! Bring on week 7.


                         Plaice goujons and lemon wedge – highlight of the week!