Cooking For Blokes

About

Build your confidence in the culinary arts with Cooking for Blokes.

Cooking for Blokes has been developed to help men, women and children learn the foundations of becoming a good cook.

Students learn knife skills, cooking techniques and methods of cookery. Armed with this knowledge, they are able to confidently build on the basics.

You learn from a 5-star chef, the classes are hands-on and are tailored to suit all skill levels.

Cooking for Blokes is the best way to become your own Master Chef.

The six-week course has been designed to take you from the basics, to being confident in the kitchen.

How we do it is by following simple, logical steps, that helps you make sense of what cooking is all about. Whether you can't boil an egg or are quite handy with the pots and pans, it doesn't matter. Everyone is able to read off the same page and not feel uncomfortable or intimidated, no matter what skill level.

The classes are kept to a maximum of six people. This enables the chef to closely the monitor the progress of each individual. The classes are run in a relaxed, friendly atmosphere, where no question is stupid. Cooking, like any art form, is based on foundations that are passed down from generation to generation. Before you can become an accomplished cook, you need to know where to start. That's what this course is all about.

The cost of the six-week course is $550.00 per head GST inclusive. This includes all ingredients, knives, aprons, workbook and product samples.

You only need bring yourself, an interest and an appetite. Everything is prepared and cooked by you, and then you sit down and eat it. This is a hands on course, where the chef guides you along the way. If at any time, you are unable to make a class, it can be made up at a later date. The course is a flexible program, to suit your schedule.

Vegetables - initial procedures and preparation

Stocks - chicken, beef, fish and vegetable

Puree based soups, basic presentation

This lesson covers an introduction to the kitchen, how to address your work station and important kitchen safety. You learn how to use a knife correctly and practise our skills. We learn how to dice and slice an onion, carrot and celery and learn how to julienne. From there we learn discuss the importance of stock in cooking and we learn how to make a puree soup. The number of soups you can make from this method is only limited by your imagination.

Blanching and refreshing fresh vegetables

Basic sauces - tomato and cream

Principles of cooking pasta

This lesson cover the technique of blanching and refreshing, one of the fundamental ways of dealing with timing in the kitchen. We learn how to skin and de-seed a tomato, how to chop herbs and how to keep our green vegetables attractive. We learn two basic sauces, how to cook dry pasta and put our meal together for the evening.

Egg based sauces - hollandaise and bearnaise

Eggs- poaching, scrambling, French and Italian omelettes

Sweet souffle omelette

All about eggs. We start with making hollandaise sauce, how to poach eggs and then put it all together to make Eggs Benedict. Then we scramble, make a classic French omelette, an Italian omelette and a sweet Souffle omelette with an easy dessert sauce.

Chicken - jointing and boning a chicken

Deep frying chicken

Shallow frying chicken

We learn how to joint and bone a chicken. From the different cuts of the chicken we do some deep-frying of chicken bits for a tasty snack. We learn how to bone out the leg and thigh of the chicken. We make a dish of chicken breast with lemon and garlic, baby potatoes and green beans.

Fish - crumbing and shallow frying

Meat - roasting cuts of meat, roasting vegetables and gravy making

Meat - grilling, pepper sauce to begin. We learn about a crumbing station, how to crumb fish and then shallow fry. From there we discuss different cuts of meat, bone and stuff a leg of lamb and how to roast. We learn how to roast vegetables and make our own gravy.