The Old Rectory Essential Chalet Cookery Course

This two-week hands on course covers skills for competent cookery. Starting with basic knife skills and key dishes, this busy course will show you much more than just classic methods for stocks, sauces and pastry. New ingredients will be explored, tips on stylish presentation, guidelines for balanced menu planning, hints on preparing ahead and good kitchen organisation. At the end of the course you will have a good range of culinary skills and confidence to tackle any recipe.

The Essential Cookery Course is designed for enthusiastic cooks who want to immerse themselves in cooking to widen their repertoire and improve their skill level. If you want a career in catering, thinking of running a pub, hotel or B&B or want to gain skills necessary to get a job in a gap year running a ski chalet or working on a yacht, then this is the course for you.

With lots of practice and encouraging teaching you will make different types of pastry and bread, learn the skills of fresh stock making, master sweet and savoury sauces, from a classic roux to a light reduction. Fresh pasta, soufflés, ice cream and sorbets, gelatine and chocolate work, meat preparation, fish filleting and boning skills are just some of the techniques you will learn. You will add to your repertoire a host of different recipes crossing from modern trends and flavours to traditional classics.

You will learn a variety of skills and techniques that will act as building blocks for progressing to more advanced recipes and techniques. With our small classes of 6-8 students you will have lots of individual attention.

Each morning you will prepare a two or three course lunch and the afternoon will be spent either preparing items for the following day or cooking something to take home.

Students who complete the course to the required level will be awarded a certificate.

All ingredients and equipment are provided together with a folder of recipes and useful information. Although the course is non-residential, we can supply students with a list of local B&Bs.

The day starts at 10 am with coffee and homemade biscuits. During this time we chat about the day’s recipes and then start cooking at about 10.15. The day finishes at 3.30. On Fridays we finish at 2pm, after lunch.

Dates: 12th - 23rd October : £750

Please Contact The Old Rectory Cookery School to request more information.