Wickedfood Cooking School, SUNNINGHILL

Information & bookings (011) 234-3252 sunninghill@wickedfood.co.za

Hi all,

To my mind there is nothing more relaxing than growing your own vegetables.  You do not have to be farmer Joe, just a couple of hours a week will give you more than enough vegetables to be sustainable – see our book of the week.

We have just launched our  new improved website – Wickedfood. It’s fresh, clean and incredibly easy to navigate, implementing many of the suggestions received from a recent survey.  So bookmark the new site and visit often to see what’s new. Please also give us feedback.

Re the 2010 Soccer World Cup. For those who are not particularly interested in soccer , but still want to get into the spirit of things, we have developed our own 2010 Culinary World Cup, a great way for companies to entertain the staff or clients, or do teambuilding with a difference, during this period. Contact the school for more details.

Find us on Facebook and Twitter – just search for Wickedfood and you will find us. We update the blog on a daily basis and publish it through Facebook and Twitter.

Wickedfood Cooking School news

Cooking class programmes are up on the internet – click the relevant month for the programme May and June.

Wickedfood Cooking School runs classes with a minimum of 8 participants and a maximum of 12 as this gives everyone hands-on experience and keeps the class small enough for maximum learning.

• Monday 10 May at 6pm – Alfresco Italian dining (R360pp). Six classic dishes from the Italian kitchen, all easy to make in advance, ideal for a 6-course summer buffet meal – stuffed tomatoes, cheese mould, potato gnocchi with a gorgonzola sauce, cold sliced pork and tuna sauce, and zuccotto.
• Sunday 16 May at 4pm – Outdoor Cooking – seafood (R390pp). Part of the master class series. In conjunction with our head instructor, and leading fishmonger, learn the secrets of cooking seafood with confidence on kettlebraais and gas barbecues. Dishes covered in this class include seared tuna carpaccio, grilled whole fish, baked fish fillets, and spicy grilled squid salad.

• Monday 17 May at 6pm – 30 minute meals (R370pp). Learn how to prepare 6 nutritious quick and easy meals for two. Includes honeyed stir-fry chicken, grilled pork chops, creamy mushroom pasta and toasted muesli.
• Monday 24 May at 6pm – Gordon Ramsay – Cooking for Friends (R390 pp). This class is based on the Gordon Ramsay book – Cooking for Friends. Love him or hate him, he certainly knows his food. In this book, we see a very different side of him, more relaxed, cooking some best-loved versions of classic British dishes for family and friends, including broccoli blue cheese and pear soup, mushroom and barley risotto, poached fish fillets, roast rib-eye of beef, and pear and frangipane tart.
• Sunday 30 May at 4pm – Thai master class (R350pp). Part of our Thai master class series, where we teach students the secrets of authentic Thai cooking. In this class dishes include shrimp paste dipping sauce, Massaman curry, bean salad, stir fried egg noodles and steamed banana cake.

Please contact the school should you wish to make a booking:

Looking for info on food?

If you have any food-related questions, or a dish that you just can’t get right or even a certain recipe that you are looking for, but just can’t seem to find, then contact us and we will do our best to answer it as soon as possible. Click Here for more information. Hope to hear from you soon.

Cookbook of the week

Grow to live by Pat Featherstone

There is surely nothing more satisfying than growing your own vegetables.  With just a couple of hours working each week in the garden, you could be supplying your household with all the vegetables required.  If you do not know where to start, a really worthwhile book is  Pat Featherstone’s Grow to live. She’s extremely knowledgeable on all aspects of vegetable gardening … Click Here for more.

Click Here to see Wickedfood Cooking School’s top 10 food-related books for 2009.

On food

Making a roux :

A roux is a slow-cooked mixture of flour and fat that’s used to thicken and flavour a soup, stew, or sauce. It is the foundation of many Cajun and Creole dishes, including gumbo and  étouffée. Depending on how long you cook it, a roux can be light brown and faintly nutty in taste to dark chocolate brown and strong.

Click Here for more information.

Food quote of the week :

“I like a cook who smiles out loud when he tastes his own work. Let God worry about your modesty; I want to see your enthusiasm.” – Robert Farrar Capon

Recipe of the week:

Roast beef with Yorkshire pudding

A roast served with Yorkshire pudding, could be called the quintessential British Sunday dinner. With the wet cold weather this weekend, I made roast beef, served with roast potatoes, mashed butternut,  Jerusalem artichokes, and the delicious onion gravy.. .… Click Here for the recipe

The Wickedfood Team

Wickedfood Cooking School runs cooking classes throughout the year at its purpose-built cooking studio. Classes are run in the mornings and evenings 7 days a week (subject to a minimum of 12 people). The venue is also popular for corporate events and private functions – team building cooking classes, birthdays, kitchen teas, and dinner parties with a difference.

Our classes are hands-on, where every person gets to participate in the preparation of the dishes. They are also a lot of fun where you not only learn new skills, but get to meet people with similar interests. For corporate groups and team building cooking classes these events are a novel way of creating staff interaction or entertaining clients.