SEAFOOD COOKING CLASS !

This was one of my Birthday presents! (Thank you Jon!) A day out at the Auckland Seafood Cooking School.
It began at 10 am and I arrived at number 22 ready to cook.



We were greeted by white-aproned staff and seated on red cushioned chairs and served with a glass of wine.
While we gathered - there were about 30 of us, the chef appeared to meet and greet us - it was Peta Mathias - and we looked at seafood recipe books on display.



Once everyone had checked in we were guided to the demonstration room, where Peta cooked the meal for us that we were going to cook for ourselves later - you can imagine the concentration.
In between cooking the 3 course meal - this was smoked oysters in batter, pesto and gruyere paste on bagels and whole salmon roasted in rock salt with herb stuffing - she regaled us with stories about her cooking travels and her views on men!
She has written the famous book 'Can We Help it if We're Fabulous?' and her recent satire 'Just in Time To Be Too Late - why Men are Like Buses' is now on my must-read list!



Once the hour demonstration was finished and we'd had question time we were ushered into the cooking room, where we were in teams with one hour to cook the same meal!
You've never seen a Team work so well! Boning the salmon, making the stuffing and creating the rock salt mound was hectic.. at the same time we were making batter and chopping vegetables, peeling asparagus and blending the soup.



I grabbed the pestle and mortar and pounded the paste, covered the salmon with salt, made stuffing and peeled and chopped until my head was in a whirl and I was ready for my next glass of wine! All the time there were sous chefs at your disposal, clearing away bowls and supplying items - cooking with no mess and an instant assisstant (my idea of heaven)



We paused to eat our starters at long tables set up for Christmas, with shining glasses and a goodie bag on each chair, of foodie items and recipes.
There were two selected wines, one for the oysters and a second white chardonnay chosen to go with the salmon. We all got quite tiddly.



Then it was back to check on the salmon, serve it out and eat with the chef who came and gave her considered opinion of our efforts. We were all quite proud of our end product (there were 5 of us - 2 sets of mums and daughters & me) except that we think the cornflour was in the soup by mistake..oh well!
What a lovely morning! She runs a cooking trip to Marrakesh next year - I'm sorely tempted!