If you are a regular reader of this website you will know that food and restaurants are one of our biggest passions
But when it comes to actually cooking at home? It’s a mixed bag at best and certainly a far cry from the dishes we enjoy out and about on a regular basis.
So, driven by an increasing desire to close the gap between our kitchen skills and eating out skills, plus a general sense of wanting to learn something new, we decided it was time to go back to school. And if you’re going to cooking school in London, there’s really only one place to start – Le Cordon Bleu. Founded in Paris in 1895, it’s one of the oldest, most famous and most prestigious cooking schools out there, with campuses all around the world. The London school has been around since 1931 and now has two campuses and even a restaurant, CORD, which opened in 2022.
The school offers serious full-time diplomas if you’re planning on actually making this your career. But for the rest of us enthusiasts there are a whole load of short courses covering everything from pastry and patisserie to the art of making a beef wellington. As we were keen to really get stuck in (but without quitting our jobs) we went for the four-day Cuisine Techniques course, which packed a lot in to a week – knife skills, basic sauces, pasta, fish techniques, and elementary butchery.
The courses take place at the Fleet Street campus, which is actually on the floor below the CORD restaurant. Downstairs there’s a small classroom area and then a full pro kitchen with 14 stations – the max class size. One thing you quickly realise is how incredible all the gear is: from the sharp knives to the induction hobs, it’s a far cry from your home set up. The course starts at 11:30 and you will do dishes each day, generally wrapping up about 5pm.
We had three different teachers across the four days, which actually kept it nice and fresh. Whoever is leading the class though, you can be sure that they are seriously qualified, having done their time in high-end kitchens around the world. Each has their own style and level of banter but with all of them, it was relaxed and super friendly.
Day one we started off gently with pan fried prawns, gem lettuce, and Marie Rose sauce. Simple enough, but already introducing key skills – peeling the prawns; pan frying at the right temperature; making a Marie Rose sauce, so you’re learning to make mayonnaise from scratch and the science of emulsification. And we had it ready just in time for lunch.
In the afternoon we worked on roast duck breast with puy lentils and a red wine sauce, which starts to school in you the basics of making sauces using the juices and the crispy stuff at the bottom of the pan left by the duck, or to give it is proper French culinary term: sucs.
Depending on what it is, you’ll generally have the second dish of the day ready about 4:30. So you then have a decision to make, either just to crack on and have an early dinner or take it home with you. On most days, we just ate it.
Day two was probably the most challenging skills wise. In the morning you make pasta from scratch, learn how to shell and clean a scallop and make a sauce, which were all fairly tricky. A delicious dish of scallop pasta at the end of it however. In the afternoon we were stuffing, trussing and roasting poussin, learning how to carve, and making potato puree, and another sauce from the sucs – all of which was time consuming and took a lot of concentration. We were knackered by the end of this one! Pity the poor chefs that do this 12 hours a day….
Day three started with something that everyone wants to know, but hardly anyone can do: poach eggs. We went through why fresh eggs are best, and the importance of vinegar – and actually ours came out great. We did a mean hollandaise sauce too, which taught us how to do a hot emulsion (as opposed to a cold emulsion for mayo).
Then in the afternoon, pan-fried lamb cutlets and the king of potato dishes: dauphinoise. So tasty and very naughty with all that cream and milk. To be fair, it is a French cooking school so you can expect a hefty amount of butter and cream over the week.
Day four we learnt how to fillet a whole lemon sole, which was actually incredibly difficult to do well. That one will take a lot more practice for sure. The poor fish didn’t get filleted too well but the resulting dish, with grenobloise sauce was tasty all the same. And then, a big hearty beef Provencal stew, which you might think of as being quite simple but actually took a lot of different stages and processes to get right and get maximum flavour into the dish.
We had a brilliant week at Cordon Bleu and would absolutely recommend it to anyone wanting to learn some basics or learn a specific cuisine or skill. We may not quite be top home chefs at the end of it, but certainly came out with many more skills and a lot more knowledge than when we started.
Check out the full range of courses here
Dining and Cooking