A little known fact about myself is that when it came time to pick a career path after high school I actually enrolled into cooking school at TAFE. I've been attending cooking classes since I was around 14 and always enjoyed every part of the cooking process, except the cleaning up afterwards of course!
I never ended up in cooking school and randomly ended up in the finance sector, where I've remained ever since. While I have the utmost respect for chefs, I have to say I don't regret the path I went down at all and would rather be cooking for my friends and family, when I feel like it and at my own pace. A luxury no professional chef really has.
Anyway, enough of the possibly unnecessary intro! My most recent expedition to further my cooking skills was at one of my favourite Sydney restaurants, Mumu Grill, in Crows Nest. The latest cooking class on offer is all about Spanish Tapas as owner, Craig Macindoe, developed a great affection for the small, Mediterranean inspired share plates while living in Spain for six months.
The classes are currently offered most nights of the week, except Saturdays, from 6pm til 9pm and during the course we all had a recipe sheet and worked our way through bread making, several tapas dishes and two different types of Sangria.
There were around 12 people in my class, with 4 people to a table. The tables were complete with the necessary equipment we all needed to work our way through the dishes. It was not at all over crowded but I certainly wouldn't want to be in a class much bigger than this and four people to a table was pretty spot on.
(Craig explains the finer points of making Olive Tapenade to a student)
Craig certainly has a very 'No BS' approach and the content of the course is both informative and use-able with little to no existing skills or knowledge necessary. After starting with a basic bread recipe we made olivetapenade, meatballs in tomato sauce (my personal favourite), cider braised chorizo with prawns, figs wrapped in prosciutto and potato and ricotta tortilla.
(A real highlight is the fact that all dishes are cooked in a wood fired pizza oven!)
While the last few dishes were cooking in the oven we made up a few jugs of sangria and quickly turned the classroom into a dining room were we all sat down to dinner with our tapas creations.
Wait staff from the restaurant next door were constantly checking in on our beverage requirements so no one went thirsty... something I take fairly seriously as you can see from my line up below.
(White Sangria, water, beer and red wine... I like to have my bases covered when it comes to food and beverage pairing!)
As the night ended there was a certain satisfying end of putting all the dirty cookware and dishware into a container for someone else to wash up! We were all given the recipes we had made and were well feed and had learnt a thing or two in the process. I had a fantastic time and I know everyone on my table said the same.
I highly recommend this not just as a great cooking class, but a great night out period. If you aren't afraid to get your hands a little dirty, then instead of just going out for dinner why not go out to learn how to cook something new in a fun environment and have something at the end of the evening that is more than just the bill!
The cost of the course is $140 per head.... however, you can save yourself a whopping 50% just by becoming a VIP mailing list member HERE
You really would have to be full of BS to not take advantage of this incredibly generous offer as you can then get two people into the course for the cost of one AND free dinner at Mumu Grill during the month of your Birthday as well!
