In week 8 of the Leiths Confident Cooking course we deboned wood pigeon and made strudel from scratch.

Apple strudel

I really enjoyed this class. It never occurred to me that we would be making the filo pastry for the apple strudel from scratch. Nor that making filo would be so much fun. Who knew?

The ingredients for filo were simple: plain flour, salt, egg, water and oil. We mixed the ingredients to make a soft dough and then had to whack it repeatedly to strengthen the proteins and make it elastic. This was awesome stress release as we could be quite vigorous and there’s really no chance of overdoing it, although occasionally the pastry flew off and hit the floor. The instructors implemented a ‘five-second rule’ to ensure the dough was not wasted.

It reached the right consistency when we could pull the dough like a long elastic band without it snapping. We then put it aside while we prepared the filling - apple, currants, sultanas, raisins, brown sugar, cinnamon, ground cloves, browned breadcrumbs, lemon zest and juice.

After 15 minutes we each rolled our pastry out flat with a rolling pin, before easing our fingers underneath and dancing them around to stretch the dough until it until it was paper thin. I’ve seen pizza makers do something similar with pizza dough but this is much thinner. We worked in pairs for this last bit as we ended up with more than a square foot of pastry. The result was thin, large sheet of filo. We trimmed the edges, brushed it with melted butter and then put the filling. Then we rolled it up using the same method as for the roulade or sushi.

It’s possible to do individual servings but as I was making one big strudel, I followed the suggestion to arrange the strudel in a traditional horseshoe shape. Then the strudel baked it in the oven for 40 minutes until golden brown. The result was mind-bogglingly good - it would have been even better with some ice cream or crème anglaise but it was great on its own.

NB This post is labelled vegetarian for the strudel - the next dish is meat based.

Wood pigeon and black pudding salad

I wouldn’t dream of eating one of those dirty pigeons from Trafalgar Square but these little birds are quite a different beast altogether. This was partly a lesson in knife skills - the birds came whole and we learnt how to slice off the breast. Our instructor commented that this would be useful if any of us have friends with husbands who shoot - although a much bigger bird, you can apparently deal with a pheasant the same way and it saves you the trouble of plucking it. This was well meant but I did find it amusing - dealing with gifts of pheasants from husbands of friends who attend country shooting weekends is not generally a part of my life. Still you never know.

I discovered I really liked the taste of pigeon - it’s very dark and gamey, a lot like venison. We fried the pigeon and also smoked bacon cut into lardons and chunks of black pudding - separately so we didn’t contaminate anything with burnt bits. The meats went into the salad with lamb lettuce, croutons and balsamic dressing.

I must admit it did taste good though I remain dubious about the black pudding. Objectively speaking the black pudding tasted great. Subjectively speaking I was never not conscious of the fact that I was eating congealed blood. I’m not particularly sure I would make this - it’s not worth the effort for one, and I wouldn’t serve it at a dinner party unless I knew my guests were fans of black pudding. However, I might explore other possibilities for pigeon and would certainly order it at a restaurant.

This week was my favourite Leiths lesson so far. We made chilli squid salad for our savoury dish and individual amaretti pavlovas for dessert. They were both amazing and very photogenic, as you can see. I took my camera along for the first time and I’m almost tempted to just let the pictures speak for themselves. Instead I’ve given you pictures and words - including a primer on how to clean a squid.

Individual amaretto pavlovas
We made the pavlova cases first. It’s very similar to a meringue with a base of whisked egg whites and sugar but pavlova mix also includes cornflour, vanilla essence and vinegar (or lemon juice). This gives it a chewy consistency that is slightly different to the brittleness of old-fashioned meringues. We also put in a pinch of salt, which is good for very fresh eggs as it mimics albumen and makes the egg whites stronger. The trick with meringues or pavlova is to be patient and add the sugar in a little at a time, whisking the whites back into stiff peaks each time. We divided our mix into four blobs and created an indentation in the middle with the back of a spoon. We baked on silica paper as it will stick to greaseproof paper and left them in the oven for about 45 minutes. We waited until they were completely cool before attempting to remove them from the paper, if they are still warm the pavlova can break and half stays on the paper.

We came back to the pavlovas after the squid. Our teachers filled and decorated a couple as a demonstration to us, while we took home the filling: whipped, sweetened cream; raspberries; rasberries coulis; chocolate cake soaked in amaretto; and crumbled amaretti biscuits. (Other suggestions included mint and chocolate shapes made from melting chocolate and piping it through a paper cone - which the teachers demonstrated but we didn’t get the chance to attempt). The pavlovas should be filled just before serving otherwise the cream can make the meringue soggy - though apparently if you fill the pavlova case with a chocolate lining, this makes it impervious to cream. My fiance and I had a pavlova each for dessert the following night and I have stored the other two cases in an airtight container in the cupboard - apparently they’ll keep for weeks.

Chilli salt squid with feta, rocket and black olives

To prepare the squid, we started by cleaning the squid. I done this before and I actually really enjoy it. Although I get some strange looks when I tell people I like it, I’ve also found that I’m definitely not the only one. It’s very tactile and sensual and because it’s utterly alien and nothing like a mammal, it’s not gruesome at all. It sounds gruesome but in real life it’s fine - nothing like the chicken livers. The best bit is pulling out the quill - it looks like a plastic feather and is delightfully odd.

Here’s a quick lesson on squid if you have never prepared it before. You can usually get your fishmonger to do this if you prefer, but I recommend trying this at least once - it’s not that hard.

• * The edible bits are the wings, the head and the tentacles and you want to throw away the internal organs, the eyes and beak and the quill.
• * You can basically pull the wings off, or cut them if you prefer, and this is edible; slightly tougher than the rest of the squid because it’s what they use to swim but still very good.
• * Then you cut off the tentacles under the eyes and put the tentacles aside to use. If the beak stayed with the eyes then fine, but if it came with the tentacles then you will have to pick it out and discard it.
• * Then you pull the eyes and organs (which are yellow and gooey) out from inside the head (it will come apart easily) and discard.
• * You are now left with the tentacles, head and wings. Use a piece of kitchen towel to rub off the membranes.
• * You might want to cut the tentacles to standardise the length. The head can either be sliced into rings like calamari, or you can slice it open, score it and cut small chunks for cooking.
• * Don’t worry if there is black ink everywhere - this is edible. You can wash it if you like but make sure you dry it completely if you are deep-frying to avoid vicious oil spitting.

I have cooked squid previously and my usual method is to marinate it in lemon and black pepper and then cook it on the barbecue or lightly fry it. I cook it for just enough time for it to turn white and then it’s done; over-cooked squid is rubbery and nasty.

At Leiths we followed a cracking recipe for chilli salt squid with feta, rocket and black olives by Marianne Lumb. It’s deep fried so it’s not as healthy but it’s incredibly tasty and would make a lovely starter at a dinner party or a light supper. We coated the pieces of squid in a little flour mixed with sea salt and chilli powder (cayenne pepper is also an option). We were warned not to use too much flour as otherwise it can go gluggy. We had a pot full of cooking oil that we brought the boil and we could judge the oil was hot enough when it took 15 seconds for a piece of bread to go brown. If it takes less time, the oil is too hot; if it takes more time, it’s not hot enough and the bread/squid will simply soak up excess oil. Then we cooked the squid in batches, taking care to lower it into the oil with a slotted spoon to avoid splashing. It took about 20 seconds (slightly longer than the bread) for the squid to go golden brown, at which point we removed it from the oil and left it to drain on kitchen towel with a little salt sprinkled over the squid to help absorb oil.

The squid was amazingly good - tender and crisp around the outside with a lovely tangy flavour. Even better when served in a salad with rocket, black olives, feta and lime juice. Yum! We ate the squid salad in class since it doesn’t keep well.

Next week: Wood pigeon and black pudding salad; apple strudel. Don’t forget to subscribe.

It’s a double-whammy of Leiths posts as I try to get up to date before the class tomorrow night. It’s hard to believe it’s week six already - more than halfway through the course!

Last week the menu was pork tenderloin with sage and madeira sauce, accompanied by crushed new potatoes and peas. We had a dessert for the first time since the second week - citrus fruit compote with spiced caramel sauce. The good news - for my tastebuds, that is, not my waistline - is that we have desserts every week now until the end of the course.

Pork tenderloin with sage and madeira

The pork tenderloin was a triumph. Apparently it’s called ‘tenderloin’ in the United States, while in the UK it’s either called ‘tenderloin’ or ‘fillet’. But those are the only two names it’s known by. It’s very lean, which is great because it’s healthy, but it also means that you have to cook it with great care to ensure it doesn’t get over-cooked and tough.

We trimmed the pork fillets of membrane and outer fat and browned them in a pan with half a tablespoon of sunflower oil. Then we transferred it to a roasting tin and put it in the oven at 190C (350F/Gas Mark 5) for 15-20 minutes.

In the mean time, we poured off any excess fat (there wasn’t any in my case because the meat was so lean and I’d trimmed off any visible fat). Then we added the Madeira and reduced by half, before adding the chicken stock. It didn’t thicken so we had to add a little beurre manie - basically flour and butter - to develop the syrupy consistency. Apparently sherry would also work in place of Madeira.

The pork is done when you put a knife through the meat and it comes out hot where it would have touched the centre of the meat. A lot of people think that it’s dangerous to have underdone pork, just as it’s dangerous to eat chicken that is not properly cooked. The Leiths teachers said this was no longer the case - apparently this perception dates from the days when pigs were fed swill and were prone to gut parasites, but this is not allowed any more and it’s perfectly safe to eat it slightly pink. (However, the Food Standards Agency disagrees).

We set the pork to rest slightly and served it with the sauce, scattered with chiffanaded sage, and accompanied by new potatoes crushed with peas. I opted for olive oil with the potatoes rather than butter. It was amazingly good - lean yet tender and full of flavour. I would definitely make that again.

Citrus fruit compote with spiced caramel

The dessert was quite tricky because we had to make caramel sauce, which involves slowly dissolving sugar in water. Once it’s dissolved, we turned the heat up and boiled without stirring until it turned a dark caramel colour. It is incredibly tempting to stir it but this is risky as it can make the sugar re-crystalise. Once it hitsthe right colour - and not a moment later - we had to remove it from the heat and pour in cold water, taking care not to get burnt by spitting sugar. Then we added spices, including bay leaves, star anise, a cinnamon stick, coriander seeds, lemon zest and root ginger, and left it to cool (to be strained the next day). We were told this would keep in the fridge for weeks.

The fruit compote was slightly easier. We sliced the kumquats finely to avoid big chunks of bitter fruit and peeled and cored the pineapple. The oranges and pink grapefruit were a test of our knife skills, as we had to remove the peel and white pith but keep them separated into attractive segments.

I think of a compote as cooked fruit. This was not cooked, though it was warmed slightly when we poured over the hot caramel sauce. Either way, it was definitely tasty! I really liked the spiced caramel - it would be great over ice cream. It was nice with the fruit as well and it’s good to have a vegan dessert recipe up my sleeve for when the occasion demands it.

Chicken liver pâté and melba toasts

I like liver pâté but I had never previously given much thought to its preparation. Now that I can speak from experience, I can say that ignorance is bliss and in future I will buy my rather than make pâté. Some things are best left to the specialists.

It’s not that it’s difficult to make, it’s just that I had to pick through a pile of chicken livers, removing membranes and green bits. The texture and smell made me gag. The torture wasn’t over until we had chopped the liver into chunks, rinsed them and patted them dry.

Once that was done, it got better. We’d already fried some garlic onion and left the remaining butter in the pan. Now we added the livers and fried, browning gently on all sides. Then we got to do a brandy flambé, which was very cool and almost made up for the grossness of the livers. We had flames shooting up to the ceiling and it was all okay because we were in a stainless steel industrial kitchen.

After that it was all plain sailing. We seasoned with salt and pepper and allowed to cool slightly. Then we blended the liver and onion mix in a food processor.

We made cute little melba toasts to go with it and they were definitely far superior to any commercial melba toasts and dead simple to make. You take white bread, remove the crusts, grill on both sides, then slice in half horizontally and grill again.

I have to admit the pâté was absolutely delicious. It almost made it worthwhile. But really, I’m not sure it was worth the pain considering the stuff at the delicatessen is so good.

On the other hand, liver pâté is not the only type of pâté in the world. There’s a recipe for kipper pâté right above the chicken liver pâté recipe that looks lovely and simple. And I had a great aubergine pâté from an Italian deli today. So perhaps I’ll be making pâté after all, just not in this form.

Chilli broccoli salad (and salmon)

The second thing we made was a lovely salad from Skye Gyngell’s cookbook A Year in my Kitchen. The salad involves broccoli that has been cooked but is still crunchy, radicchio and frisee lettuce. It is dressed with chilli and garlic oil, roasted red onions, lemon zest and juice, anchovies, olives and salt and pepper. It was a wonderful salad and would be almost as good without the anchovies for vegetarians or anchovy-haters. (I say almost because I love anchovies!).

We cooked salmon to go with it and we were shown how to fry or to roast in the oven in a parcel of aluminium foil. I really enjoyed it roasted - it tasted very clean and healthy.

Twice-baked salmon and dill souffles

The first time I ever attempted souffle, the result was a rather nice frittata. It tasted great but it was flat as a pancake - and not a Scandinavian one. (In my defence, I would like to point out that we didn’t have an electric mixer and I was attempting to whisk egg whites to a satisfactory state of stiffness entirely by hand). So I was pleased that the Leiths course would be covering souffle.

In particular we made twice-baked salmon and dill souffles. The advantage with twice-baked souffles is that they are slightly easier and you can prepare them up to 24 hours in advance. We made white sauce and combine it with egg yolks, dill and salmon. We also whisked (with an electric mixer!) the egg whites and then folded it into the salmon mixture. We baked the souffles in ramekins (or teacups or your vessel of choice) in a baking dish with a few inches of hot water. (This stabilises the temperature so they cook more easily). Once we removed them from the over, we waited for them to cool, turned them out on to a baking tray and poured over the sauce (a cream dill sauce in this case) over the top. They then get returned to the oven for 10-15 minutes when it’s time to eat it. Salmon and dill was a great combination but there are plenty of others - cheese and chive is another classic for example.

Duck breasts with apple and blackberry sauce

However, the star of the evening was the duck. We made duck breasts with blackberry and apple sauce from a Viv Pidgeon recipe. We had large juicy duck breasts with the fat and skin left on and started by frying the duck, skin side down. It released an unbelievable amount of fat and we had to keep pouring off the excess fat into a bowl. It’s the first time that I have ever fried something in order to reduce the fat content! When the skin and fat was brown and crisp, we turned the duck over briefly to seal the meat. After this point it can be left in the fridge for up to two days or even frozen, before the final step, which is roasting it for 8-10 minutes. After the roasting, we let the duck rest for five minutes before slicing it on the diagonal and serving, along with a homemade blackberry, apple and port sauce and some lightly boiled green beans. It might not be the way to a healthy heart but this was absolutely superb. I would definitely love to make this for a fancy dinner party and I know just who I would invite for maximum appreciation too.

Next week (tonight actually - how the week has whisked by!) we are making chicken liver pate, melba toast, salmon fillets and broccoli with chilli and garlic.

It was Indian and Sri Lankan this week at Leiths but before I tantalise your tastebuds with descriptions of the yummy food, please permit me a short rant. If you don’t live in London, you might want to skip the next paragraph.

Leiths used to be fairly centrally located in Kensington. Unfortunately they needed bigger premises so they moved to the wilds of west London. It’s in the middle of nowhere, sort of wedged between Shepherd’s Bush Tube on the Central Line (which is closed right now anyway) and Turnham Green on the District Line. On Wednesday I was shopping in the West End and I left a little late, mainly because the glorious summer weather tricked me into thinking it was an hour earlier than it really was. I decided to get the Central Line to White City, the next station along from Shepherd’s Bush, and then get a taxi. I rang Leiths to say I would be about 10 minutes late and then went down for my Tube. I popped up in White City about a quarter hour later and found the roads in a state of traffic gridlock. I waited for a cab for over an hour and then the cab journey took nearly half an hour. I arrived at Leiths at 8pm - an hour and a half late. I was quite upset - it was a double whammy of the misery of getting there and the fact that I missed most of the class, which averages out at about £60 a night. So if you are thinking of taking a short course at Leiths, do be warned that it’s quite tricky to get to unless you work nearby.

Sri Lankan chicken curry, chana dhal, poori and raita
As a consequence of my late arrival, I expected I would be in time to pick up most of my ingredients to attempt the other dishes at home and maybe make one last dish. It turned out we were actually cooking in pairs so my poor partner had made everything without me (she kindly insisted that I still take half the food). I was in time to help make the cucumber raita (yogurt and cucumber condiment), and roll out and deep fry the poori (unleavened flat bread). I didn’t make the Kukul Mus Kari (Sri Lankan chicken curry), or the Chana Dhal (yellow lentil curry) myself, though I talked through the recipes with the instructors and feel confident I could attempt them on my own. The instructors also kindly showed me a few of the techniques that the class had covered earlier in the evening and explained how you would toast spices (although the spices came pre-prepared for the class).

I learned the following techniques: how to finely chop an onion (by cutting in half through the root and then criss-crossing with the root on) ; how to peel ginger (with the side of a teaspoon); how to cut chilli (lengthways and then scoop out pith and seeds with teaspoon); and how to toast spices (in a heavy frypan on low-medium heat with no butter or oil and then grind afterwards in mortar and pestle or in coffee grinder for large batches).

The chicken curry and the chana dhal were both quite mild and if I were making it, I would add more spice and chilli. This is a matter of personal preference. The chicken curry recipe used chicken thighs, which are more succulent than breasts (increase the cooking time if it’s on the bone), coconut milk and garam masala (a spice mix with coriander, cumin, fennel, black peppercorns, cinnamon, cloves, cardamom and fenugreek). The recipe also gave a few variations - the tomato and yogurt option sounds good to me. I’m not sure whether or not I would make the chicken curry again - I might attempt a different recipe instead. I do want to make the chana dhal though - the recipe used yellow lentils (the orange ones fall apart too quickly and brown lentils are for a different dish) and was cooked with spice and onion and tomato.

Poori is unleavened deep-fried bread. The dough was already made by the time I got there and had been sitting for 20 minutes under a tea towel. We took small lumps of dough and rolled it out thin with a rolling pin. We had a deep saucepan full of boiling oil and we used a slotted spoon to deep fry the bread. As soon as the dough started puffing, we turned it over and sloshed it about in the oil for a few seconds, then removed it from the oil, drain and sprinkled with salt. The poori was crisp around the edges and quite nice, though I like grilled or dry-fried flat bread just as much and it’s certainly healthier.

For the raita, we grated cucumber and then removed excess water, first by draining it through a sieve and then by wringing it out. We added salt and then mixed with yogurt, black pepper and mint. Raita is lovely and refreshing with spicy food, though it was a bit redundant with such mild curries.

Next week: Twice-baked salmon and dill souffles; and duck breasts with blackberry and apple sauce, and green beans. Subscribe so you don’t miss it!

My second week at Leiths just about kept me fed for the rest of the week! I had quail with peas for dinner both Wednesday and Thursday night and then took the cake to a friend’s dinner party last night.

Chocolate and ginger roulade

In the kitchen we started with dessert - a chocolate and ginger roulade. Also called a swiss roll, this is basically a cake layered with cream and other fillings and then rolled to make a log. We used whipped cream and ginger jam for the centre but the beauty of the recipe is that you can use anything - jam, fresh berries, chestnut cream - so the varieties are endless. The other nice thing is that it doesn’t include any flour - the cake is just eggs and chocolate and sugar - so it’s suitable for people on a gluten-free diet (though not a weight-loss diet unfortunately!).

To make the roulade, we melted chocolate and water over low heat. Apparently if you use a high temperature then the chocolate can acquire a bitter flavour or worse, separate. The only thing we needed to separate was the eggs - five of them. The Leiths teachers are full of useful tricks - for example, cracking the eggs on the bench rather than the side of the bowl helps prevent leakage of yolk into the whites or vice versa. You carefully transfer the yolk back and forth between the two halves of shell, letting the white run out into the bowl. The key is to make sure you don’t get any yolk in the egg white, though a bit of egg white in the yolk is not the end of the world.

We blended the yolk and sugar and then added the chocolate to make a lovely mousse. Separately we whisked the egg whites until they had stiff peaks and then gently folded the whites into the mousse, trying not to lose all the air. We spread the mixture out on a paper-lined tray and baked it in the oven, meanwhile whipping the cream and mixing it with ginger jam. When it was done we tipped it upside down on a rack to cool and covered it with a damp tea towel to prevent cracking. The final part, which we actually did at the end when we were done with the quails, was to spread it with cream and then use another sheet of paper to roll it, similar to the method for rolling sushi and taking care not to roll the paper up in the cake! Voila! It was very tasty too.

Quails with peas

The main was quails cooked with peas and pancetta. We used thick, old-fashioned pancetta so we had to cut the rind off and then dice it, but it would probably work with other varieties or with bacon. We browned the pancetta, the onions and garlic, and the quails (all separately) and then cooked it with sage and garden peas in stock and white wine. It was a little bit fiddly but it would be great for a small dinner party as the result was quite impressive - the meat was tender and juicy and the pea and pancetta sauce was incredibly flavourful.

I’m excited about next week - we’re making a Sri Lankan red chicken curry and Indian dhal.

I am mostly a self-taught cook. I learnt the basics from my mum and dad and since then my cooking repertoire has expanded through cookbooks and magazines, sharing recipes and ideas with friends, and playing around in the kitchen inventing new dishes from random ingredients. I guess it’s been a moderately successful approach as I like to think that I am a competent cook if not a spectacular one. I have my weak spots (I’ve never made custard, for example) but I also have my strengths (salads, Italian and Asian food).

That’s all going to change because I have signed up to do a course at Leiths School of Food and Wine in west London. I wanted to do it partly because I’ve been getting into food writing (both blogging and articles) and mostly just because I thought it would be fun. I’m just doing an amateur course but even that was a 10 week commitment and a bill in the vicinity of £600.

I chose the Confident Cooking course rather than the Beginners course as I thought it was better to challenge myself than to waste the money on learning things I already knew. That’s lucky as I think it’s definitely going to be a challenge! My first class was last night and we supposedly started off easy, with choux pastry, aubergine and prosciutto gougere, and chocolate and sour cherry biscuits. I found the choux pastry quite challenging actually - we had to melt butter in water, then bring it to a rising boil, then remove it from the heat, quickly add sifited flour and, in the words of the instructor, “beat it to billy-o”. Then we had to slowly add beaten egg until it would “easily but reluctantly” fall off the spoon. Fortunately there was lots of help on hand and it turned out fine. We get to take the food home afterwards so my fridge and pantry is stocked with goodies and I’m going to fill the pastry case with the gougere tonight and bake it for my dinner.

I’ll report back every week on what we make and how I’m finding the course, so please subscribe to make sure you don’t miss future posts in the series.