Wickedfood Cooking School, SUNNINGHILL

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

Hi all,

At last, the World Cup is a over. Hopefully we can once again get on with business.  We had some great individual classes during the World Cup, and hope to continue these for the rest of the year.  Many of our cooking classes for individuals are filling up quickly, our sushi making class is already  fully booked for next week.  Should you however wish to do a sushi making class, please contact the school and they will place you on a waiting list for the next class. Should we have enough enquiries, we will run another class.

We also have a specialist database and we advise people on these databases when the next class that they are interested in, comes up. Please contact the school should you wish to be placed on the data list, together with your interests.

The August  programme for individuals is now up on our website.

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 July and August programme .

Wickedfood Cooking School runs cooking classes with a minimum of 8 participants and a maximum of 12 as this gives everyone hands-on experience and keeps the cooking class small enough for maximum learning. These cooking classes are conducted by our senior instructors who have extensive experience in the food industry and share a variety of additional cooking tips throughout the  class.

• Sunday 18 July at 4pm – Entertaining Italian style (R350pp). Great Italian cooking class, with dishes for entertaining with Italian flair including rice croquettes, Siena bread soup, semolina gnocchi, poached chicken with a caper/egg sauce and baked pears.
• Monday 26 July at 6pm – A taste of the sea, Portuguese style (R395pp). A selection of tasty seafood dishes from our Portuguese cooking class, including codfish balls, squid tentacles, Madeira squid stew, prawns peri-peri, and tuna steaks.
• Sunday 01 August at 4pm – Classic Indian dishes (R370pp). Authentic Indian cooking class, dishes including chicken mulligatawny, classic lamb buriyani, soya korma, spicy chick peas, naans and coconut pasties.

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.

On food

Cooking up a storm

Doing research for the newsletter, I came across this charming story.  It may not be to everyone’s taste, but it certainly touches on some  interesting  theories.

As the OAP who baked cannabis cakes to ease her aches and pains and those of her disabled friends, Pat Tabram became something of a celebrity. Now, about to be sentenced for her crimes, she explains why she is willing to go to jail to continue doing it … Click Here to read the full article .

Cookbook of the week

Reuben Cooks: Food is Time Travel

If it’s local South African celebrity chefs you’re interested in, then Reuben Riffel is it. He is a Cape lad with a humble upbringing, has become one of the shining lights in the Franschhoek culinary world. … Click Here for more.

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

Food quote of the week

“Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dinner like a pauper.” – Adelle Davis, author.

Recipe of the week:

Seafood Laksa

A laksa is the closest one will get to a hearty warming Southeast Asian soup.  It comes in many guises.  Once you have mastered this recipe substitute the seafood for chunky vegetables or chicken breasts. … 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 – teambuilding 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.

You may well remember Clarissa Dickson Wright from the TV series Two Fat Ladies. In one of her more recent publications,  A Greener Life, Clarissa and Johnny Scott look at how to live a more natural and self-sufficient life. They explore  issues from growing your own vegetables to using alternative energies, from keeping livestock to mending your own socks, so that you have the knowledge to start living the good life.

A fascinating overview on how to take more control of what you use and eat. Especially fun for armchair farmers.

Interested in buying this book? visit - Red Pepper Books – The South African online bookshop, they will be able to offer you great prices on any book you are looking for.

Sunninghill – (011) 234-3252 sunninghill@wickedfood.co.za

Runs cooking classes throughout the year at its purpose-built cooking studios. 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 teambuilding cooking classes these events are a novel way of creating staff interaction or entertaining clients.

Wickedfood Cooking School, SUNNINGHILL

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

Hi all,

In this cold weather, what better way to warm up, than with a tasty stew or hearty soup  – see our feature below for some great soup ideas, or search through our recipe section on the blog (We have 29 pages of delicious recipes).

The August  programme of Johannesburg cooking classes for individuals is now up on our website.  We have a mouthwatering selection of classes on offer, including a French cooking class, and a baking class, specializing in chocolate – see our recipe of the week to whet your appetite.

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 July and August programme .

Wickedfood Cooking School runs cooking classes with a minimum of 8 participants and a maximum of 12 as this gives everyone hands-on experience and keeps the cooking class small enough for maximum learning. These cooking classes are conducted by our senior instructors who have extensive experience in the food industry and share a variety of additional cooking tips throughout the  class.

• Monday 05 July at 6pm – Cooked in Africa (R380pp). Justin Bonello has become a cult hero in the South African culinary world. Through his quirky television series, and accompanying book, Cooked In Africa, he has taken a bunch of friends on a culinary road trip through southern Africa. In this Justin Bonello cooking class, we’ve taken a few of the recipes from the series and re-interpreted them to create a delicious South African cooking class.

• Monday 12 July at 6pm – Jamie’s Ministry of Food – quick meals and pastas (R350pp). This Jamie Oliver cooking class is inspired by Jamie’s book Ministry of Food, at Wickedfood Cooking School we regard it as his best. It is a perfect book for any beginner. We take six recipes from the book and re-interpret them, with plenty of tips along the way. Learning the secrets to successful  easy cooking, including spicy Moroccan stewed fish with couscous, chicken and leek stroganoff, broccoli and pesto tagliatelle, classic tomato spaghetti, macaroni cauliflower cheese bake and banana tarte tatin, with a wicked twist.
• Sunday 18 July at 4pm – Entertaining Italian style (R350pp). Great Italian cooking class, with dishes for entertaining with Italian flair including rice croquettes, Siena bread soup, semolina gnocchi, poached chicken with a caper/egg sauce and baked pears.

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.

On food

Soup

It’s so easy to make delicious, homemade soups, which are especially hearty in this cold winter weather.  But what is a soup?

Wikipedia defines soup as “...a food that is made by combining ingredients such as meat and vegetables with stock, juice, water or another liquid. Hot soups are additionally characterized by boiling solid ingredients in liquids in a pot until the flavour is extracted, forming a broth. Traditionally, soups are classified into two main groups: clear soups and thick soups. The established French classifications of clear soups are bouillon and consommé. Thick soups are classified depending upon the type of thickening agent used: purées are vegetable soups thickened with starch; bisques are made from puréed shellfish or vegetables thickened with cream;the  cream soups may be thickened with béchamel sauce; and veloutés are thickened with eggs, butter and cream. Other ingredients commonly used to thicken soups and broths include rice, flour and grains.“

Basic soups are very easy to make, as we constantly remind our cooking class students at Wickedfood Cooking School.  Chop equal quantities of onion, celery and carrots, and fry in a little butter or oil until the flavour is released.  Add a few chicken thighs and wings, slices of lamb neck, or some beef bones, cover with water or homemade stock and boil until the meat falls off the bone.  Add a handful of pulses such as lentils, barley or chickpeas, at the beginning of the cooking process, for more body.  Season to taste and serve.  See links to other websites in this article for some delicious soup recipes.

Soup as a figure of speech:

• Alphabet soup – a term often used to describe a large amount of acronyms used by an administration.
• Pea soup describes a thick or dense fog.
• Word soup refers to any collection of words that is ostensibly incomprehensible.
• Tag soup further refers to poorly coded HTML.

Click Here for some delicious soups from Jamie Oliver.

Book of the week

A Greener Life - Clarissa Dickson Wright and Johnny Scott

You may well remember Clarissa from the TV series Two Fat Ladies. In her more recent publications, A Greener Life, Clarissa and Johnny Scott look at how to live a more natural and self-sufficient life. They explore  issues from growing your own vegetables to using alternative energies, so that you have the knowledge to start living  greener.

In … Click Here for more.

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

Recipe of the week:

Chocolate brownies

This recipe is based on one that we use at Wickedfood Cooking School in our baking class, specializing in chocolate .  Chewy chocolate squares, one of the best brownie recipes around, and quick and easy to make. They use cocoa powder instead of chocolate.

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 – teambuilding 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.

Every day during the Football World Cup Delia Smith will add a recipe that reflects the cuisine of one of the teams playing. This is her take on the braai. The sauce is suitable for all meats – lamb cutlets, pork ribs or chicken drumsticks. The quantity is enough to glaze six of each, which makes a nice mixture of meats to serve to six people. One important point is that drumsticks need pre-baking in a pre-heated oven at gas mark 180°C, for 15 minutes just before braaiing. This recipe is taken from Delia Smith’s Summer Collection.

6 chicken drumsticks

6  lamb cutlets

6 pork ribs

For the apricot barbecue glaze:

6 dried apricots

2 T dark brown sugar

Few drops Tabasco sauce

¼ cup Worcestershire sauce

¼ cup light soy sauce

1T grated fresh ginger

1T ground ginger

2T tomato purée

1 clove garlic, minced

For the apricot barbecue glaze:

1. Begin by placing the apricots in a small saucepan with just enough water to cover them, then bring them up to simmering point and simmer for 5 minutes. Place them, with the leftover liquid,  in a blender or food processor together with all the other glaze ingredients. Whiz everything to a purée and the sauce is ready.
2. All you need to do now is arrange the meat in a shallow dish, pour the glaze over them – turning the pieces of meat so that each one gets a good coating – then cover and leave in a cool place until you’re ready to cook, preferably overnight. When you light the fire, pre-cook the chicken drumsticks as above, then cook with the other meat.
3. Scrape any sauce that’s left in the dish into a small saucepan, add a glass of white wine to it and bring it all up to simmering point to give some extra sauce.
4. Serve with oven-roasted potatoes, a crisp salad and some very robust red wine!

Serves 6

For more Fifa World Cup recipes from Delia Smith, … click here

Sunninghill – (011) 234-3252 sunninghill@wickedfood.co.za

Runs cooking classes throughout the year at its purpose-built cooking studios. 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 teambuilding cooking classes these events are a novel way of creating staff interaction or entertaining clients.

Wickedfood Cooking School, SUNNINGHILL

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

Hi all,

Well  the World Cup Tournament is here.  For those who want to get into the spirit, but not necessarily go to the games, Wickedfood Cooking School has some exciting alternatives:

• Cooking classes for individuals- based around menus from those countries participating in the World Cup, that we feel have the most interesting culinary traditions – on Monday night, we kicked off with a delicious South African cooking class which was fully subscribed … click here for more information on other cooking classes available during the Soccer World Cup.
• Cooking classes for a group of friends – Wickedfood Cooking School has identified the 10 participating soccer teams with the most interesting cuisine and drawn up a representative 6-dish menu cooking class for each national team. Bring a group of 12 or 24 friends for fun night out @ R390pp and we will give you one place per twelve people free ie book for 12 and pay for 11.   Contact the school for more details.
• 2010 Culinary World Cup Challenge – a great way for your company to entertain staff or clients, or do a teambuilding cooking class with a difference, during the Soccer World Cup period.  Click here or 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, we have some great cooking classes to coincide with the Soccer World Cup – see above, or click the relevant month for the June and July programme .

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 21 June at 6pm – Flavours of Brazil (R380 pp). Brazilian cooking class, showcasing the country’s unique flavours including savoury pumpkin soup, Feijoada, fried Brazilian-style greens, rice cooked with onion, toasted manioc flour and an orange flan.
• Sunday 27June at 4pm – Classic Japanese dishes (R380pp). Classic Japanese cooking class with dishes from the Japanese kitchen including yakitori grilled chicken, tofu and vegetable soup, poached fish with miso, chicken cakes, spinach rolls with bonito flakes and caramelised sweet potatoes.
• Monday 28 June at 6pm – Classic French cooking (R370pp). French cooking class, an introduction to French cuisine including cheese soufflé, potato and leek soup, coq au vin, potato gratin, and tarte tatin.
• Monday 05 July at 6pm – Cooked in Africa (R380pp). Justin Bonello has become a cult hero in the South African culinary world. Through his quirky television series, and accompanying book, Cooked In Africa, he has taken a bunch of friends on a culinary road trip through southern Africa.  We’ve taken a few of the recipes from the series and re-interpreted them to create a delicious South African cooking class.

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

Delia Smith – Complete How To Cook

In 2009 Delia’s How to Cook was released as a single book of over 700 pages, with 350 recipes and step-by-step photography, covering every technique you will ever need from how to boil an egg to Risotto Carbonara. Truly a great book for both a beginner and someone who wants to brush up on both basics and more involved cooking. … Click Here for more.

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

Food quote of the week :

“My doctor told me to stop having intimate dinners for four, … unless there are three other people.” – Orson Welles

Recipe of the week:

Mixed Grill with Apricot Barbecue Glaze

Every day during the |Football World Cup Delia Smith will add a recipe that reflects the cuisine of one of the teams playing. This is her take on the braai. The sauce is suitable for all meats – lamb cutlets, pork ribs or chicken.

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.