As you know, we work in pairs, and I have been trying to work with a different person each week in an effort to get know everyone in my class. This week was with G, who tells me he has been cooking since the age of nine. It is clearly evident he loves to cook, for when he’s not in cookery school, he is cooking at a 5-star hotel in Green Park where he’s been working for the last year and a half. And when he’s not doing that, he’s at home cooking.

It turns out that at lunchtime he sometimes heads to the hotel to eat. It’s free, and I’m sure the food is very good. I’ve managed to get myself invited to go along with him at some point, on the pretext of wanting to see the kitchen, although I wouldn’t say no to lunch either. Or maybe I invited myself, for I guess he really didn’t have much choice, seeing as I was brandishing my just-sharpened 9 inch chef’s knife as we were speaking.

Sweet & sour pork

We made lamb navarin and sweet and sour pork this week. The lamb stew, enriched with the flavour of the vegetables that we had passed through a chinoise to create a thickened sauce, was utterly divine. So much so, we scoffed it down rather quickly and I didn’t manage to take a photo. The sweet and sour pork was good too. As we created the sauce purely by eye and taste, it was a good test of our palate to ensure that we got the right balance of sweet and sour.

There will be no class next week on account of the Easter break.

Westminster Kingsway College:
Web: http://www.westking.ac.uk

Other Related Stories