Takeaways be-gone as Kent Cookery School helps Joe Bill get to grips with some dude food

On the Hythe Road out of Ashford, swing a left at Mersham Le Hatch into The Courtyard - a buzzing complex of shops, restaurants and the renowned Kent Cookery School (@kentcookeryschool).

Sat quaffing Margaritas on a beach in Mexico, husband-and-wife team James and Autumn Palmer Rosser had one of those ‘five-year-plan’ discussions… the Kent Cookery School was born. Opened in 2016, the school already had a winning combination at its helm, with Autumn’s experience in marketing and James’s career in the kitchen creating a perfect starting point.

James has had 25 years of experience, starting out at Tunbridge Wells’s stalwart Sankey’s before going on to cook alongside Albert Roux at the Chelsea Flower Show and for a number of years at Michelin-starred restaurant Thackery’s in Tunbridge Wells.

Ending up as executive chef at Whiting and Hammond, an award-winning gastro-pub company in Kent, James has spent years passing on both his classical and modern cooking knowledge to train new chefs… and then… me. And I really cannot cook.

The first thing to say is the atmosphere at the school is warm and fun, and heading into the cosy dining room area to begin with the students can gather, chat, have a beer or wine if they want and relax. I was booked onto the Dude Food course, alongside a few other noobs, to learn to cook some classic, super-indulgent dishes without having to shell out for a takeaway. The two-and-a-half-hour course sees you make, from scratch, Mac & Cheese with homemade bacon jam, spicy Korean chicken wings and perfectly cooked steak.

“JAMES HAS SPENT YEARS PASSING ON BOTH HIS CLASSICAL AND MODERN COOKING KNOWLEDGE TO TRAIN NEW CHEFS… AND THEN… ME. AND I REALLY CANNOT COOK.”

There are tons of courses, from learning how to make pastries and complex desserts to sushi masterclasses, specialist dietary courses and even Weber barbecue courses. But given the severe troughs of my cooking ability, Dude Food was a good place to start

A culinary enthusiast’s dream, the kitchen has all the gadgets, gizmos and thingamabobs that aspiring chefs could want but, far from it being some Heston-type science lab, there is a country-kitchen feel with beams and pots and pans all over. The workspaces, each with its own oven and induction hobs, are set around a central island - close enough that you can chat to other attendees but with enough space that you can hide the absolute shambles you’re making of chopping the onion.

James is a bundle of energy, a few jokes and the patience to watch you slice up a chicken leg with a boning knife for the first time. But his knowledge is outrageous and he confesses that he’s not really a fan of religiously sticking to recipes (apart from pastries) and comes up with his own variants and slants on things. Fortunately, here they do print out the recipes in a pack for us mortals to take home. Phew!

While simple tasks like slicing the lardons and boiling down the sugars for your bacon jam get the confidence going early, the course is punctuated by little high spots, for example learning how to cook a steak properly. Or being given the correct temperatures to achieve perfect rare, medium and well done, or perhaps the titbit of turning your steak away from you so the splash of hot oil isn’t coming directly at your hands. It’s something I will remember forever.

There are things in the kitchen that only the experience of ballsing them up first-hand (rather than ripping a recipe off the web) can teach you, like adding in cream or milk bit by bit until it boils into the Béchamel sauce, rather than pouring it in all at once - oops!

While pasta-making courses are available, this is a night-time short course, so having the pasta pre-cooked is handy for the Mac & Cheese completion. Baked with its own crunchy crumb topping - which includes Walkers chicken crisps (great little tip) and panko breadcrumbs - and a dollop of the now-set bacon jam, the Mac & Cheese is banging.

Our chicken wings have been chopped and covered in a Korean red-pepper paste (gochujang) with ginger, garlic and soy coating and baked before being sprinkled with sesame seeds and chillies. Spicy!

Now comes the best bit - tasting. A really fun way to end the evening is heading back to the dining area to sit down, natter and taste your creations. Of course, you don’t have to - you can grab your doggy bag and selfishly scuttle off home to scoff it all to yourself. But that’s down to you!

Kent Cookery School was an enlightening and genuinely fun experience for a novice chef but with plenty more to offer those with a higher skill level. I’ll be heading back. Souffle, here I come…

INFO: kentcookeryschool.co.uk