Cookery Club
We have a cookery club every week, when we learn how to cook a proper meal in one hour! We usually sit down to eat together at the end, and the teachers who are still in school come and sample the food!
In the summer term, Year 6 run a pop up cafe to serve their families some of the delicious recipes we have learned in cookery club, and we get chance to make puddings then too!
Recipes
Our favourite recipes serve 8 children or a family of 4, and include
Veggie Pasta Bake (We always use the veggies with an * and the other ones are optional, depending on what is in the fridge!)
*1 onion, peeled and diced
*1 red chilli, de-seeded and chopped up really small
*3 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped up really small
*1 packet cherry tomatoes
*1 carrot, peeled and diced
1 parsnip, peeled and diced
1 sweet potato, peeled and diced
*1 red and 1 green pepper, de-seeded and chopped into 1cm squares -ish!
1/2 small butternut squash peeled and diced
Toss all these veggies in a roasting tin with a good glug of olive oil and a very generous lot of italian herbs ad roast in a medium oven 180c until the root veggies are soft to the point of a knife.
Cook 4 servings of pasta in boiling water until soft. Drain and add to veggies in roasting tin, whenthe veggies are soft.
Meanwhile mix a small carton of soured cream with 3 heaped teaspoons of wholegrain mustard, and when the veggies are cooked, mix this sauce into the roasting tin with the veggies and the pasta.
Grate 6oz cheddar cheese and sprinke over the pasta and veggies and return to the oven to melt the cheese and sizzle the sauce.
Salmon parcels
Use one salmon steak per person.
Finely slice the following veggies into matchstick lengths;
3 mangetout per person
spring onions 1/2 per person
1/2 celery stick per person
1/4 a red pepper per person
1 very thin slice ginger root per person
Wash the fish and put each piece onto a separate square of foil or greaseproof paper.
Lift the sides of the foil or paper slightly.
Put the sliced veggies on top of the fish.
Squeeze a squirt of orange juice onto the fish, and add a shake of light soy sauce.
Toast some sesame seeds in a dry frying pan until lightly browned, then sprinkle onto the fish.
Seal up the parcels and put them onto a baking tray. Cook in a moderate oven (180c) for about 10 minutes, until the fish flakes when poked gently with your finger.
Serve with noodles.
Minestrone soup
Put a generous glug of olive oil in the bottom of a deep sauce pan, and add the following to cook gently for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
*1 onion, peeled and diced (1/2 cm squares)
*3 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped up really small
1 pack of pancetta or smoked bacon cubes (You can leave this out if you are vegetarian)
1 celery stick, diced (1/2 cm squares)
When these veggies are soft, add the remaining veggies and stir well.
1 carrot, peeled and diced (1/2 cm squares)
1 parsnip, peeled and diced (1/2 cm squares)
1 potato, peeled and diced (1/2 cm squares)
1/2 swede, peeled and diced (1/2 cm squares)
and a tin of chopped tomatoes and a tin of water, a veggie stock cube and a good squirt of tomato puree.
Put the lid on the pan and leave it to simmer for about half an hour.
When the veggies are soft, taste the soup, and if it needs more flavour, you can add a big teaspoonful of red pepper pesto, or some more tomato puree.
Either break up one serving of dried spaghetti, or one 'clump' of thin egg noodles and add to the pan. You may need to add a bit more water, depending on how many veggies you used, and then you may need to adjust the flavour too. Continue cooking until the pasta is soft.
At school, we always use the half an hour to visit Peter Herd's to get bread rolls to eat with the soup!
Smoked haddock pancakes
Cook one fillet of undyed smoked haddock in a saucepan, with enough milk to cover the fish.
Melt a dessertspoon of margarine in another saucepan and add a heaped dessert spoon of plain flour. Mix well with a wooden spoon. It will make a thick paste.
When the fish is cooked (about 5 minutes) lift it out onto a plate, skin side up, and leave to cool slightly. Meanwhile, slowly add the milk from cooking the fish to the sauce pan with the margarine and flour paste. It should gradually make a smooth white sauce, but you must keeep on stirring the sauce while you are adding the milk. If it is too thick, you can add some more cold milk, but do it a little at a time. Add a generous shake of sage.
Now lift the skin off the fish and discard the skin.
Add the fish to the sauce and mix gently so the fish is in flakes, but not mushed up!
For the pancakes, crack two eggs into a bowl and add a cup of plain flour, 1/2 a cup of milk and mix until it is smooth. Then gradually add more milk and water alternately, until you have a thinnish batter. Try to beat it well so there is lots of air in the mixture.
Heat up a frying pan and add a little oil, add one ladle of the pancake batter and tilt the pan so it rolls around to cover the base. (this is when you find out if your mixture is still too thick - if it douesn't roll around quite quickly, it is too thick, and you should add some more water to it.) Don't worry if the first pancake sticks - they usually do, and then the rest of them work really well.
After each pancake is tossed and cooked, stack them up with a piece of greaseproof paper inbetween. When the pancakes are all cooked, share the fish mixture between them and roll them up. Put them onto a baking tray and sprinkle grated cheese on top.
Pop them into a hot (180c) oven for 15 minutes.
You could serve these at home with a green salad or some peas or green beans.
Fish cakes
We are very lucky and have a super fish shop 2 minutes walk away from school, so we enjoy going to buy the fish and having a good look around the shop.
We often make 3 different types of fish cakes, just variations on the same recipe, but we do them in this order, so we can cook the fish in the same hot water, and we cook all of them at the same time.
Spicy fish cakes
Cook a single portion of white fish (cod or haddock or similar) in boiling water until the skin lifts away easily. Lift the fish onto a plate, skin side up and leave to cool slightly.
Meanwhile peel 2 medium potatoes per person, steam or boil them until soft, then mash them thoroughly.
Chop 1 red chilli very small, include half the seeds, two spring onions and add to a tablespoon of fish sauce in a large bowl.
Remove skin from fish and add to the bowl with 1/3 of the mashed potato. Mix carefully with a fork - we don't want mush. Then flour a work surface and your hands and shape the mixture into four large or 8 small patties. Set aside.
Salmon fish cakes
After the white fish is cooked, wash one portion of salmon and cook it in the hot water, then lift it out and leave to cool slightly, before removing the skin.
In a new bowl, gently mix the salmon, 1/3 of the mashed potatoes and a generous shake of dill, then shape into patties as before.
Smoked haddock fish cakes
Finally, cook a portion of smoked haddock in the hot water, then lift it out and remove the skin.
In a third bowl, gently mix the smoked haddock with the remaining mashed potato and a generous shaing of sage, and shape into patties.
It is quite important to have the fish cakes similar in depth, so they will cook at the same time.
Heat up a frying pan and pour in some sunflower oil. Carefully lay the fishcakes into the pan and cook until the base is browned befire turning them over annd repeating it on the other side. We always start at 12 o' clock in the frying pan and then lay them around an imaginary clock face so we know which ones to turn first.
We also cook them in this order - salmon first, then spicy, then smoked haddock.
You will need to add more oil to the pan as you are cooking them all.
Tomato sauce
Gently fry one chopped onion, 3 cloves garlic, chopped very small, a stick of celery, chopped very small, a red chilli chopped very small, if you like it spicy, then add a tin of tomatoes and a good squirt of tomato puree. Cook it with a lid on for about half an hour, then blitz it with a food processor stick to make a smooth sauce. You might want to add a shake of balsamic vinegar, and or a very small sprinkle of sugar.
Or you might just want to use tomato ketchup or mayonnaise straight from the fridge!
Stir fry
This is a good one for the children to practice their cutting skills, and each veg is cut into long and thin pieces, apart from garlic, ginger and chilli, which is cut up very small.
Any or all of the following;
onion
celery
red, orange, yellow and/or green pepper
courgette
carrot
mangetout or sugar snap peas
broccoli florets
strips of chicken breast
Heat up a tablespoon of sunflower oil in a wok, and add garlic, chili, ginger and onion and stir. Then add celery, then chicken pieces.
Add a good shake of soy sauce and a glug or two or oyster sauce or hoisin sauce.
Keep on stirring, and shake the pan to keep everything moving. Make sure the chicken is on the base of the wok to cook through thoroughly.
Add remaining veggies and stir for 5 mins. Make sure the green veggies are bright green, then they will be still delicious and still a bit crunchy.
Serve with noodles or brown rice.
Chicken escalopes
One large chicken fillet will make two escalopes.
Make breadcrumbs from brown or seeded bread. Add grated parmesan, chopped fresh rosemary and mix well.
Wash the escalopes, then pat dry and dip both sides in flour,then dip in a beated egg, then into the breadcrumb mix.
Set aside.
Heat up a frying pan and put the oven on 180c.
Cook each escalope in the frying pan quickly on each side, then put onto a baking tray to finish cooking them in the oven. This way, you can be sure that the chicken is cooked through - there must be no pink in the middle. I suggest you cut into the thickest part of the thickest escalope to check. It should take no more than 10 minutes.
When we serve these at our St Anne's Cafe, we serve a green pasta salad with them. (See below)
Green Pasta Salad
In a steamer pan, cook the following green veggies - green beans, mangetout or sugar snap peas, frozen or fresh peas, depending on season, broccoli, all chopped into fork-sized chunks.
Cook pasta in boiling water - any shape will do, but the children really like fusilli and 'bowties!'
Toast 1/2 a packet of pine nuts in a dry frying pan until browning slightly and smelling delicious.
In a large bowl, mix two or three generous spoonfuls of green pesto with some extra olive oil, then toss the pasta and veggies so they are coated. Sprinkle the toasted pine nuts over the top.
This is delicious hot, warm or cold!
Fish Pie
Cover a small fillet of white fish, salmon and smoked haddock with milk in a saucepan, with a good shake of sage, or dill, or thyme, and bring to the boil, then take off the heat and let the fish continue cooking.
Peel one potato per person, a parsnip, and a chunk of celeriac and swede and boil until soft. Mash and put to one side.
Melt 50g of butter in a suacepan, and add 2 tbsp ish of flour, stirring until the flour is absorbed, then add the milk from the fish, a little at a time, until the sauce is creamy. Flake the fish intothe sauce and add a bit of salt if needed
Chop a good handful of kale and steam for a few minutes (make sure it is still bright green) and then lay it in the bottom of a lasagne dish. Spread the fish mixture over the kale evenly.
Spread the mashed root veg over the top, then sprinkle grated cheddar cheese on top and cook under the grill until the cheese is deliciously brown and melted.
