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Living Social: The case of the Devilled Egg

The Kitchen Table set upRegular readers of my blog might have noticed that I have been on a few Living Social Events during my time. I’ve taken to blogging a few of these, Fat Attack, CSI weekend and a Newquay weekend. These blog posts were noticed by the guys at Living Social and they offered me a free Bloggers Breakfast event to showcase one of there cookery deals they do.

The cookery event was run by the Devilled Egg Kitchen Academy. Don’t worry it wasn’t all about eggs but they did feature prominantly! Bear in mind that I am only a Foodie in that I like to eat food. I have been known to burn beans on toast although I can make a wicked fairy cake.

Location: Bristol. A quiet residential street where all you can hear when you arrive is birdsong!

Verdict: Brilliant. The course was basic enough for me with clear explanantions while detailed enough for my husband who has been on a residential cookery course before.

Value for Money: Great. well it was free. Seriously though, the price I think for what we had is £135 from the Devilled Kitchen website so if you take into account Living Social discounts I think you could keep your eye out for a bargain here.

The Course:

When we arrived we were shown into the dining room while the rest of the party arrived. The house was gorgeous with large chandeliers and high ceilings – I wouldn’t mind living there!

We had time to chat and find out a little about each other before we started. The lady in charge was Barbora Stiess. Normally she would have had an assistant but she had been in an accident that morning so she couldn’t make it, I hope she is better now! No offense to the assistant though but the course went wonderfully and I didn’t realise there was supposed to be help until the end!

We all had to wash our hands or use the gel in the little dispenser as shown in the picture. I was paranoid about spreading germs because I was suffering from hay fever so I used more than my fair share of the gel. We would all be eating each other’s food so I wanted to make sure that no one would be grossed out.

There were a number of recipes but I won’t put them on here out of respect for the owner although she said it would be alright … except for one. We adored the bread rolls we made so this is going on here so I can find it again later (I tend to lose bits of paper).

Bread Rolls

This was the first recipe we followed and when volunteers were asked for, my husband stepped up to the plate (well bowl actually) and started the measurements. Here’s what was needed:

  • 500g strong white flour , plus extra for dusting
  • 2 tsp salt
  • 7g sachet fast-action yeast
  • 3 tbsp olive oil
  •  300ml water
  1. Mix the flour, salt and yeast in a large bowlMixing the bread mixture
  2. Make a well in the centre, then add the oil and water, and mix well
  3. If the dough seems a little stiff add 1-2 tbsp water, mix well then tip onto a lightly floured work surface and knead.
  4. Once the dough is satin-smooth, place it in a lightly-oiled bowl and leave to rise for 1 hour until doubled in size or place in the fridge overnight.
  5. When risen, gently mould the dough into small buns and fill with olives and feta
  6. Place the buns on a baking sheet to prove for a further hour until doubled in size (cover with a clean tea towel).
  7. Heat oven to 220C, glaze bread with egg wash (beaten egg with a pinch of salt) and sprinkle with sesame seeds.
  8. Bake for 15-20 minutes until golden brown and sounding hollow when tapped underneath.
  9. Cool on a wire rack.

bread rolls with ham and hollandaiseWe ate these later with ham, poached egg and hollandaise sauce. I, of course, had non-dairy hollandaise sauce because of my allergy to milk. On its own it wasn’t very nice but mixed together with the egg, ham and bread – it was like heaven on a roll.

By the way if you are allergic to gluten or dairy products the Devilled Egg Kitchen Academy does do courses which cater for these. Cool huh?

Anyways, after this was the soda bread and guess who volnteered for this? Oi, it was me. Ironic really, the only person who couldn’t eat the soda bread was the person making it! She gave a great tip. If you don’t happen to have buttermilk in your fridge, but let’s face it who doesn’t these days, then all you need to do is put a bit of vinegar in milk and voila, homemade buttermilk.

I could go into great detail about all the amazing food we created but really you would need to go on the course to get the benefit, by which of course I mean you get to eat it!

Here’s a quick list of the things we made:

Blinis with beetroot and salmon
Soda Bread
Profiteroles
White Bread
Shortcrust pastry
Scrambled eggs
Eggs Benedict
Scotch Egg (the highlight of the course)

We got eat most of the things we made, the only proviso was that we were stuffed by the end so some people took their scotch eggs home.

Would I go again? I always ask this question at the end of a blog post and I would say yes. I learnt an awful lot and it wa a good laugh too. I highly recommend this course for novices and experienced cooks alike.

Here are a few pictures from the day to round this post off:

cooking

Scotch Egg

salmon blinis and savoury profiterols

salmon blini

cooked scotch egg

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