Guest Chefs
Guest Chefs for 2010
Sarah Raven
Once again this year we are delighted to welcome Sarah Raven, writer, cook, broadcaster and teacher, is the expert on all things to grow, cut and eat from your garden.
In her last book The Great Vegetable Plot (2005), Sarah writes: 'A vegetable garden is a beautiful thing to make, with the extra bonus of producing the best possible things to eat. If you get it right, the whole place can become your market, your haven and your playground.' This knowledge and enthusiasm is present in all her books, her first The Cutting Garden (1996) won the Garden Writers' Guild Award for Best Specialist Gardening book, 'The Bold and Brilliant Garden (1999) offers a new approach to planning and planting a garden for sumptuous colour and scent and Grow Your Own Flowers (2002) which is an in-depth guide to growing and arranging your own flowers at home. Sarah's new book Sarah Raven's Garden Cookbook is published by Bloomsbury in June 2007.
Sarah is an inspirational and passionate teacher, running cooking, flower arranging and gardening courses at the school she set up in 1999 at her farm in East Sussex. Her mail order company, Sarah Raven's Kitchen and Garden, sells seeds, bulbs, books and her favourite things for the kitchen and garden. Sarah is a presenter on BBC Gardeners' World, she writes for The Daily Telegraph, Country Living Magazine, Gardeners' World Magazine, Domino Magazine (US) and has been a guest on BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour and The Food Programme.
Sarah is married to the writer Adam Nicolson and has two daughters and three stepsons. They live at Perch Hill Farm in East Sussex.
| Year Round Vegetables with Sarah Raven | Mon 29th March 2010 | 1 Day | €185 | |
| Grow your own Party or Wedding with Sarah Raven | Tue 30th March 2010 | 1 Day | €185 |
Thomasina Miers
It doesn’t seem so long ago that award-winning, tv chef and author, Thomasina Miers, was a student at Ballymaloe. That’s because it wasn’t so long ago. Thomasina has taken the food world by storm – first when she won Masterchef in 2005 and then with the publication of her first best-seller, Soup Kitchen
It is Mexican food, however, that Thomasina is going to make and talk about when she returns to Ballymaloe as a guest teacher. Traditional Mexican dishes, of course, but also new, bold and exciting recipes. This promises to be a hugely entertaining and informative course. Book early because Tommi (as she is know to friends) is bound to draw the crowds and places are limited.
After a very successful course last year we are delighted to welcome back Thomasina again this year.
| Mexican Food made Simple with Thomasina Miers | Sat 19th June 2010 | €255 |
Rachel Allen
Rachel Allen was brought up in Dublin and left home at eighteen to study at the world-famous Ballymaloe Cookery School. Rachel is now a busy TV chef, author, journalist and mother, and still teaches at Ballymaloe.
Rachel is the author of four bestselling cookery books, which include Rachel's Favourite Food at Home and Rachel's Food for Living. Her extremely popular television series for RTE and the BBC have been broadcast internationally and she frequently appears on BBC's Saturday Kitchen. Her charming manner and effortless style make her a delight to watch. Rachel is columnist and contributor to a number of Irish publications, including the The Sunday Tribune magazine, and is often featured in articles and interviews in the media.
Rachel's style of cooking is above all practical - simple but delicious food, ideal for family and friends. Her influences are both regional and global. The BBC describe her as an "Irish cooking queen" and Good Food magazine believe she "has put Irish cooking on the map in recent years". Rachel has a devoted fan base both in the UK and Ireland, and the popularity of her television programmes continues to rise.
Rachel lives in her seaside home in County Cork with her husband Isaac, sons Luka and Joshua and their dog Buddy.
| Bake with Rachel Allen | Wed 16th December 2009 -Fri 18th December 2009 |
€550 | |
| Easy Entertaining with Darina and Rachel Allen Part 3 | Mon 12th July 2010 -Wed 14th July 2010 |
€575 | |
| Rachel's Home Cooking | Wed 25th August 2010 -Fri 27th August 2010 |
€575 | |
| Rachels Favourite Food at Home Part 1 | Wed 8th September 2010 -Fri 10th September 2010 |
€575 | |
| Rachels Home Cooking | Mon 13th September 2010 -Wed 15th September 2010 |
€575 | |
| Rachels Festive Entertaining NEW | Tue 14th December 2010 -Thu 16th December 2010 |
€575 |
Skye Gyngell
| Guest Chef Skye Gyngel and Rory O'Connell | Thu 22nd July 2010 | €255 |
Guest Chefs 2009
Ted Berner and Ivan Whelan have become – well – the spit roast equivalent of rock stars. They tour all over Ireland, drawing huge numbers of appreciative food-lovers wherever they light their fire, and serving up incredible feasts.
Spit roasting is the ideal way to cook for large crowds – dramatic, simple, relatively inexpensive and popular. Whether you are interested in mastering this skill for pleasure or profit you couldn’t want for better teachers than Ted and Ivan.
This inspirational course will provide you with a practical grounding in the traditional culinary art of spit roasting, including how to prepare whole animals and large joints for cooking on live fire; recipes for using the innards in a rustic but interesting way; and creative interpretation of well-established classics such as haggis, pork fricassee, watercress soup, hot pear salad and smoked butter béarnaise. Ted and Ivan combine classical technique with modern ideas and the result is extremely exciting. And fun. A great deal of fun.
Naturally, you’ll be able to sample everything that Ted and Ivan prepare during the day and lunch is included.
It would not be an exaggeration to say that Irish-born Gerard Coleman has established himself as one of the greatest pastry chefs in the world. A pastry chef with a single obsession: chocolate. Immediately after finishing his studies he created some sample chocolates which so impressed Gordon Ramsay that he put them on the menu of his flagship restaurant. Other Michelin starred restaurants followed suit – not least the Fat Duck – and Gerard’s new atelier Artisan du Chocolat took off.
What sets Gerard apart from his colleagues is his use of unusual ingredients to achieve new and exciting results. Never afraid to experiment, a typical selection of his chocolates will be made by infusing fragrant flowers, spices, herbs in cream and mixing this cream with chocolate to create a soft ganache. Each infusion is then matched to specific cocoa beans to enhance or complement the flavour. The ganache is spread onto marble tables to cool, then cut into individual rectangular pieces. These pieces pass though a curtain of tempered chocolate to protect them and to apply the decoration: fork lines, sprinkle of sesame seeds or intricate and colourful designs. Just one his famous and award-winning chocolate creations is his Liquid Sea Salted Caramels.
So what can you expect during this course? A day devoted to making the finest and most exquisite chocolates. From sourcing and choosing your ingredients through to presentation. If you can think of anything more impressive that being able to serve or give away your own, hand-made chocolate creations we’d like to hear about it!
To visit L Artisan du Chocolate website
If you want to know how to bake a range of superb breads that will turn out perfect time after time, then this is the course for you. Your teacher will be Richard Bertinet and we’ll come on to his credentials in a moment.
First, the course. Based on Richard’s award-winning book, ‘Dough’, you will learn how to make and ”work” the dough to create a range of simple breads including fougasse and foccaccia. Next you will develop your technique and learn how to mould the dough and work with ferments to create traditional French baguettes, olive bread and Guinness & aineseed bread. Then (just in case you have room for something sweet) Richard will show you how to make a sweet dough for brioche and doughnuts. Finally, he will provide you with a range of other tips and recipes.
Who is Richard? Originally from Brittany in North West France he is an award-winning baker who runs a school and, of course, the famous Richard Bertinet Bakery. He also writes extensively and his second book, ‘Crust’, has won countless awards.
Guest Chefs for 2008
Richard Corrigan
Richard has appeared on television many times, including stints of BBC2's 'Master Chef', BBC2's Saturday Kitchen, Channel 4's 'Jamie’s Kitchen' and BBC's 'Full on Food'.He recently competed in BBC's 'The Great British Menu' and won both his telephone vote heats and cooked for the Queen at Mansion House. He than went on to participate in the Great British Christmas Menu and Great British Menu Series Two and most recently appeared on RTE's 'Corrigan knows Food' He has just signed a large book deal with Harper Collins which will be out next year. Richard is currently in discussion with BBC about a new series for end of this year beginning of next.
We are delighted that Richard Corrigan is coming to the cookery school this year.
Trish Deseine - French Cooking
Trish Deseine was born in Belfast in 1964. She moved to Paris in 1987. Her first book Petits plats entre amis was published in 2001 and won the Ladurée and SEB prizes. Her second book, Je veux du chocolat! (2002) won a World Gourmand Cookbook Award and sold over 500,000 copies. Subsequent books have included Mes petits plats préférés (2003); Fêtes Maison (2003) about party food; J'en veux encore (2004) about food for children and Du caramel plein la bouche (2005). For Marabout also, Deseine has produced small format books - Les Aperos de Trish, Trifles, Best Of Chocolate and Bonbons Forever. Her most recent book (published in October 2006) Ma petite robe noir et autres recettes explores the connection between wardrobe staples and food (basics, vintage, classics, accessories etc.). A book for the English-speaking market - ''Nobody Does It Better - will celebrate the best in contemporary French cooking and will be published by Kyle Cathie in early 2007.
Trish Deseine is featured regularly in French publications and has a column on kitchen gadgets and appliances in Régal magazine. She has contributed to the Fooding and Time Out Paris restaurant guides, and been guest food writer for The Sunday Independent (Ireland). Don't miss the first of her two part series on RTE1 that started on 2nd April 2008, on Wednesdays.
We are delighted that Trish Deseine is coming to the cookery school this year.
Claudia Roden - Jewish Food
We are very Honoured and delighted to have Claudia as one of our Guest Chefs for 2007. She was born and brought up in Cairo. She finished her education in Paris and later studied art in London. Starting as a painter she was drawn to the subject of food partly through a desire to evoke a lost heritage - one of the pleasures of a happy life in Egypt. The local delight in food, like the light, colour and smells and the special brand of hospitality, warmth and humour, has left a permanent impression.
With her bestselling classic, A Book of Middle Eastern Food (Penguin 1970, revised edition A New Book of Middle Eastern Food, 1985), first published in 1968, Claudia Roden revolutionised Western attitudes to the cuisines of the Middle East. Her intensely personal approach and her passionate appreciation of the dishes delighted readers, while she introduced them to a new world of foods, both exotic and wholesome. The book received great critical acclaim, and the publication of the enlarged edition was enthusiastically welcomed.
The Book of Jewish Food was awarded the 1998 Jewish Quarterly/Wingate Book Prize for Non-Fiction, was the 1998 Glenfiddich Food Book of the Year and the 1997 André Simon Memorial Fund Food Book.
Claudia will demonstrate some recipes from The Book of Jewish Food, She has done more than simply compile a cookbook of Jewish recipes--she has produced a history of the Diaspora, told through its cuisine. The book's 800 recipes reflect many cultures and regions of the world, from the Jewish quarter of Cairo where Roden spent her childhood to the kitchens of Europe, Asia and the Americas. Both Ashkenazi and Sepharidic cooking are well represented here: hallah bread, bagels, blintzes and kugels give way to tabbouleh, falafel and succulent lamb with prunes, which are, in turn, succeeded by such fare as Ftut (Yemeni wedding soup) and Kahk (savoury bracelets).
Claudia opened up a whole new world to cooks, one that very few even knew existed. Her book introduced us to bazargan, the bulghur wheat and walnut salad from Aleppo...
Read some more about Claudia Roden by Matthew Fort