[disclaimer: if you are a vegan/vegetarian you may not like the content of this post, featuring very dead chickens being very much cut, cooked and eaten]
This was the situation, at the beginning:
Ok, I admit I had never ever cut a whole chicken before, giving my preference to the ready to cook fillets from the shop (or, even better, from a farmers’ market). When I attended the Underground Cookery School bloggers’ event I actually pictured something easier and prettier like ‘bake and decorate a cake’ or ‘cook a soup’. You know, those kind of photo-friendly, Pinterest-friendly (and a bit dummies-proof) things you’d expect from these kind of events.
Gues my surprise when I was given a whole chicken and a huge knife instead. Welcome to a serious cooking class, Chiara!
Did I step back? Of course not, I butchered – or I should say slayered, even if it was already oh-so-very-dead – the chicken. While doing it I was thinking about our grannies. For them, things like these were part of the daily cooking routine and most of the time they started running after the chicken in the backyard (I don’t feel like I am missing something with buying my ready to cook fillets, though).
Look at all these pretty bloggers and their chickens:
After taking nice fillets and breasts out of them, we started doing the same with the fish. This time I just watched because I don’t eat nor cook fish – apart from the lemon sole fish for my daughter that I usually throw in a pan of boiling water and handle the littlest possible as if it was a bomb.
The Underground Cookery School has been going on since 2003 and it is – as the name literally says – an underground professional kitchen in the basement of a building 5 minutes from Old Street station, in East London. It organizes fun and informal cooking events such as parties, cookery challenges, team buidling etc. They teach contemporary, easy recipes and they do it with lots of fun too.
While listening to the chef’s explanations and cooking we always had music and a glass of Prosecco by our side. Of course, the lesson ends with a dinner and I was altready looking at our table, starting to feel peckish.
Here I am with my cooking apron and my blogger friend Sunny in London 🙂
The best part of the cooking class was the dessert. We made a delicious Straberry Meringue Roulade, basically a soft meringue wrap filled with strawberries and cream. Of course cutting strawberries and mixing cream was so much easier and, less concentrated, we laughed and talked all the time.
(thanks Sunny in London for the last two pictures)
And finally, with the help of the three chefs, everything was ready to be tasted. We sat at the table, waiting to have a bite of what we had cooked. Actually, waiting to FIRST take a picture to what we had cooked.
And here is the Roasted Chicken with Broad Beans, Jersey Royale and Salsa Verde. Let me tell you it was delicious.
Let me also tell you I don’ t really know the recipe, because – shame on me! – during the event I was so busy talking with the other girls and drinking Prosecco that I totally forgot to take notes. But hey, in the end wasn’t it all about having fun while cooking? Then I think the mission has been accomplished!
And here the Strawberry Meringue Roulade, that I should have shot another way because here it looks like a mess but, believe me, it was so good 🙂 
And, of course, the loveliest part of the event was the chat with the lovely bloggers like Lucy, Charlie, Plum, Callie, Ala and many more. I’m starting to get to know the London bloggers scene a bit better now, and I like it a lot. Nice ladies, lots of interesting things to talk about and good fun.
Big thanks to The Underground Cooking School for the lovely evening 🙂
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