Laura Scamponi recalls a memorable day spent learning the art of Italian cooking at The Cooking Experience Ltd in Hadleigh

What nicer way to spend a rainy October day than on a cooking course led by a chef whose congeniality and creativity in the kitchen has made him one of East Anglia’s best loved tutors, demonstrators and food writers.

The man in question can only be Mark David - a strapping fellow with a big, vivacious personality to match and perhaps more passion for food than Jamie, Gordon and Rick combined.

For nearly four years Mark has run his well-known cooking school - The Cooking Experience Ltd in Hadleigh - with his charming wife Annie and it is to their lovely High Street home and business premises that I headed one Wednesday morning for what was to be a day’s education in the flavours and techniques of Italian cuisine.

With a surname like Scamponi (which roughly translates as ‘large prawn’ in my father’s mother tongue), you might have guessed that I didn’t embark on the Italian Cooking day as a complete novice at this particular cuisine.

I have been known to knock up an ok Spaghetti Puttanesca and tasty Saltimbocca on occasion but the building blocks of Italian cooking - namely how to make really good bread and pasta - had always eluded me, as had the creation of rich Italian desserts (which I usually rely on M&S to provide.)

Being the first to arrive (and someone whose last cookery lesson was a Home Economics class back in 1992) I was feeling a trifle nervous so was grateful for a chat with Mark and Annie, who immediately put me at ease with the offer of a cup of coffee and home-baked biscuit.

‘Today is about having fun in the kitchen,’ declared Mark, a man in possession of every attribute a good cookery teacher should have: humour, instinct, spontaneity and many years experience in the industry, including three years spent working as a hotel and restaurant inspector with Egon Ronay and a year as the late Robert Carrier's restaurant manager at Hintlesham Hall.

Soon enough we were joined by the other five students. They included a young couple from Cambridge and two friends who had successfully bid for their tickets at a local charity auction to which Mark and Annie make a monthly donation of course vouchers.

Before donning our aprons Mark took us through the day’s itinerary, which covered everything from how to make Focaccia bread and fresh ravioli to wilted spinach and Saint Agur cheese sauce, potato gnocchi with tomato sauce, calves liver with sage, lemon roast chicken, tiramisu and that most sublimely creamy of Italian sweets - pannacotta.

It might sound like a gruelling amount of cooking (and I did wonder if we’d get through even half of that list) but with nicely spaced breaks at 12noon and 2pm, followed by a lingering late lunch/early supper at 4pm, the day had been planned to perfection.

We made our way from The Cooking Experience’s dining area to the professional open-plan kitchen, where big bowls full of flour, yeast, sea salt and sugar were waiting to be combined with tepid water and olive oil and transformed into Focaccia bread.

No sooner had Mark demonstrated the technique and we were happily kneading away, and ridding ourselves of any pent-up frustration as we hurled our balls of dough onto the marble work surface.

With the Focaccia soon resting beneath a piece of well-oiled clingfilm we got cracking on the rest of the day’s dishes, including a few ‘extras’ along the way, such as Mark’s recipe for quick bruschetta with various toppings like garlic, pesto and Grana Padano cheese.

The first two hours also included a handy lesson in buying and sharpening knives as well as those all-important culinary skills like how to dice an onion with dexterity, swiftly peel and deseed tomatoes and make garlic paste in a flash (not a garlic crusher in sight.)

Far from being the sort of authoritarian chef who sticks religiously to culinary rules, Mark is flexible, experimental and, true to his word, makes The Cooking Experience a hugely fun and entertaining place to learn about food.

He is also realistic about how little time us modern folk have to devote to home cooking and has written many of his recipes with this in mind.

With his tremendous persona and Annie’s superb organisation, The Cooking Experience operates like a well-oiled machine. As planned, we sat down to plates of delicious ravioli and all those wonderful flavoured Focaccias at 2pm.

With conversation and wine in full flow it felt like one big food loving family and I would have happily remained there all day, but it was back to work in preparation for the final 4 o clock feast.

In addition to the planned dishes, Mark also found time to demonstrate how to make a delicate caramel basket and - having laid his hands on some fantastic king prawns - wrapped them in filo pastry with a hint of chilli and served them as an appetiser with the versatile tomato sauce we had already prepared.

When the fruits of our labour were eventually laid out before us there was a sense of real accomplishment and much-boosted confidence among us students. Never before had I felt so relaxed and enthused about my ability in the kitchen.

With everybody having such a good time, we were all reluctant to bid Mark and Annie farewell - but delighted to receive our course files (with all the recipes inside) and be told that knives, aprons, oils and other items were available to purchase.

My day at The Cooking Experience had already over-run, although a comment by one of the students that he had no idea how to poach an egg prompted one final impromptu demo. Up Mark jumped, grabbing another pan and filling it with water. ‘I’ll show you how it’s done…’ And he was off once more.

For further details please contact:

The Cooking Experience Ltd
The Chapel House
9, High Street
Hadleigh
Suffolk
IP7 5AH
Tel: 01473 827568
Fax: 01473 828523
Email: info@cookingexperience.co.uk
Website: www.cookingexperience.co.uk

Other courses include:

•Quick, Easy and Impressive Entertaining
•Mediterranean Cooking
•Cooking with Game
•Indian Cooking
•French Provincial Cooking
•Baking & Pastry with Emma Crowhurst