Yelp Elite Event: Big Day Out to The Cook School Scotland

If i could give this review 10 stars I would. What a brilliant day from start to finish.

Vanessa and her team were fantastic at accomodating my gluten free requirements and it was so good to see the shop stocking gluten free items to make life that little bit easier.

I admit i was a little bit squeamish when dissecting my chicken and I do apologise to Rebecca for putting up with my squeals!

I think my favourite dish overall had to be the butter chicken. I cant actually believe that I made that! I will be buying the ingrediants to make this again asap!

The rest of the team where lovely and attentive and it was just such a perfect way to spend a sunday. This has to be my most favourite ever Yelp event and thank you so much to Briony for organising everything and to Debs for being our Bus Lady.

I have definetly learned a whole host of kitchen skills that I aim to put to good use!

What an excellent day out?! All I knew was there was gonna be chicken and lots of cooking and I was not disappointed.

We met at outside the City Chambers in George Square and pumped full of mocha, as the bus was leaving at 8.45am on a Sunday (I know!!!), I was as ready as I could be for a day of treats.

It didn't take too long to head out of Glasgow to the sticks of Kilmarnock where the dedicated school of cooking is set. It's a purpose made building and a fantastic one at that.

We were initially guided up to locker room where we could put our bags and jackets in. Then headed along to a dining room which is just set off from a larger room filled with many cooking stations. It was all so exciting! We had freshly made warm scones, jam, butter and tea for starters while our chef, Vanessa, took us through what we would doing throughout the day.

We all had our individual cooking stations with our names on small place cards. Everything was all ready for us. We went up to the front where we sat in front of Vanessa who took us through the different stages of preparing and cooking our chickens. I have never taken apart a chicken before so I was a bit overwhelmed at the start. Once I got into it and it started to look more like what you see packaged it got easier. I learned so much and I feel a bit more confident about cooking with a whole chicken. We made Milanese Chicken from the breast, Butter Chicken Curry from the thigh and delicious BBQ drumsticks and wings. The carcass was used to make stock. Nothing went to waste!

We got a chance to check out the shop and café on a wee break. They sell some awesome foods and some kitchenware goodies. When we got back we could have a tea or coffee with a wee slice of tablet or pistachio sweet bread.

While showing us the steps to make our meals Vanessa also went through how to make chocolate brownies and how to cook a whole chicken. After we completed our meals we went next door back to the lovely dining room where we could eat our wonderful creations. It was too much so we all got doggy bags home including the recipes.

It was a great day and if you get the chance to go to the Cook School please do so. I had so much left over, I donated the stock to my mum who made soup from it, delicious. The other breast I made korma. It's amazing what you can get from a chicken.

Thanks again to Briony for organising and to Vanessa and her helpers for creating a brilliant day out. Definitely worth getting up early on a Sunday for.

What an amazing day! I'll admit I was a bit fearful of cooking since I'm not exactly Gordon Ramsay in the kitchen (though he would probably swear less...) but Vanessa and the team at the Cook School did an awesome job of putting everyone at ease and relaxing us into the day.

We started the day with fresh scones and (a lot) of coffee, before we began our recipes. I won't go into detail but we made butter chicken curry, chicken wings and drumsticks and chicken milanese; in the process of making the above we all had to joint a chicken! I genuinely suprised myself by managing it without any issues, and that is thank mainly to the chefs at the School. The format of the class and their teaching style really gives you confidence in your own skills.

After the class we got to eat our tasty creations for lunch, though I was pretty full so just took some home but I also bought some tasty treats at the amazing shop also. Thanks to Briony and the lovely team at the Cook School for an ab fab day out!

There are not enough stars in the world to rate this event. It was INCREDIBLE! Not only is it one of the best Yelp events I've ever been to, it's one of the best things I've ever done!

The day started with warm scones, jam and tea. Then we made our way through to the kitchen and each had our own little station - the closest I've ever come to being on Masterchef, haha! Before I knew it, I was taking a whole chicken and dissecting it up. If someone had told me even an hour beforehand that I would have managed to do that, I would have laughed in their face! I made my own chicken stock and trust me when I say...there is not one part of a chicken that needs to go to waste!

How do I know? As well as making a stock, I made some incredible chicken dishes. I mean seriously., the curry easily goes down as being one of the best I've ever tasted! After all the dissecting the chicken fun, we took a tea break before we focused on making our curry sauce and finally...cooking our food!

The class is planned out perfectly. You get demos of everything and get to cook some items so it's a great day. The amount I took away from the day really surprised me. Did you know if you want to turn your garlic clove into a paste you just use salt before applying pressure with your knife? And that the best way to peel ginger is with a spoon?!! Nope, I had no idea either!

Vanessa and her team were amazing, honestly they could not have done any more. There was also someone on hand to help you out and nothing was too much trouble.

The shop is amazing! It's full of yummy food which I found to be so well priced. Not only does the shop sell cooking equipment but there are mugs, candles etc. Oh there's a cafe too!

Had a wonderful day with some amazing Yelpers! It's hard to speak to everyone at every single event so it was lovely to get to know some people better...I had the best time!

Since joining Yelp I have done so many different things and today definitely topped everything that I've done so far. I'm definitely going to treat myself to some new knives and never again will I buy chicken breasts...I can buy a whole chicken and do so much with it! I hated working with raw chicken in the past but I'm so excited now!

And everything that was left over, we got to take home! I have a cute bag with my dishes, a raw chicken breast and two tubs of chicken stock!

Thanks so much Briony!!

That. Was. Amazing!

I would never have expected a day as good as this one. As excited as I was about it I couldn't have predicted this much brilliance in one event. We started the day with freshly baked scones and jam and it basically just went uphill from there.

Within the first half hour, I'd learned to joint a chicken, something I'd never done before. We were quickly and carefully walked through recipes for chicken Milanese, butter chicken, barbecue wings and drumsticks, chicken stock, the perfect roast chicken and (as if that wasn't enough) dark chocolate brownies. It was fascinating that you can do so much with just one chicken and that while all the recipes were really economical ways of using the bird, they were also super fancy. I would feel proud to serve any of these at a dinner party.

When we'd cooked everything we sat down to "lunch" - quotes because it's one of the biggest "lunches" I've had. We had a little wine, a cup of coffee and we took the rest of the food away with us. Not before visiting the shop, though, which was full of the most wonderful stuff. Given that anyone visiting the shop will be there for the cook school I was amazed at how great the prices were there.

I can't wait until I'm hungry again (probably in about two weeks) so I can show off my new found skills.

Wha?! I've been so busy lately, I'm just now getting around to reviewing this amazing day out!

Briony treats us Yelpers to our fair share of amazing events, but this Gold Elite Yelp event really stole the show! I've been Yelping for quite some time, Gold only this year and really feel so lucky to have been included in this special day.

The morning started out quite early- so early that there were very few places to stop for a coffee on my way in to town to catch the bus. No bother, I'm a morning person and was ready to go! We all gathered in George Square and piled on the bus that was hired for the lot of us to tak us to The Cook School Scotland. Adventure HOOOOOOOOOOOO!

We arrived at The Cook School Scotland and were greeted by a team of people ready to take us up to the dining room and kitchen that we would call home for most of the day. When we walked in, there were warm scones and jam out for us along with tea and coffee. They were so delicious, I could have taken a nap in one of them! YUM!

Before we could get too comfortable, we were taken in to the kitchen where our names were placed two to a station and we headed to find our names! My lovely partner for the day Sarah and I chatted for a bit before we were all asked to sit down in front of this massive station where Chef Vanessa led us through various aspects of things we would be doing for the day.

Can you even believe that each one of us got a full chicken to ourselves to joint and make various dishes to then later eat?! I mean, really?! How amazing is that. Although Sarah and I had never jointed a chicken, I must admit that we weren't really all that bad at it! We learned from each other and from Chef Vanessa and it was good that she and her team of helpers were there the whole time if we had any questions along the way.

We made butter chicken, a chicken milanese, some chicken stock, and with the drumsticks and wings, BBQ chicken was made by the Chef along with some rice, baked sweet potato slices and the most delicious brownie and ice cream I've ever had in my life. No lie.

After all was cooked and prepared, we were taken back in to the dining room to enjoy the fruits..er chicken of our labour. I've never quit a meal so much as I did this one- surrounded by my friends, having just prepared all this food ourselves.

On top of this amazing day, we were allowed to take home any leftovers we hadn't eaten (Sophie K gave me her leftovers as well!!) and we were given a bag and the recipes we had just made to recreate at home!

Before we left, a lot of us took a wander down in their shop! So many more delicious things to buy and try- it was hard to leave there without buying something.

I really enjoyed this day so much, my guy ended up buying us some cookery lessons for my birthday! I can't wait to experience this sort of day again with him!

Thank you again to Briony for the most fab day! You are truly a star and it shows in all the hard work you put in to creating these amazing events for us to enjoy!

Wish there was more stars to reward as this was even better than 5 stars....so it's a 5+++++++ event! Absolutely great fun, what a brilliant day!

The day started off with some coffee/tea and scones. I'd have still gave it 5 stars if we stopped there! Scones were tasty, and the jam....brilliant! Then onto the cooking. Everyone had their own cooking station. first thoughts were Masterchef...sadly no John and Greg, but Vanessa was a fantastic replacement for them and demonstrated each part of the cooking process very well at the front of the class.

First off was the butchering of a chicken. Now, Vanessa made this all look so nice and easy, slicing through each part of the chicken with ease. Me on the other hand, well put it this way....I won't be a butcher any time soon! That said, learning the skills to butcher your own chicken was brilliant, showing how many dishes you can make from just one chicken. The theme for the day was the family meal, so we learned to use every part of the chicken, making stock from the carcass, chicken milanese from the breast, a butter chicken curry from thigh meat and BBQ wings and drumsticks.

Through the day we went between watching Vanessa demonstrate and trying ourselves. When the demonstration took place, the kitchen stations were cleaned down and set up behind us, could use this happy helper at home! We made roughly half the dishes and Vanessa demonstrated how to make the marinade for the wings, a perfect roast chicken and chocolate brownies.

Once we had finished we sat down to lunch....and what a lunch it was! So much food! It was great to sit down to a meal you had prepared yourself, while trying so many different elements too. After the lunch and some wine, our remaining food was packaged up for us to take home which was great. Then a quick stop into the cook shop to buy some lemon curd (had it on toast this morning, was great!).

This was such a fun day out, and I managed to learn quite a bit in the process! I'll be visiting the cook school in the future to try one of their other events.

What an amazing day out!!!

The Cook School have such a slick operation from the scones on arrival, to the boxed up leftover food at the end of the day. Our teacher Vanessa was superb and it was a good mix of hands on cooking versus demonstration time.

I will most certainly be going back.

Yessssss.
I, like many of my fellow Yelpers, also wish I could rate this as more than 5 stars, because it was absolutely fantastic!

I've been dying to go to the Cook School for ages and I actually can't believe that I got a spot for this amazingly fun day - I love cooking but don't get to make things very often (I live with my parents and Mother Debs is a culinary genius, who likes to try different recipes and constantly feed me, so absolutely no complaints there!) so I was looking forward to brushing up my skills and getting some ideas.

The scones and coffee/tea started the day off perfectly, they were absolutely delicious and gave everyone a chance to squee excitedly and have a good gab before we began cooking. I peered into the kitchen and couldn't help notice how lovely each cooking station was - everyone got their own hob and worktop space and I spied mine straight away. By this point I was about brimming over with excitement! Vanessa talked us through how the day was going to go and I think she could see we were all pretty keen and attentive, so we got started pretty quickly.

Jointing a chicken seemed a bit daunting, but I felt so accomplished once we'd done it, and it's definitely something I intend to put to good use in future - life skillz, woo! We made 4 different things from the chicken - Butter Chicken from the thigh meat, chicken Milanese from the breasts, BBQ wings and drumsticks, and chicken stock from the rest (well actually, our fab mentors made the wings and drumsticks, but we cut them up so that totally counts as contributing towards the dish. Right?) The Butter Chicken was by far my fave - it was deliciously flavourful and something I would happily eat at least once a week! Thigh chicken is what I prefer too because it's really tender and yummy, and I had to stop myself cramming it all in my face at the end because a) I wanted to show off to my family and b) I knew we had chocolate brownies happening for dessert which, incidentally, were freaking amazing. Lots of involuntary "MMMM"s going on at my table!

The staff were nothing short of brilliant the whole time we were there - admittedly it did help that we didn't need to wash anything or even weigh anything out because they do it all for you (spoilt!) and having attended another cooking course elsewhere, where you had to do everything yourself, this definitely saved us masses of time/stress.
While it was a pretty tiring day (travelling + standing for ages + cooking = offfft) it actually felt really relaxing, too! I love cooking/baking to relieve stress and I felt very zen afterwards - possibly a bit too zen mind you, as I ended up collapsing on the couch and not moving for quite a while!

My family eagerly wolfed down all the food I brought home and really enjoyed it, plus my Mum has also had a go at making Butter Chicken which was delicious, I may have encouraged her to have another go at it in future. Oh ok I definitely did!

Thanks so much to Yelp, the Cook School and of course oor Briony for a truly wonderful day :D

It was only as I was looking out one of the recipes from our awesome day at the cook school that I realised I hadn't written this review yet. A major oversight when it comes to such an excellent event!

I love to cook and am always excited to gain new skills and learn new dishes. And I'm pleased to say I learned so much this day! Among the new skills were how to take apart a whole chicken, crushing a clove of garlic with a knife and some salt and the best way to flatten a chicken breast as well as a whole bunch of new recipes including the butter chicken recipe I made tonight to great acclaim!

Everything at the cook school was wonderfully organised, from the format of the day to the set-up of the cooking stations. The staff were helpful, efficient and friendly and explained everything very clearly. It was interesting to see how differently everyone's dishes turned out when following the same instructions.

It was also great fun to sit down at the end to sample all our food, what a feast! I was stuffed. While we were eating the staff packed up our leftovers so we all had goodies to take home, an excellent outcome.

Overall, it was a fantastic day and I definitely want to head back again. Best Yelp event ever? Quite probably......