⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
I’ve been visiting the Essential Ingredient since it opened in Crows Nest back in 2005. It’s my favourite place in Sydney to buy gourmet spices, ingredients you struggle to find elsewhere in Sydney (achiote paste you know I mean you), cooking equipment I never knew I needed and a great range of cookbooks.
I was pretty delighted when they moved from Rozelle to Surry Hills early 2019, but also a little nervous about the impact on my credit card of being able to pop in anytime I wanted.
I love experimenting with food. I’ll happily spend hours combing through recipe books and my friends are always making fun of the number I own. I always try to fit in a cooking class whenever I travel but for some reason it’s something I’ve rarely done in Sydney.
The new premises includes a cooking school where they hold regular weeknight and weekend classes and every time I get the Essential Ingredient newsletter I always think the classes look so interesting, so recently I decided to treat myself to a couple of cooking classes for my birthday.
The first class was Mexican food, one of my favourite cuisines and one which is sadly very underrepresented in the Sydney dining scene.
Pico de Gallo and Guacamole
The class ran for around 3 1/2 hours starting at 6pm. During the class we cooked 6 dishes: vegetable quesadilla with tortillas we made; tequila prawn tapas with guacamole and pico de gallo; achiote barbecued chicken; barbecued corn with chipotle mayonnaise; rocket, radish and orange salad and Oaxacan mangoes.
Despite a bit of a hitch where someone mistook a bowl of salt for sugar, all of the dishes turned out great. They were all full of flavour but still very light and fresh.
The presenter Wanitha Tanasigam was very bubbly and clearly had a wealth of cooking experience. There were only 8 of us in the class so there was plenty of time for one on one instruction. As well as showing us how to cook the dishes, she helped everyone improve their knife skills and showed us plenty of little tips that will make things easier in the kitchen.
Achiote Barbecued Chicken
While at $170 it may not be the cheapest cooking class in Sydney, given it included the cooking instruction, wine and beer to have with the meal, take home recipes, a 10% off shopping voucher and a tortilla warmer, I think it was pretty good value especially considering the quality of the instruction and the produce we cooked with.
And perhaps the best recommendation I can give – rather than filing away the recipes as I usually do thinking I’ll get around to trying them again some day, I made most of them the following Saturday. They may not have been quite as picture perfect as the ones we produced at the class but my partner declared all of them a great success and wants to know when I’ll be cooking them again.
I’m looking forward to next Saturday’s canape class. Stay tuned for an update.
Oaxacan Mangoes
Update
I’ve now been to the second cooking class which was creating a Christmas menu. Again, the teacher was great, it was a very friendly group of people in the class, it was loads of fun and I learned a lot, including how to roll out, stuff and truss a loin of pork.
I’m looking forward to the next class list coming out in the new year and signing up for some more.
https://www.essentialingredient.com.au/events/?v=6cc98ba2045f
46 Foveaux St
Surry Hills NSW 2010