4 Week Essential Skills Course

Menus and techniques that embrace a global perspective and seasonality including Italian, Spanish, Indian, Middle Eastern, Moroccan, and Thai cuisines

Application of classical French techniques across all culinary building blocks

Knife skills training including traditional knife cuts and learning how to wisely choose, use, and care for kitchen tools and equipment

Introduction to cooking terminology used in professional kitchens

Kitchen organisation with a focus on honing strong multi-tasking, timing, teamwork, and mise en place skills (kitchen speak for ensuring that everything is in its place)

Practical application of health and safety training including food management systems

Stocks, soups, hot & cold savoury sauces including

• Vegetable, fish, and meat bases
• Pan sauces, fresh sauces, and salsas

Vegetables, grains & pasta

• Within a healthy eating context
• Within the context of starters, mains, and side dishes

Meat including

• Beef, pork, lamb, and game
• Poultry (including jointing and carving)

Seafood including

• Principles of choosing, storing, and handling
• Round and flat fish (including skinning, boning, and filleting)
• Crustaceans and shellfish

Herbs & spices including

• Traditional uses within various culinary cultures

Contrasting methods of cooking including

• Dry heat such as baking, roasting, grilling, sautéing, pan-frying, and deep-frying
• Moist heat such as simmering, boiling, steaming, and poaching
• Combination methods such as braising

Baking & pastry including

• Sweet and savoury pastry doughs
• Biscuits, tray bakes, and tarts
• Custards, mousses, and meringues
• Hot and cold sweet sauces
• Frozen desserts

Breads including

• Quick breads such as soda breads, scones, and muffins
• Yeasted breads such as traditional white, flavoured doughs, overnight starters, and enriched doughs

Basic course structure

• We start every day at 9.30 AM sharp.
• Students may arrive as early as 9:00 AM to compare their ‘Order of Work’ notes and organize their team approach for the day. Note that students will work with a different partner as well as change stations on a daily basis according to the rotation organized for the week.
• The Hands-On component spans an entire menu.
• Every day the menu is unique and it often consists of up to 6-8 individual dishes all of which are organized around a specific theme or technical focal point with clear objectives. This daily menu also comprises the students’ daily lunch. While the Hands-On kitchen session is bustling with various cooking projects, there is just as much attention placed on teamwork, timing, and yes of course, kitchen organisation and maintenance. A healthy understanding of each of these areas combine to form the beautiful hum of a truly well-run kitchen and this enhances all practical and theoretical tasks, contributing to the overall quality of education and cooking that happens at the school.
• The learning environment at DCS is especially personalized.
• Throughout the Hands-On session, tutors work with students within smaller groups as well as individually to help tune into areas that need special support or to help facilitate development in particular interests unique to different students.
• The Demonstration Kitchen is an interactive forum – no desks or whiteboards here!
• In this kitchen, the students are presented with the following day’s menu and this takes place after lunch from 2:00 PM – 4:30 PM. While preparing and cooking this menu, the Senior Tutor leading the session introduces the techniques, methodology, and theory related to the dishes involved. This segment is all about presenting and sharing in the creative and technical culinary processes of the menu in question and we do so in a way that demands the involvement of all of your senses; everyone must taste everything! This is also the time for students to take notes, ask questions and get further invested in their education. Our students are as much the writer of their educational journey here as our tutors.