I had an excited browse through the course list and found a Yorkshire Game Masterclass that was scheduled to run for four hours. I’ve visited the cookery school a few times before, though not participated in a course, so had no trouble finding its new home just off of the main square. It’s an informal space with a central island featuring a collection of ovens and hobs on which to cook. It’s worth noting that these require the participants to take a few steps away from their cooking station when heat is required, creating a natural mingling of course participants throughout the day.

The Game Masterclass started with coffee and tea as the group started to make one another’s acquaintance and take in their surroundings. The main cooking station for Gilly to demonstrate from was dressed with some fantastic produce for us to work with through the day and we quickly met Deb who would be assisting for the day. Little Deb might be diminutive but her talents are large, having featured with Giles Coren on ‘Back in time for dinner’. She’s exactly the kind of calm talent you want keeping things ticking along in the background and is surely due another turn in the spotlight before too long.

Our first task for the day was to get some dough together for a soda bread, quickly achieved together as we cooperated in small groups to get it in the oven ready to accompany the first fruits of our labours. With that done, we set about making sure we were properly equipped for the coming activities. We were going to be doing a lot of knife work and since there’s nothing more likely to cut you than a blunt knife, it was important to learn how to keep the edge of our blade in tip top shape. The truism that blunt knives are more likely to cut comes from their propensity to slip off of the task in hand into, well, your hand so Malton Cookery School partners with Zwilling knives to provide each of the cooking stations with a full complement of decent knives for all possibilities.

A little bit of knife safety goes a long way (I’ve the scars to prove it) so in a group with an unknown skill level, it’s a good place to start. We were shown how to safely work with blades and what the intended purpose of each one in our block was along with how to keep them sharp.

I’ve enjoyed every cookery course I’ve been on but oddly the less specific the content is the better as far as value is concerned. It’s undoubtedly fun making a delicious plate of food with techniques you were previously unfamiliar with, but it’s transferability that ultimately represents greater application for the lessons learned. This is something that is clear in the approach taken by Gilly at Malton, the knife skills we went through being widely applicable to everyday cooking. Similarly jointing a partridge, as we next were taught was fundamentally the same as dealing with any similarly anatomied bird.

By now our exertions were making us peckish so we used the last of our energies to make a carpaccio to enjoy with the bread with which we’d started our day, warm from the oven now. After the school resonated to the sound of wooden rolling pins gently flattening meat to cover a surprising area, we tucked in and the room fell silent for a few moments as we signified our appreciation.

The next hour or so passed in a whirlwind of activity, trimming pork loin to roast and venison to roll into a Wellington that would eventually resemble the most refined sausage rolls I’ve ever eaten. We also created some rather “rustic” looking gnocchi to go with the pork that ended up resembling a fricassee.

As well as all that, we got a plate to the table featuring that partridge from the beginning of the day, pan frying the breast while also sampling some confited thighs that Deb had sneakily been applying herself to in the background. What really gave this one depth was the sauce that we’d been talked through creating, layering up flavours using stock, cider, herbs, bacon and a few other things. Again, this was a process that was easily repeatable at home and didn’t require slavish copying of amounts from a recipe.

It’s easy to forget that this was only a four hour course; we packed in so much both in terms of the output of our labours and learnings to take away. The day finished with the opportunity to enjoy all of the treats we’d created with a glass of wine while reflecting on the dishes and techniques we’d learned. Both the layout of the school and the talented, encouraging staff pushed the participants toward learning and getting involved. I’ll use those lessons regularly and think of this day when I do, Malton Cookery School certainly does a great job of representing Malton’s culinary credentials.

Disclaimer: No charge was made for my attendance, opinions are impartial.

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Mak Tok have spent the last two years building up a sterling reputation for chilli pastes that rely on the founder’s Malaysian heritage and for flavour and character. “Mak Tok” is Malay for Grandmother, the name being adopted in honour of kind hearted lady whose love and enthusiasm set the Mak Tok founder on the path that would lead him to set out to create the perfect chilli paste.

After two years of growth, it was only appropriate to celebrate so Mak Tok teamed up with the newly relocated Malton Cookery School for that second birthday and I made my way up on a Saturday night to join in the fun. The event started rather unusually for a chef’s table with a musical number from the multitalented Mak Tok founder and his guitar. He then mixed a selection of finely cut vegetables and fruits with rice crackers for texture and a dressing to make “Auspicious Salad”. Plenty of fresh coriander helped make up a fresh tasting salad with carrot and apple that set the scene for the next course of traditional Malaysian Satay.

Satay skewers might not be the most surprising choice for a Malaysian meal, but these were well balanced and a good way to show off Mak Tok’s chilli paste. Next up we were given a demonstration of how to put together exemplary coconut rice to go with a Rendang Curry. The garnishes with this dish brought it all together, notably some dried anchovies were rammed with enough enjoyment for me to find out where they had been sourced.

The food was rounded off by a brace of desserts featuring glutinous rice and tapioca. The flavours were certainly crowd pleasing and the guys gave an element of theatre by having us roll our own rice balls. While the texture of tapioca is forever divisive, the toasted palm sugar served with them here was enough to win over a few fence-sitters.

To finish the evening, our host pulled out another stringed instrument, this time mounted horizontally to perhaps allow the busy chef to take the weight off of his feet for a moment. The team at Malton Cookery School did a great job in making us welcome while ensuring the Mak Tok guys had the platform to show off their product and skills to their full potential. It’s going to be fun keeping an eye on where they head from here. Happy birthday!

Disclaimer: No charge was made for my attendance, opinions are impartial.

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Alongside the courses and foodie tours of Malton, the school offers regular Chef’s Table Malton evenings from a range of respected local chefs, so we gladly sacrificed a Friday night to pop up the A64 and see what it was all about. The chef slated for the evening we attended was Gareth Bottomley from the Charles Bathurst Inn over in Arkengarthdale, who carried with him a wealth of experience and enthusiasm that belied what would certainly be an unwelcome drive home at the end of the evening.

As the ten guests arrived, we found our convivial hosts – Gareth and the irrerepressible Gilly Robinson representing the school – pouring sparkling wine for us and instructing on making chicken ravioli parcels from the fresh pasta that was being deftly fed through a pasta machine. It must be said that there was some variance in the level of competence on display here. I suspect a few (well, mine at least) egos were saved by tactful replacement of a few of the worst examples!

While all this was going on, Gilly was dovetailing her hosting duties with making butter to accompany our meal, something she achieved without the attendant stress I would imagine this triggering should I attempt to replicate the feat at home. With all the prep done, we took a wine list and made our way to our seats ready to watch Gareth get to work.

The starter was the first of two fish dishes: a smoked haddock brandade with tartare sauce and pea shoots followed by a luxurious pair of pillowy scallops with a ham hock croquette and leeks that had been both creamed and burnt. Having ten voices competing for attention as you try and cook in an unfamiliar kitchen while keeping everything moving at an appropriate pace without warming lamps is far from ideal, but Gareth retained his good humour and obvious cooking prowess admirably. Both of these dishes did justice to their ingredients; the leeks in particular providing a lovely accent on the scallops. The left over creamed leeks were quickly snapped up by appreciative diners, but it’s fair to level a minor criticism at the parmesan crisp that would have benefited from a touch more crisping.

Moving onto the meat dish, the chicken-filled ravioli that we’d laboured over earlier was reintroduced (looking suspiciously more well presented and uniformly put together than when last seen) alongside chicken breast meat, two textures of sweet potato, kale and peas. A crispy wing also graced the plate to extend the dish’s remit from the advertised duo to a trio. The pace of questions being posed to Gareth slowed a little, reflecting the enjoyment the diners were taking from the plates, while Gareth set about plating up dessert with able assistance from Gilly and a blowtorch employed to loosen the chef’s rings.

The final plate of a peanut butter parfait with roasted peanut brittle and soft chocolate arrived simply presented with a shard of neatly tempered chocolate and a smear of melted chocolate cutting a swathe through the white plate. It’s a shame that the chocolate smear had set before getting cutlery upon the dish, but with a little effort to lift it, there was no real compromise to the combination of light, chilled parfait and rich spikes of chocolate flavour.

We had a thoroughly enjoyable experience at the Chef’s Table Malton. It’s a real pleasure to watch good chefs at close quarters and, when they’re happy to field questions all the way through the experience, it only adds to it. The food was lovely and small number of seats made an intimate evening which, while clearly a special occasion, didn’t resort to uncomfortable formality. Looking at the list of chefs, it’s obvious that there’s going to be a great range of experiences at subsequent events as the various personalities work and talk just a few feet away. I’d certainly recommend it.

Disclaimer: A portion of our meal was covered in return for coverage here. As always, opinions remain impartial.

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