Seafood a cookin'

Last Saturday, a friend and I enrolled ourselves to a cooking class. She mentioned to me about this cookery class when I visited her the weekend before and asked if I was interested in learning to cook seafood dishes and it’s like, hell yes! I love Seafood! Except raw oysters because they are gross (I'm entitled to my opinion!) with their snort-like texture and all but I am excited to expand my limited knowledge in learning to cook Seafood. I am lucky that my husband shares the same palate in food. Well, most of the time anyway.

The cooking class was held in the iconic Cottlesloe Indiana Tea House. I personally have not been there but I have heard a lot about this place. As for food wise, I have heard a lot of mix reviews. However, I cannot deny that the location of the restaurant is astounding. Situated right smack on the beach, the view is spectacular. Anyone who dines there has full intention of eating with a view. An amazing one at that! Suffice to say that our cooking class was pretty amazing. I mean, with that view, who am I to complain?

The restaurant has gone under a big management change with a new crew on board. The head chef, Brendan Pratt, who was running the class, seem to have a lot of knowledge and he’s pretty young too. He was actually a contestant on the recent Masterchef Australia and I thought it rang a bell.

The recipes for the class were handpicked out of the restaurant menu. There were 4 recipes altogether, which include oysters with shallot vinaigrette, seared scallops with roast corn puree, blistered corn and jalapeno, salmon ceviche and steamed mussels with saffron and chorizo served with wood fired bread. As fancy as they sound, it’s actually quite easy to make them. His demonstration was pretty clear and straight forward which was always helpful.

Drowning the oyster with lots of shallot vinaigrette to mask the fishy taste! At least I gave it a go!

Salmon Ceviche - yum!!

Beautifully seared scallops - this was my absolute favourite. I am going to make this dish for John and I know he's gonna love it! Big scallop fan he is one!

Steamed mussels - delish! The sauce, which is not shown here was really good, especially when dunk with the warm bread. 

Snacks for all - lovely

There were 12 of us in the class, the head chef and two management staff. The class was held in their Private Ocean room with a view that would probably cost millions. We were all seated at a long table while the chef and his cooking station were at the front end. I had the opportunity to sit right in front of the cooking station which was pretty neat. Snacks were placed on the table to share, which consist of their specialties - Rosemary and black pepper popcorn, marinated warm olives and spiced wood roasted nuts.

The class also had pairing of wines so we were given a different wine to taste with every dish. My only critic for this class is that, they should have given us more of the cooked food to eat. We were pretty much given a ‘tasting plate’, a slither of each dish and it seriously were not enough to be honest. I went there expecting us all to pig out towards the end but unfortunately, it was not the case.

All in all, it was a lovely experience. I would probably bring John back here again to have a meal and watch the sunset. Just look at the view, isn't it lovely?

Indiana Cottlesloe Beach
99 Marine Parade
Cottlesloe WA 6011
Tel: 08 9385 5055