The BBQ is the most social way to share food with friends and is seldom used with imagination.  This course is brimming with ideas offering a wide range of interesting marinades for all sorts of fish and meat from the smallest prawn right through to a butterflied leg of lamb. We will bring you through all the techniques of preparing and cooking on your barbecue and then we will go outdoors where you will assist in the preparation of the food. After preparing salads, salsas and other side dishes, we will all sit down in the dining room to sample all the wonderful fare over a few glasses of wine. Get inspired for the summer.

There is something very satisfying about spending some time baking.  As you would expect at DCS, there are wonderful recipes, putting a flourish on even simple ideas.  The clear, precise instructions make many of the ideas very straightforward but there is challenge, too, as we move to ways of working with yeast and pastry.  Savoury tarts and quiches with homemade bread form the basis of a great lunch.  In the afternoon expect to be back at the stove so that you can go home with cake, biscuits and muffins and a determination to get baking at every opportunity.

It is time to develop real confidence in cooking with fish. It is so easy to throw a fillet on a pan and rustle up a nutritious, delicious supper in minutes - as long as you know how to judge freshness, how to fillet a fish and the keys to enhancing flavour. The course will help you to move on to some more sophisticated dishes, learning the importance of sauces and other accompaniments. The day is structured around short demonstrations and immediate hands-on cooking so that you can confidently grasp the techniques involved. There are tastings along the way but we do finish off by sitting down for a leisurely meal. It is important that you taste what you have created and celebrate your accomplishments with a glass of wine.

This popular course attracts vegetarians and non-vegetarians in equal numbers, eager for creative ideas and balanced eating.  We often start with a single vegetable and then cheeses, oils, spices, herbs, grains, nuts are used to enhance its starring role in extraordinary ways.  We have selected from our favourite vegetarian dishes so that you can perfect particular techniques that can then be used with other vegetables.  A great course for all cooks who want to stretch their culinary imagination and for vegetarians proud to strut their stuff in any company.

Thai food is one of the specialties of Dublin Cookery School. We have had strong links with David Thompson, the first chef to get a Michelin star for Thai food, and his head chef Matthew Albert, who has been a regular visitor over the years. Lynda has been over many times to Nahm, their restaurant in London, to perfect her understanding of authentic Thai salads, curries and stir fries. This course is the perfect opportunity to find out where to buy fresh Thai ingredients and how to use them to produce extraordinary dishes. A full Thai meal and a couple of glasses of wine will round off the day.

Water. Flour. Salt. Yeast. From such a simple list of ingredients comes a multitude of possibilities, depending on how we combine those basic variants and what choices we make in the core bread-making steps of mixing, kneading, proving and baking. In this one-day course we will arm you with the skills to make a basic white dough – and then add to that the confidence to shape and tweak that basic dough into everything from crusty rolls to flavoured breads (think pesto, carmelised onion or sundried tomato) and multigrains. We will look at the mysteries of working with yeast and the wonderful world of using starters and overnight doughs to add a new dimension to your creations. There is something very special about making your own bread; master the basic techniques in this one-day class and you’ll have opened up a whole new world of discovery in the kitchen.

Italian cooking is about so much more than pizza and pasta – although there is something very special about whipping up your own dough and rolling your own pasta. On this ever-popular one day Italian extravaganza, we’ll show you the secrets to producing these larder staples fresh from a few basic ingredients, before taking you on a tasting tour through some of our favourite regional dishes. The secret to Italian cooking is simple but clever flavour combinations, and the joy is that these dishes are as accessible as they are moreish. After your morning spent at the stove fashioning up an Italian feast, you will adjourn to our bright dining room to do what Italians do best: eat, drink and be merry! Buon Appetito!

Middle Eastern cuisine is full of colour and gutsy flavours. Spices bring depth to dishes, lentils and pulses bring versatility and there are lively salads, flatbreads and dips to give you great new ideas for healthy fast food. Their use of vegetables is inspiring. There is so much to discover about Middle Eastern cooking: join us on this one day course and we will set you on that road of discovery. We will give you lots of personal guidance during your hands-on cooking and we'll make sure you leave well fed too!

This one day course is designed to cover classic baking and pastry techniques.  Build your skills with genoise, meringues, tray bakes, biscuits and bread making, as well as a celebration cake and cake decorating.  This will give you an opportunity to fine-tune your existing skills, as well as learning something new recipes and techniques. 

For anyone with an interest in spices, this one day course is a must. The essence of good Indian cooking revolves around the use of spices, not only combining them but drawing out several flavours from a single spice – by roasting, grinding or frying.  This course will show you how to use them in different ways, drawing on recipes from different parts of India.  After a short demonstration we will guide you through each step, before moving into the hands-on area, to ensure you can recreate these dishes at home.  As with all our one day courses, a wonderful lunch and a couple of glasses of wine round off your day.