Cooking Courses at Kerrouet House

Lunch day 1



Starter: Grilled scallop with rosemary on a Cauliflower purée
 
Main:  Caesar Salad the classic way
 
Cheese:  French cheese




Dinner day 1


Starter:  Moules Marinade

Main:  Chicken breast with tarragon, rosemary baked carrots,

slow roasted tomatoes and crispy potato pancakes

Cheese:  French cheeses

Dessert: Panna Cotta with fresh summer berries







Lunch day 2

Starter: Carpaccio of Salmon with  a pesto of basil 
Main:  Galettes a la Breton 
Cheese:  French cheeses


Dinner day 2


Starter: Duck salad with orange and apple
Main:  Oven baked fish with risotto
Cheese:  French cheeses
Dessert: Chocolate cake and fresh fruit coulis


Lunch day 3


Starter:  Green Pea soup with chives and fresh cream
Main:  Salmon fish cakes on a garden salad with dill dressing

Cheese:  French cheeses


Dinner day 3


Starter: Foie Gras terrine with green bean salad
Middle:  Grilled Langoustines with garlic butter
Main:  Slow roasted leg of Lamb and seasonal vegetables
  with a tomato and herb dressing
Cheese:  French cheeses
Dessert: Tiamisu

* Three day courses cost E750 per person inclusive of lunch and dinner.
Accommodation is available locally from E25 per night subject to availability.
Five day courses cost £950 per person including lunch and dinner.
Please check our website for further information.

 

www.frenchdiningschool.com

Who's Who at Kerrouet House

Poul Jensen has over 28 years in the restaurant business. He trained in one of the best French restaurants in Denmark (Gammel Aalbyhoj - Relais Gourmand - Tradition et Qualitie). He gained invaluable experience at some of the world's most esteemed restaurants including Longueville Manor (Jersey Channel Islands); Mietta's Restaurant of Melbourne (Australia) and the world renowned liner the QE2. In London Poul worked for Noble Rot (Mayfair) and The Walbrook Club (City of London) with Albert Roux.

Poul has also run his own restaurant in Denmark (Ebeltoft) for 8 years and gained widespread recognition for his cuisine. Poul has also worked in the wine industry with some of the best wine houses of France.

Niall O'Reilly has over 20 years in the entertainment and leisure industry. Niall worked for 14 years at the National Theatre (London) where he was responsible for security, safety and Licensing. Niall, a graduate of Economics, grew up along with a large family on a dairy farm in County Cavan, Ireland where he learned how to cook under the direction of his mother and grandmother. The farm was virtually self sufficient and nothing was wasted. Niall loves gardening and developing unusual hedgerow recipes. Rose hip jam and crab apple jelly are currently all the rage at Kerrouet House following a summer craze in making classic elderflower cordials!

Dorothy Crowscare has been looking after the gardens at Kerrouet House for the past three years. Her main role is to ensure that there are adequate supplies of organic herbs and vegetables available for the kitchen. She can always be found working in the garden and never happier than when surrounded by her flowers.

Onde Dragtoit has overseen works at Kerrouet House for the past four years. His main duties are to ensure the rising sun is properly greeted  each morning and that guests arrive with a smile on their faces! He is normally found facing east on the highest point of the property!

Ange Tomber looks after the dining room, library and winter lounge. Her main roles  are to ensure harmony and balance within the school. As someone who once excelled in catering excellence she is there to advise and remind guests that we all progress in life, sometimes up and sometimes down but the important thing is to always try your best, enjoy what you are doing and learn from experience.

Kerrouet House

Kerrouet House - was built in the 16th century as the home of the tax collector for the nearby Manor of Plessy and two other manor houses in the area. As a "royal" longere it fell into neglect during the French Revolution and was abandoned for many years. In recent times it had been home to a professor of Mathematics (Sorbonne) but unfortunately fell into a near derelict state in the 1990's. The house was discovered by Niall seven years ago on a holiday visit to Brittany. Despite the jungle of brambles, nettles and ivy surrounding the house, Niall immediately fell in love with the monastic stone entrances, grand fireplaces and royal chimney. Over the past few years Niall & Poul have worked hard to restore the property and now use the premises as both a beautiful home and a cooking school.

Kerrouet Village

The village of Kerrouet lies in the heart of The Mene - the beautiful rolling hills of Brittany which are so famous for walking and cycling holidays. Kerrouet is located 1 hour from Rennes with links to Eurostar in Paris and Charles de Gaulle Airport. Dinard Airport is a 40 minute drive with Ryanair links to London, East Midlands and Bristol. St Malo port and the wonderful seaside resorts of Val Andre are only an hour away.
Cancalle also nearby is world famous not only for it's oysters but also for Maisons de Bricourt - the 3 star Michelin restaurant run by Olivier Roellinger.

Cooking Courses

Five day courses run from Monday to Friday with introductory dinners on the Sunday evenings. The courses commence at 10am and run till after dinner (10pm) with a break following lunch (2pm - 6pm).

Kerrouet House

frenchcookingschool

http://www.jaxtr.com/nibblerdibbler

Myself and other cabbages

Just back from a fantastic week in Ireland. Ireland is always special for me but this week included preparing a celebratory dinner in honour of my Dad's 80th birthday; visiting Newgrange  - a 5000 year old megalithic passage tomb (older than the pyramids of Egypt!)  and getting a look into Francis Bacon's studio in the centre of Dublin.   

One of the pictures my father painted for me is of himself in his garden working on his cabbage patch. It is titled "myself and other cabbages" and so it was appropriate that we dressed the dining table with three hearty savoy cabbages each of which held two wonderful white candles! Cooking dinner for 20 persons is always a challenge but when it's done in someone else's kitchen, that does bring unique challenges. We spend all day searching the markets for saucepans large enough for our soups and stews but all went exceedingly well in the end! 

My Dad had been a dairy farmer and so we decided to prepare a basic Irish recipe of Cauliflower soup with the famous Cashel Blue cheese, followed by a Beef and Guinness stew served with creamed mashed potato and fresh chives.  A wonderful green pesto sauce was also served in honour of St Patrick's Day which was close at hand! The cheese board offered an opportunity to try the excellent range of local Cavan brands now available. Outstanding were of course O'Reilly's, a soft goat cheese and Boilie, a cow cheese from the Brodie Family who also offer a Corleggy, a stronger hard goats cheese; all three were simply delicious. Further afield we sampled Ardrahan - a semi soft wonderful washed rind cheese from the Burns Family of Co Cork; a Carrigaline hard cheese from O'Farrells also from Co Cork along with a Cahhil Cheaddar from Co Limerick. It is wonderful that Irish cheeses are now making a significant impact on the international market winning awards galore into the bargain. A birthday cake of immense proportions was then served after the candles were extinguished by the great octogenarian himself, who not to be outdone by his musical children and grandchildren, gave a redition of  numerous Irish Ballads including The Croppy Boy, Spansil Hill and The Mountains of Mourne - always a popular Ulster song from the  poet and musician Percy French (Inspector of Drains - Cavan Council 1881!) Needless to say it was a great night and thank you Michelle, Gabriel, Liam, Clare, Joan, Stephen, Lydia, Georgina, Verity, Dermott, Agnes, Joe, Ciaran, Trish, Stephen, Pat, Annamay, Oliver and Poul for making it all a night to remember!!

After all the festivities were over it was appropriate to retreat back 5000 years in time to Newgrange - the famous Irish Passage Tomb located along the beautiful River Boyne in County Meath. The tomb which was built around 3200 bc is well worth a visit particularly out of season when you get a chance to stand alone within the stone chamber and let your imagination run amock in megalithic proportions. Words fail today when we try to comprehend the enormity of the task facing those few thousand farmers. How they managed to design and build such a beautiful, harmonic and integral stone structure at a time long before the pyrimads and Stonehenge. To realise  that they knew how to get a sunbeam to pass down inside a stone chamber 19 metres long once a year for the solstice at sunrise is indeed mindblowing. Such a civilisation deserved to have all its cultural heritage preserved so that we could know more of their secrets.  The few quiet moments you stand inside their 5000 year old chamber you know that this humbling experience will remain with you always.

It's all very well to dwell in the past but one has to finally recognise that we live in the present and with a joyous relief we took the back road to Dublin only a few hours away. We arrived to find an empty parking space immediately opposite the entrance to the Hugh Lane Gallery so it was indeed our lucky day. The Francis Bacon Studio is situated at the rear of the gallery so you can also take the opportunity to explore all the other works on display as well as the beautiful interior of what was once a very beautiful home. We were struck by the number of Renoir's on display but took particular delight in Monet's picture titled Waterloo bridge (1900) a beautiful picture as well as an historical picture of London's South Bank before development of the South Bank Centre and National Theatre. Also in the permanent colection is a wonderful picture of the Young Breton Girl by Roderick O'Connor presented to the gallery in 1904 which for us now living in Brittany was an addditional surprise.  However the Francis Bacon Studio was for us the most extraordionary aspect of the collection. To move entirely his London  studio mews home and all its crazy mad and delightful contents to Dublin and resurrect them as they were positioned on his death for all to see is an amazing acomplishment.  Thank you John Edwards for this kind gift to Ireland and I hope all Irish citizens take the opportunity to visit the gallery and take a look inside the private home of  this most wonderful painter who enjoyed and required chaos in creativity and drew forth form from disorder. Wonderful mad rude character who anyone lucky enough to drink regularly at the Colony Rooms in London's Soho will well remember!!

Back home now to Brittany as we must get started on our cooking school menus!

Bye for now

Nibbler

Truffles in Provence

Well it was lovely to get down to another part of France famous for its great food and wine. We arrived in Nice, well Tourrette sur Loup in fact, last Saturday having had a stopover in Avignon.  The Popes Palace, the theatre and old town walls were very impressive, (particularly the Palace bread oven and kitchen which had to roast 128 oxen for one Pope Clement VI's banquet in 1342!) , the town itself was full of history. The long drive had taken its toll and we were delighted to sleep and prepare for the next five days of gourmet cooking and eating at the famous Nice cooking school belonging to Arne Fusager and Birthe Sandager up in the hills of Cote D'Azur! What a week we had!!

Everything came with truffles including roast pork , scrambled eggs,  truffle risotto, slow roasted lamb, truffle ice cream, artichoke, veal fillet with apples, turbot soup, scallop souffle, orange cake,  smoked salmon, foie gras terrine and mouth watering creme caramel to name but a few of the delights. 

It was an truely amazing experience and I have now eaten more truffles than one normally gets (if they are very lucky) in a lifetime ! Arne took us out to see the truffle market at Aups and we were able to see a well trained dog actually dig trufles out of the ground!  These truffle dogs are very valuable and we are advised that in season (November to March) farmers protect their truffle fields (and dogs) with night patrols and rifles! 

During all this food preparation and consumption we tasted lots of wonderful wines and rose's and were briefed on the local varieties and specific grapes of the Provence region.  These included wines from Chateau  de Cremat, Chateau Sainte Roseline, Chateau La Canorgue (where the film director Ridley Scott shot his  film A Good Year ) and a Le Van which was absolutely delicious. 

All this took place high up in the hills overlooking the most wonderful medieval village of Tourrrette sur Loup with Nice and Cannes visible in the distance. We were surrounded by olive trees, rosemary and lavender bushes, mimosa trees in full bloom and the most wonderful tulips the size of which are rarely seen in Northern Europe! 

And how wonderful to come back home to Kerrouet yesterday  and to find that a local actor from the adjoining village of Plemet, Marion Cotillard (who starred in the Scott film mentioned above), has won a Oscar for her performance as Edith Piaf in La Vie En Rose!! Our hills are alive with the sounds of music!!

Cooking Holidays in France

Well the kitchen is almost completed now and it took a lot longer than we initially expected. With underfloor heating, old  stoves, French Windows and our own chef doing design work way above the michelin requirements, it has been a labour of love all the way! The photos will tell the tale but personally the best job we did was not the new roof on this old 16th century house with links to the Manor of Plessy down the road but the large new French patio doors in the north wall which gives the most amazing view of the valley and the forests at the rear of the property. Our students will have to concentrate hard on their creme brulee's if they are not to be beguiled by the breathtaking views from the kitchen window!

The school doors will open on June 16th offering weekly courses on a wide variety of French and international cuisine. We have already had lots of enquiries from the UK (Sussex, Surrey, Oxford Hampshire) and Ireland (Dublin, Galway, Cork Wexford) and the Channel Island of Jersey and further afield (Germany, Austria, Singapore and Namibia. There is an increasing number of holiday makers who wish not to lie on a beach all day but get involved with an activity vacation and what better activity than learning how to cook better and eat well while on holiday into the bargain! Our students tell us they want to gain skills in a holiday atmosphere mixing with like minded colleagues and making new friends at the same time. Our school will ensure that everyone gets quality time with our Michelin trained chef. Many cooking schools don't let their students get hands on experience but here at the Kerrouet School, we pride ourselves with small classes allowing everyone to get involved in preparing the food and this covers the whole range from basic kitchen skills, visiting  the best food markets in France, purchasing and product appraisal (essential for seafood, cheese, meat and vegetables). French cuisine and wines are world famous and here in Brittany we are within the centre of the best seafood and vegetable markets of France. Students will learn how to bake real bread (essential for healthy living), cook oysters, mussels, scallops, crabs, langoustines, seabass, turbot, sole, skate, monkfish, salmon, seatrout, and a whole world of beautiful and exotic dishes. Check out our website for a wonderful range of mouthwatering recipes which are about to unfold on www.frenchdiningschool.com.