ABC Cooking Studio: It’s all in the experience

As apparent from the abundance of recipes on our site, here at Gourmand Asia, we don’t only talk about food, but we also love cooking. And as home cooks everywhere, we always welcome new tips and dishes to try our hands on.
That’s why when we hear about cooking classes, we’re first in line to give them a go – especially when they have an interesting concept and approach to make them stand out from the rest.
ABC Cooking Studio offers just that. With trained home cooks acting as instructors, you can rest assured that they will walk you through the process with patience and less pressure than what you’d have were it a pro chef who was conducting the class.
With a choice of three dishes to cook at their trial class, we went for the Japanese hamburger, with rice on the side and onion soup option. After all, who wouldn’t want to learn how to make a juicy home-made burger?

Our teacher – and manager of the Singapore branch – Miwa san, could sense our stress to start with so she kindly made us feel at ease and promptly handed the aprons, and we were ready to go. At our station, all ingredients and material were already prepared with the recipe sheet describing all steps to achieve the perfect dish.
Right from the start she let us work by ourselves, yet correcting the way we were cutting ingredients, following the instructions and reminding us of the saucepan left on the heat… Sorry!

We even saw the basics in a new light such as learning how to dice and chop onions in a faster and safer way. Once the beef patty was done, we moved on to the sauce. ABC cooking Studio takes pride in promoting organic and healthy products, which also means that everything is made from scratch. For instance the gravy was a combination of flour, soy sauce and oil. No jar or can used here.

Miwa san was encouraging, watching our gestures and correcting them every step of the way. The fact that instructors are not chefs, but cooking amateurs-turned-professionals who were trained by ABC Cooking Studio makes them more understanding as they can relate to our difficulties and questions (even the most basic ones). As a result, their advice proves to be more practical and helpful. All in all, we were surprised of how much technique we had learnt from cooking a basic dish.
When our dish was completed, we sat at one of the communal tables to enjoy the meal together. It was balanced, light and full of flavour. The gravy was comforting and complemented the meat and rice perfectly. For the onion soup, we were pleasantly surprised that despite its pale colour, it was full of delicate aromas and packed with flavour.

The most valuable lesson we learned from our experience at ABC Cooking Studio is that there’s no harm in trying to cook – regardless of your skill level. By offering classes in Japanese and English languages, ranging from Japanese to international cuisine – and even catering for kids – there is no shortage of dishes to choose from.
With its friendly atmosphere and non-intimidating instructors – we left with one question on our mind: When shall we host the next dinner and wow our friends with our newly mastered dish?

ABC Cooking Studio is located at #03-12/12A, Takashimaya (tel: 6694 6104). Like their Facebook page to enjoy a trial class at SGD35 (choice of the course from 3 pre-determined menus).

Céline Manoukian