Last week we attended a cooking workshop at the Miele experience centre in Vianen, NL. We found out about the Miele Experience Centre through my parents in law, who attended one of their cooking demonstrations and were highly impressed afterwards.

So came my birthday… Of course it is no secret that I am a food lover and the best presents you can give me (aside from good company of family and friends of course) revolve around food. It should not come as a surprise  that – lucky me- they gave us a cooking workshop of choice at Miele for 2.

Then came the hard part, choosing a workshop from the wide array of choices. Their offering is surprisingly diverse. The courses range from baking bread, French bistro, molecular cooking, Italian, Asian, vegetables, BBQ, fish, workshops with Michelin chefs etc. Prices are normally in the range of 80 – 100 Euro’s (you will hopefully conclude at the end of this blog that the workshops are worth it!).  Eventually we opted for Asian fingerfood, because I like the complexity of flavors in Asian cuisine.

There we were, on a Saturday morning driving to Vianen, which is about a 50 minute drive from The Hague. I am not a morning person at all (Stijn knows this well) and as we were driving  I wondered how I would survive the day, cooking from 10:30 to 15:30 with my head still in sleepy grumpy weekend mode. 

Luckily they ease you into it. We were welcomed with a cup of coffee/tea in the reception area. It seemed we arrived a bit late, as most of the people were already inside. The group was quite big, probably around 30-ish people and quite a diverse crowd. The cooking area was on the left hand side of the building and the showrooms for Miele appliances on the right hand side. In the middle there was a nice little shop with handy cooking equipment, which you could buy at a discount when attending a workshop. 

In any case, we were called into the cooking area, got a nice glass of champagne and were asked to stand around the demonstration area. This is where the chef and instructor of the day, Arjan Siemerink, demonstrated how to prepare the 10 dishes that we would be cooking today.  Arjan is a culinary chef at Yama Food,  a company focused on producing, distributing and selling Japanese food products (they have a webshop as well). To be completely honest, Asian fingerfood is a bit of a misnomer for the workshop, as Arjan rightfully mentioned at the start as well. There is no one Asian cuisine, and Japanese food is quite different from Indian or Thai food. The focus of the workshop was on Japanese food, so Japanese fingerfood would have probably been a better label.

In any case, we were shown how to prepare the 10 dishes first. Although it goes quite fast, when you start cooking yourselves, there are enough cooks walking around to help you in case you are lost or to prevent you from doing something stupid. And yes, you do need them to prevent you from doing something stupid. One of the best tips for any cooking adventure is to first read the recipe in full before you start doing anything. Check your ingredients, order them etc so that you have an organized and clean cooking experience. Of course I listened to this advice (NOT). In any case, you learn some interesting tips:

1. You can distinguish real Japanese sushi from Chinese ones by their shape: Japanese sushi is square. I did not know that!
2. Add vinegar when boiling eggs, it makes them easier to peel
3. Never eat cod or mackerel raw – unless you want parasites
4. Always buy your fish fresh, never in the supermarket – if you are gonna eat it raw (we already knew that right?)
5. Rice in a steam oven – big no-no, use a traditional pan on stove or rice boiler
6. For sashimi, cut your fish diagonally, not straight

After the quick demonstration, you start cooking yourself. Everyone has their own recipe (1 or 2) to prepare from the 10 dishes, and their own huge cooking station (oh divine!). You are cooking in a group of 8, with 4 cooking stations on one side and 4 on the other. Let me pause here. This experience was entirely different from our first cooking class in Paris at La Cuisine Paris, where we basically shared 1 cooking station with 12 folks and actually could not do much cooking. In terms of value for money, you really get a better experience at Miele. You are end to end responsible for 1 or 2 recipes, vs. doing some light cutting and stirring.

In any case, I was responsible for the edamame with spicy miso and the crispy rice with spicy tuna. The recipes were quite simple for the flavor explosion you get. Of course, I did something stupid. My recipe for the edamame required lime juice, I saw a lime and almost juiced it, until a assistant cook came along (the same guy on the picture to the right) and gave me a “what are you doing” look (he really mastered the look btw). Oopsie… so the fresh lime was to zest and the lime juice was already in a bowl ready to be used… okay okay – I did not read the recipe and checked my ingredients 100% . Stijn was responsible for the soup and was uber-relaxed and started walking around checking what other people were preparing. I think he was relieved he got the easy recipe (he thought!).

In any case, we needed to do the preparations first, regrouped again around the demonstration area, where Arjan showed us how to finish and serve the dishes. We then finished the dishes ourselves and served it in the eating area. Because dishes were served in two stages, other’s helped with preparing the first course. We started with the salad, mackerel, sushi, spicy tuna and edamame that we served within our group of 8. The nice thing about the cooking workshop is that you also had plenty of time to get to know new people and taste the dishes that others in your group prepared. We sat next to a lovely couple from the The Hague area as well, and one of them coincidentally used to work at the same company I am working for and knew some of my colleagues. What a small world! They had done multiple Miele workshops and were hardcore foodies as well. We found out that we all had a shared passion for travel & food and were absolute fans of Basque country in Spain. The quality of food you get there is absolutely amazing and they shared some useful tips on how to get into Michelin star restaurants without making reservations 3 months in advance.

Let’s move from the company to the food again. You can see here that we used high quality products, such as fresh mackerel, king crab, tuna etc, so you really get good value for money in this cooking workshop. Stars of the table for me were the spicy tuna, the sushi and the edamame.

For the second course we needed to prepare the okonomiyaki (Japanese pancake), the soup, beef tataki, chicken gyoza, miso cod, and ribeye with rice. This is where Stijn needed to peel loads of quail eggs and suddenly his soup did not seem that easy anymore!

In the picture above you see all 10 dishes we needed to prepare (these were done by Arjan). I loved the chicken gyoza. Although the ingredients are quite simple (cabbage, chicken, spring onion, garlic, ginger, sake, sesame oil and soy), the flavors were amazing. The okonomiyaki was delicious, but quite heavy. I found the cod a bit plain. The miso sauce was quite light and did not penetrate the cod. Not sure if it had anything to do with the preparation method. Interestingly the cod was put in an oven dish with plastic wrap. Yes- plastic wrap (this became somewhat of a running gag during the workshop). Apparently, you can put plastic wrap in the oven until about 120 degrees without melting it. This means the fish steams rather than bakes, keeping it juicy inside. As I don’t eat beef, I could not eat the tataki, but it looked absolutely stunning and Stijn liked it.

After preparing and eating 10 small dishes, we were served a nice small ice lollypop and some coffee and tea. That was the end of the workshop. In hindsight, those 5 hours passed at lightning speed. We thoroughly enjoyed the cooking experience, the food and the company of the workshop attendees and chefs. As a bonus, you get all the recipes, and you can keep your aprons. No need btw for dinner after you attended this workshop – you eat enough for a day!

A big thank you to the guys below for making our experience unforgettable and a special thank you for Mr. cook at the left (sorry I did not ask your name – but let me know if you read this!) who inserted a nice bit of humor in the workshop as well (I so did not flip that pancake – but you know that!)

After the workshop, Stijn and I strolled through the showroom to get some inspiration for our new kitchen in the new house we are still looking for. For sure we will be returning to the Miele experience centre again for some more workshops and cooking demonstrations!