This looks like another scout camp kitchen, doesn’t it? It’s not! It’s a proper restaurant kitchen (indoors! with electricity!) at Restaurakademien, where I spent today learning to cook vegetarian food with a professional chef. I got this course as a Christmas gift and now it finally happened!

I know how to cook vegetarian food already, of course. I enjoy cooking, and this was a way to do more of it in a fun setting, and to maybe learn new things – new techniques, new ways of thinking about a meal or a menu.

We worked in groups, and prepared three three-course menus altogether: the starters for lunch, and the main courses and desserts for an early dinner.


Lunch consisted of two asparagus dishes and a nettle soup. As part of preparing these we learned how to make a Hollandaise sauce and how to poach eggs. I haven’t tried making Hollandaise sauce, but I have tried poaching eggs a few times, and it’s been hit and miss, really. This chef had a procedure that seems a lot more predictable and easier to succeed with than the ones I’ve tried before. The guys who were in charge of making the eggs for today’s lunch followed his instructions and ended up with 15 near-perfect eggs, so I’ll definitely be giving that a try at home.

Preparing the main course was somewhat less interesting. A lot of peeling and chopping. The results were delicious, though.

With so many people and so many different dishes to prepare, it was a matter of chance what each one of us got to work on. I was a bit disappointed with how that worked out. I would have preferred that we prepare fewer courses, but so that all of us could participate in all the interesting steps.

I think the rest of the group probably learned more from the main courses than I did, especially about how to compose a vegetarian meal. Many of them said they mostly eat meat and rarely cook vegetarian dishes. Meat-eaters often try to plan a vegetarian meal by starting from a meat dish and then finding a replacement for the meat, and this approach rarely leads to a satisfying result.

I’ve been thinking of how to characterize this chef’s style of cooking, which is rather different from mine. It’s very “restaurant-y”, somehow. Fine dining in a vaguely French-inspired manner. Each course we made consisted of several components – a little bit of this, a small heap of that, toppings of various kinds, and herbs everywhere. Somewhat fussy for my taste – I would have used fewer parts and let each of them get more attention.

An interesting part of this course was the experience of working in a restaurant kitchen. Not having to think of doing the dishes – just put them on the trolley there! – was a luxury.

Another luxury was a large griddle. I imagine it’s mostly meant to be used as a giant pan, but we didn’t have many such components in our dishes. Instead we used it as a large, extra hot, always-on stove. Need to bring some water to boil? Or reduce some vegetable stock? The griddle is there, ready and waiting for you. Very convenient.

The cutting boards and knives were solid and sharp. But other luxuries surprised me by their absence. There was a definite shortage of measuring cups and spoons, for example.