Dancing with chickens

What better place to spend a Saturday afternoon than in a chef's restaurant kitchen, with a bottle of bubbly and some fresh-plucked birds? Mike Peters tucks in for a cooking class.

Agatha Christie's famous fictional detective, Hercule Poirot, was once asked why he wasn't busy looking for footprints and other clues at a murder scene.

That, he explained, was a job that the police were perfectly competent to do.

"Why have a dog and bark yourself?" he asked.

Chef Christoph Zoller helps a young aspiring chef find the leg joint. The group prepared pan-seared scallops, roast chicken and strawberries Romanoff. Photos Provided to China Daily

That funny quote came to me recently as I stood in the gleaming restaurant kitchen of The Cut, with one hand around the neck of a raw chicken. Was I really standing in the fancy Fairmont Beijing hotel's restaurant, making my own lunch?

Of course, that was my own choice - as it was for the 19 others huddled around as chef Christoph Zoller explains why he'd always buy a whole chicken.

"They will be fresher," he says, inviting us to stick our noses close for a smell test. "You don't really know about packaged parts until you get home. The whole bird is better value, too - cheaper pound for pound."

"Plus, you can use EVERYTHING," he says, as he quickly whacks away the head and feet and wings with a very sharp chef's knife. "This all goes into the soup for tomorrow."

But you can't be squeamish about handling the raw bird, he says, probing with his fingers to pinpoint the thigh joint. "To cut chicken, you need feeling - let your fingers, not your eyes, find the bone."

When I first heard that Zoller planned a cooking class around roast chicken, I wasn't so keen. The Cut is famous for its steak, after all. Besides, don't most people know how to roast a chicken?

But in the end I couldn't resist. We'd also be making a pan-seared scallop as a starter. There would be strawberries Romanoff and ice cream for dessert. Plus, Zoller had a bar set up at the end of his kitchen: Free-flow prosecco and other wines before, during and after class. That could make it worth the 500-yuan ($73) class fee all by itself.

"It's the only way to do a cooking class," Zoller says.

Finally, I suspected Zoller would make a yummier roast chicken than I've been whipping up at home, and of course he did.

While he's much better-known for his beef Wellington, for example, Zoller has a practical goal for our group: Feel comfortable trying the recipes at home. (If the Swiss chef made beef Wellington standing on his head, he wouldn't convince me it was easy.)

Twenty people is a bunch of folks for a cooking class, but the chef's menu and preparation plan ensures that everybody gets to make something. The open kitchen allows everyone a close-up look at the steps for every dish. Zoller makes sure everybody hears his running commentary as well, and the recipes are printed out for us with plenty of space for note-taking. (This requires putting down your wine glass, however briefly.)

For the scallop starter, I volunteered to make the couscous for a salad served on the side ("one part water to one part couscous - simple"), but the fun part of that scallop dish was making the mango chutney.

Zoller had two immense Australian mangoes on the counter for that, and I asked why he'd chosen those over the many other types now at the market. A certain flavor?

"They are big," he says simply. "The small ones are very good too, but we don't want to be here all day peeling little mangoes."

For me, chutney has always seemed a little mysterious, and wonderfully exotic. (I grew up in the US state of Texas, where chutney wasn't seen much.)

"Chutney is basically jam with vinegar," Zoller says as he dumps 200 grams of coarse dry sugar into a pot on high heat. "If the sugar isn't too fine, you don't even need to use oil for this step.

"Add the vinegar once the sugar is melted. Ideally, use a sweetish vinegar, like the Japanese kind," he adds.

The sugar, vinegar and diced mango need to simmer for 50 minutes, he notes. An important tip: Wait to add the spices - ground cardamom, grain mustard, ground cumin, cayenne pepper - until the chutney is almost finished, so they don't lose their punch. Then continued heating for 3 to 5 more minutes.

At almost every stage, Zoller makes a point of repeating his first piece of advice. "Keep the knife sharp," he says, "and that makes everything easy."

Contact the writer at michaelpeters@chinadaily.com.cn

Good idea?

Limited to a maximum of 20 seats, Zoller's once-a-month cooking class can't accommodate all comers. Other restaurants in big Chinese cities offer similar opportunities, often inspired by customers.

"I really wasn't thinking about doing a class like this at all," the chef says. "But I made a new dish and posted some photos online, and one of our customers commented that it would be fun to learn how to make it." The next week she came to the restaurant and said she had 10 friends eager to pay for a cooking lesson on a Saturday afternoon, when the restaurant was not busy."

A class was born.

Foodies who organize such classes with a restaurant should be prepared to pre-pay, so the chef doesn't have to worry about no-shows and a lot of uneaten food.