@ Sunrice – Turning Up The Heat At Cookery School

Finally I have attended a cooking class in Singapore. With a more flexible schedule now that Carl is in school, I’ve been looking at some local cooking schools to learn more about the fantastic food here. I admit it – I love food, I love cooking, and the best food in the world must surely come from Asia. Loads of fresh seafood, a huge variety of vegetables, and a seemingly endless array of spices make cooking and eating a gastronomic journey of discovery.

‘At Sunrice’ is a professional culinary school which trains chefs at a stunning stone colonial building located at the top of the hill in Fort Canning Park, smack bang in the centre of the city. Established in 1859 as an arms store, barracks and hospital, Fort Canning contains precious memorials of Singapore's early history dating back to the 14th century and Sir Stamford Raffles' personal bungalow. The Spice Garden is a replica of the original 19-hectare tract Raffles established in 1822 as the first experimental and botanical garden in Singapore.
An important site within the park is a grave for a Malay Sultan dating back to the 1400s. We were recently at Fort Canning for the Burns night, and right next door to that function room is the At Sunrice academy. Fortunately the cooking academy also offers casual cooking classes for the ‘leisure cook’ as they so charmingly call us. My day there started at 8.30am with a guided walk through the spice gardens with the charming and knowledgeable Rampeetha, also known as ‘Chef A’. Describing himself as a “kampong boy from Thailand”, Chef A is in fact a highly respected chef who was lured away from one of the top hotels in Bangkok to head the culinary academy. After walking through the gardens identifying and smelling everything from lemon grass to pepper, pandan and ginger and learning about their uses, we headed up to the school and enjoyed a break before settling down to learn how to make five typical Singaporean dishes.
The academy offers morning classes for Thai, Indian, Malay, Singaporean, and New Asian food. This time I’d chosen Singaporean but I’d love to go back to do more. Chef first demonstrated how to make spicy satay with peanut sauce, then we got down to work ourselves to make Ondeh Ondeh, a Nonya desert of steamed mashed sweet potato rolled into balls, stuffed with a chunk of solid palm sugar, then boiled until the sugar melts inside and served rolled in freshly grated coconut. We also made Kway Teow, which is two types of noodles stir fried together with seafood and lots of soy sauce, and black pepper prawns. It was a great experience with just five of us in the class and I’m looking forward to going back again, maybe with a group of friends this time. Needless to say hubby is dead keen as he wants to eat the results!