Cooking Up A Storm!
23 April 2021
Our Beacon boys have had a fantastic time getting back into their Cooking & Nutrition lessons this week. Our Year 4 Gardening Club have been busy in the sunshine, planting broad beans and mangetout plants that were grown from the seeds planted by Year 6 last term. The boys will be planting their very own runner bean seedlings next week, which they grew from the seed from last year’s kitchen garden runner beans. The boys planted the seeds in pots last term and took them home to nurture over Easter. We look forward to being able to use vegetables from our kitchen garden again in our recipes later in the Summer Term!
Our Year 4 boys also learnt how to make potato salad, discussing how potatoes are a rich source of carbohydrate and how growing our own vegetables and salad is more sustainable. The boys sat in the kitchen garden at the end of the lesson, where they enjoyed tasting their salads in the sunshine.
The Year 5 boys did a fantastic job cooking vegetarian bean burgers, which they discussed are a healthy and sustainable alternative to meat. They learnt how eating plant-based proteins can reduce our carbon footprint, as well as being beneficial for our health because they contain no saturated fats and increase our fibre intake. The boys used Adzuki beans, black beans, sweet potato, ground oats and a selection of herbs and spices of their choice to create their delicious burgers. Well done, boys!
The Year 6 boys enjoyed exploring the flavour profile of spices used in different countries from around the world and creating their own bespoke marinade. The boys smelt a variety of different spices and looked at which spices are typically married together to create traditional dishes. The boys were interested to know that garam masala consists of different ratios used in various regions of India. With the fantastic selection of chili’s now available to us, the boys smelt ancho chili and chipotle chili, which are used a lot in Mexican cooking to create wonderful flavours. Each boy then developed their own marinade recipe, which they coated over their chicken strips and threaded onto skewers – delicious!
As you can see from the carousel below, the boys cooked up some delicious culinary creations! Well done!
Kim Rowland – Cooking & Nutrition Teacher
