Friday marked the halfway point in the 12 week certificate course, and our first exams.

The first was a herb and salad leaf recognition test. Each student was presented with ten herbs and ten salad leaves. You had to write the names and list two recipes that uses each herb.

The second part of the exam was techniques. Some were basic – assembling kitchen equipment, pouring wine and laying a table. I will admit I did not take this part seriously, did little revision and ended up mixing up knives and forks when laying the table. Lesson learned!

The next round of techniques was more challenging. There was a list of about 30 things including choux pastry, filleting fish, jointing chickens, all kinds of eggs, and baking bread. We were given four randomly chosen techniques so had to be familiar with them all. I was in the last group of students which I suspect worked to my advantage. I was asked to make relatively quick and simple things – a paper piping bag, chop and sweat an onion, sautée mushrooms and make mayonnaise. I know I didn’t do everything 100% correctly but I’m happy enough with how it went. We’ll see how I feel when the results come out!

Órfhlaith