In the know.

THE COOKERY SCHOOL

WHERE Philleigh Way Cookery School, Truro, Cornwall

THE COURSE Better Barbecuing, £99 for half-day course, including lunch and goody bag

TESTER Phoebe Stone

WHAT’S IT LIKE? Part of a working farm outside Truro, Philleigh Way Cookery School is set in a former cowshed and stables with high ceilings, honey-coloured beams and buckets of Cornish country charm. As well as its inside training kitchen there’s an impressive outdoor kitchen with a pizza oven, brick open-fire cooking and five Weber barbecues. Luckily, given our ofteninclement weather (this summer aside!), it is covered. “It’s very British to barbecue under a roof,” head tutor George assured us. WHAT I LEARNED Starting with a charcoalfuelled kettle barbecue, George showed us how to use a barbecue chimney – a cylindrical metal container with a handle, which enables the charcoal to reach cooking temperature much faster than just lighting it in the barbecue.

Carefully (with heatproof gloves on), we tumbled the white-hot coals into two semi-circular metal baskets in the barbie. Moved to each side, these provide indirect heat; brought together in the centre they directly heat whatever is placed above on the grill rack. These are the two key cooking methods with charcoal. Gas barbies are simpler (just ignite and you’re ready to go) but George maintains they don’t give food the same smoky flavour.

The day moved between demos from George and hands-on food preparation and cooking on the barbecues, with my six fellow classmates and I shuttling between the indoor and outdoor kitchens. George showed us how to prepare trendy beer-can chicken, which involves propping up a bird vertically on the canned beer of your choosing (drink a third of the can first as a chef’s perk to prevent spillage).

VERSATILE COOKING You can even pop a pizza on the BBQ

Next we made pizza dough and used a peel (giant pizza spatula) to transfer our homemade bases to a hot pizza stone, a nifty accessory. Just minutes after lowering the lid, we were enjoying our smoky, crispy, cheesy creations.