“You take home a lot of knowledge”

THE COOKERY SCHOOL

WHERE The Seafood School at Billingsgate, Trafalgar Way, London E14; seafoodtraining.org

THE COURSE Catch of the Day 2, £198 for one-day class (6.15am to 2.30pm) including breakfast and lunch with wine

TESTED BY Les Dunn

SEAFOOD AND EATING IT At Billingsgate, CJ Jackson preps dover sole, before pupils get a chance to eat

FOOD PHOTOGRAPH: GARETH MORGANS. FOOD STYLING: OLIVIA SPURRELL. STYLING: MORAG FARQUHAR

THE SETTING

Strange smells, slippery floors, shouty geezers – London’s famous fish market in Docklands is not your typical backdrop for a cookery course. The 1980s building is unlovely but the atmosphere of a working market adds a frisson of excitement, even when you’re turning up bleary-eyed at 6am.

DO YOU NEED TO BE GOOD AT COOKING?

Though the class isn’t for absolute beginners (there’s a Catch of the Day 1 you can do first), you’re talked through the tricky bits, so even a novice needn’t feel intimidated.

GROUP-SIZE, ROOM AND WORKSPACE

The school is upstairs from the groundfloor market. Classes have a maximum of 12 students and each workstation is shared by two people. The room isn’t designer (laminate worktops, lino floor) but it’s bright and well equipped, with induction hobs.

WHAT WE DID

Expert Paula Williams took us on a tour of the market to learn about some of the 120 species of fish and seafood on sale, then it was upstairs for a kedgeree breakfast before we got stuck in. CJ Jackson, the school’s principal (and delicious. seafood expert – see p107), was tutor for the day.

First we peeled prawns, using the shells to make stock for the black rice we were cooking for lunch. CJ showed us how to skin a dover sole, skin and fillet a turbot, and fillet smaller, trickier john dory, then we had a go at skinning flatfish (you need strong hands!). We stuffed our flatfish with prawns then, after witnessing CJ’s hake-filleting skills, we each filleted our own large hake into various cuts.

While we prepped the cuttlefish for our black rice, we also watched CJ (on a big screen) cook various things. She showed how easy it is to hot-smoke your own fish (see opposite), cooked john dory fillets and made puttanesca sauce and salsa verde.