Can you believe it’s May already?!

Almost half way through the year, have you kept up with your resolutions to learn new cooking skills or just cook better?

It’s not too late! We’ve still got places on courses this month! Here’s what we’ve still got available:

Knife Skills & Maintenance with Lap-Fai Lee – Thurs 12th

How to Make: Macarons with Lap-Fai Lee – Weds 18th

Seafood One: Fish with Lap-Fai Lee – Thurs 19th

You can book online, but feel free to pop into the shop for a chat about the courses if you want to know more!

Join Loaf for a once-a-year pig butchery and charcuterie experience. This Autumn course is led by experienced cook and charcuterie enthusiast Lap-fai Lee, with a pig butchery demonstration from Bournville’s organic butcher Steve Rossiter. This day-long course will take you through options for creating amazing charcuterie, as well as fresh pork dishes, from almost every part of the pig. You’ll also be creating your own porky lunch in the middle of the day.

During the day you’ll be learning:

• How to butcher a half-pig into primals, and de-bone as necessary
• How to make guanciale from the cheeks
• How to make pancetta from the belly
• How to make back bacon from the loin
• How to brine a ham
• How to make and link fresh sausages
• How to make dry cured sausages such as salami and chorizo.

This is a real ‘nose to tail’ butchery course, we won’t be wasting anything. Confidence in handling knives would be an asset, but other than that the skill level required is minimal, just willingness to take part with hands-on learning. You’ll receive ongoing support from Lap and Steve.

The course costs £120 (inclusive of VAT) and all refreshments, equipment, recipes and aprons are provided. The fee includes a delicious lunch that you will be proud to have made yourself, and you’ll have a piece of charcuterie or fresh pork to take home with you, along with a recipe booklet with everything you’ve learnt on the day. As with all of our Loaf courses, you won’t be going home hungry!

This year’s course takes place on Thursday 13th November, 9.30am – 4pm in our cookery school at Loaf HQ. To book a place, visit the course page here, or contact Nancy info@loafonline.co.uk.

We encourage your feedback on this, as it’s our first pork butchery course – what would you like to learn? Please add your comments below for Lap.

Come and spend an enjoyable evening at Loaf HQ learning the basics of preserving, and leave with your own preserves. We’ll start at the very beginning by selecting the right ingredients, learning how to sterilise equipment, learning about the importance of pectin, sugar content, and temperature, how to reach setting point for jams and jellies, and how to know when your chutney or relish is ready.

The evening is led by Loaf director Tom Baker and Rachel Carter from Cuffufle, who will demonstrate as well as guide you through doing the process yourselves, and be on hand to answer questions about equipment, supplies, and further reading.

At our preserving courses we try and use seasonal fruit and veg that we locally source. We look at many different ways to preserve and many different forms ‘preserves’ come in, from Jams to mustards, from Fruit syrups/cordials to chutneys, from fruit vinegars to relishes.

The next course is on Wednesday 1st October and starts promptly at 6.30pm, finishes at 9.30pm, and takes place at Loaf HQ in Stirchley, South Birmingham.

You’ll feel right at home at Loaf, and everything you learn will set you up for impressing your friends and family with your new found skills at home. All refreshments, equipment, recipes and aprons are provided. The course costs £50 per person including VAT. Book via the course page on the website or by contacting cookeryschool@loafonline.co.uk