Spice Bazaar Cooking School and Spices

Every weekday morning when I walk to Footscray railway station via Victoria Street to go into the city, I pass Spice Bazaar.  They sell spices but they also have a cooking school.  The Bloke knows the foody things I lust after and for my birthday towards the end of last year, he bought me a voucher for the cooking school.  Happy days!  


I finally booked in for the "Moroccan and Middle Eastern Cooking" class.  The website has all the details of the classes and where to buy the spices.  


When you enter the venue, there is a table set to eat dinner.  There is also a workbench set up with a chopping board and knife for each person and platters of herbs and vegetables as well as jars of their spices.  

Jill and Pat own the business.  Jill ran the class until about the last hour when Pat turned up, just in time to point out the finer details of using a tagine.  The night I went, there was a group of five people, with some of that group having been to three or four previous classes, which is a pretty decent recommendation, plus myself and another guy there whose wife had bought him a voucher for his birthday too.  Jill split us into two groups (I was in a group of three so she joined us).  


We were given a recipe booklet and set to work producing entrees.  One girl in our group was a vegetarian.  Jill had ingredients prepared to make all the meat dishes with vegetarian versions.  


Two hours in, we sit and eat our entrees with a glass of wine, then we press on with the mains and a dessert and another glass of wine.  Four hours of fun!  Jill and Pat sat down with us and we ate and shared stories.  A very fine way to spend a Friday night.  Thanks to The Bloke for my pressie and thanks to Jill and Pat for a great class!

Berbere chicken pastry 

Chicken Tagine with Ras el Hanout

Bread with zatar spice, minted green pea dip 

Prawns in chermoula paste (one of my favourite dishes of the night)

Cous cous with currents, pine nuts and Tunisian spices

Tucking into our feast, part two.

Fatouche salad

Pears poached in spices

Spice Bazaar Cooking School and Spices
79 Victoria Street
Seddon 3011
Ph 03 9687 2659
www.spicebazaar.com.au