The cook school: Ballintaggart Farm, Perthshire

Fancy learning to cook? Why not escape to the Scottish countryside for a cookery class at the luxurious Ballintaggart Farm in Highland Perthshire.

Ballintaggart – cookery school in Scotland

At its heart, Ballintaggart is all about the a love of food. A converted steading houses a cookery school, event space which hosts supper club style ‘feast nights’ and ‘maybe second weddings’ and luxurious bedrooms which come with cream tea and homemade cakes. 

Learning to cook at Ballintaggart

We were invited to Ballintaggart for a fish masterclass but they also run monthly classes on simple suppers, fine dining, bread making and knife skills. Our menu for the day included lessons in filleting fish, preparing Scottish langoustines, making bisque and curing salmon, cooking our own lunch along the way.

As an enthusiastic home cook, I was keen to get hands-on and as the day went on, I managed the technical tasks with varying skill. I failed miserably to tackle salmon skinning (B thought he was a natural) but overcame a mild fear of fish heads to successfully fillet my sea bass. In fact, I found fish scaling and de-shelling the langoustines rather relaxing. After the technical skills were over, we moved on to the most important part – cooking our lunch!

After plating up our deliciously simple langoustine starters we moved through to the farm’s stunning dining room to eat and relax over a glass of wine.

Returning to the kitchen, we cooked our mains, learning how to pan-fried cod – and get that perfect crispy skin. After lunch, we were back to the kitchen to test out the best ways to cook sea bass (I prefer steamed, but the others liked oven baked) and pitched in to make a deeply flavoured bisque. All the recipes were fantastic and provided for us to impress future guests in our own homes.

The 5-hour course flew by, and soon we were relaxing eating amazing homemade cake and tablet over coffee in the farm’s beautiful guest lounge overlooking the Tay Valley. I loved our day and found leaving the farm quite a struggle. There is somethng very special about Ballintaggart Farm.

Love from Scotland x

Disclaimer: Love From Scotland were guests of Ballintaggart Farm for a cookery class