Cat Sheppard
Cat has been teaching cookery for more than ten years, previously running a cookery school in Berkshire for Mike Robinson on Game and Wild Food which opened in 2007. Later she moved on to work for the Children’s Food Trust on the Let’s Get Cooking programme, which trained and set up over 7,000 cookery clubs across England, reaching over 3 million children.
Cat ran the London region for over seven years, working with schools, children’s centres, community centres and further education colleges. She built relationships and sponsorship with a number of large corporate organisations including Tesco, and went on to work with them to run cookery courses, teaching thousands more children basic cooking skills in store.
Now based in the world-famous ski resort of Verbier, Switzerland, Cat partnered up with Amy Corbett to open the Mountain Thyme Cookery School in 2017. Their love of teaching and passing on their hard-won skills to the next generation is evident. Also catering to the rich & famous as well as running a home-made ready-meal delivery service, they plan to expand to other Swiss resorts in the very near future.
Video Description
Mountain Thyme Cookery School based in Verbier, Switzerland, invites you into their classroom with these online lessons in cooking and baking.
You can't get more Swiss than cheese fondue...except when you have a Swiss Cookery School teaching you to prepare that cheese fondue in the mountains of Verbier!
In this episode Chef Cat will teach you how to prepare your fondue, as well as share her useful tips to stop the cheese from splitting. Cheese fondue is an excellent social activity for a party and goes with a variety of dippings!
INGREDIENTS:
1 clove garlic, halved
150ml white wine
1 tsp lemon juice
225g Vacherin Fribourgeois/Emmental cheese, grated
225g Gruyère cheese, grated
1 tsp cornflour
1 tbsp kirsch
Cubes of bread, for dipping (ideally day-old, slightly stale)
METHOD
Rub the inside of the fondue pot with the halves of garlic.
Add the cornflour to the wine and lemon juice and combine thoroughly. Pour into the pot and heat until boiling. Lower the heat and gradually stir in the cheeses until melted, stirring all the time.
Add the kirsch to the cheese mixture and cook gently until the mixture is smooth - don't let it boil or it will burn.
For the mushroom and truffle oil – soak a handful of dried bolete mushrooms in 100ml of boiling water until soft. Finely chop and add to the wine/lemon juice (only use half the wine in the recipe and include the water from the mushrooms instead). Drizzle with truffle oil to finish.
For the herb and chilli fondue, add one tablespoon of chilli flakes to the white wine mix. Finely chop fresh thyme, parsley and chives and stir in at the end of cooking.
For the tomato fondue, add one tablespoon of tomato pureé to the white wine at the start, then add 4 finely chopped tomatoes (with seeds removed), towards the end of the cooking.
