Prep school

IoD head chef Roger Evans wants his students to appreciate the value of food preparation, and the start of the English season. He talks to David Woodward

As well as teaching us how to cook, Roger Evans is just as keen to demonstrate the art of preparation. His cookery classes cover all the groundwork that goes into creating restaurant quality dishes. "People are a bit shy of prepping food," says the IoD restaurant's head chef. Whether it's chopping the head off a monkfish and filleting it—"a real ugly fish," he warns, "massive head, teeth everywhere"—or de-boning a wood pigeon, Evans is aiming to dissolve some of the mysteries surrounding food preparation at his next masterclass, on June 16, before he lets his pupils get anywhere near a frying pan.

That involves a quick purchasing lesson too. "Fish should have bright eyes and gills," he says. "The gills should be nice and red." And as for buying meat: "Supermarket meat isn't hung for long enough, I tell [my students] to find a butcher that hangs its meat for longer. The meat should be a deep purple colour and marbled with fat. The supermarket stuff is very red," he says, which is a sure sign it's too fresh to have any flavour.

Evans wants his After Hours masterclasses to teach people to buy seasonally, too. There is an untapped quality to English produce, he says, and his next masterclass is well timed to exploit it. "June is the start of the English season," says Evans. "You've got English asparagus, strawberries, and samphire, which only grows at a certain time of year, for about a month." Samphire is an extremely salty English seaweed. "You have to really soak it to get rid of the excess salt," he explains. "We'll get some wild salmon to go with that, and garnish with English asparagus." Evans's students will also learn how to make a warm shallot and potato salad with Jersey Royal potatoes. He may even throw in a dessert or two. "We'll show them how easy it is—they don't have to buy their desserts from the supermarket," he says.

Evans, who once hired Gordon Ramsay, is good company. His impish sense of humour is backed by a real passion for creating simple, balanced flavours out of local, seasonal produce—whether you're cooking professionally or at home. His masterclasses are as much about passing on the tricks of the trade as beefing up the basics. "So far, touch wood, I've had no vegetarians and no odd balls." He's probably joking.

To reserve a place on the next chef's masterclass, email functions@iod.com