Quick Bites: Dom's Gastronom
Barcelona’s gone mad for cooking classes these past few years, most of them teaching the ubiquitous gazpacho, tortilla and paella. Dom’s Gastronom is different; it’s a cute little cooking school in the hills of Valldoreix that, for the past 20 years, has been providing émigrés an edible way of integrating into the local culture.
Hosted by the affable Dom, she takes students to local markets, teaches culinary vocabulary and offers a wide array of classes ranging from seasonal Catalan cuisine to kid’s classes. But it’s the fish cookery that continues to be the most popular, offering tips on buying and preparing fish and insider tips on the best local restaurants and festivals.
“People get very nervous about cooking fish, so I try to show how easy it can be and pack in as much practical information as possible,” Dom tells me as we chat in the sunny, light-filled school that she’s built as an annex to her home. Although I only attend one of the four fish sessions, in the three hours I am there we cover buying and preparing bacalao (salt cod), how to make a proper allioli in a pestle and mortar—the grooves are for pouring the oil, not using as an ashtray she jokes—and how to use a picada (the nut, bread and chocolate thickening paste that is added to many Catalan dishes at the end of cooking). We learn that palangre is the same fish as merluza or hake, the difference being the way it was caught (palangre is with a hook), and that if you purge clams in salted water with a teaspoon of flour for a couple of hours they’ll not only release the sand, but be plumper and tastier too.
We make a genuine fish stock that after just two hours of cooking is deeply flavored, but Dom insists you should keep it going for at least four. We roll up sole fillets with smoked salmon and spinach and steam them in orange-infused butter, fry monkfish in breadcrumbs and steam clams in sake—a nod to the popularity of Catalan-Japanese fusion. The best thing about these classes though is that Dominique’s teaching style makes it all seem easy, joyful and relaxed. Above all, she makes you want to cook; and for me, there is no better way of getting to know a place.
.......
Dom's Gastronom
Passeig del Roser 43
Valldoreix
Telephone: 93.674.5160
www.domsgastronom.com
Four-class courses from €100.