And surprisingly it was me.

Following on from yesterday’s blog about the media challenge at Martin Wishart’s Cook School, I’m very happy to report that your correspondent was awarded first prize in the cook off.

Six different journos from publications as diverse as The List and The Sunday Mail assembled to spend a morning at the Cook School to help promote VisitScotland’s Perfect Experiences.

Along with days at the Scotch Whisky Training School and The Bonham Hotel Farmers Market Experience, Martin Wishart’s Cook School is one of the activities designed to help visitors experience Scotland in a unique way.

Our task was to create a cheese soufflé and then cook halibut with gem lettuce and a saffron shellfish broth. Speaking for myself and I think also for the majority of the other scribblers, at the start of our morning, I could no more cook a soufflé than I could beat Gordon Ramsay in an arm wrestling competition.

It says something about the teaching skills and patience of our two tutors, Kevin Ramsay (no relation) and Ryan Blackburn, that all six of us turned out pillowy, golden-crusted soufflés.

The chefs showed us how to prepare the dishes in Wishart’s rather swanky demo kitchens. From filleting halibut to the importance of seasoning throughout the cooking process, it was an informative morning. I don’t think any of us were strangers to the kitchen but even those of us who fancied ourselves a little bit in the kitchen learnt something new.

For me, it was the fact that if a halibut doesn’t have clear eyes then it doesn’t necessarily mean that it is not fresh. Apparently, because it is a fairly deep sea fish, its eye are quite mucousy anyway. Instead of looking for sparkling eyes, as you would with say mackerel, you should check that its inner gills are nice and pink.

I also liked the tips about good knife skills. Slicing rather than crushing means that you can chop onions or indeed any other veg without bashing all their juices out. Less juice means fewer tears.

Making the halibut dish was fairly simple, once we’d been shown how. The difficult bit is getting it right. Knowing what ingredients to put in and the order that they are used in is only a tiny part of the battle when it comes to making the dish work and I suspect that my dish being chosen as the winner was more luck than judgement.

Once we had all finished our dishes, Martin forensically dissected each one; usually with a grimace. I’d done it often enough in restaurant reviews but not with the clinical precision with which he could pull each dish apart.

Apparently my sauce was too dilute which had a knock-on effect on the shellfish. I’d also overcooked my fish at the edges although I did get brownie points for letting it rest so it wasn’t dry. My presentation and seasoning both got the thumbs up though.

It was a fun morning. I’ve done cookery classes before which have been quite hardcore and po-faced. This got the balance right between education and entertainment. You also get to eat your own work which can’t be a bad thing. Or at least not in my case.

I don’t think that Martin would have sent any of our efforts out into his restaurant but I’d happily rustle up the halibut dish for friends. The soufflé still seems like a bit of gamble though. One thing it definitely taught me is that I should stick to writing. Our morning spent cooking two dishes was a giggle. Doing it professionally and knocking out twenty dishes in the same time looks far too much like hard work.