“Food is a love language and a boundless way to connect with people. I’ll teach you how to make dishes that have stood the test of time as they have been loved far and wide. We will look at the stories and traditions of the recipes, how they’ve travelled geographies and ages, and then how to make them to delight the eyes, hearts and stomachs of your loved ones.”

Melek Erdal, passionate chef and food story teller who loves to spend time with culinary masters to learn from their hands and hear their stories.

The class will include:

• How to make three different styles of Turkish baklava
• Learn to make tasty dolma, stuffed and wrapped seasonal vegetables using two different fillings
• How to make beetroot hummus and carrot borani dips to enjoy with warm flatbreads made from scratch
• Learning to cook 'by eye' and trusting your palette
• How to plan and organise making multiple dishes
• Delicious organic plant based dinner and a glass of wine (or kombucha if you prefer)
• Kurdish tea/coffee to finish your meal 
• Recipe pack

About Melek

Melek is an Istanbul-born Kurdish chef, writer, cookery teacher and homegrown Hackney-ite. Her style of cooking is strongly influenced by her Kurdish and Alevi heritage and the broader Mediterranean and Middle East, as well as growing up in multicultural London. Having opened her cafe in Dalston in 2012, Melek has moved on to community activism working both on a local and international level both teaching cookery in communities and making films and writing about food culture. Melek is passionate about using food as a way to bring people together and communicate culture and history.

Fee: 

All proceeds from our masterclasses help fund our community meal service which has become a critical food support service delivering 70,000 free nutritious, tasty meals per year to households struggling to access food, and is needed now more than ever by our community.

Single workstation: £125

Double workstation (share with someone from your household/ social bubble): £230

Prices include VAT

Note On Ticket Price Change 

Apologies we have had to pause offering a concession rate for our paying in-person cookery classes. Due to the pandemic we cannot fit as many people in the kitchen which means classes generate less vital revenue needed to keep the charity going. 

We are still offering tiered ticket prices for our brilliant online live cookery classes (£5-£30), recordings of live classes (£3-£20) and everyone is welcome to sign up to our FREE to attend in-person and online community class newsletter list by emailing classes@madeinhackney.org. Thank you for your understanding. 

Refunds/transfers: we require a minimum of 7 days' notice for any cancellations or transfers once you have booked onto a class to enable us to try to resell your ticket. 

Please understand our charity needs time to enable us to try to resell your tickets as we rely heavily on the income generated. You are also welcome to give your ticket to a friend or family member in case of last minute illness (just email classes@madeinhackney.org to let us know).

Vouchers: To redeem a voucher purchased on our site, please contact us to book a place. If contacting us by email please attach your voucher. If telephoning, have your voucher to hand so you can quote the voucher number.

For information: classes@madeinhackney.org / 020 8442 4266 

Location: Made In Hackney, Liberty Hall*, 128 Clapton Common, Spring Hill, Clapton, London, E5 9AA, UK

*Liberty Hall is a black and white village hall building with a gable roof at the top of Spring Hill, just by the common

COVID-19 SAFETY

You will have your own set of equipment at your own workstation and our venue is well-ventilated. 

ALLERGEN ALERT 

Made In Hackney uses cereals containing gluten namely: wheat (spelt and khorasan wheat), rye, barley, oats; peanuts; all other nuts; sesame; all other seeds; soybeans; celery and celeriac; mustard; sulphur dioxide/sulphites; lupin; tomatoes and other allergens in it's classes. Our food is freshly prepared in our busy cookery school kitchen that handles allergens, so we cannot guarantee that our food and drinks are allergen-free. Even in classes where these ingredients are not being used, they will be on site in our store rooms and our equipment will have previously come into contact with them. Participants attend at their own risk.