Guilty of cooking good food

The gates at Rimutaka Prison might have closed, but Wellington on a Plate action hasn’t quite left Upper Hutt yet.

There are still seats available for the August 25 dinner session of From Classroom to Kitchen, hosted by Heretaunga College’s School of Hospitality.

At the dinner, the school’s 2016 recruits prepare and present a contemporary five-course menu, with entertainment provided by the school’s music department.

Meanwhile, six Rimutaka Prison inmates spent the past four months finessing their cooking skills — learning to make food which has crowds lining up to get a taste of jailhouse life.

Wellington On a Plate’s Rimutaka Prison Gate to Plate event - which ran over three nights, August 16-18 - sold out in three minutes this year, with more than 5000 people wanting in on 240 seats. One particular prisoner’s penchant for pasta contributed to a scallop tortellini entree and a vegetarian main course with pea ravioli. He used to be a chef in an Italian restaurant before he was incarcerated, so he used that knowledge for the menu. ’’They told us, ‘Do what you know’, and I know Italian so I did pasta.’’

The prisoners were guided by Wellington chefs Martin Bosley, Chetan Pangam and Amy Gillies.

It is Bosley’s fourth year with Gate to Plate, whereas it is the first year for both Pangam, executive chef of One80 Restaurant, and Gillies, co-owner and head chef of Salty Pidgin.

Gillies is the first female chef to have worked with the prisoners, and although she admits she found the idea ‘‘a little bit freaky to begin with’’, she never felt unsafe.

‘‘It’s pretty intense in there, it’s not in anyone’s comfort zone, but there were no issues.’’

‘‘They thought the mushroom dessert sounded weird at first, but they really enjoyed it when they tried it.’’

Through Gate to Plate, one prisoner has developed a passion for both fermentation and molecular gastronomy, Bosley says.

‘‘Someone brought [him] a book on Korean cooking, so he became a bit of an expert in kimchi. The kitchen became full of fermenting cabbage; science experiments all around.’’

That prisoner made sauerkraut and caviar served with oyster canapes.