Jaine Blackman discovers there’s such a thing as a steam oven and tries her hand at dim sum

You know you’re not in a run of the mill appliance showroom when someone excitedly tells you “I just saw Tony Hadley and his wife looking round”.

While I was explaining to the younger members of our group that he was the suave lead vocalist of the huge-in-the-1980s, New Romantic band Spandau Ballet – and a couple of us broke in to a quick rendition of their hit Gold – our instructor hurriedly closed the door to the demonstration kitchen and it was down to work.

We were at the Miele Experience Centre in Abingdon to learn the art of making sushi and dim sum.

The flagship centre, at Fairacres, off Marcham Road, is part of the Miele GB headquarters which spans 13.5 acres and also includes offices, a customer contact centre, workshops and warehousing. The company moved to the purpose-built offices in 1981, with the centre opening in 2005.

It’s an impressive place; all sleek lines and gleaming appliances.

People who own or are considering buying Miele products – which include laundry appliances; vacuum cleaners; dishwashers; rotary irons; built-in convection, steam, and speed ovens; hobs (cooker hoods, cook tops); freestanding and built-in refrigerators, freezers and wine coolers; and coffee systems – can “interact” with them.

The products displayed are all electronically connected and some of the machines are fully live, giving people the opportunity to try out wash results with a favourite garment, or see the results of an oven on a favourite recipe.

Yes, you can take your laundry in!

The centre also holds demonstrations, stand-alone cookery classes and owners’ courses.

“We have been running experiential events at Miele for over 10 years,” says Miele GB spokeswoman Zoe Carter.

“The longest running course is our Let’s Do Lunch demonstrations which are ideal for learning about Miele’s cooking appliances, if you’re considering having them in your kitchen.

“We launched our standalone cookery courses five years ago.

“We have a passion for great food at Miele and wanted to host events where we talked more about the food and less about the appliances. Our team of in-house home economists wanted to share their skills and knowledge with a wider audience of like-minded people.”

Which is where I came in. I was invited along to the centre for the first sushi and dim sum course along with a couple of food bloggers. We were joined by one of the company’s experts who goes to people’s homes to show them how to get the best from their products (visits cost £250-£450 and can last for more than four hours); a current Miele customer (the envy of the class) and another who was planning to buy.

The class was led by home economists Annemarie Barrett and Elspeth Smith, two of the three full time home economists on staff; the third is Annemarie’s daughter Rebecca, 24, who specialises in patisserie.

There are also two food technicians who helpfully have all the ingredients weighted out and chopped up ready for us to practice our “skills” on.

This was the way to cook – no time-consuming prep work and two highly knowledgeable tutors on hand.

Foolproof eh? Well, not entirely. Paired up in teams and carried away with our “expertise”, blogger Jo Kenny (yumdimsum.me) and I certainly finished our spicy dim sum parcels quicker than our classmates but when we went to make our dipping sauce realised we’d used all the ingredients in the filling.

Oops! It still tasted good and making the little dumplings was a lot easier than I’d been expecting.

Also during the course (£60), which ran from 10am to around 3pm, we learned how to make fluffy sweet and savoury steamed buns, had a go at rolling sushi, sampled sticky spare ribs and garlic and chilli chicken wings cooked in a Miele steam combination oven (delicious) and tucked in to the fruits of our labour.

I certainly learned some things along the way – not least that such a thing as a steam oven existed.

“The cooking technology we really like to champion at Miele is steam,” says Zoe.

“Steam is a powerful tool in the kitchen, with which you can do so much more than cook vegetables.

“There’s virtually no limit to what can be cooked in a combination steam oven.”

There was no hard sell but just being around such fabulous sleek machines, with touch screen technology and no end of special features, made me rather covetous and I could see how useful the courses would be if you were the owner one of the products and wanted to get the best out of it. With a starting price of £699 for a freestanding Miele steam oven, I’m not likely to be in that position any time soon.

But come that lottery win...

Courses include tapas, Thai, Indian, Italian, bread-making and patisserie. Call 0845 365 6610 or visit miele.co.uk for dates, prices and details of events and courses at Miele Experience Centre.

HAVE A GO AND MAKE YOUR OWN

Dumpling Dough
250g wheat starch (available from Asian supermarkets)
½ tsp salt
150ml boiling water
2 tbsp potato starch
1. In a bowl combine the wheat starch and salt. Add the boiling water and stir with a knife to make a paste.
2. Knead with your hands until smooth for one to two minutes. Sprinkle potato starch on to a work surface to ensure that the dough does not stick.
3. Roll the dough out until it is about 2mm thick (has to be very thin) and cut out the discs using a cutter. 
Note: This dough should be used warm. Stuff with filling straight away.
Spicy Beef Mix
170g fillet beef, finely chopped
2 large garlic cloves, peeled and finely chopped
2 tsp ginger, grated
2 spring onion, finely chopped
2 Birdseye chilli, finely chopped
2 tsp fish sauce
1 tsp light soy sauce
1 tsp sesame oil
Dim sum dough (see the previous recipe)

Dipping Sauce
2 tbsp black rice vinegar
4 tbsp light soy sauce
1 tbsp ginger syrup
1 tbsp coriander, chopped
½ small red pepper, very finely chopped
1 spring onion, very finely chopped
1. To make the beef filling, finely chop the beef and place into a bowl. Add the garlic, ginger, chilli and spring onion and mix well. Add the fish sauce, soy sauce and sesame oil and combine well.
2. To make the dipping sauce, combine all the ingredients and mix well.
3. Roll out the dough until very thin – approximately. 2mm thick. 
Place the filling into the dough cases and seal. 
Place in to a lightly greased, perforated steam container and steam at 100 degrees C for four minutes.
4. Place on to a warmed plate with bowl of dipping sauce and enjoy.
Makes 14-16.