Fuller's Thai chefs try UK favourites

Fish and chips, Yorkshire pudding and Sunday roasts will soon be appearing on the menu at pubs better known for their Thai curries and noodles.

West-London brewer Fuller's has held a training session with a difference, to teach some of its chefs how to cook traditional British dishes.

Although the dishes featured in the training session can be found on pub menus all over the country, the chefs taking part in the training normally spend their days cooking up more exotic dishes at Fuller's pubs known for their Thai food.

Ten chefs took part in the training session organised by Fuller's executive chef Darren Massey and operations manager Una Moir, to make sure they could offer customers high-quality Thai food and more traditional dishes.

"Our Thai chefs have had no formal training in creating British dishes," said Mr Massey. "Their experience of cooking Thai food is handed down from generation to generation. We wanted to give them specific knowledge of British dishes."

The chefs were taken through exactly how to cook 50 traditional British dishes. Each meal was photographed as it was cooked and used to create a reference book the chefs can use in their own kitchens.

The training day was not as straight-forward as might be imagined.

"We had a number of cultural and conceptual differences to overcome," said Mr Massey. "For example if you mentioned Yorkshire pudding, they would assume that this was a dessert and that it should be accompanied by custard.

"Although they can cook Thai food better than we ever could, they had difficulty with methods such as roasting, as they do not regularly use them."

All the chefs were keen to learn about British food and will be putting everything they learned on the day into practice at their pubs.