Do you watch the likes of Jamie Oliver and Gordon Ramsay from behind the sofa, wishing for once they would ditch the shrimps and bacon and prepare a nice kosher dinner?

Well worry not, New York's Centre for Kosher Culinary Arts is offering students courses in preparing fully kosher
cuisine.

More than 125 students have taken part over the past two years. Devorah-Leah Benson, 19, from Ilford, Essex, was one of them.

She said: "I was looking around for a good cookery school to go to because I really loved to cook. It was amazing. I learnt a lot of skills that I did not think you could do in the kosher world." She said she was thrilled to learn how to make sauces for chicken and a range of parev deserts.

Chef Philippe Kaemmerle, CKCA's lead instructor, said: "It is a learning process and a wonderful challenge to work on the recipe substitutions necessary for kosher baking. Generally, substitutions such as margarine, rice milk and whipped toppings all work well."

He said it is hoped the courses will allow students to benefit fully from a professional cookery education, without relying on coursemates to taste non-kosher dishes as happens at other culinary schools.