Vegging out: Pete helps Jessica and Jennie prepare the salads David Parry/TLP

I really can’t cook. Last time I had a dinner party (and that was a year ago), my friends had to take over the horrific minestrone I was making as I hyperventilated in a corner. So it looks like Pete Lien is my personal saviour.

A 36-year-old former ­restaurant chef from Forest Hill, with Chinese, Indian and English heritage, Lien’s set up a business that could get culinary idiots like me scoring a perfect 10 on Come Dine With Me. Provided you live in central or south-east London, he’ll turn up on your doorstep mid-­afternoon with a car full of shopping bags and give you and a few friends an intensive four-hour cooking course, concentrating on the food of your choice.

At the end, you get to ­invite some more mates over and eat the results as a lavish three- course meal. You can learn to cook anything, but Lien provides a list of ready-made menus if you’re short of ideas.

It was sunny on the day I decided to give it a shot, so we went with a barbecue: butterflied sardines, marinated pork and north ­African-style chicken skewers grilled over coals, served with two salads, and summer berry vacherins (that’s flat meringues topped with cream) for dessert.

More cookery schools with a difference

After a talk on barbecue tips (throw wet woodchips into the mix to give an extra smoky flavour), my friend Jennie and I set about learning how to gut fish, joint chickens, roast herbs, and chop veg with ninja precision. Patience, it seems, is key. And, astonishingly, I didn’t screw up! Nigella, I’m coming for your job.

Dining Class launched in April as a response to two things: the stress of organising a dinner party on your own, and the anticlimax you get with regular cooking courses, when you take the food back home to eat in front of the telly.

It’s not cheap – prices start at £240 for two people cooking and four eating – but when you take off the cost of the food provided and ­factor in the new skills you get, it’s pretty good value.

Lien’s had groups of men learning how to cook for their girlfriends, as well as people just wanting to ­improve their culinary ­capabilities in a friendly ­environment. But what ­everyone raves about is him doing the washing up while they dig into the food.

“People are trying to be more professional about dinner parties,” he points out. “But it’s not about being competitive. It’s about ­everyone mucking in and learning together.”

On the menu

Butterflied sardines

Tomato, onion & ­caper salad

Marinated chicken skewers

Cajun-rubbed chicken legs

Bulgar wheat, walnut, celery & pomegranate salad

Braised and BBQed pork belly with five-spice glaze

Red pepper, cauliflower, bean sprout & cashew salad with sweet soy & lime

Vacherins with summer berries