Annual competition offers culinary delights
Continuing their aim of helping young people thrive, Spalding Rotary Club this week presented their annual Young Chef competition.
This year’s event was kindly hosted by Tim Mardle, Head of DT at Spalding Grammar School and featured junior chefs from there competing with candidates from Spalding High School and Bourne Academy.
Returning as Head judge was chef Tom Hannam of Peterborough College. He was supported by Lynn Markham and Hayley Green from Bakkavor Pizza, Holbeach, who jointly sponsored this year’s competition with Bakkavor Meals, Spalding.
The kitchen facilities at the Grammar school provided a great backdrop as the young chefs got underway. Before long the aromas of Italian herbs were competing with the spices of South Asia. The competitors had 90 minutes to produce a main course and dessert. The only sounds were the clanging of saucepans and hissing of steam as the chefs remained quietly focused on their tasks and cooking times.
Then came the time for the meals to be presented to the judges. Head judge Tom told the competitors ‘The standard was phenomenal’. All the chefs produced amazing dishes and the scoring was very close, however it was the Italian flavours that won the day.
First prize was awarded to Alero Milorin of Spalding High School. Their dish, called ‘Simple Elegance’ consisted of fresh tagliatelli with a creamy tomato sauce and pan-seared chicken breast, followed by crisp meringue pavlova and seasonal berries.
Second prize was awarded to Isla Stockdale of Spalding High School for their ‘Autumn Dinner’ of handmade tagliatelli in a butternut squash sauce with herby roasted potatoes. This was followed by spiced pear and apple oat crumble.
Third prize went to Sophia Campbell of Bourne Academy for their meal titled ‘An Evening in Italy’. This consisted of a pea and mint risotto with parmesan cylinders, with a mango rose tart dessert.
The other young chefs were Jotham Suwarneraj who produced a chicken biryani; Aymen Al-Ghazo, cooking chicken strips with crushed potatoes; Zak Hurley-Roe with his Tuscan salmon; and Shreya Dhawol, who hand crafted tortellini parcels stuffed with pumpkin.
As winner, Alero received a £50 prize and now goes forward to the district competition, to be held at Loughborough College in February. From there she has the chance of competing in the Rotary Young Chef final in London.
Rotary Club president Graham Dawson said, ‘We are always delighted to host this competition. One of Rotary’s key aims is to offer young people the opportunity to develop their skills and broaden their horizons. We would love to see more schools from across South Holland take part in next year’s competition’.
The standard of cooking was very high. Below are a selection of photgraphs from the evening
