Warlingham Masterchef is a Business & Enterprise and Food Technology simulation which has been running annually at the School over the last three years. This year saw a twist to the established format of the day which previously comprised a demonstration by the Chefs followed by the students replicating the dishes within a given time frame. This year, Chef Owens and Rigby devised a series of simple recipes (approximately three per group) which they compiled into a ’recipe pack’ one of which was given to each group of students. The format was devised to help the students achieve simple but tasty results using great ingredients and learn a trick or two along the way! 

 

This year the chefs showed the 14 year olds the basics of food preparation, explaining all the different techniques and ingredients needed to reproduce the recipes. The students were then asked to get into groups and each team was given a selection of two to three dishes to prepare. The teams had to work together and follow the recipes to produce the selected dishes. Most of the students had very basic cooking experience and had certainly never cooked any of the chosen dishes before. To add a further challenging twist, the groups were not even given a photograph of the final product and therefore needed to tap in to their inner creativity to produce both tasty and attractive dish, blindly! What followed were two hours of peeling, chopping, dissecting, grinding, blanching and other cooking techniques followed by some of the most delicious, mouth-watering and attractive dishes ever produced during a Warlingham Masterchef event. These included Hummus, Roast Chicken and perfect roast potatoes, Summer Pudding, salsa, Treacle Tart with short crust pastry, Greek Salad, Chocolate & Black Cherry Trifle, Pesto Sauce, Braised Red Cabbage with Apple, Eton Mess, Apple Crumble, Spinach & Butter Bean Bruschetta, Petit Pois A La Francaise, Carrots Vichy, Vanilla Cheesecakes, Smoothies, Savoury Puffs and Pigs in Blankets.

 

Chef Owens, who is the Craft Guild of Chefs, Schools & Colleges Representative, said: “The students took on this challenge in a very positive manner. They followed the instructions well and really drew upon their culinary creativity to produce some excellent cooking. They needed to plan well to ensure their dishes were cooked to perfection whilst taking into account the presentation and watching the clock to ensure they kept to the time constraints.” Chef Rigby, Premier Foods Development Chef, also said: “The students have really engaged in the event and the results are testimony to this. They have learnt lots of techniques today and have produced, from scratch, some very delicious but simple dishes. We chose to challenge them with producing more than one dish during the event to show them first hand just how easy it is to cook good food well within a limited time. Cooking is simple if you’re using simple ingredients and you understand what it is you're trying to achieve.” 

 

The final part of the event was for the judges, Assistant Headteachers, Mr Day and Mrs Needs, to sample the end products and choose a winning team based on presentation and taste. This proved to be a very tall but tasty order, as both Mr Day and Mrs Needs found it to be an incredibly difficult decision to make as they ploughed through the myriad of delicious dishes on display. With the help of the chefs who had worked with the teams, the Assistant Headteachers reached a decision and awarded a group with the winning prize. All of the students who participated in this event were given a certificate and Chef Rigby presented them with a ‘goodie bag’ courtesy of Premier Foods.