Bishop's Stortford Rotary Club Young Chef of the Year 2013

Published on isbi School News dated Thursday 27th of June 2013

Bishop's Stortford College Senior School pupil, Jin Phung, was named overall Young Chef 2013 at the Bishop's Stortford Rotary Club's annual culinary competition.

Fellow chef and Lower Fifth pupil, Lizzie Wood, reports on the team's experience:

On Thursday the 6th of June, three young chefs stepped forth onto the battle field that was the Bishops Stortford Rotary Club Young Chef cooking competition. After weeks of practice, Will Daniels, Jin Phung and Lizzie Wood felt prepared to cook and serve a three course meal for two people with a budget of £15. We had to cook and present all three dishes in just one and a half hours, whilst being marked on certain qualities such as tidiness, cleanliness, nutrition and, let's not forget, cooking skills. Multi-tasking was essential for survival on the day.

During the cooking nothing too eventful occurred � except when the flour to bake the fondant pudding completely vanished (Mrs Hood located it in the car boot AFTER the competition) and when the team had a slight misunderstanding about how to turn the oven on and the chicken brochettes were just sitting in there rather than cooking. This last incident meant we had to fry the brochettes at the very last minute, and we had to hope that they were cooked through. In the end, they seemed alright. However we may have had points deducted for this in our final score. At least we didn't cause a gas explosion!

After what seemed an eternity of waiting for the judges to taste our meals and count up points, the presentation of the awards began. The winners and runners-up in the junior category were both teams from Leventhorpe, leaving only the senior results and our team's fate to be decided. In the end, our team was the runner-up, with Leventhorpe again snatching the title, apparently by only one point. The next announcement was the overall chef who had been chosen by the judges as the best chef in the whole competition. We were absolutely delighted to hear that Jin had won this prestigious title. He will now be progressing to the next round to cook again, but this time on his own, but not alone; we will all be there with him in spirit. Perhaps he will go all the way to the National!

Thanks must go to Mrs. Hood for organising the team to be entered into the competition and being so patient when she was teaching the young chefs how to cook the individual dishes. The team would also like to thank Mr. Griffin and the other School House boys who were so generous about lending the team their kitchen, and so happy and willing to try out the dishes which needed tasting. Let's be honest: there were a few interesting combinations on the way.