My name is Rebecca Cahoon and I took part in the future chef competition. I found it to be an enjoyable, good learning experience for the future and also good practice for my H.E GCSE practical exam as it gave me a feel for how it feels to cook under time and pressure. My dish choices included; - Hake wrapped in parmaham with potatoes, carrots, a quenelle of celeriac and a red and yellow pepper sauce. - Choux pastry swans filled with cream with a chocolate sauce and raspberries. It was quite difficult trying to plan a main dish and a dessert for two within a £10 budget but it wasn’t as hard as I thought is would’ve been. We met up with our mentor, Damian, three times, once to choose our dishes which helped me a lot because I didn’t really have any ideas for what to cook, and the other two times to practice cooking the two dishes. This was helpful but I think if we maybe had another time to run through everything and cooking the dishes by ourselves without help or timed it would’ve also benefited us. I also practiced three more times at home but I could never get the potatoes to crisp up properly. I had never worked with hake or celeriac so it was nice to try cooking with new things and made me put a bit more effort to get it to turn out right. When we went to the competition it was a completely new experience to me, I had never cooked in a proper kitchen before and it felt to me like it was quite busy with the other competitors and parents, teachers and staff. Before and during the time we had to cook I tried to be calm and relaxed, I probably looked stupid because I kept talking and making faces at myself (which I tend to do to keep calm) but it worked and I never felt too stressed out or panicked, even though at times I was behind on time. Even though I didn’t win (which I didn’t really expect to anyway) I enjoyed seeing what other people had made and I’m happy I tried anyway because it was a great experience for me. I also felt that my H.E teacher, Mrs. Wallace, helped a lot through it as she kept us informed of everything and helped with planning (getting ingredients, the time plan and ingredients list). I wouldn’t mind doing the competition again as it was an enjoyable experience.
