Young Chef 2015

Ailsa McCulloch is Kirkcudbright Rotary Young Chef Winner 2015

Last Thursday the 8th October, Ailsa McCulloch, aged 15, gained first place in the Rotary Young Chef competition organised jointly by the Rotary Club of Kirkcudbright and Kirkcudbright Academy. The competition, which has been run locally for the past eight years, is open to anyone aged 11 to 17 years old. The five senior pupils taking part each cooked a two course meal for two, using local ingredients, all for under £10 paid to them by the Rotary Club. This year, for the first time, the event was co-sponsored by Kirkcudbright Rotary Club and Castle MacLellan Foods Limited who provided the prize money, aprons bearing the Castle MacLellan logo and a goody bag for the winner containing amongst other things, a copy of Paul Holywood's '’ Bread''.

All five students performed really well and for their efforts they received Rotary certificates and a cooking apron from Castle MacLellan. Ailsa’s winning menu was as a starter fresh mussels in a creamy white wine sauce and for her main course, strips of fillet steak in a dijon mustard and mushroom sauce. Runner-up in the competition was 17 years old Dawn Sefton whose main course was pad Thai (a traditional Thai noodle dish with seared prawns and for her dessert she prepared coconut lime pie (a Thai twist on the traditional key lime pie). In third place was 16 years old Eilidh Fisher and the prize for Best Table Setting went to Katie Heron.

The Rotary Young Chef Competition was designed to give young people the chance to show off their creative culinary talents, to promote healthy eating and to learn important life skills. The young chefs are all judged on their healthy menu, planning and organisational skills, hygiene, preparation skills and, of course, the taste and presentation of the final dishes.

The prizes were presented by Kirkcudbright Faculty Head Alastair Millar.  As in previous years, Rotary worked closely with the Home Economics Department at Kirkcudbright Academy and particular thanks must go to Nicola Cluckie her enthusiastic support of the event.

The competition was judged by Tom Kirkpatrick and by Paul Wilkinson from The Castle Bistro in Kirkcudbright.  The judges were all once again enormously impressed by the dishes produced by the students. They commented that their meals compared very favourably with the meals that they had eaten at many good restaurants. They also praised the Home Economics Department for continuing to develop the now well established tradition of talented young chefs.

Ailsa and Dawn will now go through to the next round of the competition, the Rotary Area Competition, which will be held at Kirkcudbright Academy on Wednesday 25^th November. This stage is then followed, hopefully, by participation in the District, Regional and finally the National competition!

In addition to the prizes awarded to her on the day, Ailsa will now also get the opportunity to assist the the four professional chefs appearing at the Kirkcudbright Food Festival 'Four Chefs, One Venue, One day' on the 25th October as well as spending a full day working in the Castle MacLellan Development Kitchen alongside their Development Chef.

On the previous day five young aspirant chefs took part in their own Junior Young Chef              competition. Set up as a developmental opportunity for the younger students at the Academy, the five young students taking part each cooked a one course meal for two, using local ingredients, for under £5 each provided by Kirkcudbright Rotary Club. This competition was won by Ailsa       McCulloch two years ago. The winner this year, chosen by Rotarian judges Gordon Cowan and Keith Mannion was 14 years old, Hannah Garside who also won the best Place Setting prize. Her winning menu was locally sourced salmon fillet with fresh home-grown chives, thyme, rosemary, parsley and a honey soy sauce served with French beans, carrots, new potatoes and brown bread. Runner-up was Lauren McLachlan, also 14 whilst Kaye Nicolas, 13, finished third.