A Masterchef Challenge

Gilly Weaver

Food Studies Assistant

The Year 10 Food Studies students recently embarked on a Masterchef Challenge - and the results were fabulous!

Working in teams of two,  each team was assigned a different 'hero' ingredient upon which they had to base their menu item.  After deciding on their dish, each team submitted a food order to the value of $6.00 (not including their hero ingredient cost) which I then sourced in preparation for the challenge.

On the day, the teams had just 60 minutes to prepare, cook and plate up their dish in readiness for the judges to assess their efforts.  The Food Studies kitchen was buzzing with excitement and activity - a clamour of pots and pans, furious slicing, dicing and marinating, frying, baking, steaming and sautéing - the teams worked up a sweat and delivered a diverse array of tasty offerings.

Judging was conducted by Principal, Karen Harris, and myself - and it was a treat to talk to each team about the consideration and work that they had put into each dish both prior to and during the challenge. The dishes were so delicious - and as judges we enjoyed every mouthful.

Choosing the winning dish was a very hard job,   so well done to all of the students who worked  with such enthusiasm - you are all winners in my mind!

Adam Merhi

I enjoyed trying to get the correct amounts of herbs, spice sand sauces to marinate the eat.  I also enjoyed plating the dish as it had different layers - and looked and tasted magnificent!

Daniel Rispoli & Cian McDowall

We constructed a delicious, mouthwatering apple crumble. During the process, we both enjoyed baking and plating the dish.

Ryan Chuah & Harry Lalor

The Masterchef assessment was a really enjoyable task, as we felt as if it was a real challenge.  Our hero ingredient was pasta, and so we decided to make a cake out of pasta -  as this is both unique and appealing.  The whole process was great!

William Denholm & Ava Sanders

We really loved the challenge as well as the opportunity to cook some great food and to explore different [cooking] techniques.  Ricotta was our hero ingredient, so we made deep fried, stuffed zucchini flowers - and they were excellent!

Max Hampton

The Masterchef Challenge basically called on all of the skills we have learned in our Food Studies classes - planning, task management and presentation. It was a difficult challenge, but a really enjoyable experience!

And the winning dish....

Tameka Brown & Caitlin Evans

This was a challenging and fun assessment. Our hero ingredient was rice. We chose to make bimbimbap - a Korean dish of beef, vegetables, rice and bimbimbap sauce, all topped with an egg.  We chose this because of the complex flavours and bright colours in the dish.  We are so excited that Ms Harris and Gilly judged our dish the best!

See the action and some examples of the delicious dishes on offer - just click to enlarge the photos.