Charlotte cooks her way to young chef title

IT was probably her extra attention to detail which won 13-year-old Charlotte Hutton the title of The Hunts Post Junior Chef 2010 on Saturday.

Her ginger and caramel apple pudding already sounded appetising, but the young cook then went on to create some beautiful sugar work to accompany her dessert and decorated the dish with icing sugar, leaving an outline of a fork on the plate.

It was impressive stuff – and it certainly had the right effect on the judges following the cook-off at the Saxongate Centre in Huntingdon.

Phil Walters, head chef from The Marriott Hotel, which sponsors the award, was one of the judges along with his colleague, Axel Henke, director of operations.

“I’m just amazed at the level of creativity among all of the young chefs and the skills they have shown,” Mr Walters said.

Charlotte’s main dish was meatball curry – a blend of thai red curry with coconut milk, cinnamon, ginger, chickpeas, butternut squash, honey, tomatoes, coriander and sweet potato served with rice.

The third judge was John Betham, a chef who has been helping with the competition since its inception four years ago.

He told The Hunts Post that standards had been exceptionally high this year. “Charlotte showed some great skills – it is the first time we have had sugar work in this competition and the use of wild rice with the curry added some crunch.

Charlotte, who lives in Spaldwick and has been cooking for four years, won an iPod Touch as well as an award and goodies donated by the Marriott Hotel and Huntingdonshire District Council.

The other three young chefs were Michael Jones, of Somersham, who cooked fillet of pork in white wine and for pudding a chocolate fondant, Alice Jackson, of Offord D’Arcy, who cooked turkey stroganoff and apple puff pies and Tabitha Culkin, of St Neots, who cooked soy and ginger sticky pork and crumbly fudge brownies – described as some of the best the chefs had tasted.