Young cook wins Aspiring Chef Challenge
Young cook wins Aspiring Chef Challenge
Eilidh Davidson emerged as the overall winner in the Scotch Beef Young Aspiring Chef Challenge, sponsored by Quality Meat Scotland.
Aspiring young chef Eilidh Davidson pictured at home on the family farm, West Cortiecram near Mintlaw.
The competition gives young chefs the opportunity to demonstrate their innovation and talent as well as highlighting the quality of local produce like Scotch Beef, Scotch Lamb and Specially Selected Pork.
17 year old Davidson who is studying professional cookery at North East Scotland College in Aberdeen and helps on her family’s 550 acre mixed farm, won the event after a cook-off final at Taste of Grampian held at Thainstone last month.
Davidson used fillet of beef which she bought from Donald Russell in Inverurie in her award-winning menu. She said: “It was important to me to use a piece of local beef – I like to know where my ingredients come from.”
Her winning menu was a main course of Fillet of Scotch Beef, fondant potatoes, leek and mushroom stew, red wine and shallot sauce. This was followed by a dessert of baked vanilla cheesecake, lemon curd ice-cream and macerated strawberries.
Eilidh’s first prize is a one week Hospitality Industry Trust Scotland Scholarship which can be tailored to her future career, a £200 voucher for kitchen equipment and a signed cook book from Lady Claire Macdonald, one of the judges at the competition.
