Cumbrian cook wins Essential Cuisine North West Young Chef competition

15 June 2011 by
Cumbrian cook wins Essential Cuisine North West Young Chef competition

A Cumbrian chef has won this year's http://www.craftguildofchefs.org/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">Essential Cuisine ](http://www.essentialcuisine.com/)North West Young Chef competition with some help from his mother's 25-year-old pressure cooker and some wild foraged ingredients.

Andrew Postlethwaite, the 21-year-old chef de partie at the [Castle Green hotel](http://www.castlegreen.co.uk/) in Kendal, triumphed in the cook-off between the five finalists at Manchester College's Fielden Campus in Didbury.

His winning stab at a three-course meal for two using North-west produce costing no more than £25 comprised:

â- Rump of home-reared mutton, lamb cheeks, sweetbreads, Collie Wobbles ale, asparagus, goat's curd, cauliflower and ramsons
â- Summer berries, sheep's milk ice-cream, elderflower and wood sorrel

Postlethwaite used his mum's pressure cooker to braise the lamb's cheeks, which helped reduce cooking times and seal in the flavour, and foraged many of his ingredients locally.

He found the wood sorrel and wild garlic in woods around the hotel; picked strawberries, blueberries, elderflower, gooseberries, radishes and chives from his parent's farm in Lambrigg near Kendal and his grandmother's garden; and tracked down sea herbs such as sea aster, purslane, and samphire in the Lake District,

Judge Nigel Crane said Postlethwaite had proved"extremely creative" in his approach and had abided by the golden rules of great cooking while keeping it hot, simple, local and in season.

Postlethwaite wins a two-week stage at top European restaurant, a year's free membership of the [Craft Guild of Chefs, and set of professional Chroma chefs' knives.

He also wins automatic entry into both the National Young Chef of the Year final at the Restaurant Show and the Visionary Dining Chef of the Year finals, where he will be pitched against head and executive head chefs

The runner-up was 18-year-old Danielle Heron, a second-year catering student at Manchester College and a trainee chef at Ramson of Ramsbottom, Bury.

The other finalists were:

â- Cheshire - Andrew Sheridan, executive sous chef Abode's Café Bar & Grill, Chester
â- Lancashire - Lewis Gallagher, commis chef, Cassis at Stanley House, Mellor
â- Merseyside - Rikki Vidamour, chef de partie, London Carriage Works, Liverpool

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