NORTH Festival has brought back its Junior Chef Masterclass for a third consecutive year to get children passionate about cooking. Video by Aaron Smith (11/10/24)
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00This is our third Junior Chef Masterclass, so we started this three years ago when North started and so this is now our third one.
00:11So team challenges, really wanting to connect with young people, show them different pathways that are available to them.
00:19Because we also have Hope Cafe which is teaching young people about hospitality, it's a perfect segue through to that.
00:27For the first two years we ran it upstairs at our place on St John Street and this year Drysdale have volunteered to allow us to use their space.
00:38So the young people instead of working with electric fry pans and things like that are now working in a fully functioning commercial kitchen which is a big step for a lot of them.
00:47I went for a French toast theme because obviously you're dealing with 9 to 13 year old children, it's a bit careful on the whole knives and things.
00:55So basically I thought French toast, a little bit of a twist, so we're doing a savoury version, we're doing a sweet version.
01:02And they're getting to use a lot of technique as in fry pans and using the gas, using the knives, so yeah I think it's been a really good experience.
01:11Obviously they're into dessert now so that's the one they really want to go for.
01:15It's actually quite quiet in the back there so yeah, so no it's been really good.
01:21I think the first thing I cooked was an old fashioned apple dumpling which was hollow and it had raisins in there and cinnamon covered in pastry and baked in the oven.
01:32It was the first thing I remember cooking and I went yeah I love this, you know my hands were dirty and it was great.
01:37And then from there on I was 13 and a half to KFC and then just went from there.
01:43So that could potentially be the starting point for one of the kids in each case.
01:48Yeah absolutely, this is where it all begins.
01:50The biggest thing I talk to them about is this is a guide, you can actually play with this, do what you want with it.
01:57Add prosciutto, add mortadella, add your favourite ingredients to it, experiment because food is about experimentation.
02:04So yeah hopefully they continue on.