Droylsden Academy hosts MasterChef competition for pupils

On Wednesday 18 January, budding chefs from Droylsden Academy dusted off their aprons to take part in the annual MasterChef Competition final.

The event, held at Tameside One campus in Ashton, proved to be a roaring success with three year seven pupils (Bethany Mwocha, Nassim Rivoire and Tyler Wolstencroft) competing in the final.

The contest had seen students from years seven to ten participating in three previous rounds before a select trio of them faced the judges, all of whom were professionals from within the catering trade.

Despite the standard being exceptionally high, the judges decided to crown Nassim Rivoire as their winner with his delicious Moroccan inspired meal of lemon, olive and herb chicken with paprika chips and a dessert of chocolate brownie.

Nick Lowe, cover supervisor & event's coordinator at Droylsden Academy, said: "The students have brought all of their own ingredients in and today's theme is completely up to them, but two courses must be incorporated - this can be a starter and a main or a main and a dessert.

"The year sevens have done really well this year. I gave them twelve different courses to choose from for the semi-final; I must admit, most of them chose peri peri chicken and wedges with coleslaw but they have to make everything from scratch so there's no jars used.

"The winner will receive a MasterChef apron, a trophy, a cookbook and they'll be invited back to be a judge at the following year's competition. Some of them take this opportunity, some of them don't... some of them want to try and win again!

"I love watching MasterChef, so when I started at the school it was really something that I wanted to introduce to the students - I wanted to give young people a chance to develop their cooking skills because I'm a big believer in it. The competition has been running for five years now and has been a huge success. We also do a Great Droylsden Bake Off too."

The school commented: "Congratulations to Nassim Rivoire from Year 7 who was crowned the new Droylsden Academy MasterChef Champion 2023 at last week's final, held at the prestigious Tameside One Restaurant in Ashton. Congratulations also go to Bethany Mwocha and Tyler Wolstencroft, this year's runners up, who, along with Nassim, had successfully reached the final having won through the earlier qualifying rounds held at school."