197. Another Local Chef In Masterchef The Professionals.

  BBC’s Masterchef The Professionals ploughs on with the appearance of a second Birmingham/West Midlands chef, a mother of four, Yasmine Selwood from Wednesbury who was a Chef de Partie at Adam’s when the filming took place. It’s fair to say that she did not get off to a great start, being asked by Monica Galetti to prepare a chicken kofta with flat bread and cucumber salad. She failed to cook the chicken kofta early enough in the twenty minutes that she was allowed to prepare the dish with the result that it contained inedible raw minced chicken when presented to the judges. But all was not lost as the three other competitors also made a pig’s ear (not literally) of the skills test.

 

 Then it was on to the signature dish round in which Selwood had 90 minutes to prepare two courses and prepared a dish of brill, spring vegetables (asparagus, broad beans and peas) and white wine and cream sauce split by chive oil. The sauce was made using mussels and the bones from the brill and the dish was that which Selwood had prepared in her final college examinations. Marcus Waring, obviously impressed with the dish, described it as, “Good, clean, crisp cookery” and it clearly had the edge over the main course dishes of the other competitors. Her dessert was caramelised white chocolate mousse with blood orange jelly and orange flavours with a sablé Breton biscuit which Waring said should have “a lightness” and be, “crumbly, melt in the mouth, almost buttery”. The dessert indeed was very well received by the judges though Waring felt that the jelly needed to have a more potent orange flavour. But the success of both the main course and the dessert ensured that Yasmine Selwood was the most highly placed chef of the four in that heat and therefore was put through to the quarter-finals. She showed natural Brummie good humour throughout and it was a pleasure to watch her success.

  Here are the latest ‘tweets, not numerous (one, actually), from the stray Michelin Guide inspectors who have ventured into these Mercian borderlands. This gives us an idea of what our region’s representation in the 2022 Guide will look like (see also Blogs 195, 193, 192 and 187).

28 November - About 8 (see Blog 163) - currently has a Michelin plate.