Wednesday 24^th May

MAIN: Champions Guard Of Honour

The Main dish is a big day, it’s involves the most work for me with so many elements to my dish.

I’m really passionate about this dish, with the lamb being reared and slaughtered especially for me for the show by my best friends and next door neighbours, Geoff and John.  It was well fed so has loads of tasty fat, so I knew it would be an amazing base for my main dish. It did however mean the the pressure was monumentally upped! As the produce was prepared especially for me I felt it was down to my culinary skills to hopefully do it justice. I also had, in the back of my mind, the feeling of how awful it would feel to return home to the disappointed faces of John and Geoff if I overcooked it.

Scariest thing about the dish is that you don’t know how the lamb is going to be cooked until its cut open. Its really that moment of zero or hero. It was so tense to have to wait and see what it looked like in fornt of Jeremy. But thankfully it turned out banging!

When it comes to cooking Lamb it’s so important to render the fat thoroughly. I was determined to get it perfect on this, which did result in very burnt hands and hairless arms covered in lamb fat. Worth it though!

Josh was cooking lamb as well, but in a very different way which I always always find interesting. Josh was water bathing his and then BBQing, so I think mine was is definitely more traditional, something that I hoped would appeal to Jeremy. Josh’s Borscht was mega tasty though. It’s something I’ve never made, or eaten much of before but I really hope he has it on at the restaurant next time I go!

Danny was doing sucklink pig, again the same as the rest of the week he had linked it so well to the brief. He’d done an awful lot of research and really deserved his high scores. Interestingly all 4 of Danny’s dishes were strongly linked to Wimbledon whereas mine and Josh’s were more half and half with the Wimbledon theme and really Summer dishes. It’s become apparent that it was the Wimbledon reference that seemed to be getting the scores.

So I’m absolutely made up to finally get a 10! I’m pretty exhausted after all that as I’ve really given it everything I’ve got. I knew I needed to pull it out of the bag, as the other guys were scoring so highly. Also to be considered seriously and get anything to the banquet you really need to be getting those 10s.

It really is neck and neck now. I feel slightly better than day one at least, but it’s not over yet, there’s still so much that can change and so much to fight for. I can’t wait to get back in the kitchen and showcase my dessert.  I feel that there’s only going to be one point in it and one of us is of course going to be disappointed. It almost feels a little unfair that someone has to go home as we’ve all tried so hard, but that’s the way it is!

The Scores:

Danny 8 Josh 8 Tommy 10

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