Experience of cooking competition

Hello everyone! Today I would like to share with you one exciting news. When I had started blogging I had never ever thought I would be writing out recipes apart from general random stuff but encouraged by my friends and learning from them I had been putting up things I cook in my kitchen.  So last week I got one amazing chance and I took it up.

There is one newspaper cityplus  here in Mumbai which serves locality wise news and they had one ad which said send us your recipes which can be cooked in 30minutes for mother’s day contest. Seeing this I thought why not let me try here? Without much thought I sent in my dish and promptly forgot all about it till  I got a mail last week which said  my entry has been shortlisted.  I along with 6 more shortlisted contestants were invited to a nearby mall and cook our dish in front of well known judge Amit Puri, corporate chef,  Pan India foods 

Needless to say I was elated, surprised and hell lot nervous and  I was blank for few minutes after reading the mail. I thought this cant be true or can it be. Well, here was my chance to be in limelight, I guess, heheh.

I answered the mail back confirming my attendance and more than anything else I was keen to guess learn to control my nerves and get a wonderful experience and maybe learn a thing or two.

Well  this Sunday on May 13^th I along with my family went to the mall. We were told about  7 shortlisted contestants but three didn’t turn up due to some reasons. We had to carry our utensils and crockery plus ingredients ourselves and they provided induction burner. Seeing the burner I though o-oh! How  am I suppose to understand how this thing works and how would I control the temperature here, but luckily the burner techie guy was at help. First me and one other lady were called.  And the big blooper came from the burner itself. It just wont heat up our vessels and then they said this vessel wont work, so now, what to do? Solution was at hand and they gave us the vessel. It was easy after that. My burner heated up so fast that I had to make the guy switch it off fast. Hehe

So well I finished fast though in my nervousness I guessed I didn’t put the masalas correctly. While we were cooking judge came in front to ask what are you making and how would it come out etc. so well I did answer nicely but guess judge is judge, he saw through my nervousness. Hehe

Once done, Mr Puri  tasted it and he liked it. He asked how is this upma eaten or with what? I told him its anytime snack and even the left over bread is used up here. Afterwards I offered everyone there to taste and they all liked it.  After  our turn was over the other two contestants did their dish and finally result was announced, I along with another contestant were jointly tied in third place and then there was second winner and the winner. We all got food vouchers of some restaurants and participation certificate plus I think winner got a bigger hamper. 

All in all it was wonderful experience to be part of this  programme  and now knowing this I would try again and to improve further. Winning or losing was not the point here anyways.

And yes my dish was INSTANT BREAD UPMA. Click on the name to read the recipe.


My winning entry link  at cityjagranplus

And that's how I had  a great Mother's Day. thanks to cityplus.

Posted in: amit Puri,bread upma,cooking,cooking competition,India,mother'sday