The finalists for this year’s Junior Cook of the Year competition, run as part of Christchurch Food & Wine Festival, have been chosen from the three secondary schools in the Borough.

The competition, organised by Christchurch Food Festival Education Trust and sponsored by Christchurch Rotary, looks to find the best young cook from Year 10 pupils at Twynham, The Grange and Highcliffe Schools.

The Festival’s President, Mary Reader, introduced the competition earlier in the year along with local chefs Adam Scorer, Ian Hewitt and Paul Putt and the students then practiced their skills with the help of their own teachers.

Semi-finalists were chosen to represent each school and TV chef and Festival patron, Lesley Waters, was joined by Mary Reader and David Richardson from Christchurch Rotary to taste the food and choose the four winners for the final.

Amelia Preston from Twynham School impressed the judges with her duck breast with an orange sauce and a plum clafoutis. Ryan Barker from the Grange School served up baked chicken with a mixed vegetable ragout and a tarte aux pommes to win while Annabel Sami came up with a green prawn Thai curry and a lime tart with coconut cream to be named the Highcliffe School winner.

They will be joined in the final at 9.30am on Friday 7 May in the marquee in Saxon Square by the best overall runner-up from all schools, who was Shaydel Ramajan from Twynham School who presented lamb kebabs with Moroccan couscous and a pineapple flambé.

Lesley Waters was very impressed by the effort of all the students and said: “The standard has been absolutely amazing and they have come up with some really original ideas. A lot of different styles of food have got into the final and I’m looking forward to seeing if they’ve added any tweaks when we get to taste them then.

“It will be interesting to see how they stand up to cooking in front of a live audience and I wish them all the very best.”

The Young Cook final is open to everyone to come along and support the students and is the first event of the Food & Wine Festival in the Rangemaster Demonstration Theatre in the marquee in Saxon Square.