Young Northland chefs to go head-to-head in cook-off

Northlanders Holly Patterson (left) and Madyson Picard were crowned New Zealand's Root to Tip cooking competition winners last year. They will help judge this weekend's Northland regional competition.

Four teams of budding young Northland chefs will go head-to-head, or should that be root-to-tip, this weekend to make the finals of a national school cooking competition that was won by two Whangārei students last year.

Holly Patterson and Madyson Picard, from Parua Bay School, were crowned New Zealand's Root to Tip cooking competition winners last year. And their impressive performance has seen the competition organisers ask them to be on the judging panel for the Northland regional final at the NorthTec Raumanga Campus on Saturday.

Root to Table is an initiative for schoolchildren in years 5 and 6. They are tasked with working in teams of two to create a two-course menu, using seasonal fruit and vegetables that they have either grown themselves, or are locally sourced. A significant part of the challenge is to create minimal waste, using as much of the produce as possible.

This year, over 500 Kiwi kids - a record - entered, creating more than 250 teams nationwide. Four teams from Northland primary schools will at the regional heats final from 9am-2pm on Saturday.

Three of the finalists come from Ruakākā Primary School, one from Riverview School in Kerikeri:

■ Cory and Tai, who are Year 5 at Ruakākā Primary, are making a loaded vege masala. Their description includes, "Be prepared to take a bite of our amazing vege curry. It's warm, cosy, delectable and a little bit spicy"! This will be followed by apple bombs with syrup – "Be surprised for our amazing mouth-watering bombs. Its divine taste will literally blow your socks off!"

■ Eli and Waikohu are also in Year 5 at Ruakākā Primary. Their dishes are perfect pesto hearts: "This tasty dish will make your taste buds pop like never before!", followed by royal rich muddy cake, which is described as "…called royal rich because it is as rich as a muddy puddle"!

■ Tayla and Mia, Year 6 at Ruakākā Primary, will be serving up healthy "unforgettable" mini-pizzas, which promise to "…blow your mind away to a different land"; and incredible delicious carrot cake cookies, decorated with pansy flowers.

■ From Riverview Primary in Kerikeri, Year 6 team Alecia and Hana will be stuffing a locally-sourced potato and serving with a side salad, followed by a delicious lemon cake.

At last year's big cook-off Holly and Madyson impressed with their ability to work well together in the kitchen. Their dishes were prepared with next to no food wastage, and the judges gave almost perfect scores to their vege patch burger with ribbon fries, made from the peelings of the vegetables used in the burger, and a spiced apple delight dessert using the entire apple.

The duo merged family-favourite recipes with some clever waste minimisation tricks, adapting Madyson's grandmother's fried bread recipe for their burger buns, and an apple dessert recipe from Holly's great-grandmother.