Two amateur cooks are set to give some fabulous food produced in Northern Ireland a tasty international twist, inspired by their own home countries.
Belfast-based Shubham Baviskar, who is from India and Mandipa ‘Mandi’ Dhliwayo, originally from Zimbabwe will battle it out for the top spot on series two of the BBC NI food show Farm to Feast: Best Menu Wins when it returns to our TV screens next week.
The series is a cookery competition celebrating award-winning produce from farms and fisheries across Northern Ireland.
Read more: Meet the contestants on the second series of Eamonn Holmes' Farm to Feast
The seven amateur cooks move into Crom Castle in Co Fermanagh, where they live with and compete against each other until one of them is crowned the eventual winner.
Hosted by Eamonn Holmes and featuring Michelin star chef Danni Barry and food critic Joris Minne as judges, it is produced by local company Stellify Media who are behind ‘Who Wants To Be a Millionaire?’ and 'Celebrity Snoop Dogs'.
Shubham and Mandi will compete alongside Seana McCafferty from Derry, Kerry Kane from Newtownards, Alex Huston from Belfast, Karen Mulholland from Bangor and Ricky Robinson, originally from Belfast but now living in Co Tyrone.
Shubham, 29, a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the School of Pharmacy in Queen's University Belfast, has been living here for the past seven years.
He told Belfast Live: "I am very much into cooking and feeding people so I was looking for an opportunity to cook my version of local dishes with an Asian twist. I love the concept of the show in that it focuses on local food producers and their homegrown ingredients from Northern Ireland.
"It was a great opportunity to showcase my own Indian culture on the show and share some tips and tricks with the local community. Working with a food critic and Michelin star chef, there was a lot to learn from them too."
Shubham added: "It was really lovely to work with everyone on the show and even though it was filmed last May, we all still keep in touch and have good craic.
"Eamonn is great as well and he has kept in touch with us too. He is a lively person and during the filming, he really kept the whole environment so energetic even though there were long working hours."
Meanwhile Mandi, 31 and a HR director, grew up in Zimbabwe and came to Northern Ireland in 2007.
She said: "Cooking has always been my passion and I started to learn some basic recipes when I was around 10 years old because my mum was always busy working. My dad was a great cook too.
"In Zimbabwe, everything you eat is grown in your back garden so I was always surrounded by fresh food. Even when we came to live here, my mum had her own polytunnel of organic vegetables for all the family so I grew up watching her cook and learning from that.
"When I was approached to be part of the show, it felt like a perfect fit for me because I'm passionate about local ingredients and cooking with food that has less mileage on it. I've always been focused on nourishing yourself knowing that there's no hidden ingredients in the product."
Episodes one to four of Farm to Feast: Best Menu Wins begin with a reveal of two key ingredients, from which the contestants must create a menu for one small and one large dish.
Danni and Joris blind-select their favourite three menus, determining the three cooks who’ll battle it out in the kitchen for a place in the semi-final. Those not picked enjoy an opportunity to taste the competitor’s dishes, and a chance to try again next time.
After four heats, the judges whittle the contestants down to four deserving semi-finalists and the pressure ramps up as they have their culinary creativity put to the test once more.
In the finale the last two cooks standing face the ultimate culinary showdown where they are tasked with preparing a formal two-course meal to be served in the castle’s grand state dining room; enjoyed by the Earl of Erne, the two food producers behind the key ingredients, the five cooks who didn’t make it into the final and judges Danni and Joris.
Farm to Feast will available in its entirety on BBC iPlayer from Friday 24 March, and also be shown weekly from the same date on BBC One Northern Ireland at 7.30pm.
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