Indian Cook Off at 2nd Frimley Scouts
If you weren’t already aware, there are some serious culinary skills in 2nd Frimley Scout Troop, due for the most part to an incredibly popular item in their programme – mystery box cooking!
The convivial patrol cooking challenge sees teams of Scouts battle it out to cook the tastiest dishes from surprise ingredients. With the winners decided by a panel of judges, the young people have their creativity, teamwork, and practical skills tested in a way that sees beaming smiles from start to finish. On Friday the highly anticipated challenge was back, but this time with an exciting twist – Indian cooking!
Scouts from Chobham joined 2nd Frimley for the evening organised by Rachel Apps, Deepa Mavani and Roshni Lobo, with each patrol given a recipe and a bag of ingredients, including lots of fragrant spices. There was only one key piece of information missing – the quantities! It would be down to the Scouts to work these out by tasting the food as they went, adjusting the chemistry of the dish until the flavours were just right.
A pair of patrols tried their hand at cumin potatoes with rice, lime, and plenty of seasoning. Another two made spinach and paneer with ginger, garlic, and vegetables. Finally, the remaining groups made sweetcorn in a rich tomato purée, with mustard seeds, cinnamon, and coriander to garnish.
“I don’t normally like spicy food but this was really nice, it wasn’t too hot at all, like there were layers to it”
The Scouts divided jobs between them in their groups, their Patrol Leaders with the recipes in hand organising utensils, chopping, and trying to decide how much of each ingredient they would need. Having seen multiple mystery box cooking nights at 2nd Frimley, it is immediately clear how much their culinary skills have grown with each new challenge. Young Scouts that once stood back now dive straight in dicing vegetables, finely cutting herbs, and mixing with confidence – which is brilliant to witness.
A long centre table was set up with gas burners, which is where the real magic started to happen! Once the food started sizzling in the pans, the amazing smells hit almost instantaneously, with each group’s different spice blend creating a distinct result. They stirred, turned, and cautiously added ingredients in tiny increments so as not to overpower their dishes. You could see how pleasantly surprised they were each time they warily tasted a spoonful to discover they actually loved it, and that they could use more seasoning than they had anticipated.
”I’m so quick at chopping vegetables now, honestly I could be a pro”
Once they had finished cooking they dished up their meals ready for the selection of group and district leaders to taste, who were eager and hungry based on the amazing scents filling the hall. Every single group had followed the recipe to an incredibly high standard, and there wasn’t a dish that wasn’t delicious. A couple were very sweet, where Scouts had perhaps been heavy handed with the sugar, others had forgotten to crush their peppercorns, which left little surprises for some of the volunteer taste testers (sorry Mel), but when it came to flavour they excelled.
The most interesting aspect of the tasting was that each dish had a visual twin, but when tried alongside each other had a totally different flavour based on the balance of spices each patrol had chosen to use. They had demonstrated what Deepa had told them at the beginning – Indian cooking is not an exact science.
The Scouts then got to eat their own meals as well as go around the room and try those cooked by their friends in the other patrols. It was the quietest they’d been all evening! When it came to deciding a winner, it proved just too tricky, and it was clear the standard had been so high nobody deserved to lose. Rachel handed out sweets to everyone, topping off what had been another successful cooking challenge for the troop. We can’t wait to see what exciting dishes they’ll rustle up next time!
A full gallery of photos from the night can be found here.