By Mrs Lovett (Head of Food and Nutrition)

As part of the Greens Kitchen Dish project, Year 8 Food and Nutrition students had a demonstration from Mr Pickard (Catering Manager) last week (date). They developed their research skills by investigating school meals, and this was an opportunity for them to ask questions about what the school needs to consider when menu planning.

Mr Pickard chose to demonstrate a new dish, Tofu Stir Fry, explaining why it is a good addition to the school menu. It is suitable for vegan students, provides a good source of protein, contains a variety of colourful vegetables, and is suitable for large-batch cooking. Students had the opportunity to ask him about their own ideas to encourage evolutionary thinking: seeing how their current ideas could be developed and improved.

Mrs Tombs (Deputy Catering Manager) added: “This is a wonderful project for our Food and Nutrition students. It's not just about how the dish tastes and looks, although both are extremely important factors, the students will need to think about the mass production of the dish - does it scale up well and how the dish will withstand the serving environment. A dish served in a table service restaurant, for instance, is in a very different environment. It gets them thinking about different elements of the dish that they may not normally consider. We are excited to see what they come up with and then get the winning dish on the lunch service counters.”

The winning Year 8 dish will be selected to be added to the menu.