Hāwera High School student cooks up a storm at WITT Culinary Competition

Samantha Yelseth, 17, competing in the competition. Photo / Supplied

A Hāwera High School student cooked up a storm at the WITT Culinary Competition.

Year 13 student Samantha Yelseth, 17, received a number of medals at the competition.

Samantha enjoys cooking.

"I've always loved baking. When I moved to New Zealand from South Africa last year I took food technology as one of my subjects. Since then I've loved cooking."

Thirty students competed in the WITT Culinary Competition, with Samantha and five other Hāwera High School students competing.

Samantha also competed in the regional round of the National Secondary Schools' Culinary Competition alongside three other people.

The four entrants had 60 minutes to prepare, cook and plate two individual portions of an entrée course. The entrée portions had to contain fresh New Zealand grown broccoli as the principal component of the dish.

Samantha came second in the regional competition, with Josh Ace from New Plymouth Boys High School receiving first place. Josh will now compete in the national final in September.

Samantha's entry for the National Secondary Schools' Culinary Competition. Photo/ Supplied

Samantha also entered the breakfast, salmon main dish, and the cupcake and cake static classes in the WITT Culinary Competition. Each class had a number of guidelines the chefs had to follow.

"I entered the breakfast and regional competition for a challenge. I usually don't cook an extravagant meal for breakfast so I wanted to push myself. I entered the National Secondary Schools regional competition because I thought it was a great opportunity to push myself and compete against other great chefs."

Samantha enjoyed the static classes.

"I really like baking and I liked that I could make the cupcakes and cake the day before. It was a good opportunity to have judges assess what I can do. My family and I really love salmon so I saw that as a great class to enter as well."

Samantha received a gold medal in the creative cupcakes, Akaroa salmon, and cafe breakfast classes. She received bronze in the celebration cake class.

Samantha is pleased with her results.

"This was my first culinary competition so it was rather daunting. I'm looking forward to competing in more competitions like this in the future."

Samantha says her food technology teacher Koren Miller has been supportive.

"She guided us through the competition and helped us out a lot."