Pork dish winner for cheeky chef

Former Wanganui man Eion Farrell was in a three-strong team that won the Monteiths Beer Wild Food Challenge.

Mr Farrell, who attended St Augustine's (now Cullinane) College, and bases himself at his parents' home in Marton when back in the North Island, is a chef at the Chamois Bar and Grill at Mt Cook.

With two other chefs, he prepared their winning dish, "What a pig".

"You talk the dish up to the judges," he said of the eight-hours slow-braised cheek of the pig, which melted in the mouth.

A pig's jaw is tough, and it was the slow cooking that did it justice, he said.

The three chefs added the very Kiwi purple-skinned Maori potatoes for starch, and watercress for the garnish.

They successfully matched their dish with one of the Monteiths range of beers.

"We matched our dish with the Monteiths crushed apple cider, because pork and apple go together."

Mr Farrell was a student at St Augustine's and says he has always enjoyed hunting, fishing and cooking.

After qualifying as a chef at UCOL in Palmerston North, he spent six years in the Queenstown area working at Millbrook Resort and preparing and cooking gourmet burgers at Fergburger.

He then spent a "couple or so" years in the Rangitikei hunting possums and brushing up on his skills cooking wild food.

Mr Farrell said Kane Bambery invented the dish and had the bragging rights, and the three cooked their "What a pig" every day to perfect the dish.

"There were more than 130 entries, and we were pretty rapt when we made the final 16. We then made the final six dishes, which was 'party time'.

"We believed in ourselves but were never confident of becoming the outright winners."

The chefs won $15,000, which goes to the Chamois Bar and Grill owners, whom they hope will spruce up the kitchen to the tune of $10,000.