Hafner’s Sausages crowns the winner of the Mastercook search

Farming Life

Earlier this year, Northern Ireland’s third best-selling sausages, Hafner’s, launched a cookery competition to find amateur cooks with the tastiest and most original recipes that feature the humble sausage.  And following a battle at Belfast Cookery School between Banbridge woman, Laura Rooney and Belfast man, Gerry McDonald, who were chosen as finalist by judges, one competitor’s bangers won the day. Laura was crowned Hafner’s Mastercook 2024 and walked away with a sizzling £500 cash prize.

Transcript

00:00Hi we're here at the Belfast Cookery School today for the Hafner's Master Cook Final.

00:04So we've got our two finalists, we've got Laura from Banbridge, Jerry from Belfast

00:08and they are going to be cooking up a storm with Hafner sausages

00:10right here at Belfast Cookery School.

00:16So welcome to Belfast Cookery School guys, I am Ian Hunter and we're here for the Hafner's

00:20sausage cook-off. We have Laura here from Banbridge, which I'm just going to give her

00:24cook-off apron and we have Jerry from Belfast. So good luck guys. Thank you very much. Okay, good luck.

00:34Okay Jerry, talk me through your dish today. What inspiration did you get? Why are you

00:38cooking this dish? Okay Ian, so basically there's a wee restaurant in Lisbon we call

00:43French Fillies and they make these really nice chicken wings. Over lockdown they closed down

00:47and I wanted to try and recreate that at home. When I'd seen this competition I was like you

00:51can do that with a sausage. Okay, that sounds fantastic and what that says to me, you loved a

00:56particular dish, you went and found how to make it, how to cook it and you're doing it with a sausage.

01:00Fantastic. Okay Laura, so talk me through what you're cooking today here. I'm going to take the

01:06meat from the sausages and I'm going to make a little Thai pork ball. Okay, so you're taking the

01:09meat from the skin? Yeah and I'm going to cover it in panko and give it a little bit of a Thai twist

01:15and then I'm going to serve it up with some noodles, chilli and honey sauce

01:20just to finish it off with garnish. So where did your inspiration for this dish come from?

01:24My favourite takeaway food would be Thai and I love anything with noodles in it so it just made

01:29sense to kind of bring the flavours together. So your favourite food is sausages and your favourite

01:33is Thai food so you've made a combination of the both together? Definitely, yes. That's amazing,

01:37that's amazing. Really looking forward to trying this. It's very exciting as you're both doing

01:40quite similar Asian things and good luck. Thank you so much, thank you.

01:47Let's have a look at what Gerry's up to over here. It smells amazing. It smells unbelievable. I like

01:51that both these dishes seem to be like elevating the humble Irish sausage here, like you know it's

01:57a good time. So there's jalapeno in this? Jalapeno, yeah. I love a bit of spice to you. Yeah,

02:04definitely. What else is in there? Just a little bit of salt, a tiny sweet bit of pepper because

02:09I don't want to overpower the pork. Sure. So I want the flavour of the pork to stand out whenever

02:13I make these. Well I hope that pans out. See what I've done there. That's a camera joke and a meat

02:21joke. What size do you think the perfect meatball should be? The size where you pop it in your

02:30mouth. You don't have to take a bite from it. Okay. So bite size. Excellent knife skills there,

02:37so we're actually, I didn't realise you're actually cutting them up.

02:41Okay, very good. I'm going to leave these out to the end so whenever I put these over the

02:50noodles and these on top, I'm going to let these stay a wee bit dry so they suck up all the juices

02:56in them so the pork then, I didn't want to like overpower this with peppers or anything because

03:01it's too strong for the pork. Are you also going to be sprinkling scallions,

03:06Gerry, are you? Oh, you've got them, you've got them. Scallions on ice,

03:10have you ever seen that? I look after my scallions.

03:23Oh wow. Whoa, look at this. Oh my.

03:27Hi. Gerry, firstly, do you want to explain what yours is? This is called Korean fried

03:33halfners and what it is, is little crispy sausage bites in a bao bun with a sticky Korean barbecue

03:40sauce garnished with scallions, sesame seeds and homemade pickled red onions. Absolutely stunning.

03:47What about this dish then, Laura? It's Thai panko halfners. Thank you. So I got the halfners and

03:56put in Thai spices and then panko breadcrumbs on it, and then it's finished with a honey

04:01chili and garlic sauce. Who knew what you could do with a sausage today? Yeah. Oh guys,

04:07you're going to be well impressed. A lot is delicious.

04:13It's always about the sausage. I like the way you went with that there.

04:18I can't believe that's a sausage, that is mouth-watering.

04:20Mm-hmm. Well done, Laura.

04:34Who would think that you could make this with sausage meat? Oh mate, the sauce,

04:40the sauce is serious. I knew it smelled nice, but this is absolutely gentler.

04:45Well, well done, sir. Well done, well done, well done, well done. I mean, how do we pick a winner?

04:48Is this ridiculous? I just feel like we're sort of going for different vibes. Yeah, but they're

04:53equally beautiful. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, that's another good point. Yep. Okay, guys, so nobody

05:01would have argued if either had won this. Isn't that right, guys? It was honestly, it was that

05:07hard decision that came down to thin margins. Okay, so after breaking everything down,

05:12the three of us, I would have to say that Laura was the winner today. Laura.

05:27Well, congratulations to both of you, because I'm sure both did a fabulous job. Absolutely,

05:31absolutely. Okay, so here's the Hafner sausages, guys. Thank you very much.

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