Orla and Niamh are cookery heroes

Orla and Niamh are Mayo’s cookery heroes


Ciara Galvin

TWO amateur Mayo chefs tasted success at this year’s Easy Food Home-Cook Hero Awards with their signature dishes.
The awards were held at The Shelbourne Hotel, Dublin, on November 8 last with Westport’s Niamh McNally and Ballinrobe’s Orla Dunleavy taking home awards. They were among 30 finalists who battled it out in Cooks’ Academy cookery school in the Easy Food Home-Cook Hero Awards final.
The judges, celebrity chefs Catherine Fulvio and Paul Flynn and the managing director of Easy Food magazine, Gina Miltiadou, spent the day tasting dishes and chatting with finalists. Niamh McNally impressed judges in the ‘Take 5’ category, which saw her cooking fresh creamy pasta zucchini using just five ingredients. Niamh won the category and also won the award for ‘Best Cooking Skills’. Meanwhile, Ballinrobe Transition Year student Orla Dunleavy won the ‘Fabulous Fowl’ category for her Chinese Kung Pao Chicken and Stir-Fry Vegetables dish.       
Niamh, a self-confessed ‘food addict’, told The Mayo News that she found out she was picked as a finalist the day of her 30th birthday.
Having worked in the service industry on and off over the years, Niamh developed a interest in cookery and, in recent times, healthy cooking alternatives. Her pasta dish was a healthy alternative to the usual creamy dishes, replacing pasta with courgette pasta and creating the sauce with a mixture of cashews and avocados.
Niamh and Orla each received €1,500 worth of prizes including a weekend break, kitchen appliances, restaurant vouchers and a hamper of utensils, kitchenware and foodie goodies.