The general approach I took was to use recipes I'm familiar with and tweak small elements of it to meet the challenge. For instance show 1 – personality on a plate, I had to do something based upon my Yorkshire roots and my love of GYO. I settled on a traditional Sunday lunch – however the time limit wouldn't allow for a larger piece of meat (such as a bone-in loin) so I went with something quicker, a tenderloin.
Other challenges pushed me much harder and were recipes I'd been forced to develop in the hotel room so I had no idea if they'd work until the judges tasted it. Take the szechuan & pepper crusted beef as an example, the combo completely overpowered the meat but it was a risk I had to take. With time spent developing the recipe I'm confident the pungency can be toned down enough to properly compliment the beef, I just didn't have the time.
As covered on the show, my King of the Kebabs challenge winning kebab (Recipe link below) was inspired by my wife and her love of lobster. Her family has exposed me to so much real Vietnamese and Chinese food that I thought it was the perfect occasion to showcase some of the classic flavours they use.
The number of elements in the dish and the sheer ingredients I had to memorise were the biggest challenge, which thankfully all paid off. Come to think of it, I still haven't cooked that dish for my wife since we finished filming, and given I missed her 30th birthday I best go and get BBQing.
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Cheers
Duncan
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