Food in Provence (and elsewhere)

The 2025 Professional Masterchef—it’s usually shown in November/December—has been pushed to 2026 and the heats have just finished. As in past years I’ve been having a go at the skills tests, but not looking at the clock! One was to bone chicken wings, fill with a thai-inspired pork stuffing, deep fry and serve with a soy caramel sauce.

Sadly, the chicken wings I bought were missing the wing tip so after boning a couple out (which already took me the allotted 20 minutes!), I had two tubes which weren’t going to hold any stuffing. I guess I could have fastened both ends up with a cocktail stick but they wouldn’t either have a convenient handle with which to pick them up. So I decided to serve pork meatballs in a chicken broth.

To be honest, I had intended to serve the meatballs in a chicken consommé. Hence the soy-cured egg yolk: I needed to do something with the yolks left over from the egg whites I was using to (try to…) clarify the stock. Clearly I need more practice…

Preceded by the last of the courgette flowers, stuffed with a prawn mousse this time with a prawn-infused oil sauce. Inspired by a skills test from an earlier Professional Masterchef series…