Nigella’s junior rival shows how to be a real spice girl

A star pupil at The Cooking School at Dean Clough, in Halifax, where she has attended every single session since classes began last May, she even has her own twitter account dedicated to cooking.

The aspiring chef, from Huddersfield, first began cooking aged six when she used to help her mother and father bake fairy cakes and buns.

Since then she has added a whole host of dishes to her repertoire, including chicken stir-fry with peppers and tomatoes – her favourite meal to cook – and chicken curry, which Claudia’s parents love because she does not make it too spicy.

Claudia said: “I cook four to five times a week and I mostly cook tea on Sundays.

“We get a large chicken and dress it with lemon and garlic and then chop up some veg and put it in the oven. We sometimes do pudding too.

“Mostly my family eat with me and my granny and grandad and my uncles and aunties.”

Claudia joked that she is a better cook than her mother and father – mostly because they do not like to cook as much as she does, she said.

On a typical weekday night after school, the young chef completes her homework, practises the drums and then starts to bake or sometimes makes dinner for her family, at around 5pm.

“I do everything when I cook, even the washing up, “ Claudia added.

Like many youngsters, she says she has been inspired by the raft of cooking programmes which have taken prime-time slots on television featuring amateur chefs, including children.

And seeing the likes of Nigella Lawson, Jamie Oliver and Heston Blumenthal have helped her to decide that she, too, wants to pursue a professional career in the kitchen.

Junior MasterChef has also been an inspiration for Claudia, who hopes to go on the programme one day, and her role model is Jamie Oliver.

“I like him because he chops really fast and he uses herbs and spices.”

She added: “I want to be a chef when I’m older and try lots of different recipes.

“My favourite secret recipe is for vegetable soup, where I use butternut squash, parsnips, beetroot and put in a stock cube, oregano and black pepper.”

Already, she finds herself giving cooking tips to her friends and her principal piece of advice is: “Sometimes it doesn’t always go right but follow the recipe and then everything will go well – probably.”

Claudia, who also studies Food Technology at school, bakes for her friends as well as her family. Last weekend she planned a meal of Mexican chicken for when her classmates came round to her house for Sunday lunch.

And thanks to her talents, it’s not just waistlines that are growing,

The 11-year-old’s baking skills have been put to other good uses, having recently raised more than £250 for a local Huddersfield woman who worked in an orphanage in Kenya for six months.

Her contribution was used to buy bunk beds for the orphanage.

This February half-term Claudia will return to class at The Cookery School, where she will have two-and-a-half hours of tuition and learn to prepare a range of dishes from winter broth with herb dumplings to chocolate orange bread and butter pudding.

Courses at the school are running each school holiday throughout 2012 and if young chefs attend all five dates, they will receive a chef’s hat and certificate at the end of the year.

The Cooking School executive head manager Matthew Benson-Smith said: “To see them (the children) progress on each course is fantastic and The Cooking School is a safe, friendly and modern facility for them to learn to cook in.

“Plus the parents are always happy as some leftovers usually make their way home.”

All profits from the school go to the Focus on Food Campaign, which teaches more than 40,000 young people to cook each year and 2,500 teachers to be cooking instructors.

The ingredients used in the teaching sessions are all locally sourced.

Celebrity backs refugee dinners

Celebrity entrepreneur Levi Roots is backing a campaign for food-loving Britons to sample the life of refugees through cooking.

Roots, who shot to fame with his Reggae Reggae Sauce on BBC TV’s Dragons’ Den, is behind the first ever World Food Night event, where volunteers are asked to hold dinner parties sampling the cuisine brought to these shores by refugees who have had to leave their homelands.

Donations collected for the meal will then be given to Refugee Action, the charity organising the event, to help fund its work.

The charity is giving away recipes, tips and ideas for anyone who wants to take part and sample such delights as Laphet Thote, or Tea Leaf Salad from Burma, Vermicelli Milk Dessert from Afghanistan or Zegni stew from Eritrea.