Susie Carter cooking her prize-winning recipe

Susie Carter cooking her prize-winning recipe

Amateur chef Susie Carter was crowned queen of chicory last week when she scooped the £5,000 first prize at the final of the Chicory Challenge, a competition run for budding UK cooks which culminated in a showdown in the Netherlands.

The competitors were flown to Amsterdam for a slap-up meal as part of their prize, and then visited a chicory production site the following day before the competition commenced at cookery school Chantel’s.

A panel of food writers and produce insiders, as well as top Dutch chef Chantel Veer, judged the three finalists, who had been whittled down from more than 150 original recipe entries.

Carter’s chicory tarts with goat’s cheese and thyme came out on top, followed by a team from Waddesdon Church of England School in Aylesbury, which came second with its luxuriously stuffed pasta in an elegant basil infused tomato sauce, and a team from Acklam Grange School in Middlesbrough, which won third prize for its unusual chicory and chorizo scone recipe. Both second and third place scooped £1,000 and £500 respectively, to be spent on the schools’ food technology departments.

Carter’s £5,000 prize money is being donated to Hampshire Fare, where she works, a not-for-profit organisation supporting food, drink and craft producers in the county of Hampshire. “I am so proud to win the competition. I was really nervous about it and I can’t believe I actually won,” she said.

A recipe book is now to be put together from the original entries, with the charity associated with the competition, the Birth Defects Foundation, set to benefit from the proceeds.

The competition was run by the Dutch Produce Association, which wanted to boost the profile of the salad in the UK and inspire budding chefs to create innovative recipes.

Chicory consumption in the UK lags far behind its European neighbours. While Belgians eat 7kg per capita of the salad item annually, the French munch their way through 4.5kg per person a year and the Dutch eat 3.5kg - but Brits manage just 150g per capita of chicory, renowned for its bitter taste.