Catching up with Chris Hale

• 28 Feb, '19
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Hands up, who’s been enjoying Chris Hale’s cookery masterclasses as much as us these past few months? Well, now we can let you in on another exciting part of the partnership…over the coming months we’re going to be releasing exclusive recipes, that Chris has created just for you, right here on the blog. Chris was a quarterfinalist on MasterChef 2016 and has made a name for himself through his innovative cooking. He’s now the Executive Chef of The Award Winning Hepworth Museum. Expect healthy and easy to cook dishes that you can make in your apartment or with a bunch of friends in the mega kitchen.

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You've learnt how to cook healthy meals and pizza including the dough & delicious flatbreads in his first two masterclasses, well, now we can let you in on another exciting part of the...

We sat down with Chris to find out more about him and what’s to come:

Q: How did you get into cooking?

Chris: I’m actually completely self-taught. When I was 18 I went to Birmingham university to study sports science and when I got there, I realised for the first time that I needed to be able to feed myself. Thankfully, one of my house mates was a very good cook so we started to cook together. Each week we would go to the market together to buy ingredients and then we would just experiment with what we’d bought. When I came home from uni, I started going to Leeds market and that was where I learnt most. Going down and getting that fresh produce every week, and buying something new each time.

Q: Did your cookery experiments ever go wrong?

Chris: Erm, yes haha! I once bought eel from the market. Did you know it has this cartilage that goes all the way through it? It’s so tough and honestly, it was absolutely vile. I didn’t know how to cook it, I didn’t know how to prep it, I kind of chopped it into round bits and tried to pan fry it. It was absolutely, genuinely disgusting. I took one bite and threw it in the bin.

Q: What was your go-to meal when you were at university?

Chris: My housemate and I messed around and experimented a lot. But our go-to came out of one of those days where there was absolutely nothing in the cupboard. We had a piece of salmon in the freezer, some couscous, a load of random spices and some chopped tomatoes. We threw it all in a pan and it worked out! We ate it every week because it was actually delicious.