14/10/2016
We went back to the Australian Camp Oven Festival on Oct 1st & 2nd and had a great weekend.
We arrived on Thursday afternoon and set up camp and unloaded the truck, set up the marquees for our camping area and piled all our treasures for the cooking area displays over the fence in the competition area.
On Friday morning we cut all the poles and rails needed and erected the cook hut, set out all the displays and camp ovens and collected and stacked the fire wood we needed for the Saturday of the competition.
Competition started at 6am on Saturday with a crack of the whip, all competitors lit their fires and settled into 2 days of camp oven cooking.
The first section of the competition was set into 4 parts,
Plain damper; we placed second.
Plain scones; we placed second.
Loaf of bread; we placed second.
Boiled fruit cake; we won.
The second section of the day was a three course dinner with; ox tail soup; a roast meat or mutton with gravy or sauce, roast potatoes, pumpkin, carrots and at least one other vegetable; and for dessert a spotted dog with custard.
We were lucky enough to win.
The third section on Sunday started with 2 parts,
Anzac biscuits; we placed second.
Sweet or savoury damper; we placed third.
The fourth section was a signature dish, made with ingredients from our local area.
We produced Pork balls with satay sauce; Marinated pork spare ribs with plum sauce; Stuffed roast pork and pork crackling and baby honeyed sesame carrots, curly potato fries and steamed snow peas; Salted peanut caramel fudge and Caramel popcorn.
We were lucky enough to win this one as well.
At the same time as the signature dish we had to compete in the champion of champions competition, we had one hour to prepare and cook a traditional damper and a soup.
We cooked the damper and pumpkin soup.
We some how pulled this off as well.
What a weekend we had, placed in every part of the competition, won the Grand Champion of the competition for the third time and took out the Champion of Champion title as well.
I thank my team members, My wife Leagh and good friends Tom (Tom the blacksmith) and Chaseley Browning for without this team our weekend would not have been so successful and so much fun.
There are so many people to thank for this festival, the Millmerran camp oven festival committee and especially Mary and her crew of helpers, the sponsors of the festival, especially DA Hall & Co for sponsoring the cooking competition and BCF for sponsoring the Champion of Champions compitition and of course all the other competitors for without any of these people or organisations an event like this does not happen.
Thank you all.
Terry Leahy
The Bait Layers
