Interview with Sabah Shah at COOK!

Leeds City College student Sabah Shah won the International Wine and Food Society (IWFS)’s Vegetarian Chef competition in 2023, seeing off students from six different colleges across the North of England. We chat with her as she attends COOK! with the Vegetarian Society’s Diploma for Professional Chefs to find out about her future plans.

Vegetarian Society (VS): Hello Sabah! You won first prize in the IWFS Vegetarian Chef competition in 2023. How did you first feel after your victory?

Sabah Shah (SS): I was excited, but at first I thought, ‘Are you sure? Are you really sure?!’, I was quite pleased with myself. It was a tough one. I wasn’t too sure if I’d done well or been too crazy with my cooking, but I was really happy with myself and proud.

VS: You ended up winning first prize thanks to your beetroot and goat’s cheese macarons. What inspired you to make that dish first of all, and how did you expect it would be perceived?

SS: We had to pick out a certain ingredient to use in that dish, so I chose beetroot because it was a safe option. I was a bit new to the culinary side, compared to patisserie, because that’s what I’ve always done. I was thinking I need to do something that I’m comfortable with, but also use something different, so I stuck with beetroot, as I thought beetroot macarons would be quite interesting.

I was fasting at the time as well, so it was a long process of having to make it, waiting an entire day until being able to try it and then thinking ‘That’s absolutely disgusting, let’s start over!’. I’d heard of beetroot and goat’s cheese before, but I wasn’t sure where and I thought ‘Is it too dangerous to put it as a macaron?’ It was a difficult one, but I got there in the end.

VS: You saw off competitors from six colleges across the North, including Leeds City College where you study. What was on your mind as you progressed through the competition?

SS: It was a case of having to stay patient the entire time, because I was waiting until I could try what I was cooking myself. It’s a lot to do everything when you’re hungry – not only hungry but when you’re thirsty too. I tried to just focus, relax, and be patient.

I was fasting throughout the whole competition, so during the heats too, when I was planning the dish. We had a few lessons before we decided to do the competition, so that wasn’t very long at all. It was just a case of choose a dish, choose it quickly and then I had to make it, so that’s the entire time getting sick of eating these macarons!

VS: The macarons were fantastic – you ended up winning the competition! It’s been a year or two since you won. What have you been up to since then?

SS: I’ve finished college now, so I’m just looking for work, applying for jobs all round in the industry. For now, I’m working in a café.

VS: You’re here this week at COOK! studying for our Diploma for Professional Chefs. How has the experience been for you so far?

SS: You learn so much on this course about having vegetarian food but also the sustenance from it. A lot of the time when you think of vegetarian food, you think of salad, or taking the meat option out of the set menu and having all the sides as a vegetarian. It gives you an idea of what food you can have, while also keeping it vegetarian and keeping it filling too.

We’ve worked on pulses, and a lot of different mushrooms and textures. The way you can change the texture of a mushroom or tofu to make it ‘meatier’ is crazy, like making tofu similar to the texture of chicken.

VS: Do you think you’ll integrate some of these techniques into your own cooking? What do you plan to do with the Diploma and do next?

SS: Yes, hopefully in the future I’ll be able to use these techniques more often. Getting more experience and then eventually opening my own business is my end goal. It will be more on the patisserie side, just because that’s more my comfort area, but it would be best to keep my options open. You never know! Things change.

VS: Thanks for chatting with us! Finally, what do you most enjoy about cooking and eating vegetarian food?

SS: The flavours! The flavours are very different, you can try loads of different things with them, and you get to use more exciting ingredients. I’m Muslim, so a lot of the time when I go places that aren’t halal, I get the vegetarian options. It’s quite nice to have vegetarian options that are not only filling but nutritionally good for you too.

Interview has been edited for length and clarity.