The Hindu’s ‘Our State Our Taste’ cooking competition presented by Gold Winner saw an enthusiastic turnout during the preliminary round held in Ramanathapuram on Saturday.
In this contest, participants were tasked with preparing a traditional Tamil Nadu dish or creatively reinterpreting a classic recipe. The simplicity of the rules belied the challenging nature of the task, leading to a fierce competition among the contestants.
Maheswari emerged as the winner of this round, wowing the judges with mushroom gravy, paneer butter masala and 15 other dishes.
M Naganandhini, who secured the first runner-up position gave a good fight by bringing on to the table coconut rice, pepper chicken and eight other dishes.
M. N. Sahul Hameed came 2nd runner up with fish biryani, fish puff, mutton kuzhambu, eral thokku, nandu fry, damroot halwa, mutta mittai and many more.
Celebrity Chef Damu, along with Nagarajan Gold Winner, Ramanathapuram Distributor, Senthil, Distributor of RKG Ghee, Gandhi from Butterfly, Saranya – Head of Marketing, TN at Elite Foods, and a representative from DBS Bank India limited distributed the prizes to the winner and the runner ups.
JAS institute of Hotel Management distributed more than 250 nursery plants to all the participants.
The final showdown will take place in Chennai on December 16. The grand prize for the contest is ₹1 lakh, while the second and third-place winners will receive ₹60,000 and ₹40,000, respectively.
The title sponsor is Gold Winner powered by Butterfly. The event was hosted by The Hindu in association with RKG Ghee, Aashirvaad and Elite foods. Sugar partner is Parry’s, Vermicelli partner is Bambino, Comfort Partner is Coir On Mattresses, Realty partner is GSquare, Hotel Management Partner is SRM IHM, Banking partner is DBS Bank India, and Knowledge Partner is Dr. Chef Damu
