MANY top chefs would run a mile rather than start cooking school dinners.

After all, most of us associate school meals with lumpy mash, soggy veg and sloppy semolina and not a meal you would happily pay for.

But top Lancashire chef Andrew Nutter was only too pleased to go back to school and cook up a meal for 15 hungry Bacup and Rawtenstall Grammar School pupils.

Although he usually caters for discerning gourmets at his French Connection Restaurant in Edenfield, the TV chef couldn't resist an invitation by the school's catering manager Camden Blomerley to pass on a few of his cooking tips.

Andrew - who at just 24 is already a regular on Ready Steady Cook and has a TV series of his own in the pipeline - really put his talents to the test by serving up black pudding and fish. The extrovert chef started by re-creating the format of Ready Steady Cook and cooking the meal in 20 minutes.

Then, with the help of staff from his restaurant, he served it to a group of 15 pupils.

He said: "I thought if I was going back to school I might as well give myself a challenge.

"I wanted to cook up a meal that the pupils would enjoy and also that they could go home and make themselves if they wanted.

"A lot of children turn their nose up at fish unless it is battered cod, so I set out to prove that it can taste good.

"It must have worked because all the plates were cleared."

The visit was the idea of school "dinner lady" Camden, who has known Andrew for several years.

She said: "I just decided to be cheeky and ask him if he would come and do a cooking demonstration for the pupils. I thought he would run a mile but he surprised me by saying yes. "It is all part of a drive at the school to give the pupils a better choice of food and spread the message that there are tasty alternatives to chips."

Andrew, who began his culinary career at the tender age of 15, is hoping he may have inspired the pupils to have a go at cooking.

He said: "To make it fun we re-created Ready Steady Cook and we turned the dining room into a posh restaurant for the day.

"The idea was really to help change children's eating habits and getting them to take a bit more interest in food.

"You never know, I might have inspired them to go home and start cooking.

"But we did give them a treat as well, by serving a dessert of sticky toffee pudding with pecan ice cream.

"It might not be what they get every day for school dinner but looking at the choice they get proves things have improved a lot since my school days."

The French Connection Restaurant is having a change of name later this month.

It is being renamed Nutter's.

Andrew joked: "I have a reputation for being a Nutter by name and a nutter by nature so I thought it was fitting."

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