TV View: Kitchen proves a tough playing field for Oisín McConville

Irish sporting greats have had decidedly mixed fortunes on our tellies over the years when asked to display their culinary skills. Tommy Bowe endured an especially hard time of it when he appeared on The Restaurant, nobody lauding his artistic efforts, for example, when he stood French beans in his lumpy mash and declared them to be rugby posts. Nor did they appreciate the light cooking of his lamb, which one diner noted was so rare it still had a pulse, nor his belief that if his incinerated pan-grilled bruschetta was covered by "a bit of salad" it'd be grand, no one would notice.

Then there was Kevin Kilbane when he appeared on the same show, the fella pouring his heart and soul into his rhubarb crumble and custard. “It’s like something you’d make when you’re 12,” said one critic, while the best another could offer about his haddock was that it tasted “haddocky”.

(As tributes go, that was up there with Martin O'Neill's salute to Finbar Furey on Friday's The Late Late Show: "If he lives until 95, which he won't because of his smoking . . .")

So, how would Oisín McConville fare on TV3's Celebrity MasterChef Ireland, considering he'd never cooked anything until three weeks before?

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Well, we’re guessing he’d have traded every honour he ever won in his playing career, including those too-many-to-count trophies with Crossmaglen Rangers and his 2002 All-Ireland title with Armagh, for that moment superchef Daniel Clifford declared: “Your duxelles is tasty.”

Smack from Sam

Oisín puffed his chest out so far it was like Sam Maguire had just smacked him on the lips. Before then the signs hadn’t been great, to be honest. Oh we of little faith.

Oisín and the other contestants had been given 10 minutes to choose their ingredients for their first dish in the pantry, and he just filled his basket with herbs. But somebody must have advised him to branch out a bit because next thing we saw him stabbing a raw fillet steak quite maniacally with a fork.

His task was to recreate a dish that reminded him of his childhood, so he chose steak and chips. Colm O’Gorman, meanwhile, opted for duck in a red wine and pomegranate glaze with a pomegranate molasses and walnut salsa, fondant potato and tender-stem broccoli. Oisín, perhaps like most of us, looked at him like he’d just arrived from Mars.

When the judges checked in with Oisín to see how his cooking was going, one of his fingers was bandaged up. “I like to get a war wound in early, it makes you feel like you’re in the game,” he explained. By the time he presented his steak and chips for judging, another finger had nearly been lost, by now TV3’s first aid department on overtime.

The verdict? His pepper sauce was too thick and his vegetables were raw, but apart from that it was a triumph, his steak perfectly cooked. Oisín strutted back to his bench like Conor McGregor approaching the cage.

Cod help us

By Day Two, though, he was standing over that bench shaking his head in bewilderment having been asked to recreate Daniel’s dish comprising cod, a layer of mustard, mushroom duxelles, tomato fondue and parsley crust.

“I’ve never even cooked a fish finger,” he confessed, so this was a ball game with which he was not familiar.

And then he went to the fridge to get his cod and there it was – gone. “My fish has disappeared,” he exclaimed, but he kept his cool, turning around and noting that Niamh Kavanagh had two cods on her bench. So he calmly asked her to return his. Divil a black card. Douze points for composure.

Admittedly, there were issues with his beurre blanc. “You made it with vegetable stock?” Daniel asked, in a marginally disbelieving way, but Oisín’s defiance on the matter was a kind of a “see you in the car park at full-time, buddy”, so Daniel backed off.

Overall? Another triumph. And a gobsmacked Oisín was through to the next round.

Granted, he was assisted by Holly Carpenter’s beurre blanc. “Why aren’t you breathing?” she asked the judges after they tasted it.

Oisín phoned his wife with the good news.

“I made it through.”

“Aaaaah! I can’t believe it!”

“What do you mean you can’t believe it?!”

She’ll never get near their cooker again – soon enough the fella will be serving a pomegranate molasses and walnut salsa with their Coco Pops.