Kelly’s work

The much-awaited performance on Masterchef of Ballygawley balloon blower-upper Malachy Kelly was ‘a bit dung’ according to his mother and fiercest critic, Angela. The long-running BBC food gameshow had yet to entertain any competitors from Tyrone before Kelly’s appearance last week and it is unlikely there’ll be any more. The theme for the Ballygawley man’s episode was ‘Egg Surprise’ where contestants had to come up with an egg-based dish to woo the judges Gregg Wallace and John Torode. Angela Kelly pulled no punches in assessing her son’s performance:

When I saw what the other three competitors were cooking, I knew our Malachy was in trouble. The first girl did some kind of exotic Carribean omelette with mad ingredients like green peppers and leeks. Thon boy from London made ‘egg foo young’ with scallions and it looked deadly. Finally the Australian woman cooked these massive scotch eggs that’d feed the whole of Aughnacloy. Malachy looked a bit pale at this stage.”

Calling his dish ‘Egg Bateupinacup’, Kelly boiled two eggs for ten minutes, rinsed them under the tap for half a minute, peeled off the shell, threw them into a cup and slapped in a lump of butter before whisking it with a teaspoon. On handing it to the two judges with two small bits of unbuttered bread, the sweat was pouring down his face.

“Embarrassed. Egg beat up in a cup. Holy Jaysus. The fancy name threw them at the start and I could hear the judges discussing whether it was some kind of Irish language dish. The only good part was the dramatic music when he cooled the eggs under the tap. You could see the pain in his face as he struggled to juggle the hot eggs for about fifteen seconds. To be honest I got a bit emotional at that part.”

Gregg Wallace called the dished ‘underwhelming’ and ‘a joke’. Torode thought he put in too much butter. The show will air on Christmas Day 2013. Malachy returned to Ballygawley last night and was paraded around the town on the back of a trailer to 12 ecstatic well-wishers with only the odd bit of abuse shouted.