Jackie Doran (44) was born in Utrecht in the Netherlands, but moved to Ireland 8 years ago and married Brendan Doran. They are now living in Blanchardstown with their 4 children; Ruud (21), Sanne (19), Fionnuala (5) and Liam (3). She is a housewife and sometimes teaches Asian cooking classes at the local community school.

It was when Jackie moved to Ireland and began cooking for her husband that her flair grew. She loves cooking Indonesian and Thai food. She is continuously looking to learn more, and hopes to learn to add elegance and finesse to her food. Her greatest ambition would be to cook professionally and to write a cookbook with her own recipes.

The dish she cooked to get into the audition stage was Chicken marinated in Balinese spices for 24 hours. Rice with cumin. Served with Serundeng – peanuts, desiccated coconut, garlic cumin and coriander and a spinach sauce. Her audition dish was Balinese spiced chicken with spinach/coconut sauce, pilau rice and serundeng.