Kathleen O"Toole attempts to wow The Restaurant critics

This week"s secret chef is acclaimed actress Kate O"Toole, who plays Lady Salisbury in the multi award-winning drama "The Tudors". Growing up with famous acting parents Peter O"Toole and Siân Phillips, Kate had travelled a great deal before she herself settled to live in New York after studying drama at Yale University. Kate loves food, she is passionate about the producers and buys her food direct from the people who rear and grow it whenever possible. Kate believes every meal should be a special event and made with good, fresh ingredients. 'People who don"t cook, think it"s crazy to spend two hours of hard work for something that only lasts for two minutes. I love the fact that you can eat a fantastic meal and it disappears but it stays in your soul forever.' Kate will not, as a rule, buy any foodstuffs from supermarkets, and thinks that their affect on farmers and the land is devasting. 'The demand of supermarkets has made agriculture so intensified. The soil is becoming depleted, and what happens is you don"t get all the nutrients. So an apple a day kept the doctor away, up until the 1960s, now you"re talking 20 apples a day.' For her starters of "Air-dried Sliabh Luachra beef with fresh figs and Desmond cheese" and "Ceviche of sole marinaded in fresh limes with coriander" Kate has a clever plan based on her time working as a waitress in New York, while still a fledgling actress. 'I know the craziness that goes on in the kitchen, so I"ve chosen two starters which don"t require any cooking.' Kate still travels a great deal but home is definitely in Connemara and when it came to the main courses of "Cleggan crab stuffed fillet of brill with oyster velouté" and "Noisette of roast Connemara lamb wrapped in pancetta", Kate kept the ingredients close to home. 'You know, it"s just normal, natural, simple food which has actually become increasingly difficult to get.' For desserts, Kate was conflicted as she doesn"t really like desserts. 'Me personally, I don"t have a sweet tooth, so for me the perfect end to a perfect meal is a good piece of cheese. But then I panicked, and I"ve chosen to make little puddings and they take up more work and effort than the whole rest of the meal put together.' So Kate will serve an "Unpasteurised Cooleeney cheese plate" and a "Trio of desserts" comprising rich chocolate mousse, banoffi pie, and lemon posset, with the posset offering the judges a clue. 'The lemon posset for the judges is a clue. It"s a Tudor dish, it"s a medieval dish. They used to love having dinners as theatrical entertainment. So they would make pies with live frogs in them. Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie, they actually used to do that.' Will the judges spot this clue and guess who is cooking for them in the kitchen? Paolo Tullio and Tom Doorley will be joined by guest critic, the michelin-starred chef Dylan McGrath from Mint Restaurant in Dublin. The Restaurant is on RTÉ One on Sunday at 8.30pm