If you’ve ever found yourself caught up in a “Chopped” marathon, you’d know the pressure 4-H members across the state took on last weekend.

The reality television program challenges its contestants to make food dishes worthy of the celebrity judges who critique them. But there’s a catch; chefs must incorporate a handful of mystery ingredients provided at the beginning of each round in their dishes — no matter how odd the elements may be.

Members of Pennsylvania’s 4-H Clubs took on a similar test Saturday, when they contended in the first-ever statewide food competition.

Locally, the contest featured four teams: two from Schuylkill County and two from Lackawanna County. While none of the teams came from Carbon, as one of the four host counties in Pennsylvania, it put on the event at the St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in Lehighton.

Contestants were limited in what they could bring. Each team had to supply their own utensils, hot plates, pots and pans.

As far as food goes, they were afforded only the three mystery ingredients — butternut squash, mushrooms and a single apple — and access to two small tables lined with herbs, seasonings, stocks and dairy products.

The teams were split in two categories based on age and were given a little over 45 minutes to complete their dishes.

“It is difficult,” Georgia Farrow, 4-H program assistant for Carbon County, said.

Along with time constraints and a lack of space, some contestants faced stress from the outset. They had not worked with butternut squash in the past.

Luckily, one judge offered a piece of advice.

“I kind of gave them all the suggestion to cut it smaller so it’ll cook faster,” Timothy Hartlieb, a general manager in food services at the St. Luke’s Gnaden Huetten Campus in Lehighton, said.

“It’s all a learning curve,” he said.

Other than Hartlieb’s one recommendation, the rest of the dishes would rely on each team’s know-how and creativity.

One group, from Schuylkill County, decided to sauté the squash and plate it over a bed of rice with gravy. Another attempted a pasta dish.

But in the end, it was a particularly special soup and a tossed salad that pushed two crews — an older grouping of four girls named the “Lackawanna Lassies” and a younger team of two who went by the name “Nocked & Loaded” — to the top.

“I was very surprised,” 11-year-old Charlotte Rozenburg, of the Lassies, said after her team had been crowned.

Seeing how the girls had met a few times before Saturday’s competition, Rozenburg’s teammate, Emma Adamsky, 11, added, it felt like a win well-earned.

“I feel like we practiced really, really hard, and we deserved to win,” Adamsky said.