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The
Rant
November, 2005
According to their own literature the Canadian Culinary Federation was formed “in an effort to unite chefs and cooks across Canada in a common dedication to professional excellence.” One way of encouraging professional excellence is by running culinary competitions like the one the St. John’s branch of the CCF held on Saturday, November 5th at the College of the North Atlantic.
Again this year Brian Abbott of Restaurant 21 won overall gold, sharing the accolade with his cooking partner, Roger Andrews of Cambridge Estates Personal Care Home. Cooking students, Ches Pye and Nora Corrigan supported the gold medal team.
The tight contest saw Fairmont Hotel’s Scott Douglas and Leonard Felix win silver, while the bronze went to two more Restaurant 21 chefs, Bill Scott and James Dillon.
As the college’s two kitchens and cafeteria ran super-charged with chefs, sous chefs and line cooks firing steak, unmolding appetizers, and decorating plates, over 300 diners buttered rolls and sipped aperitifs waiting to be treated to the results of the 2005 competition. Generally, with the exception of a few dishes that fell short, they were well fed.
“The level of cooking has really come up since we started this five years ago,” commented Steve Watson, one of six judges. Other judges agreed, including Watson’s brother chefs: Vince Di-Nillo, Chris Brett, Nick Flynn and Roary MacPherson. I was also privileged to be a judge. As usual, the event was managed and emceed by the irrepressible Chef Gerry Crewe, longtime member of the federation and head of the Senior Culinary Arts Program at the college.
Seven teams competed this year: St. Jude’s Hotel (Clarenville) Fairmont Hotel, Ches’s, Restaurant 21 and Cambridge Estates, a second team from Restaurant 21 and teams from the College of the North Atlantic at St. John’s and Stephenville. It was a senior level cooking competition but students from the college’s Culinary Arts program worked as helpers in the kitchens. Still others, dressed in black and white, served the hundreds gathered in the gymnasium. Diners paid $40 single to attend.
One week before the competition the participants were given a list of “black box” or “mystery basket” ingredients and required to compose a menu utilizing, in some way, all of the listed items.
These were: cocktail shrimp, tilapia (a mild fresh water fish) flat iron (beef cut from the chuck area) oxtail, baby red potatoes, beets, green beans, butternut squash, vanilla flavoured milk and pear.
The bronze winning Restaurant 21 team of Scott and Dillon prepared one of my favourite appetizers. It was a tilapia and garlic pate topped with crushed chili ice shrimp aspic. This was accompanied by a green bean salad with a Dijon sherry aioli and red onion and beet chutney. Some height was achieved by standing a piece of crostini, sliced on the bias, between the pate and the salad. I liked the smooth, soft texture of the pate in combination with the mildly favoured tilapia, slightly scented by slow cooked garlic. The earthy beet chutney provided a little too much contrast for my palate. It overpowered the delicate pate. The green bean salad would have provided enough contrast.
The main course created by gold winners Brian Abbott (Restaurant 21) and Roger Andrews (Cambridge Estates) impressed me, as well as the other judges. By the way, the judges knew the teams by colours only. For example, the Abbott/Andrews partnership was called Team Purple. They prepared hoisin marinated flat iron steak with pulled oxtail tossed in blueberry bbq sauce, accompanied by baby red potato pave with bacon/blue cheese cream, green beans, zucchini and carrots drizzled with toasted almond butter.
The beef was extremely tender with lots of strong flavours, nicely contrasted by the fruity sweetness of the blueberry sauce. I tend to love combinations of sweet and savoury ingredients.
The potato pave, basically a stack of thinly sliced potato, weighted and cooked in the oven, was a welcome choice. It provided interesting texture and a perfect stage for the almond butter drizzle.
The Fairmont Hotel’s desserts have always impressed me. I particularly liked the presentation of their competition dessert. It was a pear and orange tinged chocolate mousse with caramel cream and walnut biscuit, accompanied by pears poached in citrus rind and holy basil (a peppery tasting form of basil, planted around Hindu shrines in India) The plate was decorated in a chocolate and pale yellow free-hand design that looked like some sort of ecclesiastical hood rendered in stained glass. The hood collared a mound of extremely rich chocolate that contained the mousse, caramel cream and walnut biscuit. Standing from the centre of the chocolate mound was the tallest needle of tuile (a baker’s paste that’s shaped and baked off for decoration) I have ever seen. It was at least a foot tall. A small liqueur glass contained small bits of pear floating in a citrus infused clear liquid, garnished with holy basil. The glassful of pear pieces seemed superfluous to the dish. I would have preferred a less conspicuous way of incorporating the pears into the dessert.
Proceeds from the event, as well as profits from the upcoming Chefs Ball in January will help the St. John’s chapter of the federation stage the Canadian Culinary Federation’s national convention in St. John’s in 2009. It’s a highly anticipated event that will create a lot of excitement among those with a professional interest in the preparation of fine food.
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