Friday, October 07, 2016

Seafood Chef's Challenge

I had the privilege of volunteering as a runner at a local seafood competition. There were twelve chefs in total competing for a grand prize of ten thousand dollars. The first day the twelve competitors were narrowed down to six. The second day the six competitors were narrowed down to two. And the third day the two competitors battled it out on the grand stage for the grand prize. The competition took place in a temporary tent set-up and the competitors were from around the world. The set-up consisted of only two small work tables for each competitors in front of a crowd, and the runners (me included) had to do all the set up of equipment, organization of ingredients, and run dishes back and forth from the stage to the small kitchen trailer. The competitors had use of brand new equipment, including state-of-the-art blenders, food processors, stand mixers, and immersion blenders; in addition to pots, pans, utensils, and induction burners. They had access to a wide range of parstock ingredients, as well as mandatory seafood, including the following:

Produce: shallots, red onions, fingerling potatoes, baby potatoes, chanterelles, leeks, green onions, ucumbers, broccoli, bok choy, tomaotes, bell peppers, celery, carrots, button mushrooms, oranges, lemons, limes, avocados, fennel, assorted fresh herbs

Dairy: milk, cream, butter, eggs, goat cheese, mozzarella cheese

Alcohol: red wine, white wine, brandy, vermouth

Dry Ingredients: assorted spices, sugar, brown sugar, flour, cornsttarch, rice noodles, white rice, wild rice, arborio rice, vinegars

Seafood: mussels, oysters, whole lobsters, quahogs, crab meat

I will share some photos of the competition plates tomorrow.

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