Seafood Chef's Challenge Plates

Goat cheese parisienne gnocchi, lobster tail,
tomato sauce, chanterelle mushrooms, dill sprigs

Seafood (mussels, quahogs, oysters) kibbeh,
fresh fennel, orange, pickled onion, and dill salad,
flavored cream sauce, gastrique

Avocado puree, fresh oysters, carrot curls, cucumber
curls, pickled rasdish, sauteed spinach, panko
crumb, fried rice noodle, chives

Lobster claw, fresh peas, chanterelles,
 sauce accompaniments

Seafood perogi, pickled red onion,
cucumber, fennel, dill, green puree, sauce

Mussels atop a vegetable gateau

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.

Seafood Chowder

What can I tell you about this seafood chowder? It contains plenty of chunks of halibut, mussels, clams, salmon, lobster, and potatoes all smothered in a rich, creamy broth, sprinkles with parsley and chives and accompanied by fresh homemade biscuits. Sounds simply and delicious enough, right? Multiply that by 450 portions, plating to serve out of a temporary tent set-up on a parking lot.

Traditional Seafood Boil

 Here I am featuring the main course from last week's four course seafood-based gala dinner on Thursday evening with a guest celebrity chef.

It consisted of fifty-five wooden crates of mains, one for each table of eight, and two smaller wooden crates each containing four pounds of mussels. Each crate was lined with hot seafood and contained five pounds of boiled mixed baby potatoes, eight pieces of roasted corn on the cob, eight legs of snow crab, and sixteen quahog clams, as well as a bucket containing eight whole lobsters. Quite a big feast if you ask me!

Shellfish Festival

Last week I took a change of pace and worked functions, service, and runner at a local shellfish festival. I made reception items helped make and plate a gala dinner, and ran for a chef's competition, as well as being able to participate in some of the events. It was fun and a nice change of scenery and I realized how much I missed working big events and prepping large quantities and doing off-site functions.