STELLARTON – A Pictou County culinary team has won the bronze medal in a province-wide cooking competition.
The Nova Scotia Community College’s Black Box Hot Salon competition was held Feb. 24 in Halifax, with four students, Ryan Boutilier, Joe Ross, Tia Roode and Lori Ann Stewart, enrolled in the cooking course whipping up a three-course meal. A graduate of the program, Amanda DeYoung, served as team captain and Courtney MacDonald, chef at Pictou Lodge, was team manager.
Gilles Godin, a faculty member, said the group received their ingredients a week before the competition in a black box.
“The team did really well,” said Godin. “It was a really challenging black box.”
Some of the ingredients include beef brisket, lobster, savoy cabbage, crimini mushrooms, Anjou pears and kasha.
The team was required to use all ingredients, but not the entire quantities provided.
The students at the Pictou campus created the menu, which consisted of potato-encrusted haddock enhanced with a tarragon lobster cream sauce with micro greens, endive and cornmeal cracker as the appetizer. The main course was a savoy cabbage envelope slow-braised pulled-beef brisket, asparagus and carrot in a maple ginger barbecue sauce with a bacon barley risotto, baked crimini mushroom caps stuffed with asparagus cream cheese and chevre.
For dessert the team made an Anjou pear mousse New York Styled Cheesecake on a kaki disk, with Grand Marnier almond lace cookie, caramel sauce and Anjou pear crisp.
The team had six hours to prepare 25 dishes of each course.
“We are only a one-year (cooking) program and we are competing against two-year programs,” said Godin.
MacDonald said the team was judged on the final dishes but also how they were prepared and the conditions of the kitchen.
The team from the Akerley campus won the gold medal at the competition.
