Cold food competition

Salmon Macaron with dill mousse 

Not many people know what these type of competitions are all about. The competition consist in making a platter with at least 2 main pieces , 2 garnishes, a salad and one sauce enough to feed 8 people and one display dish with all the components together.

It is a cold platter which is display cold.

Cold food includes but not limited to terrines, roulades, smoked items and different cooking technics as cold smoked, cured, brined items. These cold platters can be made with seafood, game, poultry and seafood. The way this competition works is they have different categories. The one I chose was category A-2 which includes shellfish and fish. I am not sure if it is ok to talk about it , but this is an ACF ( American culinary federation) approved competition.

It is a lot of work and time consuming but the journey is definitely worthy for those who want to ever do it. The odd thing is all the food made is not meant to be eaten but it is more about the skill involved.

On January 2012 there was a competition held in Conroe, tx . I wanted in and get a gold which is a bit difficult to get. I trained and practice for 2 months. I talked to amazing chefs who are talented and have done these type of competitions before.

I decided to do more that the minimum requirements so I did one extra main piece.

My first item was a seafood terrine with a compressed shrimp inlay wrapped with spinach.

The second one was a smoked Dover sole roulade with a saffron mousse.

The third main piece was a cured salmon wrapped in octopus.

For my garnishes I made 2 :

Wild mushrooms in gelee with a white truffle panna cotta , crawfish ball and a savory black pepper cracker.

The other one was a smoked salmon macaron with a dill- salmon rillete , beluga caviar and a smoked salmon spiral as a garnish. The sauces were a lemon aioli and a citrus salsa ( orange, grapefruit and lime segments)

The salad was made from vegetables and greens of the season.

The competition was on a Wednesday . I started doing the final preparation the Monday before which I spent 10 hours of my day off. On Tuesday I was off and I went in at 10 am to finish everything for the competition. Well since 10:00 am Tuesday I was awake until Wednesday at 4:30 pm when the competition was over. Yes! I worked on my platter overnight to ensure freshness, from there I drove an hour to Conroe, displayed my platter and after that it was the waiting game. The judges were reviewing all the platters of the competitors and it took forever. At that point I was a zombie.

At the award ceremony the call from the lowest score to the highest. That was just exhausting because there were maybe 50 people competing. So they started from the people who just got diploma , next bronze medals, silver, and gold. Well I was so relieved there were not people left , yet I was wondering if they jut forgot about me . Finally the called my name and they gave me my first professional medal for that category. It felt great! I was happy and ready to go to bed.

If you ever want to read or understand more about the competitions the ACF offers you should go to : www.acfchefs.org and it gives all the info you might need.

Compressed seafood terrine-Spinach Wrap 

Cured Salmon with Octupus Wrap

Vegetable Salad