Culinary Competition at CIV sees Students Face Off in a "Super Bowl"
Scholarship Money and Bragging Rights on the Line
While the NFL is down to just two teams, the Culinary Institute of Virginia (CIV) recently had 10 teams facing off for a super bowl of its own. The latest installment of its Culinary Competition Series, CIV’s “Super Bowl,” did not take place on the gridiron…but rather in the kitchen where the competition was just as fierce and the fire, just as real!
Bowls are a hot culinary trend right now, from fruit, grain, and yogurt breakfast bowls to savory lunch and dinner bowls layered with greens, proteins, veggies, and seeds. They are packed with nutrition, color, texture, and complex flavor profiles. The variety of combinations is almost limitless.
For this competition, students were challenged to express their culinary creativity to earn scholarship dollars toward their education by scoring a big win with the judges. The criteria: fill a bowl with layers of flavors, textures, colors, crunch and pizazz. It could be for breakfast, lunch or dinner. Specific parameters included:
- Each team had to produce a full-size bowl for the presentation
- Recipe produces 6 judges’ portions, approximately six ounces each
- Portion cost no more than $3.00
- Entry must include a recipe
- Teams had to present the recipe’s nutritional analysis
Judging Criteria
- Knife cuts played a very important role
- Choice of ingredients, along with freshness, color, flavor profiles, texture, and overall creativity
- Both team members had to contribute to the oral recitation of the nutritional benefits of their Super Bowl
The judging panel was comprised on some of Virginia’s finest chefs, several of whom are CIV graduates. In the end, the winning bowls featured three very distinct flavor profiles – Asian, Spanish, and Vegan:
First Place Team
Marcia Santos and Alexander Medina
Sweet Breakfast Couscous – Israeli couscous with strawberries, bananas, apple, shredded coconut, chopped macadamia nuts, and chia seeds drizzled with a flavor-charged glaze made with lemon, mint, basil, cloves, nutmeg and allspice.
Second Place Team
Samantha Enriquez and Lyle Delacruz
Vietnamese-Inspired Ramen – Ramen noodles in a savory chicken broth prepared with kombu, bonito, leeks, lemongrass. Soup toppings of baby corn, red cabbage, radishes, scallions, baby bok choy and hardboiled egg. Dish accented with a tangy rice vinegar/ginger sauce and Nori garnish.
Third Place Team
Brenek McIntosh and Chris Stokes
Japanese Rice Bowl with Marinated Steak – Sweet and spicy recipe of white rice topped with sliced marinated steak, ground pork, a variety of crunchy vegetables cut in floral shapes, finished with a hot chili oil/rice vinegar/kewpie dressing.
Congratulations to all for a job well done!
Do you have an idea for the next winning Super Bowl? If you want to earn an Associate of Applied Science in Culinary Arts, ECPI University’s Culinary Institute of Virginia offers this program at an accelerated rate. For more information on this exciting degree, connect with a helpful admissions counselor today.
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