Here’s how Chef of the Year does it

Press, 2 July 1983, Page 12

Here’s how Chef of the Year does it

Food & Fable by

David Burton

Only on very rare occasions in this country do we get to see the preparation of true French haute cuisine. Here is found professional cooking by chefs of the highest achievement, with its elaborate sauces, pates in pastry crusts, high-rising souffles, spun-sugar desserts, and fabulously ornate decorations. For three days each year, however, the public in one of New Zealand’s main centres is given, just such an opportunity, when the country’s top chefs compete in the Cookery and Food Association’s grand Salon Culinaire. For the spectator at least, if not for the harassed contestant, it is an immensely entertaining spectacle. The more important of the about 15 individual competitions

are Chef of the Year, Commis Chef of the Year (for trainee chefs), and the T.H.C. Award (for executive chefs). The static cold buffet displays are breathtaking in themselves. Decorated hams, aspiccoated galatines, and margarine sculptures compete for space with chickens masked with white chaudfroid sauce and decorated with hearts and diamonds of truffle; the real drama, however, is in the practical competitions. Here, the chefs stand in a rectangle, facing outwards, each with their own stove and bench. They have to start from scratch with raw ingredients, and cook their chosen fish within a specified time. The judges, resplendent in their chefs uniforms (some decorated with ribboned medallions), wander about sternly noting down comments on their clipboards, while the contestants busily roll out pastry, reduce broths into fumes fumets, and pare potatoes into neat oval shapes. Just to watch the movements of the knives is to understand the difference between the home cook and the master chef. On the other hand, it is consoling to know that even the professionals have their failures sometimes. At the last Salon in Wellington a chef had very elegantly cased some French rib chops in pastry and put . them in the oven. I looked first at the expression on the chefs face,

then at the pastry on top of the chops; both were falling sadly. Warwick Brown had considerably more luck with his dish of Sole Normande at the most recent Salon in Christchurch; it helped him to become the reigning Chef of the Year. Sole Normande Koura, or fresh-water crayfish, are the closest New Zealand equivalent to the ecrevisses required for garnishing this classical French dish. For the sake of both practicality and economy, however, I suggest using tail-less crayfish bodies which can be bought cheaply from fish shops. 2 crayfish bodies. 12 mussels, scrubbed. */4 cup white wine. 4 large button mushrooms, sliced. juice of Va lemon. 4 sole fillets. 3 egg yolks. 4 tablespoons butter. Preheat oven to 180 C (350 F

If the crayfish bodies are still raw, boil them for 6 to 8 minutes (save the water — it makes an excellent chowder with the addition of a packet of onion soup powder, a bay leaf, a couple of cloves and a little cooked rice). Snap the legs and feeler in two and slide out the meat. Steam open the mussels in a covered saucepan with the wine. Shell the mussels and save the cooking liquor. Half cover the mushrooms, with water, add lemon juice and a pinch of salt, and boil gently for several minutes. Drain, and pour the cooking water into a baking dish along with the mussel liquor. This is your poaching bouillion. Place the fish in the baking dish and cover them with buttered greaseproof paper. Bring the liquid to simmering point on top of the stove, then place the dish into the oven and keep barely simmering for 8 to 12 minutes. Towards the end of cooking, place a large serving

platter into the oven to heat through, and begin making the sauce. Beat the egg yolks in a double boiler or over a very gentle heat, and stir in the butter. Get somebody to take the fish from the oven and pour about a quarter of a cup of the cooking liouid into the sauce, while you continue beating with a whisk until the sauce is frothy. Take it off the heat. Quickly transfer the fish to the warmed serving platter, surround it with crayfish, mussels and mushrooms, and pour the sauce over the fish. The dish may also be garnished with triangles of white bread sauteed in butter. Serves four. The Cookery and Food Association, which runs these Salons Culinaire, is the oldest culinary society in the English-speaking world. It traces its origins back to 1885, in London, when a group of French chefs who were working in England got together to hold annual displays and competitions to promote haute cuisine. The founding president was Eugene Pouard, Caterer to the Queen’s Bo-

dyguard. Among the early leading lights were the great Auguste Escoffier (who served as vice-presi-dent) and his friend and partner Cesar Ritz, founder of a string of luxury hotels throughout Britain, Europe, and America. Since 1898 the C.F.A. has enjoyed royal patronage, and it has also become traditional that the Master of the Royal Household is also the association’s president.

For the past decade the C.F.A. in New Zealand has been an autonomous body, although it remains affiliated to the mother organisation.

A link is also retained by the sending of a team of New Zealand chefs to compete in the C.F.A.’s biennial “Salon Culinaire des Londres.” One of the world’s most prestigious cooking competitions, it attracts contestants from all over the world.

It is held in conjunction with a huge food industry fair known as “Hotelympia,” at the covered showgrounds at Olympia in central London.

The patron of the New

Zealand association is the Governor-General. Recently, it elected its first-ever woman chairman, Kate Harding. After completing her City and Guilds qualifications in Bradford, England, Kate worked in a kitchen there which dispensed a staggering 6000 school meals daily. She is now with the Central Institute of Technology in Heretaunga, as a senior technician on the Hotel Managers diploma course. Kate is one of very few honoured as Fellows of the Association, entitled to use the letters F.C.F.A.N.Z. after their names.

Full members, mostly chefs and others involved in the catering industry, are entitled to the letters , M.C.F.A.N.Z. while Associ'ate Members (trainee chefs and members of the public genuinely interested in the art and science of cookery) can also put up letters after their name.

Curiously the highest grade of membership, that of “Governor,” has never been awarded in this country. Would New Zealand’s first Escoffier please step forward?