How to Tryout for the 2023-2024 Competition Team (With Helpful Hints)

Tryouts for Wekiva Culinary’s AWARD-WINNING 2023-2024 Competition team, will be held Saturday, 5/20/23, from 9AM – 1:30 PM. 

HOW IT WORKS

You will be working with other students to prepare some combination of the following dishes: 

  • a gourmet grilled cheese sandwich of your own choice, 
  • an arugula salad with supremed meyer’s lemon and handmade dressing, 
  • a tomato bisque, and 
  • a chocolate molten cake with cardamom whipped cream and creme anglaise. 

For each item, you will be making four (4) identical, restaurant-quality plates. Four identical desserts, four identical bowls of soup, four identical entrees. They must be identical. Plated the same. Garnished exactly the same.

Plates and bowls will be provided: all teams will be using the same plates, bowls, and silverware. What will make your dishes stand out is what YOU bring to the table. You may not serve the judges an additional beverage or bring anything to “fancy-up” your presentation: they are judging you on your ability to prepare these specific dishes (not on your ability to accessorize).

We will be looking for four specific knife cuts to be utilized as PART of each dish – even the dessert. If the judges can’t find yours they will ask. Be prepared to point out the following:

  • julienne
  • brunoise
  • supreme
  • chiffonade

TEAMS

What size team you join or compete with will ENTIRELY depend on what you want to try out for. For example, if you want to try out for the ProStart Culinary Team, you will be making all 4 dishes and will need a team of 3-4 people to finish on time. Part of what I am judging is your ability to get along with, plan with, and cooperate with others. This is where your PEOPLE SKILLS come into play! 

You may sign up as an individual and be PLACED in a team or you may sign up AS a team. Which is better? You tell me – how can you really work and function as a team if you haven’t had any kind of communication with other members OF that team prior to competing?

REMEMBER, your final competition entry is entirely chef’s decision. Lots of people want to do ProStart Culinary – but there is only space for FIVE. Good news? There are many other ways to compete! We will find you something cool to do that will show your skills and allow you to compete for prizes and bragging rights.

INGREDIENTS & RECIPES

Base ingredients for the salad, soup, and dessert will be on hand. No ingredients for the grilled cheese sandwich will be provided – that is where you are showing your creativity and planning ability. No ingredients for garnishing the soup or dessert will be provided – again, show us your planning and artistic skills! Your ability to work and plan with others is going to be incredibly important.

Grilled Cheese ingredients and garnishing items will have to come from home.

Recipes for the main dishes are posted on the bottom of this page. While you MUST follow the provided recipes, you are encouraged to show your creativity with the gourmet grilled cheese sandwich you make and your choice of garnishes/ plating.

Having a hard time with the idea of “gourmet grilled cheese?” Check this out: https://somethingaboutsandwiches.com/gourmet-grilled-cheese-sandwiches/

SCHEDULE

PLAN TO ARRIVE BY 8:30

Check-in time begins/ Doors open at 8:30 AM and ends at 9 AM. You may not enter the kitchen hallway before 8:30 AM.

  • 10 point penalty for checking in between 9:00 AM and 9:15 AM.
  • 40 point penalty for checking in between 9:15-9:30 AM.
  • Doors close at 9:31AM.

MIS EN PLACE 9-10

You will have 1 hour to brainstorm with your team, gather tools, gather ingredients, and prepare your workspace. You may wash vegetables, measure dry or wet ingredients, even come up with a cooking timeline – but you may not do ANYTHING which requires a knife or cutting board and you CERTAINLY can’t start cooking.

COOKING 10-11:30 AM (All items must be plated by 11:35AM – Anything not on the plate at 11:35 AM will be thrown away)

You will have 90 minutes to prepare one of three combinations of dishes:

  • Dessert only (teams of 1 or 2)
  • Sandwich, salad, and soup (teams of 2-3)
  • Sandwich, salad, soup, and dessert (teams of 3-5; if you have a team of 5, one person isn’t cooking, they are managing recipes and keeping the rest on track)

While your food is being judged, you will clean up. Clean up duties will be assigned at check-in. Once the kitchen is clean, you will hear the judge’s feedback between 1-1:30.

OUTCOME

Chef will use the scores and feedback/scores of all our tryout judges to influence the final composition of competing teams. Regional, National, and Specialty teams will be announced in early October.

Scoring Sheets can be found at the bottom of this page

RECIPES

Print

Tomato Bisque

Course Soup

Ingredients

  • 1 tablespoon olive oil
  • 1 cup diced onion
  • ½ cup diced celery
  • 1 pinch salt
  • 3 cloves garlic chopped
  • 32 oz chicken broth or more as needed
  • 28 oz crushed tomatoes
  • ½ teaspoon paprika
  • 1 pinch freshly ground black pepper or to taste
  • 1 pinch cayenne pepper or to taste
  • 3 tablespoons uncooked jasmine rice
  • 1 teaspoon white sugar or to taste
  • ½ cup heavy whipping cream
  • salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
  • 2 tablespoons heavy whipping cream divided
  • 2 tablespoons thinly sliced fresh basil leaves divided

Instructions

  • Heat olive oil in a large pot over medium heat; cook and stir onion and celery with a pinch of salt until onion is translucent, 5 to 8 minutes. Stir in garlic and cook until fragrant, about 1 minute.
  • Pour chicken broth and tomatoes into onion mixture. Bring to a simmer and season with paprika, black pepper, and cayenne pepper. Turn heat to low and stir rice into soup; skim foam occasionally and simmer until rice and vegetables are very tender, 35 to 45 minutes. Add sugar.
  • In batches, process soup in blender until very smooth. Return to pot. Whisk 1/2 cup cream into soup and season with salt, black pepper, cayenne pepper, and sugar if needed. If soup is too thick, add more broth; if soup is too thin, cook, stirring often, until reduced and slightly thickened, about 10 minutes.
  • Ladle into warmed bowls; garnish each bowl with a drizzle of cream and top each with about 1 teaspoon chopped basil.
Print

Arugula Salad with Supremed Meyer’s Lemon

Course Salad

Ingredients

  • 1 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
  • 1 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
  • 1 teaspoon honey + more for lemons
  • 1 supremed meyer lemon
  • ¼ teaspoon kosher salt
  • ¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
  • 2 cups arugula
  • shaved Parmesan cheese

Instructions

  • In a large bowl, emulsify dressing using olive oil, lemon juice, honey, salt and pepper.
  • Supreme meyer lemon. Drizzle with honey and sprinkle with salt. Reserve.
  • Add the arugula to large bowl. Drizzle dressing over top and lightly toss. Top with the shaved Parmesan and more pepper to taste. Garnish with supremed lemon wedges.
Print

Chocolate Lava Cake

Course Dessert

Ingredients

  • 2 egg yolks
  • 2 eggs
  • 3 tablespoons white sugar
  • 3 ½ ounces chopped chocolate
  • 5 tablespoons butter
  • 4 teaspoons unsweetened cocoa powder
  • 3 tablespoons flour
  • 1 pinch salt
  • ⅛ teaspoon vanilla extract

Instructions

  • Generously butter the inside of 4 (5 1/2 ounce) ramekins. Place them in ½ hotel pan.
  • Whisk together egg yolks, eggs, and sugar in a bowl until light, foamy, and lemon colored.
  • Melt chocolate and butter in a microwave-safe bowl in 30-second intervals, stirring after each melting, 1 to 3 minutes.
  • Stir melted chocolate mixture into egg and sugar mixture until combined.
  • Sift cocoa powder into the mixture; stir to combine.
  • Sift flour and salt into the mixture; stir to combine into a batter.
  • Stir vanilla extract into the batter.
  • Divide batter evenly between the prepared ramekins; tap gently on the counter to remove any air bubbles.
  • Chill 30 minutes.
  • Preheat an oven to 425 degrees F.
  • Pour enough hot tap water into the hotel pan to reach halfway up the sides of the ramekins.
  • Bake in the preheated over for 15 minutes. Set aside to cool for 15 minutes.
  • Loosen the edges from the ramekin with a knife. Invert each cake onto a plate.
  • Serve with creme anglaise, cardamom whipped cream, and Garnish as desired
Print

Creme Anglaise

Course Dessert
Cuisine French
Keyword Culinary 3, Custards, Pastry

Ingredients

  • 1/2 cup whole milk
  • 1/2 cup whipping cream
  • 1 2 inch vanilla bean, split and scraped or 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 3 large egg yolks
  • 3 tablespoons sugar

Instructions

  • Combine milk and cream in heavy medium saucepan. Scrape in seeds from vanilla bean; add bean. Bring milk mixture to simmer. Remove from heat. Add extract if using.
  • Whisk egg yolks and sugar in medium bowl to blend. Gradually whisk hot milk mixture into yolk mixture. Return custard to saucepan. Stir over low heat until custard thickens and leaves path on back of spoon when finger is drawn across, about 5 minutes (do not boil).
  • Strain sauce through fine mesh sieve or cheesecloth. Cover and chill. (Can be made 1 day ahead.)
Print

Cardamom Whipped Cream

Ingredients

  • 1 cup heavy whipping cream
  • 1 Tablespoon + 1 Teaspoon sugar
  • 1/2 Teaspoon ground cardamom

Instructions

  • Add cardamom, sugar and heavy whipping cream to bowl and whisk until cream becomes thick and will stand up on its own.
Competition-team-practice-scoring-sheets