MIT hosts New Zealand’s top high school chefs
The team from Botany Downs Secondary College plates up their entrée for judging
If you’ve seen Master Chef, you’ll know how it works. Ninety minutes to create two dishes to be dissected and critiqued by a panel of top judges with the chance to win a prize package and a prestigious title.
The difference at the National Secondary Schools Culinary Challenge is the contestants are school students prepared by their teachers to enter the heat of the competition kitchen at Manukau Institute of Technology.
“We were under a lot of pressure. I thought we communicated very well,” says Ashley Hewlett, a Year 12 Food Technology student at Botany Downs Secondary College. “It was really good. We are proud of ourselves.”
Together with team mate Wei-Zin Chan; Ashley used the feature ingredient – beetroot – to great effect in a three-cheese crepe paired with the vegetable and a chicken dish featuring kumara and leek fondant along with butternut pumpkin puree.
“Both our culinary teachers did a wonderful job mentoring us through our journey to this competition,” says Wei-Zin. “We learnt a lot.”
The team did really well, placing second in the challenge overall and winning a Moffat E23M3 oven for their school, part of the $12,000 worth of prizes up for grabs. But taking part is as much about allowing learners the experience of devising a dish and preparing it to the highest standard in a professional kitchen, as it is about the placings.
“It creates an environment for them that is close to the realities of industry,” says Botany Downs Head of Food Technology Angie Thomson.
“Doing well in competitions boosts their confidence and gives them the knowledge they can actually have success in the industry. It’s nice as well in a school that has lots of sports and academic focus that there’s another strand for success,” she says.
The achievements of all the contestants were celebrated with an awards dinner at MIT School of Hospitality’s training restaurant Dine. The team of Savanna Munro and Kiera Matich from Kerikeri High School was announced in first place.
Their dishes –an entrée featuring beetroot-cured kingfish with a beetroot curry and beetroot pear chutney wrapped in pickled beetroot, golden beetroot and miso purée, and finished with horseradish and garden herbs.
Guest judge, Peter Wright, Pacific Rim Continental Director for World Chefs summed up the challenge by saying: “As an ambassador for World Chefs and seeing what we’ve seen today, it was overwhelming how organised, how entertaining the whole competition was, the energy in the room was just electrifying and the results were amazing. The coaching that goes into that, you’ve got to take your hat off to all those people behind the scenes, but at the end you could see the relief, the excitement and the happiness that ‘we’ve actually done it’ on the faces of the competitors. I did feel I had to go around and congratulate everyone and say ‘well done, great team work. I would hire you all tomorrow.’”
Manukau Institute of Technology was proud to host the competition. It allows us to showcase our facilities and the expertise of our teaching staff, several of whom act as judges, to both schools, future students and industry partners.
“The event was a great success for identifying the quality and hunger for hospitality within our schools,” says MIT Head of Hospitality, Tourism and Service Industries Ryan Hollis. “Because of COVID, it’s the first challenge that’s been held for two years. If this is the way we’re starting back, then the future is looking exciting.”
MIT would like to thank Culinary Arts Development Trust, Hospitality Training Trust, 5+ A Day, BidFood, Moffat, Service IQ, Southern Hospitality, Vegetables.co.nz and Waitoa Free Range Chicken for their generous support of the challenge.
A selection of dishes prepared by contestants at National Secondary Schools Culinary Challenge 2022