Iron Chef Competition cooks up a storm at St. Thomas More

By Trevor Robb

EDMONTON — Six schools, three chef judges, one trophy.

Junior high students from six different catholic schools competed Thursday against one another in the seventh annual Iron Chef competition at St. Thomas More junior high school.

Each school had one hour to complete a dish comprised of one protein, one starch and a choice and combination of three fruits and vegetables. Each team chose to cook a dish from a desired country:

• St. Thomas More — China — Chicken stuffed wontons  w/Mango noodle salad.
• Louis St. Laurent — Mexico — Homemade Pollo Tostados w/salsa, sour cream and guacamole.
• St. Elizabeth Seton — Lebanon — Sheesh Taouk Chicken w/Lebanese cucumber and tomato salad and golden couscous.
• Sir John Thompson — Jamaica — Homemade rice and beans and Jerk chicken tacos w/mango salsa.
• St. Rose — Italy — Mini chicken sausage Gnocchi (Italian pasta dumpling).
• J.J Bowlen — France — Pecan crusted chicken cordon bleu w/garlic mashed potatoes and broiled beets.

CTS consultant with the Edmonton Catholic School district Robert Jong, oversaw the competition in what was his fourth year organizing the event. Jong credited the rise in television cooking shows for the competitions popularity .

“What we found is that there’s a lot of sports teams and those kids usually get all the notoriety, so we thought it would be really neat to have an event for foods kids,” said Jong.

Three chef judges surveyed the different teams as they cooked and prepared their meals in their own separate mini-kitchens:

• Tammy Genge — Red Seal Chef — Culinary Instructor at St. Jospeh High School
• Cheryl Shinkaruk — CTS event organizer and cooking enthusiast — Edmonton Catholic Schools
• Emmanuel David — Red Seal Chef — Chef at Bistro la Persaud

Judges were marking the student-chefs for cleanliness, originality, presentation and taste. It’s been said that a happy kitchen is a clean kitchen. The judges were watching scrupulously on whether teams were properly sanitizing their utensils, knives and cutting boards, as well as the overall cleanliness of the kitchen itself.

“This one kitchen in particular is doing very well, they have hot water in their sink, they’re cleaning as they’re going, they’re counters are always being wiped down,” said red-seal chef Tammy Genge. “Whereas if you compare it to some other kitchens where there is everything all over, they would lose marks for that.”

But the big test is taste. After the one hour mark teams presented their dishes to the judges, who later convened in a separate room to decide on the winning dish. For chef Emmanuel David the ethnic-themed competition is not only tough for the students but it’s admittedly tough on the judges as well as each dish looks and tastes completely different.

“This type of competition is quite a challenge for the kids, you have to be very versed with the flavour of the country,” said David. “It shouldn’t be ethnic, it should be a black box with the same ingredients and then that’s how you judge the skill level.”

In the end, a top three was decided on:

1. Louis St. Laurent — Mexico
2. J.J. Bowlen — France
3. Sir John Thompson — Jamaica

In the past five years of Iron Chef competition, J.J. Bowlen won four times but this year belonged to the trio of Kandace Riel-Tonn and twin sisters Cassie and Bailey Garbutt from Louis St. Laurent, along with their coach and  foods teacher Alexis Cavanagh. The trio admitted that toughest part of cooking their dish was preserving the distinct flavours.

“If you end up having it right, it ends up working very well, but if you end up doing it a little off like the salsa broth, it could end up throwing the whole thing off,” said Riel-Tonn.

A senior high school Iron Chef competition will be held at Holy Trinity High School on Tuesday.

robbt@mymail@macewan.ca