Compete like a culinary competition pro!

Chef Francine Marz, MBA, CEC, and culinary director at Montgomery County (PA) community college, is a fierce competitor. 

She likes the intensity of a good competition - and she's good at it, too.  While in Phoenx, she headed  the Art Institute's competition team, has served as the chair of the A.C.F. Chefs' Association of Arizona competition committee, and participates regularly in competitions herself.

Her competitive instincts are near-legendary, and her advice is always something to seriously consider. Herewith:

General help in competition

·       Know the rules and make sure you’re observing them to the letter.

·       Know your recipes inside and out.

·       Develop a timeline that includes techniques for each step of each recipe.  You can tape a timeline to the top of your tool kit or keep it in a pocket for reference.

·       Keep a clean working area. 

·       Don’t leave anything stacked on the cutting board while you continue to cut another

ingredient.

·       Have a waste bucket and a scrap can (so usable ingredients can be salvaged). (Remember, it's a judge's easiest question: "What are you planning to do with your scraps?"  ANSWER: "Make stock!")

·       If you're wearing blue gloves, it will be easy to spot any bits accidentally left in your food!

·       Clean up as you go and remember to maintain sanitation.

·       Be careful of cross-contamination.

·       Have enough gloves along with you.

·       Ditto on pots.  Have an extra one or two on hand in case something burns or you need to redo  a step quickly.

·       Don’t use glass containers for your mise en place – if they shatter, it’s a sanitation mess.

·       Don’t wait until the night before competition to sharpen your knives – you need to
 know how sharp they are so you can avoid accidental cuts.

·       During competition, stay busy every minute – or, at least, look as if you’re busy.

·       Know how to think on your feet, so that nothing throws you off course.

·       Taste, taste, taste! Know how each recipe is supposed to taste and get it as close as possible.

·       Get a good oven thermometer and make sure you use it.

·       Know your cooking temperatures as well as times!

·       Stir everything as it should be stirred.

·       Use enough ingredients to create a presentation plate, a tasting plate, and to resolve any mistakes or problems that may develop.

·       Leave the food alone while it cooks!

·       Don’t leave a plate to sit with half a presentation on it – plate everything at one time.

·       Remember when plating: hot food, hot plate; cold food, cold plate.

Chef Marz also says, “If you want this, fight for it.  The night before, review every step and make out lists.  Visualize everything you will do and what your plates will look like. Work to develop and convey a sense of urgency in your work." (Translation: Keep moving! DO NOT STOP focusing on your food, cooking and plating it.)

More than that, Chef Marz adds, “Develop a sense of urgency in your work.  And - this is important! - visualize how it will feel to win.  

"You want an emotion to hang on to as you work.”

Don't be a dumb cluck - that chicken's tricky and the crepes brown quickly!

We're cutting to the chase here: these are basic tips from judges and culinary competitors about getting that chicken and crepes exactly right. 

And the first thing 2018 competitors want to remember is this: CCAP founder Chef Richard Grausman owns the CCAP chicken chasseur recipe (in every sense of the word). And, yes - he's expected to be present at this competition. (of course, Chef Grausman is very present at just about every CCAP competition!)  

Here are a few other things to remember about making and plating supreme poulet chasseur avec pommes chateau (hunter's chicken with turned, sauteed potatoes):

·      Make sure your chicken breast is about the right size for a serving. If it's too large, cut it - and make certain you are trimming it appropriately.

·      Stock needs to be perfectly clear, with a good taste.

·      To help sweeten the stock, add more onion.

·      Be careful with the glace.  Even a small burned bit in your saucepan will give it a bitter, burned taste. (Butter will help take care of lingering bitterness.)

·      Don’t leave tomatoes or potatoes sitting in an ice bath.

·      Remember to season the potatoes.

·      Let the potatoes get just a little color in the saute pan.

·      Be careful how you slice the chicken for plating; don’t fan it out too much (it will cool too quickly).

·      Have some sauce under the chicken and some sauce or garnish on top.

Create a presentation with a delicate look to it; if you use a parsley or herb garnish, mince finely and don’t let it clump. Remember, it belongs on the food, not just the plate (no matter how nice you think your plate looks with parsley dust around your chicken).

We'll have more on presentation later - right now, let's make some crepes.

Not exactly Suzette's dessert here: making, filling and folding CCAP crepes

·      Timing, timing, timing.  If you make your pastry cream first, drop a sheet of plastic wrap right on top and keep it in an ice bath at your station.

·      Make sure your eggs aren’t curdling; keep stirring!

·      Keep your pastry cream smooth and as light (thin) as possible.

·      Keep your crepes as thin as possible.

·      Make sure your crepes are the right color - they are pale gold, with maybe a few flecks of slightly darker brown.

·      Practice folding your crepes.

·      Play with the presentation before you get to competition. You want to have a plan - and you'll need options depending upon how your crepes turn out - and what your berries and chocolate sauce look like.

·      Be careful about your chocolate sauce, and how you pipe it onto the crepes and plate. (And - by the by, don't get crazed with the chocolate: Chocolate piping doesn’t need to be too glitzy!)

·      Finally – don’t forget to taste!  The pastry cream should taste just sweet enough, with a whisper of vanilla.

Coming next: prepping for competition - how the pros do it

Ready, set...COOK!

There's no reasonable way to game CCAP's competition, but it's possible to gain a significant edge with just a few clever steps.

Let's take a minute and review just a few competition tips to get you ready.

·      Determine your plate presentations before you arrive at finals. Keep it simple and easy, so you'll have time to spend on organization, cooking techniques and knife skills. Finals judges (watch for the list the week of March 19) will be all over the kitchen and stoves during competition.

·      Have sanitation and food handling technique down to a science. Confused about gloves? Just remember: Uncooked food that will be cooked: no gloves needed. Ready-to-eat (salads, garnishes, whole or cut fresh fruit) and all cooked food: glove up!

·      Remember to wash your hands. Often.

·      Create a written prep list and plan to guide yourself through. Tape it to the inside top of your equipment box.

·      You have two (2!) hours to prepare  two plated chicken dishes, and two plates of dessert crepes with sauce and garnish. You'll want to get your practice time down to about an hour and 50 minutes, so you have time to finish up plating.

·      In your sauces, remember each ingredient needs to be distinct and identifiable enough to be tasted (hint: means tarragon needs to be "taste-able," tomatoes can't be cooked to mush, and mushrooms get a head start before garlic in your pan).

What the cluck? (Steps to chicken chasseur)

1.  Press down on the thickest part of the breast to test doneness.  Chicken should be firm with a slight bounce back.  Overcooking dries the meat - and undercooking means the judges won't eat it.  (HINT:  Use a thermometer!)

2.  Don't let the sauce thicken too much - it will be gummy.  If it starts to jell, thin it with some stock. 

3.  Butter helps thicken the sauce, but it must be added correctly.  Once you've added it, do not let your sauce boil or it will break and look separated and curdled.

4.  Make sure that sauce is balanced in flavors.  There's a rich flavor from the stock and glace, the mushrooms make it kind of earthy, there's a whisper of tomato taste, a little hint of licorice or anise from the tarragon, a rich and soft feel from the butter and a little zing from the parsley.

5.  This is a sauce in which you also need to see the elements (except for the butter - duh!) - means don't cook your tomatoes to invisible mush and don't mince that tarragon to tasty and unseen dust.

6.  If your pan isn't hot enough or you've put the chicken into the pan meat side down or if the chicken skin is too damp, that chicken's gonna want to stick to your pan.*

7.   Make sure your potatoes are cooked through - throw a couple of extra, similarly sized pieces of potato into the pot so you can test/taste these as you cook.  Make sure your water has enough salt!

Really fancy little pancakes

Seriously, that's all those crepes are: fancy-schmancy little pancakes.  But, hey, it's dessert, so let's have a little (we said "little!") bit o' fun with them.

And you can have fun with this presentation. Remember: the crepes need to be perfect, just a bit brown, a little lace-looking. The cream, too - yeah, needs to be perfectly smooth and (ha-ha!) creamy (so remember "cornstarch," not flour).

To help keep the cream creamy, drop a piece of plastic wrap right on top of it to eliminate the "skin" that develops when cream's exposed to air.

But folding - uh, on your own, here. Dream up whatever you want. Just remember to practice - and time it, too.

Strawberry? Garnish away, but remember: if it ain't in the dish, it ain't on the plate.

                                                
   

*A small amount of oil added to a very hot pan almost instantly becomes very hot oil. The oil quickly sears the outside of the food and causes water to be released from the food. This layer of water vapor ("steam") lifts the food atop the oil film and keeps it from touching the hot pan surface. If the oil is not hot enough, the steam effect will not occur and the food will fuse to the (too) cool pan surface.

                                                                                                                                                                                 Source: Ask a Scientist