More tips on technique and presentation

Every practice results in still more advice for this year’s scholarship contenders. These tips are from practice at Mesquite High School.

Overall hints for the preliminaries

Organize your time –

know each step and technique

practice in appropriate order

Sanitation

wear three or four pairs of gloves, discard as you go from step to step

wipe your cutting board between each use or step

discard inedible scraps, save edibles (why? “I’ll make stock” is a good answer)

Practice knife skills

Understand your recipe

Taste everything

Resist the temptation to garnish plates!

On omelets

Getting eggs whisked correctly depends both on the right bowl and the right whisk Omelets should be plump in the middle with no ragged edges, no cracks

Color is an even, pale gold and there is no browning anywhere

Omelets are rolled and flipped out of the pan (this technique requires patience and practice)

Seconds count in this dish – the center needs to be creamy, a little wet/damp but cooked completely

Salt and pepper in balance – if you practice with black pepper, use that in competition

Taste is creamy and soft, with just a whisper of pepper

You can “straighten out” the omelet after you get it onto a plate, but make sure you wear gloves. Also, make certain your plate is clean, with no little dribbles or spots of oil or butter – or uncooked eggs.

Super salads

Vinaigrette needs to be balanced just right in salt/sweet/tang taste

Whisk until you have a complete emulsion

Make sure you’re dicing at ¼-inch (measure and practice until you can see the size correctly and consistently)

Cilantro should be minced to dust-like status (NOTE: cilantro is ready-to-use and need not be rinsed in this competition!)

Dice vegetables in hard-to-soft order, i.e., jicama first, then peppers, onion and finally tomato (WHY? Tomatoes are fragile, especially when diced. They’ll break down while bathing in vinaigrette and look/taste mushy.)

Have at least 20 slices of cucumber ready to line your salad mold.

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Line up cucumber slices in the order you cut so it will be easy to see if you need to cut additional, similarly sized slices

Line your mold as you cut, so you can see whether you’re slicing correctly and can fill in any gaps

Drain, strain and then strain your vegetables through cheesecloth – then blot and stray oil with a paper towel

Make sure vegetables have consistent size in the dice and that there are no seeds left

Have a balanced mix of vegetables and fill your mold evenly to the top

Adjust cucumber slices up or down with the tip of a paring knife

About cucumbers

English cucumbers will be used in the preliminaries. They’re long, slender, and somewhat straighter than garden-variety cucumbers.

Jill Smith suggests taking a good, close assessment of each cucumber before beginning cuts.

“You need the most symmetrical part to cut slices for lining the salad mold,” she says.

“Line your slices up as you cut and begin filling the mold. You need to have even slices so it is very important not to cut away the rest of your cucumber before your mold is lined correctly.”