On October 14 I was privileged to be the emcee at the Second Annual Chef Challenge, held at Schaefer's in Lincoln. Here I am interviewing Ron Romero, president of Schaefer's.The Chef's Challenge featured Nebraska local foods and chefs-in-training at three Nebraska culinary schools: The University of Nebraska, Southeast Community College and Metro Community College. A team of three chefs from each school had one hour to prepare a meal. They were judged on teamwork, sanitation, organization, flavor and presentation.
The University of Nebraska chefs worked in the Electrolux kitchen. They prepared a Midwestern Style Asian Breakfast, consisting of Korean style steak and eggs with carmelized onions and mushroom sauce, along with a green salad. They came in third in the competition.
The Southeast Community College chefs prepared their meal in the Jenn-Air kitchen. They prepared seared skirt steak drizzled with brown butter, sweet potato agnolotti and glazed autumn vegetables, along with apples and bears sauteed in buttery belle de brillet syrup accompanied with candied pecans and whip cream. They received the second place award in the competition.
The Metro Community College chefs prepared an appealing meal made up of several small dishes, using the Viking kitchen. I was particularly impressed with how immaculate they kept their work place. It's definitely an example of "mise en place" (French for "everything in its place.") The judges were impressed with all aspects of their cooking, so awarded them the first place trophy, in spite of the fact that they went a couple minutes over time.
While waiting for the chefs to finish, spectators enjoyed samples prepared by chefs from the three schools, using the KitchenAid kitchen. The samples used locally grown food, provided by Open Harvest Cooperative Grocery.
Click here for more photos of the Chef Challenge.
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