No Ordinary Bake-Off: 4-Course Feast

Talk about a pressure cooker. The two teams of culinary arts students had spent six months refining each dish for a state competition Sunday at Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa. To get to the western regional contest in Colorado next month, they had to get past four judges with demanding standards.

The two teams, Orange Coast and American River College, from Sacramento, each had 90 minutes to prepare and serve four courses, half a point deducted for each minute they were late.

They were judged on butchery, fish boning, filleting, slicing, peeling, chopping, sanitation, organization, presentation, execution, taste, skill and kitchen teamwork.

After the judges -- chefs from the American Culinary Federation -- tasted the teams’ four-course meals, they critiqued them, noting such things as a too-cool broth, the mistake of including cheese in a dish before the entree, too many flavors in one dish, even wordy menu descriptions.

The Orange Coast College team’s four courses featured the following: for the appetizer, smoked bass stuffed with sauteed leeks and roasted tomatoes, velvet corn sauce and a parsley emulsion; for the salad, winter field greens, apples, walnuts and blue cheese tossed in a cranberry vinaigrette, followed by a lavender-infused lemon sorbet to clear the taste buds; for the entree, roasted chicken breast with portabello mushrooms, pureed yams, glazed beets and turnips, and sauteed spinach; for dessert, chocolate mousse with lingonberry, wine-poached pear and persimmon sauces.

American River College cooked up this menu: for the appetizer, a soup of sea bass, squid and mussels in a tomato and pepper broth; for the salad, baby greens, roasted root vegetables, fried lemon zest and herbs in a lemon citronette; for the entree, stuffed chicken breast with roasted red peppers, pistachios, chestnuts and chanterelle mushrooms; for dessert, crumbly cake filled with red wine sorbet, quince and cherry compote, and on the side, a crispy nut cookie and a caramel-coated, preserved cherry.

Bill Franklin, executive chef for Nestle USA in Colorado, announced the scores: Orange Coast College 33.45, American River College 30.5. The Orange Coast team hugged and cried, overjoyed that its hard work and sacrifice paid off.

“This is ‘Iron Chef’ at a student level,” Franklin said, referring to the Food Network show in which culinary masters face off in a super-kitchen.

On the TV show, contestants have hordes of assistants to chop, boil and garnish, and all the equipment is provided, as are the ingredients. In contrast, the students have to buy their own ingredients and bring their own equipment to the competition site. A team’s members back each other up and learn how to “work like a melody,” said Lauren de Rouen of the Orange Coast team.

The American River College team drove eight hours to the Costa Mesa campus for the contest.

Several other teams from around the state were scheduled to compete but withdrew at the last minute. The tension was just as palpable with only two teams, and the stakes were still high.

“It’s just like a sport,” said Stasi Chaney of the Sacramento team. “The practice, the anticipation, the heat of competition.”

A team typically practices about 20 hours a week and usually drives to where its instructors work, two or three times a week over six months.

“They have jobs, are going to school, and this too,” said Melissa Simpson, a baking instructor at Orange Coast.

Chaney’s husband, Jeremy, said it had been “stressful” at home for six months.

His wife was “getting at the school at 6 a.m. and staying as late as 10 p.m. some nights,” he said. “The last month has been extremely busy. The dessert changed several times.”

For Sunday’s competition, the students had six months to practice.

For the regional contest, they have only three weeks. And it will cost about $8,000 to send the team, most of it raised by the students.

“This is what we wanted,” to go to the next level, said Susie Han, who prepared the dessert course for Orange Coast.

Now, said team manager Randy Torres, “the real work begins.”