Alaska Seafood joins forces with Westminster Kingsway College

Alaska Seafood recently teamed with leading catering college Westminster Kingsway School of Hospitality, whose former students include Jamie Oliver, Antony Worrall Thompson and Ainsley Harriot, to hold a competition to showcase the culinary talent of the UK's up and coming chefs.

The college has been educating its students on all aspects of wild Alaska seafood over the past months underscoring the quality, sustainability, and health benefits of this seafood and enthusing them to research, prepare and cook with the products.

In the first phase of this competition 80 second year students at the college designed innovative brasserie style recipes with wild Alaska salmon or Pacific cod, which needed to be cooked and presented in just 1.5 hours. 

Jose Souto and Norman Fu, senior chef lecturers at the college, then selected the top 15 recipes to proceed into the final round of the competition where the dishes were cooked, judged and then photographed in its kitchens by well-known food photographer Steve Lee.

The final of the Alaska Seafood catering competition took place on Thursday, March 4 2010, at the college. The 90 minutes cooking time allowed the students to demonstrate their portfolio of skills in the kitchen as they were marked not only on their finished dishes, but also their hygiene and organisation throughout the competition. 

Each student produced two finished dishes, one for the judging and one for photography. The dishes were judged on a number of categories by members of Alaska Seafood, Jose Souto, Norman Fu and Steve Lee.

Daniel Smith was awarded first prize with his dish of confit of wild Alaska salmon sous vide with soft poached quail eggs, dill mayonnaise, pea mousse and baby leek. In second place was Kimberley A. Schmassmann and third was Ana Flavia Leite e Aguiar.

The 15 recipes designed by the finalists will become part of a new 50 page Alaska Seafood catering recipe book to be distributed to chefs and members of the foodservice industry. 

Jose Souto and Norman Fu will also design a set of five recipes for Alaska Seafood, which will be part of the book to give an inspired collection of 20 recipes for brasserie style menus, each involving wild Alaska salmon or wild Alaska Pacific cod.

Words: Sheila Eggleston

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