The Concept

You're given a principle ingredient ("protein" i.e. meat or fish), a fruit or vegetable, and a spice. You have two and a half hours to prepare a complete "fine dining" caliber dish. No recipes allowed.

I looked forward to this event with dread. The night before, I was imagining various protein choices (chicken? beef? trout?) and what I'd prepare. To add to the evening's tension, we'd done our "table d'hote" practice that night, so I left school around 9:30 in the evening (its a half hour or so home) and had to be back for 8:30am the next day.

I feared complete mental block: that I'd completely "black out" recipe/technique-wise. That I could think of nothing less ordinary than a simple plate of the protein with the vegetable. I slept poorly; woke up tired.

Come the morning, I went into school to learn what my ingredients would be: a salmon fillet, an orange, and pink peppercorns. I'd never eaten pink peppercorns; they're soft and have a mild taste (relative to black ones).

One other student "competing" (the activity is worth 5 bonus points on our grade) in the 8:30am slot, went straight to work, seemingly confident in her plan. This made me a little nervous, but I decided to sit down for a while and scope out my plate, and reconnoiter the various foodstuffs that were available (we could use anything the school had on hand, so long as we used at least half of each of the ingredients we were assigned).

The Grading System

We would be graded based on:

• Waste (how much you throw out while preparing what you use), and station maintenance (how clean you keep the station)
• Presentation -- how the plate looks
• Creativity, composition, technical skills -- the things that separate ordinary cooking from "fine dining"
• Flavor -- it oughta taste good
• Doneness / proper ingredient temperature -- food properly cooked and delivered hot

I got a 4.3 out of 5 (the highest score was 4.4) and as I write, I got "dinged" slightly for having two butter-based sauces (actually one was butter based, the other a mayonnaise), and could have scored a bit better on station maintenance (too many things to wash after I was done). I ended with the 2nd prize. Not bad for the new kid.

The Approach

Salmon. Orange. Peppercorns. Have to use at least half of each. Here's the thought process I went through:

1. Salmon -- flavorful fish; high in fat (so can be grilled, fried or poached)
2. Orange -- bright flavor, acidic, provides ~1/2C of liquid. Int
3. Peppercorns -- not too strong; nice color, crush-able (you couldn't do this with, say, cardomon pods
4. Need a sauce for the fish; it wouldn't be that interesting by itself
5. Need a starch for a complete plate

I checked the larder: we had yams and the tops I'd saved from the fabulous organic beets we'd used in the table d'hote. We had leeks, some leftover goat cheese mixture (also from the recipe we used for the beets the previous day). Tabiko (those tiny orange fish eggs). And some sun-dried tomatoes.

The Plate

Here's what I prepared:

• A court bouillon (vegetable stock)
• Julienned (very fine slice) leek bottom (white part) and tops (usually inedible, but colorful). Poached the white part; deep fried the top (so it can be eaten as a garnish)
• Poached the salmon in the same liquid, just before service. Removed the skin and the "blood line" (the dark portion -- it is flavorful but doesn't look very nice)
• Prepared a mayonaise with a strong mustard base , for the salmon (salmon and mustard are buddies)
• Prepared an orange hollandaise sauce with pink peppercornsfor the beet greens
• Boiled the yams, drained, then mixed in the goat cheese. This gave the yams a creaminess, a crunch (there were nuts in the cheese mixture), some more color (herbs in the cheese)
• Sauteed the beet greens in an olive oil / canola blend
• Reconstituted the sun-dried tomatoes and fine-sliced them

No photo is available; I was too busy making the stuff to take pictures of it, and since part of the grade is presentation at proper temperature, I didn't want to kill precious minutes photographing it while it cooled. You'll have to use your imagination:

• The salmon was in fillet form -- about 2" x 6" so it fit nicely on a 12" plate. It was draped with mayonaise and sun-dried tomatoes and a bit of the tabiko
• The yam mixture was placed in a round mold about 2 1/2" wide, and plated with the salmon to form the 2nd side of a triangle. I topped this mixture with the julienned leek tops
• The beet greens were mounded in the 3rd corner of the triangle, and topped with the hollandaise

As the 2nd place winner, I was recognized with a gift basket during the graduation ceremony. Very proud. The victory was bittersweet, however, because it was the last "official" cooking we will do in the course (we catered our own graduation, but that doesn't really count). Since this was a competition, we couldn't speak with our colleagues, so while I was on a high from the praise I got on the dishes, I was a bit saddened at the anticlimactic end of the class. But so it goes.