EscondidoEscondido — Vista High School senior Tate Miller meticulously trimmed fat and skin from a slab of pork on Tuesday, getting ready to cut it into glazed pork medallions — the filet mignon of pork.
That attention to detail paid off for Miller and his fellow seniors Tavo Updike and Mari Gebauer. For the second consecutive year, the Vista High culinary team won the 2016 San Diego County CTE MasterChefs Competition.
“It feels good to win a second year in a row,” said Updike, who also helped cook last year’s plate, which featured pork tenderloins dressed with a creamy sauce featuring shallots, cider and mustard and garnished with caramelized pears.
For this year’s competition, he and Gebauer created tourne potatoes — a technique that involves cutting a vegetable into seven sides that are tapered at the end, resembling a football. The team’s winning dish also included sauteed aspargus with carrots and red and yellow peppers, garnished with diced Granny Smith apples.
“We definitely practiced a lot for this, sometimes three to four times a week,” Gebauer said.
The competition was held at Orange Glen High School’s state of the art kitchen and attracted nine high schools from throughout San Diego County.
The mostly four-member teams — plus one alternate — had to cook pork as a main entree and were required to complete their dish in one-hour. Their dishes were judged by a handful of professional chefs from throughout the region.
“When I went to high school, this kind of thing didn’t exist,” judge Travis West told a team from Santana High School, who whipped up a plate of Chinese pork dumplings with kecap manis chili sauce and a side dish of steamed Shiitake mushrooms, broccoli and bell peppers.
“It was really good,” said West, the executive chef at Rancho Bernardo Inn. “They made hand-made dough for the (dumplings). That’s brave. It was a little thick, but it was good.”
Escondido High School came in a close second at the competition, trailing Vista by just a quarter of a point. Santana finished third.
The first place prize was a chef statue, something akin to a Vince Lombardi trophy in football. The Vista team also received a trophy that will be displayed at its school for a year, after which it gets ed on to next year’s winner.
After the competition, the teams were treated to cheese and pepperoni pizzas supplied by Sopranos Pizza in Escondido.
The county’s Office of Education had funded the competition for the past two years, but was unable to do so this year. Participating schools and private donors kicked in the money to make the event happen.
In addition to the top three teams, schools that entered the competition were San Pasqual High School; Orange Glen High School; Mission Hills High School; Fallbrook High School; San Dieguito High School Academy; and the San Pasqual Academy, an Escondido-based 7th-12th grade school run by the San Diego County Office of Education.
Private donors — including Jimbo’s Naturally, Sysco Corp., Jersey Mike’s Subs, Shamrock Foods Co. and US Foods Inc. — kicked in $50 to the winning team’s culinary teacher to buy food supplies for their school, as well as $25 iTunes gift cards and other coupons.
Judges were West; Amy DiBiase, executive chef and general manager of the Paradise Point Resort & Spa; Erik Gosswiller, a culinary specialist with Sysco San Diego; Ron Oliver, chef de cuisine with The Marine Room in La Jolla; Robin Katz, lead line cook at The Marine Room; and Joe Orate, executive chef and instructor for culinary programs at Grossmont College.
