PECI Iron Chefs serve up gold medal meal

Lily Sullivan, of Waupoos Estates Winery, chef coach, celebrates with gold medal Iron Chefs Jared Hartley, Keith Petrasek, Andrew Petrasek and Josh Gibbons.

The PECI Iron Chef team cooked up the gold medal winning meal at the 14th annual competition Saturday.

“Chef Lily Sullivan, who was our chef coach throughout the process celebrated with the team,” said Heather Munroe, teacher in charge, along with Suzanne White.

The four-person team includes two  Grade 12 students – Jared Hartley and Keith Petrasek – who both plan to pursue culinary studies in their post secondary education.

“Jared and Keith have been competing in the Junior Iron Chef Competition throughout their high school careers,” said Munroe. Third year competition was a charm as their teams earned silver medals at the past two competitions.

They were joined on the team by Andrew Petrasek, a Grade 10 student  and Josh Gibbons, a Grade 9 student. Both were competing for the first time.

The competition’s finals were held at Loyalist College. Kingston’s LaSalle Secondary students earned the silver medal.

The teams had two hours to prepare, plate, and serve their three-course menus.  Judging followed the presentation of each team’s plates. The event is organized by second-year Loyalist Culinary Management students.

PECI served:
Appetizer – butternut squash stuffed ravioli with balsamic and sage truffled corn emulsion and green beans with almonds (required elements – squash, corn, green beans)

Entrée – poached pork tenderloin stuffed with ginger, garlic, coriander, shitake broth, soba noodles, bok choy and snow peas (required element – pork tenderloin).

Dessert – Chocolate mousse – layered white chocolate, milk chocolate and dark chocolate, candied orange zest cookie, tuile raspberry coulis.

Judges included Loyalist culinary graduate guest Chef Andrew Frederick, and two second-year Loyalist culinary students. Prize packages include Loyalist tuition rebate certificates of $500 for each member of the first place team and $300 for each member of the second place team. In addition, prizes were donated by event sponsors.

The PECI team will host a fundraising dinner at the Waupoos Estate Winery May 13 to help keep the program in medal-winning form.