“We only have three minutes left, and I don’t have a knife,” David Akwaowo shouts, hands in the air, as steam rolls off of the freshly baked chicken roulade on the silver counter in front of him.
The polenta is finished and plated. The spinach is chopped and ready for garnishing. All that’s left is cutting and plating the roulade – but Akwaowo has no knife.
Finally, a knife appears and Akwaowo’s teammate John Beatty takes charge, doing his best to quickly cut the roulade into uniform medallions. But with the first cut it’s clear: the chicken needs more time.
With only two minutes to spare, Beatty sends the chicken back into the oven as Akwaowo and their third teammate, Ben Cooper, race to tidy the judges’ plates, carefully wiping drops of polenta from the edges of each dish.
Minutes later, the Lowndes County School District Career and Technical Center team stands in front of the three judges, waiting for their feedback. Each student holds his breath, waiting to see if the team will move forward to the next round or be eliminated.
“Unfortunately, parts of the chicken were raw,” said Chef Greg Huerkamp, executive chef for Mississippi State University Dining Services and one of the judges for the Golden Triangle Chopped Competition held Wednesday at Lion Hills Center Annex. “It looked good, but we just couldn’t take it any further than that.”
Students from the West Point Career Technical Center were eliminated after the first round.
With the Lowndes County team out in the second round, the competition is down to a team from Columbus Municipal School District’s McKellar Technology Center and another from Starkville-Oktibbeha Consolidated School District’s Millsaps Career and Technology Center.
The second Golden Triangle Chopped Competition hinges on one final task – creating a perfect dessert in less than 30 minutes.
Cooking on the clock
Chef Jakiero Dismuke, the director of East Mississippi Community College’s culinary arts program, started the competition last year as a way for culinary students from high school career technical centers in the four Golden Triangle public school districts to test their skills in a real-life rendition of Food Network’s “Chopped.”
Competing in their teams of three, the students are tasked with creating three well-rounded, tasty dishes for a panel of judges. The twist? The students don’t know what they’re cooking until the start of the competition day.
“It gives the students a chance to think outside of the box,” Dismuke told The Dispatch. “They get a mixed box of ingredients for appetizers, entree and the dessert, and then they have a time limit to make each dish.”
Judge Adrienne Morris, who works in human resources at Aramark, said the greatest benefit for the students is the hands-on experience they earn working in a real, fast-paced commercial kitchen.
“And also being able to interact with students from other schools as well,” she said. “If they’re wanting to be in a culinary career, they need this experience to help prepare them for that.”
Several of the students in the competition hope to pursue careers in culinary arts, including the team from Starkville. Aiyana Taylor, Jada Williams and Cody Madison each plan to attend EMCC’s culinary arts program after high school.
Championship round
After brainstorming ideas for the dessert round, the SOCSD team chooses to bake monkey bread bites topped with crushed heath bars and icing, and the team begins dividing tasks. Taylor starts crushing the candy as Williams cuts canned biscuits that Madison coats with cinnamon and sugar.
The key to winning, Madison said, is working like a team while they’re in the kitchen.
“We don’t do leaders and captains of the group,” he said. “We just discuss, and we give each other feedback or help when the other needs it.”
Across preheating ovens and barely cooled stoves, the three teammates from CMSD work with a similar synergy. Harmony Simms and Marcus Selvie cut and place pieces of canned biscuits into miniature cast iron skillets while Jeremiah Bluitt continuously stirs a caramel sauce on the stove.
The CMSD team finished their entree round – reverse-seared chicken breasts on perfectly centered beds of Greek orzo – three minutes ahead of its deadline. But as the students attempt to create individual-sized sticky toffee puddings in 30 minutes in the final round, the time catches up to them.
With fewer than 45 seconds on the clock, Selvie takes the puddings out of the oven. He places each dish on a wooden round as Simms and Bluitt follow closely behind, coating the desserts in powdered sugar and the caramel sauce.
When they face the judges, the students are told the dessert is “creative,” “balanced” and “perfectly sweetened.”
“Y’all came for blood today,” Huerkamp told the CMSD team.
The SOCSD team is the last to stand for adjudication before the end of the day. Each judge loves the dessert, though Huerkamp said it could have used more caramel.
“I think today all around, you guys should be very proud of yourselves,” Morris told the team.
Celebrity reveal
But the teams will have to wait to learn who will take home the “Chopped Champion” title.
Dismuke said the results from the competition will be announced Friday during an awards ceremony featuring Beth Hennington, a Madison native and the 2022 winner of Food Network’s “Christmas Cookie Challenge.”
Until then, the students will wait with baited breath as Judge Dwayne Brown, executive chef for EMCC dining services, continues dreaming about the CMSD students’ reverse-seared chicken.
“If I didn’t have to taste other foods, that would be my meal,” he said.
McRae is a general assignment and education reporter for The Dispatch.
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