Culinary teams from SUNY Oneonta and SUNY Delhi competed in the third annual Battle of the Chefs competition Monday, Jan. 5, held during the State University of New York Auxiliary Services Association’s annual conference in Verona.
The competition brought together culinary teams from SUNY campus dining centers throughout New York state to showcase their skills in creating dishes to help meet diverse dietary needs, according to a news release. A special focus was placed on chefs preparing dining options with sustainable sourcing, as well as addressing dietary needs such as gluten-free, vegetarian and vegan.
“SUNY’s dining centers play an important role in ensuring our students have access to high-quality, delicious food they need to thrive and to feel welcome and included,” SUNY Chancellor John B. King Jr. said in a statement. “The SUNY Battle of the Chefs highlights the excellent work done daily by the chefs and culinary experts at our campuses to ensure all SUNY students can access food that meets their dietary needs. I commend each of our chef competitors, and everyone who helps ensure SUNY campuses have great tasting, nutritional food available for every one of our students.”
Nine SUNY culinary teams from the State University of New York at Binghamton, SUNY Brockport, SUNY Cortland, SUNY Delhi, Mohawk Valley Community College, SUNY New Paltz, SUNY Oneonta, SUNY Purchase and the State University of New York at Stony Brook participated in this year’s competition, with four chefs from each SUNY campus.
The chefs were given the task of creating a tapas-style dish using an assigned protein and within a specific budget. Each team was assigned one of nine proteins. The options were Pacific salmon, pork belly, flat iron steak, pork tenderloin, heritage chicken thighs, mussels, cold water prawns, beef short rib, or grouper, available via random knife pull held in November. Budgets were established based on the plate cost of between $6 and $7. Vegan or vegetarian items needed to use the same components of accompaniments, but the choice of the center plate was the chef’s choice. They were asked to consider seasonality in their menus.
The SUNY Delhi team produced a crispy pork tenderloin on a pretzel with bacon jam, whipped boursin, pickled red onions, and chipotle mayonnaise. The vegatarian option was chicken cutlet on a pretzel with bacon jam, whipped boursin, pickled red onions and chipotle mayonnaise.
SUNY Oneonta’s presentation was a “Louisiana trio” of crispy prawns, deconstructed Bloody Mary, and shrimp and grits taco. The vegan option was crispy mushrooms, deconstructed Bloody Mary, and mushroom and grits taco.
The nine SUNY teams were eligible to win one of two awards — Judges’ Choice, based on a panel of chefs from Turning Stone Resort Casino, and People’s Choice, based on the attendees’ selection. The culinary team from SUNY Purchase won the Judges’ Choice, and the culinary team from the State University of New York at Binghamton won the People’s Choice.