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Annual Brave Chef competition heats up

Screen shot 2014-04-10 at 10.34.10 PMFour teams tackled the culinary arts as the Brave Chef competition cooked up a recipe for victory. 

The teams competed in a cook-off Sunday as part of the Brave Chef competition hosted by the hospitality leadership club, Fresh Slice, and BU Dining Services.

The setup of the competition was modeled after the Food Network’s program “Iron Chef America,” which allowed an hour for teams to cook an appetizer, main course and dessert.

Potential participants attended a cooking demonstration with Chef Karl Wolak of the BU Dining Services in March. After, the teams could  submit their completed menus to a Bradley culinary team for evaluation and post the menus on Facebook for voting.

Out of the 10 teams who tried out, four teams were accepted to be a part of the event.

“The competition was amazing,” Fresh Slice Vice President Susan Bender said. “Each team had its own table with burners and different utensils. There was a table with food items that were chosen by Chef Karl – the ‘pantry list’ [of Iron Chef America].”

According to the senior hospitality major, the competition was more than a source of fun and entertainment.

“It helped [participants] raise their confidence in cooking competitions,” Bender said.

Teams competed for best appetizer, best entrée, best dessert and best overall. Prizes included golden pineapples, spatulas and candy.

The winning team of the overall competition, Tempura Temptresses, included four dietetic BU interns: Charity Brennan, Sophie Pettipiece, Emma Rueth and Beth Seidl. They also won best entrée with a crab cake with spinach risotto and best dessert with sweet pancakes with a ricotta cream and blueberries.

“As dietetic interns, we felt like we had a good chance of winning, and we love cooking,” graduate student Seidl said. “It was fun to work together as a team, and it helped with our cooking skills.”

In addition to the limited pantry, participants were required to incorporate a mystery ingredient into all of their dishes on the day of the competition.

“We planned out our dishes beforehand, and we brainstormed possible mystery ingredients to make sure everything worked,” Seidl said. “The secret ingredient [on competition day] was cereal.”

Three judges based their decisions on four main criteria: serving methods and presentation; portion size and nutritional balance; creativity and practicality; and flavor, taste, texture and doneness.

For the overall competition, team Viva la Nutella won second place and team Gingersnaps won third place.

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