ST Mary MacKillop students Lisa Bartalotta and Samuel Waldron have won this year’s Murray River Culinary Challenge.
Held at Galen College, Wangaratta, the competition saw the duo go head-to-head with five other teams from the Echuca, Shepparton,Wangarrata and Wodonga regions on Monday.
Both Lisa and Samuel said the experience was wonderful and were thrilled with the outcome.
“I didn’t expect to win,” Samuel said.
“There was another team who I thought were going to win.”
With five weeks of practicing the set menu, Lisa said she believed it was their dessert that gave them the win.
“I think that’s what the judges enjoyed the most — our dessert,” Lisa said.
With a number of other teams serving uncompleted dishes, Lisa said her and Samuel did their best to present completed dishes.
“We didn’t serve anything that was half done which I think separated us from everyone else,” she said.
“We were slow and steady,” Samuel said.
The main challenge for the team was the time limit on each part of the meal. The competition saw teams prepare, cook and dish up three courses — an entree, main and dessert — in two and a half hours.
Each team cooked the same meal, with trout for entree, beef eye fillet for main and honeyed pears in puff pastry for dessert.
Murray Downs executive chef Rebecca Hart was head judge at the competition and was impressed with the high standard.
“The skill level shown was extremely high,” she said.
“It was a very challenging menu, many experienced chefs would have trouble completing it in the two-and-a-half-hour time frame set, so they did great.
“The meals presented were all sellable, you could serve them at a restaurant easily.”
Ms Hart added that the competition was a great asset to the winners’ resumes.
St Mary MacKillop College principal Michelle Haeusler echoed Ms Hart’s thoughts.
“It is a fantastic achievement,” she said.
“It’s great to have something for the students to participate in other than sport.”
