{"id":233943,"date":"2017-02-10T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-02-10T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sdnews.com\/teen-iron-chef-finds-a-new-home-in-mission-valley\/"},"modified":"2017-02-10T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2017-02-10T08:00:00","slug":"teen-iron-chef-finds-a-new-home-in-mission-valley","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/teen-iron-chef-finds-a-new-home-in-mission-valley\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Teen Iron Chef\u2019 finds a new home in Mission Valley"},"content":{"rendered":"

Por Frank Sabatini Jr.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

For the first time in its 13-year history, a culinary competition open to local high school students, and tailored after Food Network\u2019s high-energy \u201cIron Chef America\u201d series, was held Jan. 19 in the spacious, gleaming kitchens of Mission Valley\u2019s Art Institute of California \u2013 San Diego.<\/p>\n

The annual event, Teen Iron Chef, tests the cooking skills of students from San Diego Unified District high schools as each team prepares three-course meals for a panel of judges from the food and restaurant industries. The challenge is further intensified by a secret ingredient students must use in at least one of the courses.<\/p>\n

\"\u2018Teen<\/a>
(l to r) Juan Rios, Jose Valdivia and Jazmyne Lyons of Garfield High School won top honors with a silver fork (Photo by Lauren Loeffler)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In honor of the Girl Scouts\u2019 100th anniversary, this year\u2019s secret ingredient was Trefoils shortbread cookies, a sweet departure from calamari, prosciutto, brie and tofu required in past competitions.<\/p>\n

The students \u2014 most of them enrolled in culinary courses at their high schools \u2014 took over two of the five professional kitchens at the institute, which offers certificate programs in culinary arts and management, as well as fashion, design and media.<\/p>\n

Since the competition\u2019s inception in 2004 at Mira Mesa High School, and with support from the San Diego Chapter of the California Restaurant Association, it has come to include teams from various Unified District schools. Past venues for the event included a local restaurant, the SDG&E Innovation Center, and the test kitchen of Jack in the Box.<\/p>\n

\"\u2018Teen<\/a>
High school culinary students compete in
Mission Valley for \u2018Iron Chef\u2019 title.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThis was a natural place for the competition to be held, and we\u2019ve offered to host it again next year,\u201d said Lauren Loeffler, the Institute\u2019s director of campus relations. \u201cIt was also good for our own students to see what these younger-generation high school students were doing. They\u2019re a force to be reckoned with.\u201d<\/p>\n

Six high schools took part in the 2017 competition, including Garfield High School, which won the contest for a second year in a row. Its three-member team wowed the judges with seafood pozole, pan-roasted chicken, and chocolate pot de cr\u00e8me, which was laced with the Girl Scout cookies.<\/p>\n

The other teams were from Morse, Hoover, Mira Mesa, Madison, and San Diego high schools. They were joined by a competing posse of first-year students from the Art Institute.<\/p>\n

\"\u2018Teen<\/a>
Griffi n Rodfold of the Art Institute\u2019s
team chops Girl Scout cookies used in
shrimp salad (Foto por Frank Sabatini Jr.)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

With an hour-long deadline to cook, the students presented their final outcomes to several judges seated down the hall in the Institute\u2019s student-run restaurant, The Palette.<\/p>\n

As the clocked ticked down, Madison High School student, Xavier Cabus, 16, applied the finishing touches to his team\u2019s dark chocolate fondant with passion fruit mousse.<\/p>\n

At another station, Hoover High School student, Rubie Perez, 17, piped salmon mousse onto fresh sheet pasta for making ravioli.<\/p>\n

Many of the dishes resembled those served in fine-dining establishments, with others including pistachio-crusted lamb chops accented by red wine and cherry demi glace (Morse High School), calamari fritti with fried capers (San Diego High School), and pan-seared quail with lemon-herb sauce (Mira Mesa High School).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cThis competition creates a great platform for the teens to discover flavors, ingredients, and nutritional knowledge,\u201d said Marine Room executive chef, Bernard Guillas, a repeat judge for the event. \u201cThey have great energy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\u2018Teen<\/a>
Salad, lamb chops and dessert presented by Morse High School (Foto por Frank Sabatini Jr.)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

San Diego Unified School District program specialist Lance Larson concurred, adding that the students are also tasked with purchasing all of the ingredients used in their meal courses.<\/p>\n

The food budget, he notes, is provided in part from the school district, the San Diego Chapter of the California Restaurant Association and through fundraisers held at some of the high schools. Of the 20-plus high schools comprising the district, seven of them have culinary programs.<\/p>\n

In regards to moving Teen Iron Chef to the Institute, at least through next January on a date yet to be determined, Larson feels the venue is ideal.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Institute provided greater space and equipment compared to past venues. The staff has a lot of experience doing similar competitions with their own students, and the location in Mission Valley is great because it\u2019s very central.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Art Institute of California \u2013 San Diego is located at 7650 Mission Valley Road. Its second-floor Palette restaurant is open to the public from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., Wednesdays and Thursdays. Reservations are recommended. For more information, call 858-598-1405 or visit artinstitutes.edu\/san-diego<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u2014Frank Sabatini Jr. es el autor de \u201cSecret San Diego\u201d (ECW Press), y comenz\u00f3 su carrera como escritor local hace m\u00e1s de dos d\u00e9cadas como miembro del personal del ex San Diego Tribune. Puedes localizarlo en fsabatini@san.rr.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Por Frank Sabatini Jr.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":816,"featured_media":233944,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11557","_seopress_titles_title":"\u2018Teen Iron Chef\u2019 finds a new home in Mission Valley","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11547,11557,11551,11550],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-233943","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-mission-valley-news","category-news","category-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233943","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/816"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=233943"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233943\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/233944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}