Students of Welcomgroup Graduate School of Hotel Administration celebrated International Chefs Day with a variety of competitions based on culinary skills.
The theme for this year was “Healthy foods for growing up.”
From basic knife skills to contemporary European and Indian cookery, the students were required to display their skills in the competitions, held at different levels.
At the end of the competitions, the students marched around the campus and took an oath to uphold the profession.
The students of 8th Course BA Culinary Arts had competitions in basic bakery and pastry skills, basic Indian cookery and culinary foundation Level 1.
In the Basic Bakery and pastry skills, the students made innovative breads as well as international breads. The first place was bagged by Pearl Yazad Boga, Ankitha Ashok Kumar and Malavika Rajan Galbale.
In the Basic Indian Cookery, the competition highlighted regional and sub-regional cuisines and most of the recipes were home grown and from every corner of the country. The winners were Poorva Sharad Ramadurgkar and Sumchoo Drolma.
In the Culinary Foundation Level 1, students displayed their basic knife skills such as julienne, fine julienne, brunoise, fine brunoise and paysanne. They also prepared basic mother sauce for mayonnaise by achieving the perfect emulsion of egg yolk and oil.
Anusheel Hema Prabhu emerged winner in the category.
The 7th course BA in Culinary Arts students competed for medals in categories like Contemporary European cookery, Advanced Bakery and Pastry Skills and Techniques of Pan Asian Cuisine.
Contemporary European Cookery saw students take traditional European recipes and put a modern spin to it while making sure the dish formed a perfect nutrient balance.
The winners of this competition were Maitri Chetan Shah and Nick Harris D’Souza.
Advanced Bakery and Pastry Skills saw students showcase pastry skills by preparing a plated dessert using one of the four mystery ingredients with a maximum of 10 ingredients within 3 hours. The winner was Ajay Raj Singh.
Finally, in Techniques of Pan Asian Cuisine, the students prepared one dish with complete accompaniments featuring the mystery ingredient which was revealed on the spot. Students were shuffled in teams of two. Varsha Anil and Maria Titus finished first.
The 6th Course students of BA in Culinary Arts went head to head in categories of Modern Indian Plated dishes. Students were judged on the basis of taste, texture, shape and portion size. The winners were Gagan Tak, Ishika Nandan and Dinesh Kumar.
In the competition to decorate a dummy cake of a maximum of three tiers, the students had to use gumpaste, marzipan and royal icing. The winners were Shetty Varishta Prasanna, Sushmita Das, Sujoy Surendra Kambli and Prathik Joseph Peres Bhatt.
Five selected cuisines (Persian, Peruvian, Mexican, Moroccan, Caribbean) were given to students in batches of three. The participants had to prepare a three-course meal in two hours. The winners for the three-course meal were Krishnapriya Hariharan, Priyanka Vishnoi and Ishika Nandan.
Moving on to the Hotel Management section, the 31st Course competed in the challenge to bring back age-old grandmother’s recipes from everyone’s home kitchens. The winners here were -Dale Ann Rasquinha and Rushali Mahesh.
The 32nd course students participated in a cookie-making competition. Rajat Jayaprakash Alve and Shirali Kataria won the first place.
The students of 33rd course had to process vegetables into 10 classical cuts with minimum waste and maximum precision and the winners were Suhas C Gowda, Vignesh Krishna Kamat and Harini Yuvraj Sivakumar.
The PGDCA (Post Graduate Diploma in Culinary Arts) students participated in three competitions in Indian Cuisine, Culinary Skill and Foundation and Bakery. The winners were Vishal Dineshkumar Masarani and Akshay Gaonkar.