Students serve up five-course dinner

When Tim Li heard about what Martin Bosley was doing with prisoners at Rimutaka Prison for Wellington on a Plate three years ago, he had a brainwave.

If prisoners with a relatively low base of culinary skills could put on a silver service dinner, his hospitality students could too.

So he contacted the event’s organisers and managed to put on a dinner for paying guests the next year, in 2014.

Li heads Heretaunga College’s School of Hospitality.

When the students cooked for the school’s first From Classroom to Kitchen event it was ‘‘very experimental’’, he said

Two years later, and the event has gone from strength-tostrength, with its two 2016 sessions, held last Thursday and Friday, packing the school’s ‘‘spine’’ corridor.

Li said the students had done so well over the past couple of years he had decided to step things up a level.

The menu was more complex than previously and the ticket price was higher to reflect that, at $75.

When guests arrived they were greeted with a glass of bubbles and five canape offerings, including pork rillettes and vegetable arancini.

From there guests were directed towards their tables where they would be served, with musical interludes from students between courses.

First up was a pork shoulder and smoked hock croquette, followed by a mushroom tart with feta, duxelles and beetroot gel. The main course was an eighthour braised beef short rib with parsnip puree, crisps, charred alliums and slow roasted carrot.

Dessert was a dark chocolate marquise, raspberry sorbet, chocolate soil and honeycomb.

See video of Tim Li discussing this year’s dinner at stuff.co.nz.

More photos, page 29.