Winning start to the year
Otago chefs have held their own in a national competition to see who can cook red meat the best, finds
CREATING an awardwinning dish takes a lot more work than most diners may think, says Dunedin chef Greg Piner.
Piner, group chef for Vault 21, recently won best venison dish in the Silver Fern Farms Premier Selection Awards.
The dish of cured venison short loin, trio of mushroom, pickled shiitake, cep puree, tempura needle mushrooms, compressed radish, ponzu, black truffle salt, pea tendrils and crispy shallots took time to develop, he said.
Piner says the judges liked the dish for its ‘‘clean flavours’’ and texture as he had rolled the meat to give it a different feel on the palate.
Getting to that point meant a lot of work for him and his team.
He sits down with his team to come up with ideas and to taste components to ensure all the sweet, sour, salty and texture bases are covered in a dish.
‘‘There is a lot of trial and error over a couple of weeks to get the standard we are looking for.’’
Then they looked at how to make a dish look appealing, as people ‘‘eat with their eyes’’.
‘‘It’s a long process, but I’m happy at how it turned out.’’
He enjoyed taking part in competitions as it provided that extra challenge to the daily routine of cooking in a restaurant kitchen as well as being an outlet for creativity.
‘‘I love it, especially live cooking where you have to be super clean and watch your technique when you are on show.’’
It was also nice to ‘‘get a pat on the back’’ when you did well, which is not something that happened often in the kitchen.
The award came at a great time as Piner is recently back from a ‘‘foodie tour’’ of China, where he was ‘‘seeking inspiration and experiences’’ to bring back to his Dunedin kitchen. He visited Shanghai, Beijing and Hong Kong, among other places, enjoying the different flavours of the regions.
‘‘The flavours vary from province to province. We ate some weird stuff, but it’s all good information.’’
Now the challenge was to bring that influence to future dishes.
While he did not expect to be introducing live turtle tanks anytime soon, he still got a lot out of the trip, such as how they cook with no butter or sugar.
Mr Piner said a traditional Beijing chicken dish where the chicken is poached in rice wine could make an appearance on his menu.
‘‘Visually, it looks terrible, but it tastes amazing. I have to find a way to make it look good.’’
Overall, the trip was the most amazing thing he had done, he said.
‘‘We met some amazing people.’’
As well as bringing more Chineseinspired dishes to his menu, his team is also preparing to cater for the iD fashion show and had chefs entering various other competitions.
‘‘We’re also super busy at the restaurant so we need to keep our reputation up.’’
He also believed Dunedin restaurants are an important part of Dunedin’s tourism sector and needed to keep ‘‘ahead of the game’’.
‘‘Dunedin is doing really well as a food destination.’’
The other Otago chef to do well at the Silver Fern Farms competition was Daniel Hill, from Pitches Store, in Ophir.
He was runnerup in the Premier Master of Fine Cuisine category and Pitches won Best Regional Restaurant, a title it also won in 2015.
Bistro Gentil in Wanaka and its head chef Mario Rodrigues was also a finalist.
The overall winner was Paul Limacher, the chef de cuisine at Wellington’s Chameleon Restaurant InterContinental.
Limacher’s winning meal was his beef tenderloin dish.
Judging coordinator Kerry Tyack described Limacher’s dish as consistent and faultless.