Meat-Eaters Lining Up For Vegetarian Fare

3 June 2014

Meat-Eaters Lining Up For Vegetarian Fare

New Zealand’s chefs know when to soufflé and when to sauté when it comes to vegetables.

The finals of the New Zealand Vegetarian Dish Challenge 2014, a national competition celebrating the very best of fresh New Zealand vegetables were announced today:

BREAKFAST
Hamish Scott, NZ Army, Burnham
Kiwi big breakfast vegetarian style (vegetarian sausage, grilled tomato, potato rosti, poached eggs)

Logan Murray, Snack Out, Cambridge
Free range scrambled egg, sweetcorn croquette, chard tomato and chutney

Subhashini Sathanantham, The Riverhead, Auckland
Golden kumara and red beetroot tart, quail eggs, cauliflower sausage, potato toast, garlic-infused vine tomatoes, buttered spinach and pumpkin hollandaise

LUNCH
Jinu Abraham, Heritage Hotel
Organic tofu and pea stuffed potato, smoked tomato and onions

MacLean Fraser, Bolton Hotel, Wellington
Spiced carrot soup, beetroot and feta tart on kumara and chick pea salad and goat’s cheese soufflé.

Ziek Hudson, Brew’d, Eastborne
Vegetarian eggs in a bird’s nest

DINNER
Arnaud Vachet, the Langham Hotel, Auckland
New Zealand potato delight – a medley of different potato preparations including soup, confit, sous vide and crisp angel hair

Liam Dollimore, The Wellington Club
Baby beets with goats curd, kumara and carrot tahini

Ryan Tatterstall, Cobar Restaurant, Day’s Bay, Lower Hutt
Goats cheese, lavender and honey cannelloni with artichoke egg, artichoke purée, butterkin and fig

All chefs agreed vegetarian dishes are becoming a meal choice for people who are not just vegetarians and with such a variety of vegetables available in New Zealand we are spoilt for choice when it comes to creating delicious vegetarian food.

Now in its third year, the New Zealand Vegetarian Dish Challenge, sponsored by foodservice and hospitality distributor, Bidvest, Choice Catering Equipment and Vegetables.co.nz, attracted over 200 entries from chefs around the country. The nine finalists were chosen by judges, Glenn Fulcher, NZ manager for City & Guilds of London, Chef Andy Gibb, Chef Tutor at Nanyang Polytechnic in Singapore, Adrian Brett-Chinnery, Group Development Chef at Tanoa Hotel Group, Fiji and food writer and author, Lauraine Jacobs.

Commenting on the entries, Lauraine said “I was pleased to see chefs working a variety of different seasonal vegetables into attractive and enticing dishes for breakfast, lunch and dinner. The standout entries were highly original where every item on the plate has a reason to be there and contributed to a balanced and complete dish. They really looked lovely and all showed that a satisfying, appetising and complete meal can be woven around vegetables. I also loved the fact that the dishes were approachable and lacked some of the fussiness we have seen in the past. Fresh vegetables do not ever need to be tortured past the point of recognition!”

The winner of each category will be announced in July. The three winners will each receive a Bidvest gift voucher, a Buffalo heavy duty microwave from Choice Catering Equipment and a mystery weekend voucher.

ENDS

© Scoop Media