Four Seasons' Recipe for Success

Take 8 chefs
Add 8 ingredients
Place in kitchen for 2 hours

Once again, our chefs rose to the challenge of creating a two course meal from a limited bag of ingredients in the annual quest to search out our Four Seasons Health Care Chef of the Year. The mixed bag of ingredients, including pork, sprouts, carrots, celery, scallions, potatoes, apples and prunes, produced a truly diverse range of menus.

This year saw the introduction of a new element, with each dish presented in pureed form alongside its standard counterpart. Our chefs are well experienced in preparing meals for residents with chewing or swallowing problems so we wanted them to have the opportunity to showcase their presentation skills in this department as well. A softer textured meal should never be a compromise and the chefs certainly showed that altering the texture does not detract from the eye appeal of a dish. In fact, it is particularly important that food served in this way looks good as people with swallowing problems generally have poor appetites so we need to do all we can to entice them to eat.

The ability to taste flavours can decline with age as well, making food taste bland to older palates, so people need tasty, exciting dishes. Our chefs used herbs and spices to add extra flavour and zing to their creations.

Says Christine Hamilton, Executive Chef "the standard of cooking was superb and the skill shown both in presentation and matching flavours was excellent. The chefs produced some truly inspirational dishes, which put tremendous pressure on the judges, as every dish was of a winning standard". Assisting Sam Humphrey, our outgoing chef of the year, on the judging panel, were Carol Schofield from Purchasing Support Services, Chris Smith from Brakes Foodservice and Vivian Shepherd from Healthcare Business. After much deliberation (and extensive tasting!) the title of Chef of the Year 2009 was awarded to Maciej Banjermann from North Court Care Home in Bury St. Edmonds.

Maciej wowed the judges with his stuffed pork roulade and vegetable rosti with Bramley roast apples and italian meringue for dessert.

In second place came Jose De Freitas from Silver Springs Care Home in Jersey with his braised pork and prune escalope, carrot and celery puree, and scallion potato cakes followed by a rich crème caramel with glazed apples and crunchy orange shortbread.

Third place was taken by Susan Karim from Colinton Care Home, Edinburgh who cooked a braised pork steak with herb infused apple stuffing and followed up with an extremely light and airy prune mousse.

Carl Eardley from The Parklands Care Home in Doncaster cooked twice-cooked pork steak served on a bed of colcannon mashed potato, fennel seed baton carrots, with a mild creamy scallion jus followed with a lightly spiced cinnamon sponge served with caramelised Bramley apple & custard.

Simon Hughlock from Euxton Park Care Home, Chorley pan-fried medallions of pork on a bed of apple and sage mashed potato accompanied by pan-fried vegetables and pork gravy and followed up with sticky prune pudding simply drizzled with a creamy vanilla anglaise.

Richard Money from Granby Court Care Home in Harrogate chose a starter of Potato and spring onion soup and a main course of pan-fried pork steak with apple and prune compote.

Richard Edwards from The Headington Care Home in Oxford chose a pork Normandy stack resting on a champ cake served with sautéed shredded sprouts and finished with crispy carrot straws and a pudding of double baked Bramley apple & prune crumble
finished with a fresh vanilla cream sauce and jam feathering.

Phil Mallon from the Lisburn Intermediate Care Centre in County Antrim chose a starter of celery, carrot and apple salad bound together with a prune oil and then a main course of crispy sugar basted pork steak served with a Brussel sprout puree, garnished with caramelised apple mash and served with a tarragon and spring onion cream.

Follow the link to view our chefs' mouthwatering dishes:

Pictured from top: Maciej Banjermann, newly crowned Four Seasons Chef of the Year 2009; Maciej with runners up Jose de Freitas and Susan Karim.

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