
“Sexy- it’s a sexy dish,” judge Claire Fordyce said with an affirmative nod to what would be the winning meal at the Chilkat Chef competition on Saturday.
The dish: “Blackened miso spice salmon steak with Yukon gold potato parsnip latkes and grilled tomatillos, on a bed of greens from field and sea, with a dollop of dill-lemonade sour cream and hand foraged Yukon cranberry, coconut-chocolate BBQ sauce, with a fresh hopped rye pale ale from Winterlong Brewing Co. in Whitehorse.”
The creators: Team Go Big or Coho; Liz McCarville, Chelsea Jeffery, and Moriah MacMillan of the Yukon. The women took home $500, the winner’s chef coat passed on from defending champion Kyle Clayton, and a promise to return next year with the “traveling trophy.”
“When I saw their matching aprons, I knew we were in trouble,” Clayton said.
More than 160 people attended the competition this year at Harriett Hall. At $18 dollars a head, tickets included a salmon dinner before the cook-off. Six teams had 45 minutes to prepare a coho salmon dish using their own ingredients and seven mystery ingredients including miso, kale, parsnips, lemonade powder, Somoas Girl Scout cookies, nori and fresh tomatillos.
Each team was required to produce four plates-one for each of the three judges and an extra that was auctioned off at the end of the event-with proceeds to benefit a nonprofit of the team’s choice.
Judges Deborah Marshall of Haines, Lyn Fabio of Whitehorse, and Fordyce of Juneau, scored each team on the merits of presentation, creativity, taste, texture, and use of mystery ingredients.
The judges said that they particularly liked the presentation of team Go Big or Coho, who came prepared with woven place mats that matched both the plates and the wheat color of the beer.
In second place was COHOrts in Cahoots, a team comprised of Susie McCartney, Vija Pelekis, Patience Nelson, and Dennis Gudmundson. They prepared salmon pinwheels on Israeli couscous with greens underneath, along with a cookie and whipped cream dessert. The team won round-trip airline tickets to Juneau.
Kyle Clayton and Ramie Carlson, The Thyme Bandits, placed third. The judges said their red cabbage and kale slaw was the prettiest salad they’d seen. Clayton and Carlson won dinner for two served by Swallow Catering.
The winning women said they’ll spend their victory money locally, on a round of drinks for their supportive friends that traveled with them to Haines for the competition.
The event, sponsored by Lynn Canal Conservation, brought in a total of $3,60