Student vs. Professor Cook-Off

NAU has one of the best hospitality schools in the country, so today we decided to put one of their culinary

student

s to the test. This is Leila Knapp, she is a third year

student

in the HRM program and today she will be competing in a

cook

ing competition against The Head Chef, Mark Molinaro, they will compete to make three French omelettes and then present them to a panel of food industry judges. Flagstaff restaurants. Come on, Layla Chef. Mark the yolk, let's get this right. I definitely feel a little nervous coming to this competition. I know Chef Mark likes to be a little competitive and he wants to talk a little nonsense and have fun, so I'm excited and happy to have a new experience and work on something new Leela.

I hear you there. Omelettes are often one of the creations a new

cook

has to make when applying for a job and they involve many techniques, so you need to understand how to mix the egg white and yolk and then season and control the temperature. What we say in the kitchen is control your heat don't let your heat control you knowing when to stir it and when to stop, when to turn it and when not to, these are all important things to pay attention to. I was going to go, yeah, no one to hold them and you know what, but.

I didn't go there, so what I'm doing now is letting the egg settle. I've already made the base of this and now I'm going to try to prepare the outside so I can actually roll it up and put it on the plate, so the idea with a well-cooked French omelette is that you have scrambled eggs in the middle and then an envelope in the outside, this is what it should look like when it's done, like this. You should be able to roll it up very carefully and it should be very tender and soft and smooth and then you can take it and put it on a plate very easily like this and then I'll come over here and brush it a little bit. a little bit of clarified butter here to make it look shiny, then I'll add a little bit of French sea salt, it's like little bits of popcorn that you crush up, and then a little bit of fresh parsley just to give it a little something special. a little bit of color and bitterness and a little bit of fresh green, okay, and there we go, the classic French omelet.

I say super focused when I cook especially since it was a new dish so in my head I was just thinking about making sure I followed the steps I watched a couple of videos before and made some notes so I was just trying to remember what I had researched and trying to implement those techniques, so I definitely focused on trying to do that. The fun thing about watching Layla is, besides just being a Dynamo and the smartest student I've seen in a long time, she has the courage to try things that she maybe isn't even comfortable with.

I asked her when she came in and I said, do you practice? Are you ready? and she says yes. I think I'm ready, let's bring in the judges, okay chefs, thank you, there's a hundred dollar bill taped under each of these plates. Feel free to look below for the benefit of it. I was definitely nervous. I mean, all these chefs are amazing. I wanted to make sure I made a good impression and I was able to, you know, stand out especially in front of Chef Mark because he's been doing this for so long and has so much experience.

Start with Dara Diera, my wild card. I know her excellence in food and she is a plus, some people don't know that she is an amazing business person in the city and she is changing lives, and I know her high level of excellence, so I hope I can meet that Mark. I got to meet Dara before when I toured her wine bar and also toured her restaurant here in Flagstaff so I really want to impress her because I really enjoyed her and her restaurants and the tours and stuff like that so it was definitely stressful but super fun.

I like the rigidity of The Omelette on the left, although I like to give more color to the soul on the right. I can tell just by looking at them that the interior filling is a little looser, so that's what we were looking for. for a French omelet, I'm excited to see the seasoning and how it tastes, okay, yes I agree, this one is a little tighter, but what I'm looking for when I'm looking for a French omelet. It's a little looser. I don't want it to overcook, so Geo will be another one of my wildcards.

He's on our executive board and he's an incredible chef and brings such a strong passionate energy that I just have to do it. Make sure you cook that omelet to perfection and the color looks beautiful on this one here on the right, so yeah, I'm excited to try these and make sure they're seasoned properly. It was really fun to meet Geo, especially because I got to study abroad in Italy last year and it was fun to talk to him because he's Italian, he's very connected to his culture and that's the main base of his restaurant, so it was really fun chat with him. him and just build a connection and be able to have a chat about my study abroad experience as well.

I think he would be third in everything so Jamie is everywhere. I met Chef Jamie before he worked with the class I took last time. semester owns the sashimo restaurant, he owns the Grand Canyon Spice Company, he also makes food for the mother Road Brewing Company, so he's totally connected to Flagstaff and he's a big fixture in the food scene, uh, the color is looks great um yeah excited to get into it. I could definitely see the difference in color - mine was much more yellow and his was a little more grey. I definitely think I could work on the stiffness of my tortilla to try to emulate the brands a little more, but I was super happy. with the result of my first French omelet and it was definitely much better than I first expected, okay, I think they both seasoned almost identically neither of them were over seasoned, I think almost both could use a little more salt and maybe even a little pepper but more salt I think I preferred the omelette on the right.

I liked the eggy flavor and I liked that the filling wasn't so curdled. I think the almond on the left was a bit finished. I like both. I agree 100 I think they both needed Salt I think the one on the left may have incorporated more air which gave it that firmer texture but I love how the one on the right was cooked I think that one was cooked perfectly for my taste again and since I make mine, I like to just give it a little butter at the end with a little more salt, you know, to finish it off.

I wouldn't mind eating either, but I do. They were a preference, I like the one on the right a little more than the one on the left, you know with our eyes and I have to say that I think the one on the right was more eggy, I think that's a great great word to use Zach, I really broke the egg, um, yeah, so I'm also going with the one on the right, Clean Sweep, so who's our winner? Good job, great job, yes I know exactly what happened. I was going to throw a little monkey. his key and it had some of these nice spices on the back of Jamie, so I went and took some ancho chili powder and put it in The Omelette and I think that gave it that little bit where they thought the color was.

I zoned out a little bit, so after doing it I thought oh no, but live and learn. It definitely feels amazing to have won the competition against Mark, especially because I respect him so much. It was also super fun and a really fun atmosphere, especially with the judges. I'm always excited to take a backseat and have the student drive and I'm so grateful that Layla had an amazing experience and her omelet looked amazing.