By Chinedu Nwaduru, ABH PRESS
In line with the activities of the Alexander Brown Hall week and 60th anniversary celebrations, the third edition of the ABH Culinary Competition took place on Saturday, April 27, 2019. The event definitely saw a major boost in organization and sponsorship that in its previous editions.
The competition which held at the Hall’s volleyball court played host to three contestants – Offorbuike Chiamaka, a 300 level medical student, Marvelous and Arinze both from the department of Biomedical Laboratory Sciences.
Focusing on the Culinary theme – “Yam”, the contestants displayed an array of culinary dexterities in recreating meals using the staple, yam.
Amaka for her appetizer choose the natural fruit kebabs to welcome the palates to her maindish of Yam Critata and Homemade ketchup with a fresh pineapple and mango juice and finished with an egg and pineapple pudding served on a cracker base.
Marvelous in his appetizer brought fried plantain with fried yam-in-bean batter and fish on a cracker place, and moved on to yam porridge with vegetables served with offals-in-sauce, and wrapped it up with pancakes served with honey and melon-apple smoothie.
Arinze took the judges on a traditional ride to the eastern part of Nigeria with beef peppersoup served with “ukazi” as appetizer, yam peppersoup for maindish and vegetable in milk dessert.
Sitting on the panel to judge the contestants were Ms Halimah Ogunbiyi, the Chief Executive Officer of Medleys Kitchen, Mr. Chinedu Nwaduru, the immediate winner of the ABH Master Chef and Food Critic and a Representative of the Prestige Kitchens.
Coming in first place after a nearly two hours of cooking and serving was Offorbuike Chiamaka who claimed the title as the Newest Chef of ABH with Marvelous and Arinze coming in second and third places respectively.
A notable observation from the judges was the absence of proper research on kitchen etiquettes and minimal creativity in the competition.
“The contestants did not properly research on how to recreate the food, and were even violating some of the basic rules of cooking -such as not using aprons or head covers,” one of the judges opined.
Speaking with Brownites who were present at the event, many commended the efforts of the Female Affairs Ministry who saw to the planning of the event, applauding her for executing another successful project from the ministry.
They however complained of the scale of the competition, “I believe this competition can be bigger and better if we make it more interesting by putting more incentive. We can even have preliminary stage and a grand finale. Let’s work towards that”
Damilola who chaired the competition as the Female Affairs Minister noted some of the challenges faced in the planning including contestants turning down to participate just few hours to the event. “we had over seven participants who picked up the form, but a night to the event- they started giving one excuse or the other.”
She however assured Brownites of her recommendations to having a bigger and better event next year to the incoming executives.
The event was proudly sponsored by Dominos Pizza, Biobak Kitchen, Soupah Kitchen, Lolly Kitchen, Amala Skye, Prestige Kitchens, T&K Kitchens.
Congratulations Chiamaka !!!