Cookery students Celebrate Central with degustation dinner

Food and wine lovers are invited to experience a seven-course Central Otago taste sensation in the name of teaching Otago Polytech students.

‘Celebrate Central’, to be staged for one night only on 30 July, is the brainchild of Debbie Crompton, an award-winning Kiwi chef and chef lecturer at Cromwell’s Otago Polytech campus.

Her objectives for the evening are three-fold – to showcase the best of Central Otago food and wine, prepare her graduating students for the real world with a ‘live’ restaurant situation, and support local suppliers, wineries and small businesses.

Debbie has designed an exceptional degustation menu which will be prepared by her Level 4 Professional Cookery students and served at Polytech’s training restaurant ‘Molyneux’. Level 3 Hospitality students will be responsible for the food and wine service.

Debbie believes it will be an invaluable hands-on experience for her students and a superb evening out for diners.

“These are New Zealand’s up and coming menu makers and restaurateurs – we want to put them to the test and we want people to sample our regional produce at an extremely reasonable price,” she says. “Our students have been learning about our amazing Central Otago ingredients and how to use them and are currently learning the fundamental tricks and tips behind the degustation style of menu and service.

“Celebrate Central is a great chance to tie it all together. It’ll be completely different to a normal kitchen lesson – the students will experience the full-on pressure of turning out top quality dishes to the public in a ‘live’ restaurant situation.”

Degustation is a challenge for chefs because they must provide a series of individual tastes, beginning with tempting the diner and whetting the appetite, exciting the palate and anticipating what's to follow.

“A degustation menu isn’t just lots of little dishes, it’s a well planned journey of flavours,” says Debbie. “The chef considers each course carefully in terms of an enticing beginning, through to complementing flavours and textures which build toward a more substantial course, and then a subtle transition toward the conclusion.”

The Celebrate Central menu features culinary delights like twice cooked free range pork belly with sage and sautéed Braeburn apples from Otago Polyech’s orchards accompanied by curry sorbet, Steve Brown’s Bendigo pheasant cooked Cantonese-style with oriental crispy coleslaw and, to finish, a roast cherry parfait with chocolate sorbet, jelly and a cocoa handkerchief, courtesy of gourmet preserve specialists Provisions. Provisions recently featured on the Australian cooking show ‘Mercurio’s Menu’.

Those interested in wine matching their meals are also in for a treat. Winemaker and Otago Polytech viticulture lecturer Larry Naylor has worked with local wineries to match each dish with superb local wines.
“This will be a fantastic night for all involved, especially the students who have an opportunity to participate in something really different,” says Debbie.

Tickets are $65 and can be purchased from the Otago Polytech Cromwell Campus on the corner of Erris and Ray Streets or by phoning 0800 765 9276.