Fleming College

A culinary team from Fleming College is heading to Guelph this week as a finalist in the Make it with Mushrooms Competition. Chef David Hawey, coordinator of Fleming’s Culinary programs, and three students – Amanda Weare and Alex Bolton of the Culinary Management program and Marsha Hutchinson of the Cook Apprentice program – were selected to participate in the Mushrooms Canada Make it with Mushrooms cook-off. Fleming’s team will prepare and offer its recipe creations to an expert panel of judges at the Atrium Restaurant at the University of Guelph on October 19. Fleming will battle Conestoga and St. Lawrence colleges for the top spot. The three students’ ideas for mushroom-based recipes won them a spot on the team.The students took their ideas to the kitchen with Chef David and started cooking. Focusing on an Asian-influence, and with guidance from Chef David, Marsha developed the Thai Style Mushroom-Coconut Soup with a tasty balance of sweet herbs – basil and mint – distinctive spices such as Thai chillies and fresh ginger, a variety of mushrooms, and coconut milk. To give the soup a unique finish a couple of drops of tasted sesame oil were added. Amanda and Alex’s creations were merged and the Mixed Mushroom Ragout with spaghetti squash and baby arugula was born. Ease of preparation and a relatively short cooking time make this dish even more appealing. Further inspiration for the dish came from the classic recipe Beef Stroganoff. Rather than traditional egg noodles, spaghetti squash with cumin seed, diced red pepper, butter, and seasoning was used. This dish contains a combination of shii take, cremini, button and portabella mushrooms. These were the only mushroom varieties allowed in the competition and the team thought it best to use all of them for diversity in taste, texture and presentation.  To enhance flavour roasted garlic, sautéed onions and fresh herbs were added. A sauce was made with vegetable stock, Marsalla wine and light sour cream. To finish the plate, the team dressed some baby arugula lettuce with mustard vinaigrette and added some crostini for taste and presentation. After three hours of development, the recipe was ready for the competition.  To win a spot as a finalist, photos were taken of each of the dishes and sent to Mushrooms Canada along with the recipes and a brief description of each.