I have no words.  “Strawberry parfait” (it looked more like a gelatin parfait packaged in a mold, but it was hard to tell.  Anyway, it looked gross) was one of the mandatory ingredients in the competition.  However, it wasn’t for the first round.  In Round One, the chefs had to create a dish using ostrich, lollipops, dried Saskatoon berries and corn on the cob.  Most of the contestants grilled their ostriches, serving it with a lollipop-berry sauce (though one forgot his sauce, causing him to miss two ingredients).  A fourth, however, made ostrich tataki with creamed corn. Criticism from judges ranged from the a dish not being salty enough to the meat being to rare and a dish being too greasy.  However, it was the missing ingredients (noted earlier) by one chef that caused him the round.

The dessert round required a strawberry version of this item

For the main dish, the mandatory ingredients besides the disgusting strawberry “parfait,” the other items were wild boar, whole oat flakes and cucumber.  One of the contestants described his dish as  “Nova Scotia meets Vietnam,” serving a ragout of boar with cucumber and strawberry parfait salsa.  Judges loved the simplicity of the dish as well as its vibrancy.  Another contestant made a wild boar salad with a strawberry parfait jus (also served it with quinoa and oats) while the third used the oats to crust the boar, serving with a cucumber salad (with a parfait dressing) and pasta.  Unfortunately, her pasta didn’t have enough sauce (and looked rather sticky), which caused her to be chopped.

The dessert round included plums, pickled eggs, chestnuts and cocoa powder.  One contestant made a grilled plum and chestnut pot pie (think chicken pot pie, but sweet) with the pickled egg mixed into the “filling” part of the pie, while the other remaining contestant created something that was just a bit more elaborate – cremeux with caramelized plums and cocoa.  Both desserts weren’t the best – the pickled eggs were definitely a throw-off and made the dishes a bit more “interesting” in terms of taste.  In fact, the judges argued as to which one was better (one did not like how a contestant just sliced the egg and added it into his dish, while another thought it was a good addition.  Judges also went back and forth on the pot pie, with one not liking the “lingering pickled egg flavour” while another the mix of tart and sweetness.  At the end, it was based on the entire contest – all three rounds, so the winner was the chef who created made the cremeux.

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