The Charles Henderson High School culinary arts team will compete Saturday at Culinard, the culinary institute of Virginia College, in Birmingham to earn a top state award in the State Culinary Championship.

The CHHS Culinary Arts team members are Sabriya Burks, Mi’esha Folmar, Brandi McInnis and Maya Thomas.

This will be the fourth year that CHHS has competed in the statewide competition.

“There are 16 culinary arts teams that usually compete and we’ve finished third every time,” said Paula Hinson, CHHS culinary arts instructor. “This year’s team has the potential to do extremely well. They are excited and looking forward to competing.”

Hinson said the State Culinary Championship is an excellent opportunity for culinary arts students to extend their knowledge of cooking.

“Each team will be judged on planning and overall food production,” she said. “Teams must successfully prepare a designated menu from scratch and within a one-hour time frame.”

Hinson laughingly said the menu the team will prepare is not the usual meat-and-three meal that is served in Pike County.

“The menu is poached salmon, beurre blanc, roasted potatoes, ratatouille and chocolate bread pudding with strawberry compote,” Hinson said. “Beurre blanc is actually a butter sauce with wine vinegar. Ratatouille sounds like it would be hard to prepare but it’s just stewed vegetables – yellow and red bell peppers, eggplant and tomatoes and, of course seasoning. The students have done a very good job of preparing the entire meal within the one-hour time frame.”

Hinson said the meal is plated with the ratatouille on the bottom, then the salmon and the beurre blanc garnished with a lemon slice.

“The team places the potato wedges on the side and it’s a very attractive dish,” she said.

“We had two young men from Sodexo work with the team and the girls will go into the competition with confidence. They are looking forward to the competition and each of them is considering a career in the culinary arts. The competition will be a great opportunity for them to develop their lifelong career skills.”