STUDENTS from Kerang Technical High School have used their cooking skills to provide a meal for their school council.
The students whipped up a two-course meal as part of their Kitchen Operations curriculum, plating up home-made carbonara gnocchi or a sou vide steak with polenta mash and a demi-glace.
For dessert, school council members were given the choice between creme brulee and a mango chilli parfait.
One of their twelve mandatory food services for the subject, students had three hours after school to prepare and plate their meals.
Kitchen Operations teacher Julie Pearce said the decision to hold the dinner was student driven.
“Instead of reinventing the wheel, we went through and listed the recipes they had to cover,” she said.
“They chose from there what they wanted to cook for the school council dinner.
“The school council dinner was after school, so they started preparation and cooking at 4pm, with the dinner itself at 7pm.
“We had practised the sou vide steak before, because it’s just been added to the curriculum. When we did it, all the kids were saying how it was just magic.
“The steaks were all medium-rare, and because of the way we’d cooked it, all those delicious juices were sealed inside.”
Ms Pearce said one of the desserts had proven a challenging prospect for the students.
“The creme brulee tasted beautiful,” she said. “But it just quite didn’t set properly.
“While we were finishing up, we were all discussing the reason why it didn’t set, but all the students will live and learn from that.”
Ms Pearce explained that the students had to cover a wide range of foods and types of service to complete the subject.
“It’s not meant to be just one type or genre of cooking, it really needs to be a variety,” she said.
“One of the other tasks we’ve done was a Year Seven breakfast, to invite new students and parents at the start of the year.
“We also supplied all the food for our Biggest Morning Tea, where we also raised over $250 for the Cancer Council.”
“The staff loved it last week; they got a three-course meal for lunch on their report writing day.
“They loved the food. Everyone thought it was awesome that they got the opportunity to not worry about lunch and just come in and focus on the reports.”
School council president Tracy Roberts said council members were very impressed by the meals.
“We all loved our meal,” she said. “The students were all extremely professional in their cooking and the presentation of the meal.”
