H-D-CAL ProStart teams ready to build on last year’s record success

Following the most successful year in school history, the Hampton-Dumont-CAL ProStart teams are getting cooking once again as contest season approaches.

Last year, the ProStart Culinary team punched its ticket to the ProStart National Invitational in Washington D.C. after winning the state competition for the first time in the team’s existence. The ProStart Management team also earned a second-place finish at the state competition, narrowly missing the opportunity to join the culinary team in the national event.

The two teams will once again put their best dishes and ideas forward when the State ProStart Invitational arrives on March 3 at the Iowa Events Center in Des Moines.

Coach Jane Hoegh said the culinary team is anxious to defend its state title yet confident in the dishes and preparations they have planned for this year’s contest. Despite losing key team members from last year’s team, Hoegh said the four chefs and the expediter (the team’s floor manager, of sorts) have made it their mission to return to Washington D.C.

The menu this year features a butter-poached lobster claw, a petite corn cake with a corn puree, a tarragon citrus sauce with corn shoots and crispy pancetta for a starter, a wagyu beef roulade with walnut parsley pesto, a whiskey sauce and caramelized brussel sprouts and garlic mushroom quinoa for the main dish and a strawberry and chocolate dessert with several creams and sauces.

As is ProStart custom, all preparation must be done with just two propane burners. No electrical components are allowed. Students are judged on the presentation of the dish, knife cuts and other executions and taste.

Hoegh said the menu this year is ambitious, as several elements require an added layer of attention and care. For example, this year’s main dish will be done with flank steak, a tougher cut of meat than the tenderloin used last year.

“It’s been an evolution to take that less tender cut and try to get it tender,” she said. “We’ve gotten it down to a very tender cut of meat. It’s taken probably four weeks of figuring that out.”

She said the team designed the menu because of the member’s desires to challenge themselves and show that last year’s success can not only be maintained, but duplicated as well.

“This team is ambitious,” she said. “I think they’ve picked to work with ingredients that are new and challenging and they can show a lot of skills with what they’ve chosen.”

With the state competition just a few weeks away, Hoegh said the team still has some work to be done to repeat last year’s results, but when the season began, she said the members approached it with determination and confidence.

“I didn’t really have to say anything to them,” she said. “They feel the confidence (from last year).”

For the management team, Hoegh said the students are developing a restaurant plan for “Roots,” a health conscious pizza shop that focuses on gluten free and vegan offerings. Students involved on the management team not only have to come up with the concept, but develop a menu, produce a pricing plan, design the layout and come up with three unique marketing tools specifically designed for that restaurant.

One of those marketing tools, she said, is creating an Instagram “Influencer” who promotes the restaurant. That will include an Instagram account and a promotional video. The other aspects also include a curbside takeway location and a loyalty program.

“All of these new trends are what the judges want to see,” she said. “They want to see if the kids know about the industry, what’s happening in the industry.”

Eight students make up this year’s team, with three returning from last year’s second place team. Much like the culinary team, Hoegh said the management team has taken an aggressive approach with new and challenging ideas with hopes that they reach the next level of success.

“They’re in it to win it,” she said. “I think that’s why they feel so passionate about their idea, because they care so much. They want it, they’re hungry for it and they see they were just one step away from going to Nationals.

“They’re confident and understanding of the situation,” she added.

The success of the teams, she said, marks a noticeable interest in the culinary arts at H-D-CAL. More students are vying for spots on the ProStart teams and, in general, students have shown a greater desire to participate in culinary classes. She said it’s not a major coincidence that the school has recently invested a considerable amount of resources back into the culinary program. This year, the culinary room received upgrades to take it from a cramped kitchen with limited resources to an industrial production with electric convection ovens, multiple large preparation tables, a coffee station for Bulldog Café and shelving units that allow students to store items in compliance with the health regulations that prohibit hand drying cooking utensils.

Hoegh said now, all students in the classes can participate in a lesson at the same time and the set up allows them to focus on their work while still allowing Hoegh the chance to easily monitor how each student is progressing through the lesson.

“That’s just been a game changer for us,” Hoegh said. “The biggest thing that seems really basic is these stainless steel work spaces…I can stand on the end and watch what’s going on instead of looking over their shoulder like before.”

While the ProStart team is limited in the appliances and tools it can use, Hoegh said they’ve also benefitted from the kitchen improvements as well. When the time came to develop the recipes and experiment with ideas, the increased space and resources allowed them to fully dive into the creative process and more easily test products. She said that has been a major benefit for the team this year and has added yet another level of legitimacy to H-D-CAL’s ProStart team.

“When we started, we were able to use whatever we had but we knew our competitors always had kind of a leg up on us because they had a lot of equipment we didn’t have,” she said.

Hoegh said that the new-look kitchen has given the students in all culinary programs and the Bulldog Café a sense of pride and ownership as well as the feeling that their work is being supported by the district administration.

“Our students see the investment this community has made in the program and it feels more industry standard based,” she said.