Faculty Center chef wins Food Network-style competition

When there doesn’t seem to be anything else on, the TV in our household often ends up on Food Network, particularly if one of their competition shows is on: Iron Chef America, Food Network Challenge, Throwdown with Bobby Flay, etc.

Baylor/ARAMARK chef Ben Hernandez recently won a regional ARAMARK competition that sounds a lot like another show, Dinner: Impossible. Hernandez and the other competitors had to create a three-course meal for less than $15 a plate and execute it from start to finish in four hours. The results were compared by a panel of five judges; Hernandez received a score of 96.6 out of 100, defeating chefs from four other universities (including three other recent gold-medal winners).

Hernandez, who serves as executive chef for Baylor’s McMullen-Connally Faculty Center, prepared a meal that began with quail & sweet cornbread tart served with blackberry BBQ sauce. The main course consisted of pan-fried flounder with golden tomato cream sauce, poached baby carrots, leek slaw and Yukon gold mashers, and was finished off with a dessert of southern tiramisu & caramel raspberries topped with spun sugar. Hernandez is now the first member of a three-person team that will represent the southwest region at the national ACE (ARAMARK Culinary Excellence) Competition in June.

Sic ’em, Chef Hernandez!