Salem High School’s Career & Technical Center recently partnered with the Greater Salem Chamber of Commerce and Great NH Restaurants to create the Rising Chef Souper Star Challenge for secondyear culinary students. The organizations’ aim is to give students the hands-on experience and industry insight that prepares them for a career in their chosen field.
The Souper Star challenge brought 11 students together who were tasked with creating a soup that would have the chance to be featured on the lunch menu at T-BONES in Salem during the week of Feb. 14 to Feb. 18. The winning student would also have the opportunity to shadow the kitchen staff during standard operating hours at the restaurant.
SHS Culinary Arts Teacher Chef Jeffrey Bratz said students had to research what soup they were going to prepare, provide the shopping list and then turn the recipe they found into a standardized recipe format that could be used at T-BONES.
Bratz taught the students how to scale each of their recipes to make anywhere from six to 12 portions, up to four gallons, enough to serve restaurant patrons during lunch hours, he said.
Judges for the competition, Great NH Restaurants’ Chef Nicole Barreira and CEO Tom Boucher, had time to meet with each student in the Salem High School culinary arts kitchen before they judged each soup the students prepared, which ranged from curries to stews and everything in between.
“The competition was awesome. It was pretty clear from the get-go, even from just being in the kitchen, seeing how hard the students were working, that they put a ton of heart and time and thought into it,” said Barreira, speaking to Salem School District Media. “Truthfully, we would have put any one of these soups as a soup of the day on any one of our menus. The students did a fantastic job, and it was clear they put a lot of heart and soul into it. And it tasted like they enjoyed it, which is great.”
The winner of the 2022 Rising Chef Souper Star Challenge was Daniel Faust with his spicy chicken almond stew, made with “sweet potatoes, apples to add a little bit of sweetness, but it’s also got cayenne pepper for a little kick. I think the flavors go really well together. It’s a family recipe that we’ve done for a long time, so I brought it here to give it a shot,” said Faust.
Barreira commented that Faust’s dish “had great flavor, great visual appeal — it had an amazing aroma, and the texture was delicious … It seemed like something that was fun and would stand out on the menu but also be very well accepted in general by our guests at T-BONES.”
The Souper Star Challenge is one of many careerfocused initiatives the Salem chamber and Salem CTE Center hope to bring to students in the region to help bridge the skill gaps in New Hampshire’s workforce, said Donna Morris, president of the chamber.
Companies interested in partnering with the Salem Chamber on similar skill-building programs can connect with Donna Morris at donna@gschamber.com or 603-893-3177, ext. 224.
