AQUAFISH Recipe challenge

Together with the Hotel and Tourism School of Madeira (EHTM), ARDITI organized the AQUAFISH Culinary Contest, focusing in fish and fish by-products. Students from all three school years of the Kitchen Course taught at EHTM participated. The contest was designed to have a competition per school year, in which the winner was qualified for the final. Teams were formed by 4 students each. At the final, the best three teams from each year competed against each other.

All three finalists were awarded a prize. The winner was given a professional set of knives, 2nd place was given a kitchen jacket and 3rd place aprons (the last two prizes had logos from AQUAFISH, INTERREG and all partners that collaborated in the contest). The main objective was to introduce to students the subjects of fish and aquaculture species in Madeira, and the usage of fish by-products. The competition arose to promote the sustainable consumption of fish from aquaculture and wild species, fish by-products and low commercial value species.

The aim was to develop recipes using low commercial value species such as mackerel, damselfish, etc., and fish by-products i.e., fish parts with less commercial value such as viscera, spines, skin, with the ultimate goal to mitigate as much as possible food waste. Several evaluation criteria were selected. Four evaluation criteria were selected: hygiene and food safety, presentation and creativity, fish waste rate, and flavour and texture. Since the main focus was the minimize fish waste, and to use fish by-products, we gave special attention to the fish waste criteria. Thus, the whole fish or a part of it, depending on the size they required, was weighed before using it. Fish leftovers were kept and weighted at the end to see the amount of fish waste each team generated. In the end, a waste rate was calculated for each team, and was integrated in the final grade as one of the evaluation criteria.