Coffee County Central High School juniors Jacob Gilley and Jorja Johnson recently brought home second place at the statewide Junior Chef Competition held by the Department of Education School Nutrition Program on March 6 at Nashville State Community College.

The objective was for teams to craft a hypothetical school lunch recipe that would meet required nutrition guidelines. Then on the day of the event, the teams would cook it for the judges.

“It was supposed to fit within 500600 calories, 500 milligrams of sodium and be low in saturated fat and have zero trans-fat,” Gilley said. We came up with breaded pork chop with a pineapple teriyaki sauce and vegetable Chow Mein.”

The team developed their recipe using fresh pork tenderloin and an egg wash, hand breading with flour. They submitted the recipes to the state and then the top eight teams moved on to compete in the in-person culinary competition.

Teams had 90 minutes to prepare their meals and 30 minutes to clean.

Our cafeteria doesn’t really have Asian-style meals, so we wanted to bring something new into the cafeteria,” Gilley said.

Culinary Arts Instructor Alie Seigmund said the pair tested their recipe a few times before the in-person competition.

“The judges really liked that Jacob knew all the nutritional values for the meal,” Johnson said. “Some teams’ food looked good and probably tasted good but it wasn’t realistic to be a school lunch like it was supposed to be.”

“We tried really hard to keep ours easy, so you could put it in the cafeteria like here in the school and it wouldn’t be a problem,” Johnson said.

Johnson said that she and Gilley tried several sauces before landing on the pineapple teriyaki version they submitted.

“We had decided on a different one here at first, but when we tried it, everybody said it was too spicy so we changed it.”

Seigmund said the teams were judged on presentation, recipe appearance and execution, taste and sanitation and food safety.

During culinary classes, students are divided into groups, given a recipe assignment and work to complete a dish that can range from madefrom- scratch pizza to smoothies.

“I like to have them in the kitchen as much as possible because that’s how they learn, hands on,” Seigmund said.

Judges for the competition were Chef Jennefer Smart, Mid Cumberland-West regional nutrition consultant, Tennessee Department of Education; Chef Patricia Marzella, educator and consultant and Chef Ryan Yarnell, account manager and culinary specialist,