The Head Chef at the Royal College of Physicians has won the UK final of one of the most important international cookery contests for conference venues. Abduilah ‘Scooby’ Azzubair now goes through to the 2012 final of the annual ‘Copper Skillet’ contest organised by IACC, the International Association of Conference Centres. It takes place in Houston, Texas on 21 March.
Abduilah will be competing against chefs from seven other countries in which IACC has member venues, including the USA, Canada, Australia and a number of European countries. IACC is the world’s leading association of dedicated conference venues, and the Copper Skillet event is part of its commitment to sustaining the highest global standards of customer service and facilities.
Abduilah, who won the Silver award in last year’s UK final, defeated competition from seven other chefs from top British conference venues. The Copper Skillet Event is unusually demanding, putting a premium on taste, texture and the effective use of ingredients rather than presentation. The event is even more challenging because entrants are given a mystery assortment of 20 ingredients - three of which are proteins – a quarter of an hour before the competition. They are required to visualise a main course dish and describe it to the judges within the 15 minutes, and then are allowed only 30 minutes to produce the final dish – with only a single gas burner to help them.
The chef’s winning dish was King Prawns and Scallops on a Vegetable Ragout with Saffron Sauce. “In every way, the Copper Skillet is probably the most demanding event it’s possible to face,” said Abduilah: “Cooking time is enormously tight, there’s no opportunity to plan the meal in advance, and the judges’ priorities are unusual. My experience at the RCP of preparing consistently high quality food, often to very tight deadlines, was a great help.”
The Royal College of Physicians has a highly successful events activity, regularly hosting meetings, dinners, receptions and many other types of event for organisations from many sectors.
This year’s Copper Skillet competition took place at Wyboston Lakes Conference and Training Centre in Bedfordshire on Saturday 4 February. Dishes were judged by Peter Griffiths MBE, president of the British Culinary Federation, together with Michelin-starred chef Andreas Antona.
Scooby, who was born in Larache in Northern Morocco, has worked at the College for more than twenty years, having previously had experience at Wembley Stadium and a number of leading West End restaurants.