News

25/11/2009

VI Cooks of Aragon Competition. The art of cooking with wine

On 25 November, the TOPI-Picarral School of Hostelry held the final stage of the Sixth “Lorenzo Acín” Cooks of Aragón Competition, organised by the Cooks of Aragón Association and sponsored by CORONA DE ARAGÓN, which provided all of the cash prizes for the winners.
 
With the title “The art of cooking with wine”, all of the dishes had to contain wine from the ranges CORONA DE ARAGÓN, CORONA DE ARAGÓN DISPARATES or ANAYÓN in their ingredients.
 
Two of the Winery’s main objectives, which were completely fulfilled at the event, were to promote the brand image of CORONA DE ARAGÓN as a leading label from the wine sector in Aragón, associated with high-quality and innovative cooking in a competition that has never been held before in our Region, and to associate wine with gastronomy, promoting its properties as an ingredient and distancing it from the image as an alcoholic beverage it has recently been associated with.
 
The jury, consisting of leading gastronomic figures from the city – the Gastronomic Academy of Aragón, the Association of Sommeliers, the Association of Maîtres, the Association of Cooks and Horeca – together with leading food journalists, took four facets into account when evaluating the dishes: their originality, presentation, use of products from Aragón and CORONA DE ARAGÓN wines, and the tasting.
 
“Aragonese lamb sausage perfumed with Graus truffle and ANAYÓN wine with potatoes”, “Gold, earth, lamb and wines from CORONA DE ARAGÓN”, and “Peach filled with CORONA DE ARAGÓN DISPARATES MERLOT over crushed cacao, with a cold wine and fruit powder” were just some of the dishes presented by the competitors, who according to Domingo Mancho, Chairman of the Cooks of Aragón Association, “are amongst the finest to be found in the world of Spanish haute cuisine.”
 
The prize giving ceremony took place on the following day in Sástago Palace in Zaragoza, as part of the Gastronomic Workshops of the Province of Zaragoza, organized by the Provincial Government of Zaragoza.
 
Juan Ramón Sau and Enrique Ciria, cooks who work under Carmelo Bosque in Huesca’s Lillas Pastia restaurant – with a Michelin star – were the absolute winners of the Competition, and received the 3,000 euros prize money.
Second place, with a prize of 2,000 euros, went to the cook from Zaragoza, Diego Barbero Pina, head cook at the Mesón Los Arcos in Montañana.
Third place, with a prize of 1,000 euros, went to Antonio Arrabal Jiménez, a cook from Aragón currently working in the city of Burgos.
The best innovative dish from a young cook (below the age of 25), also with a prize of 1,000 euros, went to Juan Antonio Forcén, from the Venta del Sotón in Esquedas (Huesca).