The Next Great Kosher Chef Movie is Here!

The Center for Kosher Culinary Arts is proud to present the video movie of The Next Great Kosher Chef Contest, which took place a few months ago. We invite you to enjoy the video, and please visit our website for more information about CKCA and our programs. The Professional Culinary Arts and Professional Pastry Arts programs are now accepting applications for fall courses!


Click here for the Next Great Kosher Chef Movie Trailer

Click here for Part I

Click here for Part II

Movie Trailer Release: The Next Great Kosher Chef

Visit YouTube to see the the long-awaited trailer for the Next Great Kosher Chef, the movie!

Next Great Kosher Chef Judge Jamie Geller's Take on The Next Great Kosher Chef

Cookbook author Jamie Geller, a judge on the Next Great Kosher Chef, describes her experience:

"In front of a TV crew, a crowd of reporters and select guests, and three well known judges, three contestants passed over many culinary hurdles in quest of the title of “Next Great Kosher Chef” and the $5,000 scholarship to the CKCA.

And what tough challenges they were."

Visit Jamie's blog to read more.

Next Great Kosher Chef Winner's Recipe: Mustard Grilled Chicken with Mango Mint Salsa

Coordinated with the release of the trailer of The Next Great Kosher Chef movie, we are happy to share a recipe from the winner of the contest, Next Great Kosher Chef Jasmine Einalhori. She is now known all over the internet as a "Jewess with Attitude!"

By winning the contest Jasmine secured herself a spot in the Professional Culinary Arts Program at Center for Kosher Culinary Arts. She is currently a student here. Learn more about the program by visiting us here.



Mustard Grilled Chicken

4 large chicken breasts, scalloped or butterflied
¼ cup Dijon mustard
¼ cup dry sherry wine
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
1 large garlic clove, pressed
Olive oil
1 Tablespoon of dried thyme (oregano, basil, or dill can also be used)
Ground peppercorns and salt, to taste

Drizzle olive oil on chicken to lightly coat. Combine all ingredients in a bowl and marinate the chicken for one hour to overnight. The longer the chicken marinates, the better results you will get, though it can be grilled immediately. Use a grill pan or bbq and grill the chicken on a high heat. For a nice grill-marked chicken breast lay your chicken breasts on the grill and then after about 2 minutes without flipping the breast turn the chicken 90 degrees to the right for the classic cross-hatch look. Top with mango mint salsa and serve hot.

Mango Mint Salsa

2 ripe mangos, peeled, pitted and diced
¼ cup chopped(1/4 inch) red onion
1 cup red, orange, and yellow baby peppers (regular bell peppers are also ok)
1 teaspoon finely minced garlic
2 teaspoon finely minced jalapeño pepper, seeds removed (for spicier salsa leave seeds)
1 ½ tablespoon fresh lime juice
2 tablespoon chopped fresh mint
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 ¼ teaspoon cumin
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Over your stove top or oven, roast the whole peppers, just enough to give it a grilled marks and a slight roasted flavor. Set aside to cool, then chop and add them to all the other ingredients.

Serve salsa either with the chicken or as a side dish with a nice bowl of tortilla chips.

The Next Great Kosher Chef Trailer Comes Out This Week!

This coming Motzei Shabbos, the staff and chefs of the Center for Kosher Culinary are excited to be releasing the world premiere of the trailer for "The Next Great Kosher Chef," an advanced culinary competition that you have read about in The New York Times, The Forward, The Jewish Press and the The New York Jewish Week.

Stay tuned to this blog and our website, our facebook group and twitter http://www.twitter.com/@kosherculinary for easy access to the video.

NEW YORK TIMES Coverage of the NEXT GREAT KOSHER CHEF

Here's the amazing article published on December 13th, 2010, in the New York Times:
At Kosher Chefs’ Cook-Off, Forget Foie Gras:

To promote its curriculum and the broader art of fine kosher cooking, the school solicited competitors to take part in an all-day kosher cook-off. The grand prize: a scholarship for a 152-hour training course, which Ms. Pinson said costs $5,000.

Professional chefs could not compete. Batsheva Goldstein, 32, a contestant from Brooklyn, cooks constantly at home and dreams of hosting a show on the Food Network, but she works as a nurse.

“It’s a job I can get a paycheck for,” she said, laughing.

As a hired film crew recorded the proceedings — the organizers are hoping to interest producers in the tape — the contestants went about a series of vaguely sadistic tasks. Step One: beat a dozen eggs to a puffy meringue, create a carrot julienne with a mandoline slicer, squeeze a few words in pastry buttercream and scale a fish, all in 15 minutes.

This came after a written exam in which the contestants were asked to weigh in on the New York City trans-fat ban and identify the kosher animal from the following: camel, giraffe, zebra and hare. (Answer: giraffe.)

Read the Full Article by clicking here!

The Forward's 'The Jew and the Carrot' Blog Covers Next Great Kosher Chef

Here's the article (and a great photo!) by Itta Werdiger-Roth, published on Forward.com.

There is more to cooking than food, three home cooks and passionate foodies discovered on Sunday. The Next Great Kosher Chef competition, the first of its kind, was hosted by The Center for Kosher Culinary Arts. With grueling written and physical parts of a eight-hour competition the heat was definitely on.

The prize: A scholarship to attend the school’s cooking program, valued at $5,000.

Want-to-be contestants first had to send in a short video and a personal essay. Of hundreds, ten were chosen for interviews. Three finalists took part in a televised elimination process. At 8 A.M. Sunday morning they began a written exam, with questions covering a variety of related topics such as “What temperature does water boil in Denver, Colorado? (answer; 203 F because of the different atmospheric pressure of a higher altitude.) A series of five surprise culinary challenges (julienne carrots, scale a fish and whip eggwhites to a stiff peak for example) followed. Then the competition culminated in a cook-off.


Read more: http://blogs.forward.com/the-jew-and-the-carrot/133955/#ixzz18CwYM0V2