Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Chefs Redefine Turkey And Cheese Combination

Six local chefs gathered at the Center of Excellence for Poultry Science test kitchen Thursday to redefine the turkey and cheese combination during a cooking contest sponsored by the University of Arkansas Poultry Science Department and the Ozark Regional Chefs Associations (ORCA).

Chefs from the Fayetteville Hilton, 36 Club, Nibbles, Coy's Place and Northwest Medical combined turkey and cheese to create eleven dishes for the competition.

The judges for the contest were chef Brant Worrell of Simmons Foods, Inc., Sara Tipton of Cargill, Inc., Bill Wiebe of Hudson Foods, Inc. and Mike Heilman of the UA Institute of Food Science and Engineering.

Suzie Stephens, Nibbles chef, prepared the winning recipe of smoked turkey canapes with cranberry chutney. Calvin Burcham, Northwest Medical, prepared the second place recipe of breaded turkey breast filet stuffed with smoked gouda cheese, and Coy Kaylor, Coy's Place, prepared the third place recipe a Philly cheesesteak sandwich with smoked turkey thigh meat and swiss cheese.

By using recipes with turkey and cheese, the chefs followed guidelines for the national Turkey Federation and the Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board's national Menu Movers contest being held in September. All recipes from this local contest are eligible to be entered in the Menu Movers competition.

"They (National Turkey Federation and wisconsin Milk Marketing Board) will have entries they probably wouldn't have had without this competition," said Dr. John Marcy, UA poultry science department. "I think any one of these recipes could win that Menu Movers competition."

The Menu Movers contest is not the only beneficiary of this local contest. "The poultry center is working closely with ORCA to provide opportunities for increasing the restaurant use of poultry," Marcy said, "I would like to see us do one of these each year."