Chicken and waffles helps culinary student win ‘Race to Cannes’

Cecilia Ana Ramos-Dayer’s first career was teaching English literature, but last week, she proved her mettle as a budding chef when she won the Louisiana Culinary Institute’s annual Race to Cannes student competition. Ramos-Dayer’s victory over fellow student Ben Triola allows her to travel to France next month and cook at the Cannes Film Festival’s American Pavilion.

LCI’s five-year-old competition takes place over several weeks, eliminating students along the way until two finalists remain. A few days before the finals, Ramos-Dayer and Triola were given a required list of ingredients from which to create an appetizer and a entrée, and on the day of the competition, they were handed surprise ingredients for a dessert round. El Paso native Ramos-Dayer turned firm tofu, tomato paste and prosciutto into a creative prosciutto ravioli appetizer filled with mock ricotta on a bed of tomato sauce. But her entrée, chicken and waffles, was the dish that helped her edge out her capable competitor. From the required rice cakes, chicken thighs, plantains, fruit punch and cocktail onions, she made chicken and waffles with sweet and sour sauce, topping a homemade waffle with a boneless thigh whose dry batter included repurposed rice cakes. The fruit punch formed the basis of a mock sweet and sour sauce, which she drizzled on top with tender pan fried plantains.

This marks the second consecutive year that the Race to Cannes has been won by a female culinary student. Last year’s winner was pastry chef Corrito Gealogo, who works today as a personal chef in Baton Rouge.