Chef Jodian Blake is tops at Best of Jamaica

Chef Jodian Blake took top honours in the amateur chef cook-off at the annual Best of Jamaica extravaganza on the weekend at Breezes Runaway Bay Resort in St Ann.

The competition for junior chefs saw contestants getting an hour to prepare a dish from pre-selected ingredients, chosen by the organisers. They had no idea what they were going to prepare until they got the ingredients.

Blake prepared a combo of jerked chicken with seared pork and lightly floured fried fish, sweet and Irish potato mashed with sautéed vegetables, served with red wine reduction.

She won a two-burner gas stove courtesy of sponsors Industrial Gases Limited (IGL) and a weekend at Hedonism II in Negril.

Blake finished ahead of Shaneica Case. Ariana Moore and Dwayne Halls also competed.

Case's 'Best of the Taste' was jerked pork with chicken rolls and fish, mashed sweet potato and plantain with yam. Case also took home a two-burner stove from IGL.

Moore entered with her 'Round the World' and Halls had pork in red wine sauce, fish steamed with tomato sauce and herbs, and potatoes boiled, floured and fried.