Alberto Montes, from the Atrio de Cáceres restaurant, manages to proclaim himself the winner this Tuesday of the Dénia Red Shrimp Contest, which has finally been held after the improvement of the pandemic.
The chef of the Atrio restaurant (Cáceres), Alberto Montes, has emerged as the winner of the first prize of the XNUMXth Dénia red prawn creative cuisine international contest held today at the city's Mercat Municipal. Montes has conquered the jury with his recipe "Red Shrimp from Dénia, flowers and halophiles". The second prize went to the dish "Royal red prawn from Dénia, peas, herbs, accompanied by its grilled head and a consommé of its corals with amontillado", prepared by the chef Aitor López from the Citrus del Tancat restaurant (Alcanar , Tarragona) and the third winner was David Moreno from the Can Simoneta restaurant (Canyamel-Capdepera, Mallorca) for his recipe “Denia red prawn aguachile with habanero chili hollandaise”
The participants have begun to prepare their proposals inside the Dénia market at 9.30:11.30 in the morning and have had two hours to prepare their creations. At XNUMX:XNUMX a.m., the jury has begun to taste the dishes served by students of the CdT Dénia Kitchen and Service Training Cycle.
The jury was chaired by Julia Pérez Lozano, a journalist specializing in gastronomy and a member of the Royal Academy of Gastronomy, who was accompanied by chefs, Quique Dacosta, by Quique Dacosta Restaurant (Dénia, Alicante); Susi Díaz, from the La Finca restaurant (Elche, Alicante); María José Martínez from the Lienzo restaurant (Valencia); Nacho Solana from the Solana restaurant (Ampuero, Cantabria), Aurelio Morales from the Cebo restaurant (Madrid) and the journalists, consultants and gastronomic critics, José Carlos Capel, Igor Cubillo, Borja Beneyto, Carlo Passera and Daniel Arbós.
The winners have received their trophy, a sculpture by the artist Toni Marí created expressly for the contest and a cash prize of 2.500 euros for the first; 1.500 euros for the second and 1.000 euros for the third.
The international creative cooking contest of the Dénia red shrimp, directed by chef Rafa Soler, is organized by the Association of Hospitality and Tourism Entrepreneurs of the Marina Alta (AEHTMA) in collaboration with the Department of Tourism of the Dénia Town Hall. Like every edition, the organization has awarded the "special red shrimp award", which this year has gone to the Autonomous Secretary of Tourism of the Generalitat Valenciana, Francesc Colomer, for his support for the tourism sector and Dianense gastronomy, as well as for the support shown during the most difficult times for the sector.
The other day I read in a national newspaper that Spain had to import compound feed to feed livestock. He also read, not with a certain surprise, that we had to import wheat and sunflower oil in addition to natural gas and electricity. The works to obtain natural gas, which is abundant on the Cantabrian coast, as well as the installation and start-up of nuclear power plants (they are green energy) are expensive and take a long time to start up.
There are other things that can be done, quickly and whose fruits can be harvested in the short term, such as: wheat and sunflower seeds to obtain oil. In this way we would not have to depend on supplies from the Ukraine.
Who should start this project, which is profitable in the short term and does not require a large investment?