Colonel Sanders has his blend of secret herbs and spices, Jay Newcombe has his sauce.
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The South Tamworth Bowling Club head chef's "signature dish" of crispy skin Atlantic salmon with prawns has been lauded as the 2024 Your Local Club Perfect Plate for the New England Tablelands and North West region.
Set atop a roasted vegetable and haloumi rosti and served with baby bok choy, asparagus, and broccolini, the dish is complemented by Newcombe's "secret sauce".
Featuring chilli, ginger, lemongrass, and coriander - without giving too many secrets away - the sauce helped give the dish its winning edge.
"It's the sauce that really makes the dish," Mr Newcombe said.
"As soon as people taste the sauce, they're like 'wow'."
Something Mr Newcombe came up with "a good while ago now", he has used it in numerous dishes over the years.
"It goes really well with lots of things - even sweet things," he said.
"I put it on a dessert pastry dish once and it went with that."
In this instance, Mr Newcombe used the sauce as a glaze over the salmon and the prawns.
"It's that blend between a mild chilli sort of heat with the sweetness and the lemongrass and the ginger," Mr Newcombe said.
Public vote
The competition winners were decided by the public, with diners giving the dish a score between one to five.
The voting period was from Tuesday, April 30, to Sunday, June 16.
The dish ran as a special during the voting period, but never fear if you haven't had the chance to taste it yet.
It is still available as a special and, as Mr Newcombe indicated, it will be part of the new menu he is currently working on.
This was the first time the club had entered the competition.
CEO Phil O'Reilly was "very proud" to have won the award.
Mr Newcombe, who has been the head chef at Southside Kitchen since last October after returning home to Tamworth, said it was nice to get that "bit of recognition".
The only disappointing thing was that he didn't get to serve up his dish to the competition ambassadors, Matt Moran, Courtney Roulston, and Nathan Hindmarsh as some of the other chefs in Sydney and closer to Sydney did.
"You'd like to have Matt Moran or Nathan Hindmarsh coming into your place for a taste test," he said.
