When Arthur Dulin spent three weeks traveling in Thailand, he noticed the unique combination of seafood and Thai food, particularly the popular dish of catfish and turmeric.
Cal Poly Campus Dining sous chef Dulin brought this inspiration to one of his qualifying recipes for the National Association of College & University Food Service Culinary Challenge for the Pacific Region. He transformed the required ingredients of whole catfish and fresh okra into a colorful combination of flavor and culture.
Dulin contributes to Campus Market, Health Shack and catering.
NACUFS will evaluate chefs on organization, technique, cooking skills and the taste of their dishes. The competition will be held at the University of Washington, Seattle on March 24. Participants will have a 30 minute preparation window to break down fish and do small tasks, a full hour to create that dish and additional time to plate their unique dish, according to Dulin.
“The idea is to have four plates look exactly the same,” Dulin said. “Same amount of sauce, same amount of fish, and that follows the recipe to perfection.”
Dulin is competing against three chefs from Stanford University, Pomona College and Pacific Lutheran University. The winner will compete at the national conference in New Orleans this summer.
“If you win this round, you win a $750 gift card,” Dulin said. “But to me, it’s more about the recognition and people seeing you and people getting to know me as a chef and as a person.”
In 2019, Dulin competed and won a prize on Season 46 of Food Network’s ‘Chopped.’
“From playing sports at a young age, I was definitely into competition,” Dulin said. “I had the opportunity to travel to New York and compete against three other great chefs, and I was lucky enough to pull it off and come home with the win.”
During his time traveling in Mexico, Thailand, Peru, Chile and Argentina, Dulin loved experiencing places that are home to the food he loves and seeing the culture behind the food.
Dulin said he aims to “keep the culture in the cooking” while still honoring his California roots.
“I don’t just like to cook the food,” Dulin said. “I like to see how they eat the food, when they eat the food, what they are doing when eating the food.”
The combination of his own background and inspiration from abroad resulted in fried catfish with red curry becoming one of Dulin’s dishes for the competition.
The submission process required recipes to be formatted, organized and replicable by any other chef, according to Dulin. The initial application showcased how Dulin created his recipes, including many culinary keywords and techniques that judges expect to see.
“Once I tasted [the recipe] and had the balance and the texture and all those things, I knew it was gonna be the one that would be accepted,” Dulin said.
Dulin also says his partner Melanie helped him come up with recipe ideas and pushed him in the right direction. Once she tasted his dish and loved it, his confidence was set.
Sub: A Look Back into Chef Dulin’s Culinary Roots
Dulin’s first memories around food were helping his mom clean green beans and put food on the table. He also loved watching the grill when there was a barbeque.
Dulin got his official start in the culinary world after high school, when he enrolled in the Arts Institute of Las Vegas in 2007. His first job was in a Florida sports bar scratch kitchen before he transferred to the culinary program at the Art Institute of Portland, Oregon.
In Oregon, Dulin gained 12 years of experience with higher scale foods, mastering different cuisines. His experience working with a southern restaurant, South American cuisine and Indonesian food led to three James Beard award nominations, a prestigious recognition for excellence in the U.S. culinary industry, according to Dulin.
After catering at a golf course, Dulin moved to California and started at Cal Poly nearly two years ago.
At Cal Poly, Dulin said he hopes to make people proud and continue to push culinary forward. He has had a great experience working as the barbeque chef on campus, cooking over an open fire.
“If I had a restaurant, it’d probably be some type of red oak inspired restaurant, so I was very happy to get the opportunity to do it,” Dulin said. “Learning every week of how I can get better at it is the best part.”
Dulin will continue practicing until the competition, breaking down catfish and increasing his efficiency.
“I like to think of this career as being way more than some people think it is,” Dulin said. “I just like to have some professionalism in it, and try to use it to better myself, better my team and to show people that culinary arts is a great thing to do in your career.”
Katy Clark contributed to the reporting of this article.