June 13, 2008

• Top Chef Showdown

  I fancy myself a bit of a chef. If the tv is on in my house and NOT tuned to ‘toons, It is usually on the food network (esp if Good Eats is on) or bravo, if top chef is playing. In fact, I have a couple of friends, jayan and ritika with whom I have been cooking since last year.

  It began simply enough-we would watch tv programs at each others places, and given the hours the programs were on, we would cook for each other. But when the three of us got into Top Chef, things began to escalate.

  Watching up and coming chefs compete in some crazy challenges and judged by the likes of well known chefs such as anthony bourdain and erikt ripert we subsconsciously began to step up our game for each other. Beyond the usual fair we would make for ourselves, we began trying out techniques and flavor combinations we saw, inventing a bunch of our own dishes along the way

  Well the most reason season of top chef (season 4-spotlight chicago!) just ended, and given that  with our 4th year of med school starting and the three of us scattered around the states on electives, we probably wouldnt be able to do this again for a long time-so we decided to celebrate this finale with our own Top Chef Showdown

  A brief summary of how top chef works (from wikipedia)
  In the Quickfire Challenge, each chef is asked to cook a dish with certain requirements (for example, using specific ingredients or to inspire a certain taste) or participate in a culinary-related challenge (for example, a mise en place relay or a taste test). They are usually given an hour or less to complete these tasks. A guest judge selects one or more chefs as the best in the challenge. In most cases, the winning chef(s) are granted immunity from the following Elimination Challenge, though they may also gain an additional reward (such as being team captains for a team challenge).
  
  n the Elimination Challenge, the chefs have to prepare one or
  more dishes to meet the challenge requirements. The chefs may have
  from a few hours to a few days to complete this challenge. If specified
  by the challenge, the chefs are given a limited budget to shop at a specific food store
  (ed note: the chicago one was at my Big Gay Whole Foods on Halsted!) to complete their task. The contestants then
  cook for four judges. The four judges may include one guest judge. In
  most cases, the contestants cook for the four judges and a group of
  guests or customers (for example, the cowboys in Colorado). The judges
  and the guests sample the food and rate
  the individuals or teams. At the end of the challenge, the chefs wait
  to be brought to the Judges’ Table, where the four judges discuss the
  dishes. 
  
  

  Ingredients for courses are generally limited to what is present in
  the “Top Chef” pantry and what the chefs purchase at a store as part of
  the challenge, but certain challenges may provide specific ingredients
  or limit the type or number of ingredients that can be used, while
  others require non-traditional methods of obtaining ingredients (such
  as asking people door-to-door). 

  ***

  So one of the challenges that took place this season was that at a performance by second city, audience members shouted out a color, an emotion, and a food you would find in the kitchen. The chefs then had to make these dishes. We liked this idea, and decided to do it for the season finale. Of course, just the three of us judging each others dishes would be difficult, so we invited a couple of friends to be impartial judges

  We each drew two combinations to make, given one week to prepare. Judging would then be done based on Plating, Creativity, and Taste. What follows is pics of the dishes made

  
  The first plating

  
  Josh’s First Dish
  Challenge: SMOOTH RED TOMATO
  Dish: Gazpacho made with tomatoes, butternut squash, parsley, dill, sea salt and lemon served in a Tomato Bowl
  Comments: This challenge was made bit more difficult on me given that a day after we got our ingredients, the whole tomato salmonella scare came out. Luckily vine ripe tomatoes are supposed to still be okay, so i just had to pay a little more. The adjective and food pairing here kind of worked against me…i basically had to present a smooth tomato dish, leaving me the options of pasta or soup. So given the arrival of summer, i made my own interpretation of a spanish gazpacho, a cold summer tomato soup. The dots around the plating are also droplets of gazpacho, and the bowl was just the cored tomato stuck in the freezer. In the future, I will probably make this a little bit less thick in consistency

  
  Jayan’s First Dish
  Challenge: SASSY PURPLE MUSHROOM
  Dish: Chicken Mushroom Marinade on Cabbage leaf with plum sauce, shallots, and limes to garnish
  Comments: jayan got a fairly difficult challenge here. how do you represent sassy? I liked the plating going for a face, and the chicken and mushrooms were done so well, you couldnt tell which was which until you bit into a piece…though i didnt care for the flavor combination of plum sauce and limes, or limes and shallots.

  
  Ritika’s First Dish
  Challenge: HAPPY GREEN ONIONS
  Dish: Onion Coconut Curry with tofu served in a coconut bowl accompanied by coconut water spritzer
  Comments: Ritikas dish conjured up a day at the beach with the green onion straw, and turning the coconut water into an accompanying drink was pure brilliance. The tofu was well marinaded and cooked, something that can be difficult to do with tofu unless you have been working with it for a while. My main detraction from this dish was that it seemed to me that the dish emphasized the coconut more than the green or the onion. The other judges were not as impressed with the coconut bowl, as they had seen it done at a local restaurant, Joy Yees Noodle House. We all agreed the dish was excellent however

  We then had an hour to prepare our second dishes, in time to catch the season finale winner, local chicago chef Stephanie Izzard.

  
  Ritikas second dish
  Challenge: FIERCE YELLOW SCALLOPS
  Dish: Seared scallops in a mango habanero sauce
  Comments: This dish was quite the comedy of errors in the making, as Ritika will absolutely not touch meat in any form. So the scallops she purchased in a container from a local fish market (what does one call a fish market-fish merchanter? fisherer? fishmongerer?) and then simply upended the container over the saute pan. To this she added the mango marinade and habanero powder from our favorite seasoning merchant, The Spice House (as promoted by Alton Brown of Good Eats). While she was watching the show, she forgot to check her sauce, leading the dish to burn slightly and changing its color from yellow to brown. that said, this was no hands down the FAVORITE dish of the night, beloved by all the other judges but one. The combination of sweet and spicy may sound surprising but is often a winner, and the texture of the chewy scallops in a much more fluid sauce with warm mangos was described by one judge as “like a party in my mouth”.

  
  Josh’s second dish
  Challenge: GLOOMY ORANGE NUTS
  Dish: Nut encrusted orange roughy with onions in an orange saffron sauce
  Comments: The difficulty of this challenge made ME gloomy. I went for broke with this idea, pulling whatever tangential relations together i could think of. I went with simple color association for my protein, picking orange roughy, and deciding to work the nuts in as a breading for a broiled fish. In the future, i will remember that walnuts are much easier to crush in a pestle than almonds. I thought of adding the onions to the fish not only to add a little bitterness to the sweetness in the walnut, but also to help get gloomy across, as onions are known for making people cry. Cheesy, yes. Then, a day before the challenge, i thought, why not make a sauce for the fish and grabbed an 8 oz bottle of OJ, some white wine, and some saffron from the earlier noted Spice House. Crushed the saffron threads and lightly toasted them, adding the wine with some onions and about 5-6oz of OJ and simmering on a medium heat while i broiled the fish. A few spoons of cornstarch thickened it up nicely. I tried to cut the fish into teardrop shapes, but the nut crusting rather hid that fact. One judge suggested gloomy could have been better represented by plating the fish at the top like a cloud, and drizziling sauce down like rain. However, the fish cooked very well, retaining a moist flaky inside with a crispy breading, and it was complimented well by the sauce, though to some of the judges the sauce was a little too sweet and the orange flavor slightly overpowering. Good thoughts for next time, as the sauce WILL be made by me again

  
  Jayans second dish
  Challenge: CONFUSED BROWN SAUSAGE
  Dish: Bacon wrapped 4 flavor sausage on a bed of couscous
  Comments: in Jayan’s words, “this turkey didnt know what it wanted to be…each sausage is flavored differently. One has habanero pepper for spicy, another has ancho chili for heat and sweet, another one tastes fruity, so you have no idea what you will get next” This too me was probably the most creative interpretation of the night. We were also amused by the hidden “sausage” shaped by the chives and two onions. “The onions are from the previous dish, and are also confused. They are all ‘wait! how the hell did we get here? this is confusing’” Jayan went on to add. The spicy sausages were too hot for one judge who hasnt been accustomed to the heat we normally pack on to our food. As for me, the spicy sausages were good, but i was unable to detect the flavors in the fruity one, and was left just feeling the tingle of the spice with the couscous.

  So based on what you have seen and heard, who would you pick as the winner?

  …It was Jayan, followed closely by Ritika, and me bringing up the rear  (T_T) Oh well, at least i learned something, and we all had quite a lot of fun. That concludes the current season of “Cooking with Almost Dr J” join us next time when Josh gets hungry and remembers his camera

  • 6:49 pm
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