Chef Jason’s “Iron Chef Gauntlet” Dinner

Of *course* I had him sign the menu

If you’re living in San Antonio and didn’t know about Chef Jason Dady’s (@ChefJasonDady) recent appearance on Food Network’s “Iron Chef Gauntlet” (ICG), well, welcome back from whatever planet you just returned from. (Note: if you haven’t watched it and don’t want to know how it turned out, quit reading right here.) He did a marvelous job, in cooking, presentation, working with the camera, and above all, representing San Antonio to the wider food world. He made it all the way to the Final Three before host Alton Brown eliminated him. It was a great run.

How I didn’t hear about the next part, I’ll never know. (For starters, he didn’t tweet about it, and that’s rather unusual.) A friend heard about a special dinner (three seatings only) featuring some of his ICG dishes. All three seatings sold out within an hour, but she had the foresight to put herself on the waiting list. The night before, we got the call that we were IN!

That's Chef Jason in black

We arrived at a packed Tre Enoteca, and Chef Jason and crew were hard at work. (I cannot imagine the planning and logistics of serving 80 people 5 dishes, all at the same time.) Due to a massive traffic tie-up on I-10, we missed the reception and appetizers, but arrived in time for the dinner. 

The menu

Servers brought in each dish, and while we ate, Chef Jason chatted a bit about the dish and how it went down on the show. I’ll start there:

Chef Jason tells us about the dish and the show

Course 1: Soba Salad with Black and White Sesame Salad and Dashi Broth. He prepared this for the “Yin/Yang” round, where Alton encouraged them to showcase opposites. “You know I f***ing lost, right?” he asked, to much laughter. He said his goals were “not to get cut first” and to represent San Antonio on a national stage. The soba noodle salad was a perfect starter; you rolled up your noodles, then dipped them into one (or both) of the bowls of sesame puree. He was frustrated, though, that the show chose to omit the second part of the dish (and the fact that Alton apparently didn’t “get” the yin/yang theme he presented). Chef Jason made a rich dashi broth, which the servers brought around and poured into the sesame broth bowls. Totally different texture and taste.

The prettiest presentation, in my book

Course 2: Lightly Smoked King Salmon with Soft Poached Hen Egg, Asparagus, and LOTS of Lemon Zest. When the altar rose (and they really *don’t* know what’s under there), they were all surprised to find….nothing. The challenge was “your best dish with only five ingredients.” When this dish appeared on the show, I tweeted “That looks just like a @ChefJasonDady dish!” I’m not a big fan of salmon, but I could have eaten this all night. Delicately smoked, perfectly moist, and falling apart on the fork. The “LOTS of Lemon Zest” was a response to an earlier criticism that a dish was not “lemony enough.”

The coconut was charred under the grill

Course 3: Pan Seared Diver Sea Scallop with Thai Red Curry, Thai Herbs, and Coconut Ice. This week’s theme was “re-imagining a classic combination,” and Chef Jason drew coconut/lime. On the show, as he prepped the dish, Alton was under-whelmed with the “re-imagining” part. So Chef Jason quickly altered course to prepare something Alton had never eaten before. The result was this stunning coconut and Thai curry presentation. My only complaint: the jasmine rice underneath was uncooked (to hold up the coconut shell), and I couldn’t retrieve and eat the spicy and creamy curry sauce that ran out of my bowl. The coolness of the sea scallop perfectly offset the rather spicy sauce. He used liquid nitrogen to prepare the coconut ice. This dish gave him the win for that week of the show.

This reminded me of the "duck confit orchiette" dish at The Lodge

Course 4: Braised Pork Shoulder Ragu with Celery Root Ravioli. This week’s altar ingredient: half a hog. Chef Jason decided on a pork shoulder, with which he has a lot of experience. People often asked him if he practiced, and he tells them, “Only one thing: the pressure cooker.” It always amazes us on cooking shows that the professional chefs don’t think ahead on this score. They don’t use the things, of course (if a dish needs “low and slow,” that’s how they cook it.) But with only 45 minutes, the pressure cooker is the obvious go-to appliance. I can’t tell you how many times we’ve seen an amazingly talented chef waste 10 minutes trying to figure out how to put the fool thing together. So Chef Jason practiced this like a fiend and had it down pat. The pork shoulder just melted in the mouth.

Course 5: Porcini Crusted Elk Loin with Wild Mushroom, Red Currant Bordelaise, Blackberry Gastrique and Micro Arugula. Week One’s theme was “Into the Wild.” If you know Chef Jason, you know he knows his wild game, so he obviously went for the elk. This dish had a lot going on, and he liked how it came together; I’m pretty sure he said this was the dish he was happiest with. Alton had no criticism for him and plenty for the other chefs. So he was a little floored when Chef Izard won the challenge (“I had to keep my poker face on.”)

Dessert was a simple but delicious shortbread cookie. In response to a question, he said he has already been to New York to film something else. He didn’t share any further details, but we’ll be watching.

The event was such a success that I would bet he’ll do it again, if the logistical challenges aren’t too overwhelming. We’re both looking forward to seeing more of him on Food Network and Cooking Channel.

Finalist Again! Central Market's Apple Recipe Contest

We interrupt our normally scheduled "get the house ready to sell" programming for a cooking update. In October, Central Market sponsored an apple recipe contest; once again, we entered, and once again, we were finalists. (8 contests, 8 finals appearances; not bad.)

We worked on recipes over a weekend. Bruce prepped a sweet recipe (saving the idea for next year), and I modified my Frannie's cornbread dressing recipe (thanks for the idea, Robyn!). I added apples and mild Italian sausage to the recipe, and substituted apple cider for some of the chicken broth. They have changed the rules, so we were able to submit both recipes.

After a longer-than-expected wait, an email informed me they selected the dressing recipe as a finalist. Finals scheduled for two days hence. Scramble to rearrange Friday/Saturday schedule. At least we weren't out of town.

I did the bulk of the work on Friday; all I had to do on Saturday was cut up the apple, stir everything together, and pop into the oven. I plated at the store.

Frannie's Cornbread Dressing with Apples and Sausage

During preparation, we were all surprised when the Spurs Coyote showed up! He wasn't going to do much eating in that costume, but he was fun to have around, very interactive, and very generous with photos. (Kids at the store went berzerk.)

From left: Apple Quince Tart, Apple Cilantro Slaw, Vietnamese Summer Rolls, and Apple Bundt Cake

Four other finalists presented the pictured dishes (two savory, two sweet). As usual, we each presented to the panel of three judges (none of whom I recognized).

After several minutes of deliberation, they selected the apple-quince tart as the winner. (We learned during the Hatch contest that the judges have a predeliction for sweet dishes, although Bruce won once with a savory recipe.)

He tried to abscond with it after the photo.

It's always fun to participate, and as corny as it sounds, it was a lot of fun to meet the Spurs Coyote. 

Watching carefully for their next contest.

A New Kitchen Store Comes to San Antonio: Welcome Sur La Table!

Yes, San Antonio foodies can shop at the restaurant supply stores and Williams-Sonoma, but I have always coveted a kitchen store, like Kiss the Cook in Wimberley. And now, we have one! Sur La Table (@sur_la_table) opened at the Shops at La Cantera last Friday (located in the long, narrow section anchored by Barnes & Noble, just to the east of the original complex.)

The store displays rack upon rack of steel shelving filled with stacks of kitchen, baking, and bar equipment. They stock everything from pots, pans, and utensils, to more unusual items like a molcajete (a Mexican stone mortar and pestle) and tagines. Bakers will enjoy their extensive baking section, including cookie cutters in any imaginable shape. If you’re looking for a specific utensil (a particular type of whisk, or an offset spatula, say), I’m sure they carry it.

When I visited, the sounds of electric drills and hammers rang out as a construction crew worked to get the spacious cooking school ready to open next week. The school will offer both sit-down and hands-on classes. Currently on the schedule: “The Fearless Baker: A Three-Part Series for the Beginning Baker” and “Satisfying Fall Soups and Stews.” You can find a list of classes on their website. We’ll sign up for one soon.

If you love playing around in the kitchen as much as we do, I recommend a visit….and bring your wallet.

Meeting Chef Anne Burrell

Chef Anne Burrell (@chefanneburrell) visited H-E-B’s Alon Market today to sign her new cookbook, “Cook Like A Rock Star.”

Chef Anne looks (and sounds) just like she does on Food Network (@foodnetwork), with her wild, white hair and broad smile. She was very friendly and approachable, and offered a handshake so I could introduce myself. “Are you a Marine Mom?” she asked. Why yes, Chef Anne, I am. I told her how much we are looking forward to watching her on “The Next Iron Chef.” “But I know you can’t talk about it,” I said. She replied, “I can’t, but I’ll accept any best wishes.” We’ll be rooting for her, as she is one of our favorites. (Wish I had ditched the purse somewhere.) After her visit, she tweeted “Thanks to all the H-E-B’s that I did signings at. Everyone was very kind and delightful—thank you!” Pretty classy and gracious.

“Rock Star” mainly targets new cooks; she wants to make cooking approachable and not so intimidating. “A recipe might tell you to brown a piece of meat and then deglaze the ‘fond.’ But what the hell is ‘fond’?” she says in her introduction. She calls it “the crud on the bottom of the pan.” But she refuses to give up mise en place (having all your ingredients prepped and measured before taking the first cooking step). Rather than the standard recipe format, her recipes start out with a small story, then mise en place, and only then, cooking instructions. “This is how I cook and how professionals cook, and it’s how you should cook, too.” The cookbook contains instructional sidebars (how to make stock, for example) and fun handwritten tips (“I like fresno peppers because they’re medium hot”). I’m most looking forward to making just about everything in the “Piccolini” section. “Piccolini” means very small in Italian, but she defines it as “my little nibbles.” They’re tapas-sized dishes that will work well either to start a meal or for entertaining a houseful of people.

We now have a new addition to our growing collection of signed cookbooks. Of these authors, I’ve only met Chef Anne and Chef Rick Moonen (read my post about the fabulous seafood dinner he prepared at the now-defunct Watermark Grill); the others we purchased pre-signed. I hope to get the Tex-Mex book signed this weekend on my Glutton’s Tour of Houston, part 2.

If you ever have the chance to meet Chef Anne, I highly recommend you stop by. We’ll be cheering you on when “The Next Iron Chef” starts!

My Hatch Tres Leches Cupcakes

Every year, Bruce and I enter a recipe into the Central Market Hatch Recipe Contest. A variety of Anaheim pepper grown in southern New Mexico, a Hatch chile tastes robust and earthy. The aromas of charring pepper skins, as they roll around in the huge circular roasters, smell smoky and tickle the back of your throat with just a touch of heat. Either Bruce or I (only one entry per household, unfortunately) have qualified as a finalist every year since the contest started in 2007; we won in 2008 and 2009. We even drew a mention in the Taste section of the San Antonio Express-News on Sunday, August 21!

Throughout the year, I keep a notebook handy, and when I see something on Food Network or have an idea that could we potentially “Hatch-ify,” I jot it down. Each summer, we develop 5-6 recipes. Actually more than that….we’ve sent several subpar concoctions down the disposal. We invite our friends over and ask them to share very candid comments about what they like and don’t like. (While we enjoy hearing “I loved it!” that doesn’t help us improve the dish.) Their comments make our recipes better every year, and they always lead us to the best recipe to submit. Our feet ache and our backs throb at the end of the evening, but our hard work pays off with content friends.

The San Antonio judges have demonstrated favoritism towards desserts. A ceviche won in 2007, but that year, they presented the dessert (Bruce’s, actually) mid-meal, which hurt its chances; they now serve desserts at the end, a desirable presentation spot. Desserts have won every year since. Last year, I placed third with a Hatch Bacon, Lettuce and Tomato Sandwich with a Hatch Tomato Bisque.

We developed four non-dessert recipes and two desserts this year. (No, I will not tell you the other recipes. We often refine and recycle for the following year.) I don’t know where the inspiration came from (those who know me will tell you I do not generally eat desserts), but I came up with a Hatch Tres Leches Cupcake. I have a video on my You Tube channel to show you how to make them.

The cupcake part was easy….can you think of a hotter (no pun intended) food trend? I researched tres leches cake and icing recipes and developed the recipe below.

Important tip: when peeling hot Hatch chiles, wear latex gloves, lest the capsaicin migrate from your hands into your eyes or other, um, sensitive parts. You only make that mistake once.

The recipe calls for a whopping 2 ½ cups of hot Hatch chile, plus 5 raw ones. This sounds like a powerful lot of hot. But remember, fat neutralizes the capsaicin that gives chiles their heat; any recipe (like tres leches) heavy in fatty ingredients needs a LOT of chile for the heat to break through.

My competition this year:
• Hatch meatballs
• Gluten-free Hatch chile stew
• Hatch lamb burgers
• Hatch pickled peaches
• Hatch apple pie

I always enjoy meeting and chatting with the other contestants. One, a native of Albuquerque, had a fiancé who flew him out some chiles that she picked up in Hatch.

Contestants prepare the recipes ahead of time and bring them to the contest ready to serve. (We’ve developed more than one recipe that we’ve tossed because it wouldn’t survive the transport to Central Market and the wait before judging.) We then each present our dish to the judges. As a repeat contender, they allowed my dessert to go last.

The judges’s reaction to a dish tells you a lot about the final result. Watering eyes, a flush face, and a quick grab for the milk means you’ve gotten their attention. After five years of competition, we’ve learned that it’s not enough for a dish to taste like Hatch; it must also pack a punch of heat.

This year, I placed fourth. The peaches won third, the stew second, and the apple pie won.

We truly enjoy our summers of Hatch recipe development and already have plans to enter next year!

Hatch Tres Leches Cupcakes

For the cupcakes:
• 1 ¾ c cake flour
• 2 t baking powder
• 6 large eggs, separated
• 1 ½ c sugar
• ½ c whole milk
• ½ c hot Hatch puree
• 1 t vanilla

For the soak:
• 12 oz can evaporated milk
• 14 oz can sweetened condensed milk
• 1 c heavy cream
• 1 ½ c hot Hatch puree

For the icing:
• 8 oz mascarpone
• 1 c ricotta
• 2 T hot New Mexico chile powder
• ½ c sugar
• ½ c hot Hatch puree

For the pecan topping:
• 2 c water
• 2 c sugar
• 5 raw hot Hatch chiles, roughly chopped
• 1 c crushed pecans

Preheat oven to 350. Spray a muffin tin with cooking spray. (Do NOT use muffin cups.) A silicon muffin pan is ideal; the cupcakes come out cleaner.

For the cupcakes: Sift together the flour and baking powder and set aside. In a clean mixing bowl, beat the egg whites until soft peaks form. Gradually add the sugar (with the mixer running) until stiff peaks form. Scrape the sides of the bowl mid-way through. Add the egg yolks one at a time, mixing each one in before adding the next.

Add the flour/powder mix, alternating with the milk and chile puree. Add the vanilla.

Fill each muffin cup about 2/3 full. Bake until golden, about 25 minutes. Allow to cool fully.
For the soak: mix all ingredients together. Pour into a 13x9 baking dish. When cupcakes have cooled, use a skewer to poke the cupcakes 4-5 times. Place them into the baking dish, cover, and refrigerate for at least 4 hours or overnight. Turn the cupcakes once.

For the icing: mix all ingredients together. Chill for at least an hour.

For the pecan topping: mix the sugar and water together and bring to a boil. Add the chopped chiles. Slightly reduce heat and keep on a low boil for about 30 minutes or until the chiles turn translucent. Strain, reserving the liquid (discard the chiles; they’ve given their all). Stir the chopped pecans into the syrup. Remove the pecans and lay them out on a silicon baking sheet. Bake until they just turn brown, about 10 minutes. (Watch carefully; it’s easy to burn them.) Cool thoroughly and remove from baking sheet.

To assemble: Remove the cupcakes from the soaking liquid and allow to drain on a rack for about 15 minutes. (Reserve some of the liquid for serving.) Ice each cupcake, then sprinkle the candied pecans on top. To serve, spoon a bit of the soaking liquid onto a dish and place cupcake atop.

Does Building a Salt Dome Over Trout Really Work?

My aversion to preparing fish originates with an unfortunate episode with a monkfish. An unsightly creature with a wide toothy mouth, broad body, and overall sliminess, we bought a filet and pan-fried it. Owing to a poor filet selection, lack of cooking finesse, and non-existent kitchen ventilation, disaster ensued. Not only did the offending monkfish end up in the garbage, the entire house stank….no, reeked…..of fishy fish for days. Long-dead, super fishy-fish. We fled the house to escape the stench.

Recent fish efforts have met with more success, so we attempted a technique we’ve never tried before.

I read every issue of Fine Cooking (@FineCooking) cover to cover, with its informative how-to’s and flexible recipes that produce multiple dishes instead of just one. They featured the salt-crust fish method in the Apr/May 2011 issue.

H-E-B Central Market’s fish counter here in San Antonio normally only stocks whale-sized whole fish…much too big for the two of us. We selected a rainbow trout with bright eyes and firm flesh from the nearby H-E-B Alon Market instead.

Crafting a salt dome over the trout traps steam and the redolence of the aromatics so they don’t float away unused on the air. Cracking the crust sounded like thumping on a hollow stump. The moist, tender, flaky trout tasted not the least bit “fishy” or salty. It required no additional seasoning once removed from the crust.

We completed our meal with some roasted fennel and a grilled fig salad with a tangy garlic chile vinaigrette.

What we learned:

• If you have even a wee cut on your hands, either wear latex gloves or have your partner crust the fish to avoid owies.
  
• Our trout weighed in at just under ¾ lb—too small for a satisfying meal for two. We will purchase a larger specimen next time.
  
• No matter how carefully you remove the flesh, bones may still lurk, so use caution.
  

We definitely plan to add this new technique to our repertoire!