Posted by The Connecticut Post, CT on April 08, 2008 at 13:04:22:
'Top Chef' judge gives recipe for success
EILEEN FISCHER efischer@ctpost.com
Take 16 chefs, toss in a dash of drama, a mix of personalities and some off-beat cooking challenges and you have the recipe for Bravo's popular reality show, "Top Chef."
Now airing its fourth season, set in Chicago, the grand prize for the competing chefs is $100,000 for one of them to start his or her own restaurant. (So far, all the winners have been men.)
Fans of the high-pressured, rapid-fire culinary contest, nominated for an Emmy and two 2008 James Beard awards, continue to grow. The season premiere on March 12 attracted 2.256 million viewers, an increase of 11 percent from season three, according to Nielsen Media Research.
The weekly competition starts with a QuickFire — only 30 minutes long — that may have chefs using ingredients from a vending machine and ends with the longer elimination round that may have the chefs catering a wedding or devising an airplane meal. While the challenges may seem odd, there is a method to the madness.
"Challenges are designed so that [the chefs] don't do what they already know," said Gail Simmons, special projects editor for Food & Wine magazine.
Simmons is one of the regular judges, along with head judge Tom Colicchio, owner of Craft Restaurants, host Padma Lakshmi and Ted Allen, food and entertaining expert from another Bravo success, "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy."
Weekly guest judges read like a "Who's Who" in the food world from Daniel Boulud and Eric Ripert to Anthony Bourdain and Hubert Keller, to name a few.
As a season 1 contestant, and now 'Top Chef's" culinary producer, Lee Anne Wong said the show's environment is very similar to the real culinary world — very fast-paced. There are no recipes they can pull out for reference or books to consult, they have to rely on their experience and instincts to prepare the best and tastiest food possible.
"There are times when there's a beautiful whole duck on the table and I know exactly what I'm going to do," she said of her contestant experience. But using $20 worth of ingredients from a gas station convenience store and a microwave — a challenge Wong won — probably wasn't something she'd done before.
While recipes from the competitions are posted on the channel's Web site, now there is a new book of more than 100 recipes from the show's past three seasons titled, "Top Chef: The Cookbook" (Chronicle Books, $29.95), available at major book retailers. So, what does it take to make an incredibly delicious dish that will knock the judges' socks off?
Season 3 winner, Hung Huynh said it was his "great technique" that made him Top Chef. For Simmons, that is just one of the criteria she uses as a judge.
When it comes to judging technique, she asks herself these questions: "Is this cooked properly? Are your knife skills showcased? Do the flavors make sense? That's the stuff you can't deny," she said.
The other part of her process — does it taste good? — is more subjective, she said, because "what tastes good to me may not taste good to you."
Huynh's winning finale menu included shrimp with palm sugar, sous-vide duck with truffle-scented broth and molten chocolate cakes with vanilla crme fraiche and raspberry coulis.
To win a challenge, the chef has to be creative, but also must stay within the challenge's perimeters, Simmons explained. When asked which was harder to decide, the winner or the loser of a cook-off, Simmons said it's a mix, but added, "generally, it's harder to pick the loser." While the judges can sometimes debate the merits or faults of a dish for hours, Simmons said she wishes the contestants would talk back at judges' table. Most don't challenge their comments, she said.
"I am surprised that they don't tell us we're wrong more," she said. "I think a lot of them are very frightened [and] it's difficult to take criticism." Simmons isn't surprised, though, by the success of the show. From the start, she and the editors at Food & Wine thought Bravo was onto a good thing.
"They were coming at food the same way we did," she said. It was all about "what's new, what's fresh" and who are the upcoming chefs in America today, a particular interest of the magazine's, too, she added. Each year for the last 20 years Food &Wine divulges its picks for new chefs to watch. The 10 winners will be featured in the magazine's July issue. While the first and second seasons of "Top Chef" seemed to have more conflicts among the contestants, the focus of the show has shifted, Simmons said. "They've raised the bar so much in the last shows," she said. "This year [all the chefs] are professionals, no culinary students or home cooks.
"Their focus is to keep the drama about the food."
"Top Chef" airs Wednesdays at 10 p.m. on Bravo. For more information, visit www.bravotv.com.
Recipe: Steamed Red Snapper with Roasted Butternut Squash Puree
Head judge Tom Coliccchio deemed this dish by season 1 winner Harold Dieterle, "A real restaurant dish. The flavors were spot on."
Roasted butternut squash puree: large butternut squash, peeled, seeded, and cut into 1-inch cubes
1 tablespoon olive oil, plus more for the pan
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 shallot, finely chopped
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
1 cup low-sodium chicken stock, plus more if needed
Vegetables:
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
6 rock shrimp, peeled and deveined
3 ounces chanterelle mushrooms, chopped (about cup) cup Brussels sprouts leaves
Salt and freshly ground pepper Red Snapper:
Two 6- to 8-ounce red snapper fillets with skin
1 teaspoon minced fresh chives
1 teaspoon minced fresh flat-leaf parsley
For the roasted butternut squash puree:
Preheat oven to 375 and grease a medium baking pan. Put the squash in a medium bowl, add the oil and toss to coat. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and toss. Place the squash in the baking pan in one layer and bake until browned and tender when pierced with a fork, stirring occasionally, about 45 minutes. Remove from the oven and place back in the bowl.
In a large saut pan or skillet, melt 1 tablespoon of the butter over medium heat. Add the shallot and saut until softened, about three minutes. Add the garlic and saut until softened, about one minute more. Add the squash and stock, bring to a simmer, cover, reduce the heat to low and cook for 10 minutes to blend the flavors.
Transfer the mixture to a food processor, add the remaining 1 tablespoon butter and puree, adding more stock if necessary. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
For the vegetables:
In a medium saut pan or skillet, melt the butter over medium heat. Add the shrimp, mushrooms and Brussels sprouts leaves and cook until the shrimp are just opaque and the vegetables are softened, about two minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Remove from heat.
For the red snapper:
Pour enough water into a large pot with a steamer insert to come about one inch up the sides. Position a steamer rack or basket in the pot and top with a nine-inch pie plate. Bring the water to a boil and place the snapper on the pie plate. Cover the pot and steam the snapper until opaque in the center, about five minutes.
To serve:
Reheat the vegetables and squash puree if necessary. Spread the squash puree over serving plates, top with the fish and scatter the vegetables over the fish. Garnish with the chives and parsley and serve immediately.