Iron chef cookoff 10-10-09

So a few months ago, Stephanie came to me with an idea that she'd been throwing around, and since she is a big foodie, and has her own blog about it...we decided to collaborate on some cooking and friendly competition. The first attempt ended horribly wrong,with the wrong people invited. hahahaha They were just the wrong fit. So after nixing that event, it went by the wayside. Jump to a month later, and I emailed Steph, and said, it is time to do this thing, and do it right. I offered to do a lot of the leg work, and invite the right cooks.
After talking amongst the cooks, we decided on my kitchen being the most central location in the Bay Area, as we'd have someone from Napa, Ca. another from Sacramento, Ca. and steph, down in San Jose, Ca. :)

The plan is to have an Iron Chef cookoff, with one ingredient made known to the chefs....it will be up to them to decide what they want to cook. The scoring will be based on 1) Originality of the dish. 2) Plating/Presentation and 3) Taste. (We initially had a time limit, but when Steph started cooking, we forgot to hit the stop watch. hahaha) so no time limit.

The secret ingredient would be...........SCALLOPS!

The cooks did not know who the judges would be, and the judges did not know who the cooks would be, as we are all friends, and I did not want any bias to be had before hand.

Cooks:
Stephanie
Virginia
Marco
Judges:
Myself
Dave
Linda and Brian

The day started off just right, as I'd gone up to Napa the day before, and with Virginias help picked out some great cheeses and food for the appetizers and what we would be grazing on, most of the day. There would be a lot of food. Being that I was hosting at my place, I wanted to make sure the kitchen was well stocked, and clean so each cook had an equal opportunity.

My contribution below. I decided on (with Virginias help), proschiutto wrapped figs for one of the apps.
Ingredients:
Figs of various sizes
Proschiutto
Italian Cream cheese
Reduced Balsalmic Vinagrette (till it's like syrup)
pepper

Mix reduced Balsalmic Vinagrette into the Italian cream cheese, till it's brown, and put some pepper in it to taste.
then smear the cream cheese on the cut figs, then wrap a small piece of proschiutto around it.
viola...instant appetizer.
(To reduce the balsalmic vinagrette, take a large bottle, into a sauce pan, under medium heat, till you see small/tiny bubbles, and continue to reduce till it is syrup in nature, then put into a squeeze bottle and ready for use)
Next, Caprese. Some wild and organic tomatos for taste and color, a baguette, cut into small pieces toasted with olive oil, and a piece of tomato on each, with a piece of mozzarella on each, and some shredded basil leaves, then olive oil drizzled on top, and then reduced balsalmic vinagrette drizzled on top of that. second appetizer. :D

The beginnings of an awesome day of eating and drinking. Above, the finished product, figs wrapped with proschiutto. (I used to much proschiutto on the figs..hahaha not a horrible thing though)

Some great color to the meal. And my presentation to the group.

The finished Caprese, which was freaking delicious. Steph hand stamped each letter and number on the score cards that we would use. And the final spread I provided for the judges and cooks for the day.

First up would be Steph as she prepared a sesame seed encrusted scallop on a bed of glass noodles...much more involved, and I'll let you guys read about it HERE...

Some scallop goodness. The guys out on the balcony overlooking the bay on a really nice and sunny day. The best part, is that the Blue Angels were flying over the bay, and visible from our balcony, and also they'd buzz our neighborhood while flying over from SFO.

Stephs plating was done, and she presented 4 dishes to the 4 judges, and after a bit of explaining about the dish, we had our taste, and then made some notes for the scoring.

Next up, would be Virginia (things worked out perfect, as Virginia and Marco had early morning committments and fit right into the cooking schedule that we set up without a hitch) She brought her chef jacket, probably for a little intimidation..and I think this is when Steph downed a couple extra glasses of wine.

Cooking with butter, and Extra Virgin Olive Oil is a fantastic thing. A quick view from our balcony over the bay, and that is Oakland/Alameda in the background.

Virginias 1st dish (yes, she made two) was a cauliflower puree topped with olive oil, and the seared Scallops, with Mache (greens) on top. Holy hell, this was good too. The judges dug right in.

A quick shot of the secret ingredients, and Virginias 2nd dish....Scallops on a bed of rissotto, with strips of Parmesan cheese on top, and some micro greens. Dave and I embellishing on the wine, and me representing the KIMCHI. hahaha Again, the meals were fantastic.

Marco finaly showed up, and would be the final cook. He started off with some homemade pasta that him and his son had made earlier in the day, and made a coconut milk sauce, covered over the scallops with a slice of Dutch Crunch bread on the side. Holy hell it was great.

The Judging would be tough, as all the dishes were amazing in their own right.

The judges were varied, especially since Dave did not eat seafood, and had never had an interest in scallops. He ate every dish without a problem...which to me is a very flattering move to the cooks, showing how good these dishes were.

After much deliberation, and many things taken into account, the tally was up, and the score was final. We gave feed back to the cooks and how we came to our conclusions...but in the end, everyone was a winner due to the amount of food, good wine and dessert (truffles rolled in cocoa powder with a nice bottle of port on the side) provided by me to all.

The standings

Virginia won 1st place (we only scored one of her dishes, btw)

Stephanie won 2nd

and Marco won 3rd.

All in all, a great success, and we are already planning another one.