Santa Margherita Great Taste Challenge: The Finals!

Well – I didn’t win, but had an incredible day at the finals. They were held last Thursday at the Bon Appétit Supper Club and Café in New York City, which is a “pop-up” restaurant that’s held in a different location for one week every year. They have chef demos during the day and feature lunch specials from well-known chefs. We spent the day there watching all of the demos, meeting some awesome people, and eating LOTS of food. The event happened in the late afternoon after the demos and lunch service were over. I’ll recap whole day, so please bear with me…this might be a long one!

I met the two other finalists when I arrived: Andreann Geise from Myrtle Beach, SC and Deb Kurtze from Schaumburg, IL. They were both super nice and – like me – excited to be there.


We started the day by ordering lunch. The people at Bon Appétit that were with us for the day suggested we share a bunch of things, so we had a quite a feast: José Andrés' JLT with Jamón Serrano and Manchego, Tom Douglas' Rub with Love King Salmon Sandwich, Rick Bayless' Skirt Steak Salad with Avocado and Chile Lime Dressing, Rick Bayless' Creamy Corn Soup with Ham, Tom Douglas' Tomato Soup with Grilled Cheese Croutons, and Nancy Olson's Pumpkin Whoopie Pie. The JLT, corn soup, and whoopie pie were the standouts for me, but it was all fantastic!


Gina DePalma, cookbook author and pastry chef at Babbo, took the stage after lunch. She demonstrated how to make a zabaglione, which is made by beating egg yolks, sugar, and red wine. The whole process looked a little exhausting, but the end result (which we thankfully got to try) was delicious. Small portions were passed around with a little piece of hazelnut cake.


After Gina DePalma’s demo, Cat Cora sat down at the table next to us for a pre-demo meeting. Katie and I tried our best to not stare, but we couldn’t wait to meet her! The Bon Appétit and Santa Margherita people had her come over to meet us and take pictures after her meeting. I had always thought she looked intimidating on television, but she turned out to be one of the nicest people I have ever met. She’s also very tiny in person! Eventually, she had to pull away from all of the pictures so she could get up on stage and do her cooking demonstration. She energetically showed everyone how to make her skirt steak tacos with shitake mushroom salsa.




Fabio Viviani arrived shortly after Cat Cora’s demo. He did a demonstration of his gorgonzola-stuffed, pancetta wrapped shrimp over herbed polenta and baby spinach. Sadly, they did not give out samples of his dish. I’m definitely going to try the recipe though; it looked and smelled phenomenal!


Preparations for the Santa Margherita Great Taste Challenge begin after all of the demos were over. They took a lot of professional pictures (which I hope to get a hold of at some point), but – for now – I’ll have to post the pictures my friends and I took.

The judges for the event were Fabio (again), Jacob Falleni (Fabio’s business partner at Café Firenze), Bill Terlato (President & CEO of Terlato Wines), and Barbara Fairchild (editor in chief of Bon Appétit magazine). I was personally terrified to cook in front of Barbara Fairchild. I always see her as a judge on Iron Chef, so I almost didn’t want to know what she thought about my food! That said, I was extremely excited to meet her.

Some of my friends in New York came to cheer me on :). We had some Prosecco while waited for everything to be setup.

Mike, Jess, me, Katie, and Hallie

My demo was first. Fabio and Bill Terlato first gave a brief introduction of themselves, the judges, and the competition to the audience. I nervously waited on stage behind them as Katie kept signaling to me to smile!



Here are some pictures of my actual demonstration. I had some difficulties at first because my pan wasn’t getting hot enough and I couldn’t melt the butter. I only had 10 minutes to demonstrate my dish from start to finish, so this was a bit of a challenge. Everyone was standing around me trying to figure out how to get the fancy touch-screen stovetop to get hotter. Once we figured it out, the rest went fairly smoothly. Fabio’s chattiness helped ease my nerves!




Finalist Deb Kurtzke went next with her Glazed Pork over Mango Couscous. The last finalist, Andreann Geise, cooked Mint, Fig, and Chianti Glazed Lamb with Spaghetti in a Lemon Chianti Cream Sauce. Their recipes (along with mine) are posted on the Santa Margherita Great Taste Challenge website. They were both amazing, so I knew this would be a tough competition.

I was SO nervous when it was time for the judge’s critique and the final decision. They announced that Andreann’s lamb dish with the Chianti won. I can’t say I wasn’t a little bit bummed, but I really can’t complain because I had an amazing time and met some incredible people. I hope they’ll let me enter again next year!

Congratulations Andreann!

Truffle Mac

Do you ever wind up with a little bit of various types of cheeses in your refrigerator? I noticed yesterday that I had a little bit of parmesan, goat cheese, cheddar, romano, and havarti. Knowing that a couple of them were nearing the end of their shelf life, I thought some macaroni and cheese was in order.

I estimated that I had about 16 ounces of cheese total:

• 5 oz. light havarti (in slices, which was not ideal but I made it work)
• 4 oz. sharp cheddar
• 3 oz. herbed goat cheese
• 3 oz. parmesan


• 1 oz. romano, grated

This was a bit of an experiment since I had never combined so many cheeses before, but I thought – I’ve never met a combination of cheeses that I didn’t like, so why not?

To compensate for the fact that I was using skim milk (that’s what I had) and some light cheese, I decided to add some truffle oil for a little extra richness. The truffle oil is completely optional, but just a small amount really goes a long way in adding some serious depth of flavor.

Truffle Mac
16 oz. cavatappi pasta
3 slices of bread (crust removed), or one cup of breadcrumbs
5 tbsp. unsalted butter
2 tbsp. flour
2 c. milk (I used skim, but something closer to whole would be even better)
16 oz. of your favorite cheese, grated
1/2 tsp. white pepper
1/8 tsp. nutmeg
1/2 tsp. dry mustard
1-2 tsp. white truffle oil (depending on how strong you want the flavor to be)

Make the breadcrumb topping by putting the bread slices in a food processer. Add 3 tbsp. of melted butter and some freshly ground black pepper. Set aside.

Create a roux by melting the remaining 2 tbsp. of butter in a dutch oven over medium-low to medium heat and adding the flour. Stir and cook for a couple of minutes. Slowly add the milk, whisking it into the flour and butter mixture to make sure you get rid of any lumps. The sauce will thicken as it gets hot.

Add the white pepper, nutmeg, and dry mustard. I did not salt the sauce because of the amount of salty parmesan I used, but you may need a small amount of salt depending on the type of cheese you’re using.

When the sauce has thickened, reduce the heat to low and slowly add the cheese. Stir until all the cheese has melted into the sauce. At this point, stir in the truffle oil if you’re using it.

Cook the pasta until it’s just shy of al-dente, drain well, and add to the dutch oven with the cheese sauce. Raise the heat to medium-low and let the pasta finish cooking in the sauce for about five minutes.

Sprinkle the breadcrumb topping over the pasta and transfer to a broiler that has been preheated to high. I used an oven-proof dutch oven so I didn’t have to dirty another dish, but you could also transfer it to a separate casserole. Broil until the top is golden brown.

The end result may look a little sloppy, but it sure tasted good!

The Taste of Greece

My mom visited me in Chicago last weekend and we decided to spend Sunday afternoon at the Taste of Greece in Greektown. Great food, beautiful weather, and plenty of wine – what’s not to love?

We started with some grilled octopus from the Greek Islands restaurant. It was simply marinated in some olive oil and herbs, and then served with a wedge of lemon and some bread to soak up the sauce. Perfection!


Next, we had some mousaka from the Parthenon restaurant. If you’ve never had mousaka, it’s a layered dish (which actually looks like a lasagna) made with eggplant, a meat sauce, and a béchamel sauce. My favorite part about it is the meat sauce, which has kind of an unexpected cinnamon flavor. It’s one of my favorite dishes, and not one I get very often.


We couldn’t resist ending our meal with some loukoumades I saw being fried earlier. I had never had them before, but the people at the Artopolis Bakery described them as pieces of fried dough coated with a honey-cinnamon syrup and topped with sesame seeds. They were phenomenal, of course.


My mom and I washed it all down with a bottle of roditis, which is a greek rosé-colored wine. Here is my mom, the mousaka, and the roditis:


I also snapped some random pictures of the food being cooked as we walked around.

Sole Meuniere

Having recently read Julia Child’s memoir and seen "Julie & Julia", I have been wanting a good excuse to make Sole Meuniere. For those who haven’t seen the movie, Sole Meuniere was Julia’s first meal when she moved to France and what inspired her to learn French cooking. I thought it was the perfect meal for last Thursday: my friend Lina and her boyfriend Bobby’s quick stop in Chicago on their big move from NYC to California. My roommate Katie and I wanted to make them an easy but nice dinner after their long drive and to also celebrate the fact that we were seeing them for the first time in over a year!

My roommate made her famous mashed potatoes, which she makes with Yukon golds, milk, butter, and just a touch of sour cream. I also made some steamed haricot vert for a little freshness to go with the rich fish and potatoes.

I didn’t exactly follow a recipe for the sole. Instead, I just did some research online and went at it. The dish is ideally made with Dover sole, which is rather expensive and difficult to come by. I had to settle with regular sole from Whole Foods. The sole is lightly coated in flour, pan fried in butter, and then topped with a brown butter and lemon sauce.

I read an article on the food in "Julie & Julia" that reveals the secret to the dish: a thin coat of Wondra flour. I seasoned the flour with salt and pepper, lightly coated the sole filets, and pan fried in butter. I used about a pound and a half of fish and only fried two fillets at a time, so I put the cooked fish in a 200 degree oven to keep warm while I cooked the rest. When the fish was done, I added some more butter to the pan, the juice of one lemon, and just a little bit of lemon zest. I poured the sauce over the fish and garnished with some chopped fresh parsley.

It all turned out great, but I think I will try to not brown the fish so much next time. There were no complaints, though :)

Lobster Fideua

(As you can probably tell, I’m a little behind on blogging on all of my cooking while I was in Boston because we kind of cooked non-stop, but here goes my last post from my trip.)

My parents met in Spain and lived there for some time before I came along and, as a result, I grew up eating a lot of Spanish food. Paella was always our big special occasion meal, and my dad makes an amazing paella. Sometimes he likes to switch it up and make a Fideua, which is basically a paella made with noodles called fideos instead of rice. Fideos are short noodles that come in little nests and can be found in the international aisle of most grocery stores:


We had my cousin Amy, her husband David, and their new baby James over for dinner on my last night in Boston and we decided to make Fideua for the occasion. Well, my dad really did the cooking and I did the picture taking. I have made a couple of paellas, but I haven’t mastered it like he has. It takes practice to get it perfect!

He started with a base recipe from The Food and Wines of Spain by Penelope Casas, but adapted it to use the types of seafood we wanted. We wanted to use lobster (because it was a special occasion!) and we supplemented that with shrimp, clams, and mussels. To boost the lobster flavor, he made a lobster stock instead of the fish stock that's normally used. The recipe might look a little complicated, but the basic method is in the steps below. The detailed recipe follows.

1) Sauté the lobster tails and shrimp in a paella pan to par-cook and remove
2) Sauté a tomato mixture in the same pan
3) Add the noodles to the pan and sauté
4) Add fish/lobster stock that has been simmering with saffron
5) Cook for a few minutes on the stovetop and add the lobster, mussels, and clams
6) During the last few minutes of cooking in the oven, add back in the shrimp and lobster claw meat
7) Garnish with lemons and fresh chopped parsley

Note: We often make paellas on an outdoor grill, but it was actually too hot to cook outside that night so we put the paella pan over the stovetop and transferred to an oven. The recipe can easily be done on a grill, though.

Lobster Fideua

4 small lobsters
1 lb. large shrimp, shelled
1 lb. mussels
1 lb. clams
White wine
Olive Oil
4 cloves garlic
2 tsp. smoked paprika
¼ tsp. cayenne
4 medium tomatoes, skinned and chopped
12 c. fish and lobster stock
Pinch of saffron
24 oz. fideos (two bags)
Fresh parsley, chopped
Salt and pepper

To prep the lobster, you will first need to kill them. I won’t go into detail about how to do that here, but there are some simple instructions here. Then, remove the tails and split them.


We used the claw meat in the Fideua and the rest of the shells to make the lobster stock. To make the stock, combine a cup of white wine and a about two quarts of water in a big pot and bring to a boil. Add the lobster claws and bodies to the pot. Remove the claws after about 10 minutes, take the meat out, and set aside for later. Simmer the rest of the contents in the pot for another 20 minutes and strain.

To prep the mussels and clams, soak them in cold water and a little bit of cornmeal and salt for about a half hour. This will help remove the sand.


Start by simmering 12 cups of fish stock with a large pinch of saffron. We used the lobster stock we made and added extra store-bought fish stock to make 12 cups.

Next, season the lobster tails with some salt and pepper and sauté in some olive oil over medium-high heat in the paella pan (and don’t skimp on the olive oil!). You really just want to par-cook them, so remove after a couple of minutes.


Season the shrimp and do the same thing. Shrimp don’t take long to cook, so they will probably be mostly cooked at this point.

Then, sauté the tomatoes, garlic, paprika, and cayenne for a few minutes. Add some more olive oil if needed.


Add the noodles, breaking up the nests as you add them. Saute them for a few minutes.


Add the stock and cook until the noodles are no longer soupy but some liquid remains.


Add the lobster tails, clams, and mussels on the top and transfer to a 350 degree oven. Bake for 10 minutes. Add the shrimp and the remaining lobster meat during the last few minutes of cooking.


Garnish with some chopped fresh parsley. Done!

Panko and Herb Crusted Rack of Lamb

My friend Julia came over for dinner when I was home in Boston last weekend and we decided to experiment with an herb crusted rack of lamb. I had never made one before, but – from what I have read – the basic method is to sear the whole rack, then brush with Dijon mustard, and then roll in an herb-breadcrumb mixture. I decided to use panko breadcrumbs instead of regular for some extra crunch. We went with a simple mixture of panko, garlic, and parsley, but you could switch it up with some mint, rosemary, thyme, or whatever other herbs you like. It turned out really great and is surprisingly pretty fool proof.

Panko and Herb Crusted Rack of Lamb
2 racks of lamb (about 1 ¼ lb. each), trimmed of some fat
1 ½ c. panko breadcrumbs
3 cloves of garlic, minced
½ c. parsley, chopped
¼ c. extra virgin olive oil
3 tbsp. Dijon mustard
Salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 475 degrees.

Mix together the breadcrumbs, minced garlic, parsley, olive oil, salt, and pepper.

Season the lamb with salt and pepper and sear in a very hot skillet for a minute or two on both sides.

Brush the lamb with a thin layer of the Dijon mustard and roll in the breadcrumb mixture so that it is coated on all sides.


Roast in the oven until the internal temperature reaches 130 degrees (for medium-rare). The time will vary depending on the size of the racks of lamb, but I think it took about 15 minutes when I made it.


Let the meat rest for about five minutes before cutting into it. Then, cut between the rib bones to serve.


We served with a few side dishes:

• Grilled zucchini


• Tomato and cucumber salad with mint and feta dressed with olive oil and lemon juice


• Israeli couscous with pine nuts and raisins

Ready to eat!

And the winner is...

I won the Santa Margherita Great Taste Chicago Challenge! I’ll be heading to NYC in about a month to compete in the Finals.

I’ll try to give a little rundown of how the night went…

When Katie and I arrived at the Signature Room at 5:30, we were turned down and told the event doesn’t start until 6. Katie snappily responded with “no, she’s IN the event.” We called her the soccer mom the rest of the night!

At about 5:45, the other two contestants and I were introduced to the judges (Fabio!) and given a rundown of the logistics. The Signature Room chefs were going to prepare small portions of the dish for the judges and everyone in the audience. We just needed to finish and plate one dish for the demo. They said that John Terlato was going to be the emcee and ask questions throughout each demo.

After that, they showed me my demo station and what had been prepared already. The base of the sauce had been made and the pasta had been cooked; I just had to heat up the sauce, add the marscapone, sear the scallops, and plate the dish.

Demo Station
A couple of glasses of Prosecco later, it was time to be hooked up to a microphone and hit the stage!


Judges:
Colin Crowley (Executive Chef of Terlato Wines)
Susanna Negovan (Editor and Chief of Michigan Avenue Magazine)
Fabio Viviani
Let me tell you – I have a new respect for people who cook on television. My whole demo was kind of a blur. I remember my sauce was boiling over already when I got up on stage, then I dropped my whisk and tongs, and then Fabio had to step in and turn my scallops for me while I dealt with the sauce. During all of this, I was trying to make sure my microphone was staying in place so people could hear me. My friends told me I didn’t look nervous, but I don’t know if I believe them!


I was relieved that I had to go first so I could relax and watch the other two demos. Andrew Ettenhofer went next and made a chicken roulade with goat cheese and roasted red peppers to pair with the Pinot Grigio. I didn’t actually get to try his dish because I think I was busy blabbing to everyone about how nervous I was in my demo, but people said it was delicious.

Next up was Deborah Kurtzke, who made veal meatballs wrapped in eggplant to pair with the Chianti. I did try her dish and it was quite good, especially with the wine. I got a little nervous!

About 10 minutes after the last demo, each judge did a brief critique on each dish. The only critique I got was from Fabio, who said that I should maybe season the arugula before adding it to the top of the dish. Next time I will! He also said that it’s rare for a home cook to use seafood stock, which I’m not sure is a critique or a complement? However, he then said that it was the kind of dish he would actually cook in his restaurant and that he might need to steal the recipe. I felt pretty confident at this point! Shortly after, they announced me as the winner. I took tons of pictures afterwards, but here are some highlights:

Fabio Viviani and John Terlato
Kit, Katie, Me, Fabio, and Kate
Me and Colin Crowley
Me and Fabio…again
Special thanks to Kate for taking most of the pictures!!