Foodies get hooked on 'Chopped'
Who knew the Food Network could be so downright entertaining?
A few of us food aficionados in the newsroom have become enamored with a couple of food shows in which chefs are pitted against one another to see, as on “Iron Chef,” whose cuisine reigns supreme.
“Chopped” is at the top of the list not only because it showcases four wildly different chefs each week but also because they require them to cook with combinations of bizarre ingredients.
Competitors are presented with “mystery” ingredients and then given an insanely short amount of time to prepare their dishes. One time it was bananas, collard greens and grits in one dish; on another show they were asked to create an entree out of chocolate, mussels and figs. Coconut, calamari and doughnuts were another combination, as were quail, arctic char and beer.
Last week the chefs had to make an appetizer in 20 minutes out of turkey, graham crackers and some weird vegetable whose name escapes me. One of the four competitors was a vegetarian, so cooking turkey was a hopelessly tall order and she was booted out after the first round.
The cardinal sin in working with the unusual food items is not “transforming” an ingredient into something else.
Luisa, the elderly Portuguese woman who won last week’s episode, immediately decried the graham crackers: “Deez crackers, dey keel me!” She made the mistake of merely placing the cracker on the appetizer plate as a substitute for a slice of baguette, but the judges weren’t buying it. They favored the chef who ground up his graham crackers and blended them with a five-spice mixture to bread his turkey.
And those judges are intimidating. If looks could kill, two of the women judges — Amanda Freitag and Alex Guarnaschelli — would be going to jail for murder. Their ice-cold stare-downs are legendary.
Various chefs have been known to show their colors, too. They steal ingredients from other chefs, back-talk the judges and can be smart-alecks. One young guy who had been reprimanded for using red onions in both his appetizer and main dish quipped under his breath that he was planning to add onion jam to his dessert. He didn’t last another round.
Another show that’s been highly entertaining is “The Next Iron Chef.” Tonight’s season finale pits Mumbai-born Jehangir Mehta, a literal creative genius, with Jose Garces, who was born in America to Ecuadorean parents and owns five restaurants in Philadelphia. The winner gets to become an Iron Chef, the culinary equivalent of an Olympic champion.
There’s an educational factor to all of this.
We’ve learned all about umami, a Japanese word that roughly translates to savoriness or deliciousness. We’ve learned how to fix chicken feet, too.
The first episode of “The Next Iron Chef” this season had the contestants cooking all kinds of animal body parts and other weird things, from unlaid chicken eggs with the fallopian tubes still attached, to duck tongues to stinky tofu and sea cucumbers.
And on “Chopped,” I’ve learned you can melt down gummy bears to syrup, combine them with kiwis and deep-fry them in wonton wrappers for a winning dessert. Marshmallows joined with ricotta cheese can make killer crepes. Not that I’m going to try these concoctions anytime soon.
Sometimes after watching these shows, you just want to sit down to some simple American food. Burgers and fries, anyone?
Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by e-mail at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com