Iron Chef Battle Butter!

11/19/2009

This is a flashback to an earlier episode of Iron Chef America, but not one to miss. I mean seriously, how can you turn down Battle Butter? Cat Cora battles Chef Koren Grieveson from Avec in Chicago. This chef has been in the military, then went to the Culinary Institue of America, and then became a chef for various “rock bands” that Alton explains in the intro.

With Mediterranean influences, it’s no wonder that Grieveson chooses to battle Cora, although I think she’ll get her butt handed to her. Especially with butter. It looks like there’s a bunch of different types of butter presented: an Irish butter, French Butter, English butter, Goat’s milk butter and good old fashioned American Butter. Alton explains that there are differences in the fat content mostly.

Grieveson’s dishes are:

    Popcorn encrusted sea scallop – popcorn goes great with butter – talk about a no-brainer ;-)

  • Pullet Egg with Brioche – Basically a Toad in the Hole with Hollandaise, bacon, potato, some cheese and peppers. In general, the judges seem to be liking her style
  • Pan Roasted Sea Bass with Beurre Monte – Peas, Morel mushrooms, butter and some acidity. Oh, okay, the judges like it but they don’t think it’s all about the butter. Too bad…
  • Veal Milanese – brown butter, squash, fennel, basil and a few other things I missed ;-) Judges seem to like it – they enjoy the crust on the Veal
  • Butter Dessert Tray – Salted caramel ice cream with goat’s milk butter in a pound cake with a brown butter vinaigrette. Judges love it.

Overall, the judges seemed to say favorable things about Chef Grieveson. Hopefully Cora will be able to overcome that.

Cora’s dishes are:

  • Bread an Butter – Goat butter, Parsley Butter with a warm baguette. Judges are saying that she may be a cheater just because the dish is so simple. I agree, it’s kind of a cop-out.
  • Butternut Squash Tarte Tatin – Buttermilk dressing with a petit herb salad. The judges agree that it highlights the ingredients
  • Gnocchi with Brown Butter – buttered truffle with sage brown butter. Well, it’s got truffles in it ;-p
  • Butter Poached Scallops – with Apple on top and a celery puree underneath.
  • Asian Buttered Pork Tenderloin – marinated in butter and lemongrass cooked sous vide. this is also served with a coconut curry brown butter sauce with Mango celery daikon radish.
  • Butter Dessert Tray – a crisp caramelized cake, brown butter rice crispy, brown butter ice milk, sea-salt caramel and raspberry butter sauce.

So yeah, Cora didn’t seem to have as favorable comments from the judges that Grieveson did. Now, I’m worried.

And the winner is…

Spoiler
Oh my god, it’s a tie! Cora scores 54 points, high in plating and originality. Chef Grieveson also scored 54 points, scoring higher in taste than Cora, but losing out on Originality.

Yes, I would have totally participated in that. Whenever Food Network is looking for Judges for the show, they can feel free to contact me.

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Categories : Food, Food Network, Iron Chef America

News Overload!

11/12/2009

For those of you who know me (uh, okay, it’s very few of you, but I’d like to pretend that I have a reader or two) you’ll know that I’m a big geek. So, with that in mind, in my spare time I’ve been working on getting some things together for a few of my sites – mostly programming, but also some organizational items.

So, to spare you the dry boring details, what’s come out of this is the Weinr Food News Aggregator – I basically aggregate news from various Foodie news sources, and pass the stories onto you guys. Now, you can get the latest food-blogosphere news in one location without having to sign up for useless accounts at places you’ll only ever log into once.

Over time the plan is to hone and refine this news feed, the aggregator and the site even more. Have comments? Suggestions? Other news sources you’d like to see? Suggest them in the comments!

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Categories : Food