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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…

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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So, Food Network is all about showing ICA Battle Spinach. Interestingly enough, I’m looking through my video archive, and I have a version of the show from back in summer of 2008 – The original air date seems to be 03/16/2008.
Chef Akira Back interestingly choose to challenge Bobby Flay instead of his former master Morimoto. Here we go with a rundown of the dishes:

Akira Beck’s dishes:

• Tomato and Spinach Gelee
• Chawan Mushi
• Chicken and Spinach Shabu-Shabu
• New Age Nabi
• Spinach Yuzu Sake

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Bobby Flay’s dishes:

• Spinach and Oyster Bisque
• Spinach and Feta Souffle
• Spinach Tamale
• Spinach Macaroni and Cheese
• “Homage to The Steak House” – Creamed Spinach, Spinach Hash Browns and Porterhouse with Spinach Butter
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So yeah, both competitors came up with some interesting dishes, even though they have vastly differing styles – Southwest versus Japanese.

And the winner is:

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It’s been a long time since I saw a new Iron Chef America on television. Tonight? It’s Iron Chef Symon versus a friend and old classmate, David Adgie (this is horribly misspelled, I just know it!) in battle sturgeon.

Interestingly enough, there are new judges that I haven’t seen before – and they’re both kind of food bloggers. Random, but Iron Chef has been doing a lot as far as throwing food bloggers a bone and inviting/allowing/whatevering these people to their shows. The show before this, Throwdown with Bobby Flay, also had a blogger as a guest chef. It’s partially natural progression (I mean, foodies communicate everyone communicates online much more effectively than any other medium) so maybe FN has no choice but to allow these people onto their shows.

Sturgeon pops and immersion circulators abound in kitchen stadium. Fun. It looks like there are lots of interesting things going on, but who knows what’s going to happen. I’m sure this is not a new episode, but (sadly) haven’t been able to watch ICA in the last few weeks because I’m working on a project that actually has me working Sunday nights. *sigh* It will be done someday

Challenger Dishes:
- Carpaccio of Sturgeon
- Sutrgeon chowder with Sturgeon lobster finger
- Cedar-roasted Sturgeon смотреть русские порно фильмы
- Bacon wrapped Sturgeon with collard greens
- Smoked Sturgeon with Celery Root Hash

(Random note: The judges are complete freaking whack-jobs! None of them can decide on any of the dishes. They also tend to change their minds while disagreeing with things. Strange. The guy with the white coat? Throw him out ;-p)

Iron Chef Symon’s Dishes:
- Smoked Sturgeon Belly with Caviar, radish & lemon zest pancakes
- Sutrgeon Puttanesca
- Butter poached sturgeon with curried applesauce
- Sturgeon with Lamb sausage and bean broth
- Grilled Sturgeon with ragu

And the verdict? Well, I will have to let you watch and find out

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Iron Chef America Battle Apple. I would say something about the content of the show, but I’m still – uhh – not quite sure what to write about this battle.

Chef Mark Tarbell hails from Arizona, and entered kitchen stadium, choosing to battle Iron Chef Cat Cora. The chairman chose Apples as the secret ingredient. I think Alton Brown mentioned that there were at least four different varieties of apple available. The Judges? The regulars Jeffrey Steingarten and Karine Bakhoum, along with a judge I’ve never seen, Bone Crusher. Seriously, The guy’s name is actually Bone Crusher – how could he be an Iron Chef America judge? I want to be an Iron Chef America judge! I’m sure I’d be able to give a more eloquent and communicative impression of the food I would be served on the show.

The battle was a very poor battle to try to follow last week’s Battle Parmigiano Reggiano – it wasn’t nearly as good – lacked excitement, wasn’t as entertaining and the ingredient was very common, yet viewers had to think about what you would even be able to make with apples – aside from pie. Even with the challenge, I thought the chefs did pull off some creative dishes. I liked Tarbell’s Dessert, a trio of small apple orbs – one coated in caramel/toffee, one coated in chocolate, and one coated in the classic red candy that’s at the hard crack stage. Cora also presented a caramel apple, but used very small apples, which I’m sure were much harder to eat. the judges didn’t seem to like it, either! I called a pork and apple dish at the beginning of the battle, and sure enough, Tarbell presented it to the judges. It was the only dish of the challenger’s that the judges didn’t like.

The judging panel was odd. Steingarten commonly comes off as being a bit moody when the other judges don’t agree with his pallet, or when he doesn’t like the food. This isn’t necessarily always bad, but it reminds me of a grumpy old man who has no regard for other people, which can justly be viewed as a judge, but doesn’t really help the viewer of the show. When someone else says “I don’t taste the apple in this dish”, and his only rebuttal is “I disagree – I DO taste the apple” it just doesn’t work for people who aren’t there, smelling and tasting the dish. Bone Crusher actually played a very nice contrast to Steingarten, even nudging him and tell him to cool it down (which everyone on the panel laughed about,) but the end result leaves us feeling as if we’re viewing a cackle of geese on screen fighting. This has happened many times in Iron Chef America, and it’s the only thing I don’t like about it. There’s obvious tension on the panel, but it’s not always justified.

Anyway, to critique the judging and not mention that the judges are supposed to convey to the audience exactly what the dishes are like wouldn’t provide positive criticism to them. To Bone Crusher: We obviously expect the dished on Iron Chef America to be excellent – we expect them to be good, but you didn’t tell us what was good about them. You either liked it, really liked it, or didn’t like it – but we didn’t know what you did or didn’t like about it. Steingarten mentioned that one of Tarbell’s dishes (the one with the scallop) was overcooked and the scallop was rubbery – you disagreed, but just said “I think it’s good.” -that may be the truth, but if you disagreed, which part did you disagree about? Was your scallop overcooked? Anyway, food for thought to help the viewers the next time you judge Iron Chef America

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Iron Chef Mario Batali and Chef Andrew Carmellini battled it out in Iron Chef America’s Battle Parmigiano Reggiano last night, and it was probably the best ICA battle I’ve seen in a long long time.

Carmellini, an italian-style chef born in Cleveland, and Batali had it out in an all-out battle involving a whole lot of Parmigiano Reggiano. People here in the US tend to end up eating Parmigian cheese – and this Parmigiano Reggiano that was ICA is a completely different beast. They had monsterous cheese wheels imported from Emilia-Romagna, in Italy. This is the only place that you can actually get authentic Parmigiano Reggiano – and unless it’s imported from there or some other distributor, it’s not authentic Parmigiano Reggiano cheese. Alton even popped up and showed the markings from something like an Italian cheese authority, the Consorzio, who uses a wooden mallet to grade the Parmigiano Reggiano. Crazy stuff. anyway, ICA had three different types of Parmigiano Reggiano – 2 year old, 4 year old and 6 year old cheese. I’m sure these have exotic Italian names, but they didn’t disclose them on the show.

So, great battle, great ingredient, and NO SEAFOOD! I’m a huge advocate of food without fish, being allergic to both shellfish and anything else I’ve eaten that swims in the ocean, so I was very happy about this. I also enjoyed when Batali lit half a wheel of cheese on fire with some alcohol – this was to smooth the inside of it out, and make way for a pasta dish plated inside the wheel. Both chef’s pulled extremely saliva-inducing dishes – I would have loved to be there. I can dream, right? The judges didn’t really say anything bad about any of the dishes, and even mentioned how hard it would be to declare a winner. In the end, Batali won, by one or two points, beating out Carmellini in the taste category, losing one point to him in plating, and tying with him in originality. All in all, it was a fantastic battle.

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