Cuisine-O Royale
Text by Heather Bode | Photography by Rhonda Adkins
Intrigue, ticking clocks, ingenuity, and sabotage. Although these may bring to mind the next James Bond movie, instead, this is SignatureMT’s Chef Challenge. The Chefs’ Challenge consists of three courses: appetizer, entrée, and dessert. For each course, chefs receive a time limit and a basket containing four mystery ingredients which must be included in the dish created. Judges taste and critique each course and eliminate chefs until there is just one winner.
First, let’s meet our judges:
Veronica “Eat with your Eyes” Ronnau of Pizazz, Janet “I’ve Never Judged Anyone” Walter of Bert & Ernie’s, Heidi “I Love Food” Reiste of Electric City Coffee, and Rachel “Keep it Basic” Shane of Rikki’s Pizza & Pasta.
And now for our chefs:
Up to the Challenge: Chandee Bomgardner, Kevin Towers, and Linelle Lee prepare to test their skills. “Winning doesn’t make you a better chef. It’s more of a personal challenge. It’s you against the basket and the clock,” says Towers.
Twenty minutes flew by and in the end the judges were presented with dishes ranging from a Swiss chard salad to pickled pomegranate.
“My tofu just totally fell apart on me so I called it mock chicken,” laughed Bomgardner. She’s used to pressure. She has nine kids!
At the conclusion of this first round, Judge Janet Walter said, “Kevin’s was the favorite. Breading the tofu provided the texture and I loved the sweet and spicy of the wilted chard.”
Lee presented an open-faced sandwich stack of polenta breaded in cornflower and rosemary topped with roasted eggplant, tomato, and a sausage patty. Her side dish was cauliflower rice with a butter and wine sauce concocted in (literally) 2 minutes after her plan to make pasta didn’t pan out.
Towers offered blue tortilla chip breaded eggplant with melted mozzarella and a sausage ragout. Citrus polenta was repurposed as a sauce garnish.
Not to be outdone, Bomgardner served polenta and blue tortilla chip corn cakes broiled with sheep cheese. An eggplant, apple, and purple potato hash rounded out the course.
The judges agreed Bomgardner’s use of apple was flavorful and creative. But in the end, it was Lee’s sandwich stack that impressed. Judge Rachel Shane said, “Your flavor profile blended beautifully from one end of the plate to the other.”
After extensive deliberation, the judges thanked Bomgardner and eliminated her from the challenge.
Above: The finalists share stove space as time winds down. Left: Lee and Towers round out the competition with dessert. Ronnau commented, “I could have bathed in the anglaise” created by Towers.
Improvisation became key in this round. At one point, Towers couldn’t find the cinnamon and Lee handed him some…or was it? “This is ginger!” Towers yelled as he sprinkled it into his bowl. Sabotage or innocent mistake? We may never know.
Towers baked a persimmon coconut milk sponge cake with a persimmon crème anglaise and wasabi pea brittle. Tortilla chip strips with cinnamon (and a hint of ginger) topped the cake.
Little did we know Lee, who grew up in Louisiana, has a love/hate (mostly hate) relationship with persimmons. Nevertheless, she made a cinnamon, vanilla, and ginger custard topped with a caramelized persimmon. This was accompanied by a chocolate wedge with wasabi pea, a salted caramel persimmon, and a cinnamon toasted tortilla.
