Iron Chef Competition

Our team's meal is the one on the left.




Chef Matt prepares the gorgonzola cream sauce.

The heat was on last night as we enjoyed a fun evening at Matt's company team-building event. His division divided in half and competed in an iron chef-style event at the Blue Ribbon Culinary Center.

Each team had 1 1/2 hours and one chef each to plan, cook, and present a meal to a judge for competition. After cooking the meal, we would then all share in the "spoils of war" and have dinner together.

Put together a room full of super competitive, Type A consultant personalities, and even the details of making a molten lava cake can get a bit "hairy!" And thus the term "having too many cooks in the kitchen."

Our team was given secret ingredients of steak and chocolate (yum!), and the competition was given secret ingredients of salmon and pears. From there, we met with our chef and hatched a plan for our dinner.

Matt was on the "steak" prep crew, preparing the steaks and a chimichurri sauce, as well as the gorgonzola cream sauce for the asparagus. I worked with others to create the oh so yummy molten chocolate lava cake and freshly prepared caramel sauce. Our team also made a risotto and some awesome asparagus, using a 60 second pyramid cooking method. Sounds fascinating, doesn't it?

We were led by Chef Mike, an absolutely awesome chef, and it was so much fun! The feverish pace to have our plate all prepared at 8 pm sharp to beat out the competition was intense, and it's amazing that that many amateur cooks in a big kitchen can actually get dinner prepared in that amount of time.

Our competition created a salmon cake topped with avocado and a chipolte cream sauce, as well as a potato salad and a side of veggies. For their desert, they prepared a pear cobbler with whiskey infused fig sauce and whip cream topping.

Both meals turned out really well, and it was a fun, fast paced way to get to know everyone better. And, of course, this was indeed a competition. And yes, we WON!!!!