My recent F1 competition

This past Saturday, I had the honor to be a part of an F1 mystery basket competition up in Woodbridge, VA. For those of you not sure what that is, it's an "Iron Chef Style" competition where the judges give you 3-5 mystery proteins and access to a well stocked pantry of staples and 4 hours to setup, create a menu on the fly, cook, plate up 12 plates and clean up. You go through this not only for the experience, but to learn how to be better for the NEXT competition, maybe win some money and/ or a medal along the way. I love doing these to keep me sharp and to meet other chefs as well as pick up some new ideas.

My mystery items were...

Proteins:

Bone-in leg of lamb
A whole red snapper
Frog legs
Chevre (soft fresh goat cheese)

Produce:

Red bell peppers
Asparagus
Crimini mushrooms
Pink striped beets

My menu was...

1st course:

Crispy fried frog legs with fresh marinara over house made pasta and thyme
(critiques were something like this; pasta was perfectly made, impressed that you made it from scratch but needed more sauce. Frog legs were perfectly cooked but not brown enough, suggest adding paprika or soy sauce to your flour in the future. Marinara was delicious, but would have liked to have had more. The fresh thyme leaves needed to be chopped and added no flavor to the dish at all, unless you physically put them on your fork, overall, great job!)

2nd course:

Pan-seared red snapper, roasted beets over rice salad with bibb lettuce and Italian parsley with roasted red pepper vinaigrette.
(critiques; Snapper was perfectly cooked, skin was nice and crispy but got soggy with the dressing. This is not a vinaigrette, its a dressing. A vinaigrette is clear; oil, vinegar and seasoning, that's it! We shouldn't mis-use terminology like that, its a sign that we've become lazy as chefs (ouch). The rice salad should have been served at room temp, not cold and a few grains of wild rice weren't quite done, otherwise, delicious. )

3rd course:

Roasted leg of lamb with garlic and rosemary over cous-cous, grilled asparagus and lamb demi.
(critiques; Lamb was perfectly cooked, tasted delicious, but sliced too thick. Cous cous was perfect but a little dry, needed more sauce. Lamb demi was delicious, but needed more.)

4th course:

Pear tart with bitter caramel, pear chip and maple goat cheese Chantilly cream
(critiques; Pastry didn't puff up enough but impressed that I made my own 3-2-1 dough. Pear tasted good but needed to be poached a little longer. Chantilly cream wasn't fluffy enough but tasted delicious, could have used more goat cheese flavor, great idea in using the goat cheese. Caramel was delicious, but needed more.)

Overall critiques:

Needed more sauce on every plate (I'm going to make sure I bring a bag full of gravy boats to the next competition!), everything was seasoned perfectly and tasted great but there was too much food. I shouldn't have used starch/ protein in all of the first three courses. Great job!

I silvered this one and, apparently, missed the 3rd prize $500.00 prize by a lousy point! SHIT!

As usual, I had a great time. As slow and boring as it's been at work these past few weeks, it was REALLY nice to have a little stress under my collar and cook!

I need to thank them for giving me a great intern to assist in setting up and cleaning up as well as lending me everything I needed to cook! I was under the impression, according to the rules, that I was only supposed to bring my knives! Boy, what a shocker when they told me I had to bring all of my own equipment! YIKES! But, it was in a culinary school and they had more than what I needed, it all worked out in the end.

February at Myrtle Beach is my next competition adventure, cant wait! Another F category and a GOLD THIS TIME!!!

Check out a couple pics of the event below:

Filleting a beautiful red snapper

Rolling and tying a leg of lamb that I boned out a little earlier

Plate-up of course #3

Making pasta from scratch (angel hair)

Checking to make sure my sauces are OK!