Eat & Smile at the DC Central Kitchen FoodFight

     Recently I had the honor of assisting my old chef and mentor, Peter Smith, as he battled it out at the DC Central Kitchen Food Fight.  For those of you who don't know about DC Central Kitchen, it is a not-for-profit organization that reuses daily left over food from hotels and restaurants (and us) into meals for the area's disadvantaged and homeless.  They are a model program that was born right here in the district and I think you should give them a look. This particular event was organized by DC Central Kitchen and Jose Andres, the local restaurant magnate, as a benefit for the organization.  The idea is to get 4 chefs to battle each other with the winner facing off against last years champion, Barton Seaver.  For those of you familiar with my past, I was helping my first chef battle my second chef, both of whom I respect and admire.  It was quite humorous.

    he challenge was to use the secret ingredients (bourbon canned peaches, porcelot, handmade cous-cous, and szechuan blossoms) to create an entire dish, from start to finish, in 10 minutes.  Yeah, 10 minutes.  Peter and I meet before the competition to work out what would make for each ingredient.  He made four amazing plates, of which I will tell you the ones we made.  In the first battle we faced the chef of Citronelle, David, and were given the local bourbon canned peaches.  We took a duck breast, seared it the pan, removed and fried the skin into cracklin, and made a sauce out of mustard and canned peaches.  We then toasted a slice of bread, pureed walnuts and spices with sugar, spread it on the bread, topped that with the breast, then topped that with a salad of red onion, peaches, and argula.  It was amazing and the judges agreed, declaring us the winner.

     Our next challenge was against the chef from the Blue Water Grill in NYC.  We were given the porcelot, which is a milk fed baby pig.  We ended up making a two way, with me mincing the meat into a meatball with minced sweet potatoes and apples, seared, with a from scratch sweet potato ketchup.  Peter focused on searing the loin with sauteed sweet potatoes, apples, and mustard.  Topping the whole thing with hand cut sweet potato fries brought the whole the thing together into the winning dish.  Last up was going against Barton, with the Szechuan Blossom.

     First, a little about the ingredient.  Szechuan Blossom's are an actual flower blossom with a very unusual side effect.  If you eat some of the little blossoms, you will taste a citrus flavor followed by a sensation not unlike putting a nine volt battery on your tongue, but pleasant.  A zinging electricity works its way around your mouth, both tingling and numbing, changing what you can taste.  Sweet flavors become sweeter, bitter turning into acidic and acidic turning into sweet.  Peter took a scallop, sliced it very thin, topped it with a salad of blossoms, baby amaranth, tossed with a vinaigrette made with our blossom oil, with a drizzling of blossom oil around the outside.  It was subtle but incorporated the ingredient 4 times.  The judges were really impressed, unfortunately Barton wowed them with plates, though they asked him about how he used the ingredient because they couldn't taste it.  After a lot of nervous chatting they announced Barton as the winner.  I am hoping we get a chance to try again next year.

   We have also added a new service to Eat & Smile Foods, bi-weekly meal delivery.  With 7, 14, and 21 meal options, it's a great way to get local, healthy, and delicious food without all the hassles.  Check out the Catering Options menu for more details.  The weather has been playing with us recently, getting warm then dropping below freezing in the same day.  I am looking forward to April and May and the bounty they will bring.  See you all at the market!