Posted by The Miami Herald, FL on May 07, 2009 at 13:42:08:
Tales from the judges' chambers
By KATHY MARTIN
kmartin@MiamiHerald.com
I spent the weekend in the land of food contests, a sweetly American place where you can aim high, try hard and win big whether you cook on a hot plate or a high-end range.
My passport was an invitation to chair the judging panel for the 48th National Chicken Cooking Contest in San Antonio, Texas; my traveling companion, a paperback copy of a memoir by the million-dollar winner of a Pillsbury Bake-Off I had helped decide. It was quite a trip.
With its $50,000 grand prize, the biannual chicken competition is among the most lucrative. Sponsored by the National Chicken Council, an industry group, it is intended to promote chicken and spotlight poultry-cooking
trends. (Organizers proudly note that chicken pizza and chicken nuggets were NCCC winners well before they became menu staples.)
We judges (I was joined by food folks from The Dallas Morning News and Family Circle, Parents and Woman's World magazines) had nine dishes to consider. Three were nice but not special, two succumbed to overkill (too many ingredients, too much fuss) and one was off the table once we discovered the chicken wasn't fully cooked.
That left a Mediterranean chicken and bread salad we liked quite a lot but found a bit too familiar; a butterflied, roasted whole chicken topped with honey-glazed lemon slices to which we gave the $10,000 Judges' Choice Award, and our grand prize winner, Chinese Chicken Burgers With Rainbow Sesame Slaw.
It was a clear choice for the simple reason that those burgers were absolutely delicious -- one of those dishes you want to keep eating even though you aren't a bit hungry. We liked the fact that they used economical ground chicken, just as we had liked the budget-friendly whole chicken in our Judges' Choice winner, but what really mattered was the taste.
The burgers sang with the harmonious flavors of garlic, scallions, lemon grass, soy sauce, sesame oil and a touch of sugar. A hoisin glaze amplified the Asian effect, while a smear of chili- and lime-spiked mayo and a layer of crunchy slaw provided counterpoint. It was a tour de force in a bun.
I was reminded of Salsa Couscous Chicken, a dish with a mouthwatering Moroccan flavor profile that had won the 1998 Pillsbury Bake-Off for Ellie Mathews, author of my airplane paperback, The Ungarnished Truth (Berkley, $15). Eleven years later, I still recall how much better her dish tasted than the others in the quick-meal category I helped judge that year in Orlando.
The winners themselves, however, could hardly have been more different. As we learned after deciding the contest, those terrific burgers were the creation of an ebullient 28-year-old named Brigitte Nguyen, a first-generation Vietnamese American who had given up a career with a big CPA firm in Los Angeles to pursue her passion for food and a hunky guy named Michael Prather in Lexington, Ky. (Now her fiancι, he was her teary-eyed cheering section at the awards ceremony.) Well-spoken, well put together and absolutely adorable, Nguyen out-bubbled the champagne poured to toast her victory.
Mathews, on the other hand, portrays herself as an intensely private person who was fundamentally mortified by the hoopla surrounding her million-dollar win. As they flew to L.A. for an appearance on the daytime talk show Rosie, the Pillsbury publicist was the picture of worry, she writes, when she realized her newly minted Bake-Off champ had no clue who host Rosie O'Donnell was.
The pensive, practical Mathews comes across as the kind of person you'd pick as a book-club colleague or hiking companion (she did her first competitive cooking on a camp stove), but not a pitch woman.
The part of the book that surprised me most (and gave Mathews her title) was her obsessive worry about the garnish she forgot to include in her contest recipe. From the day she learned she was a finalist until the moment she sent her unadorned dish into the judging room, she beat herself up for failing to list parsley or cilantro among the ingredients.
The perceived flaw that loomed so large in her mind was, in fact, a nonissue for those of us who awarded the prize. Sure, presentation counts, but I've never judged a contest in which it counted nearly as much as taste. Fabulous flavor will carry the day, garnished or not.
Contest Recipe: Chinese Chicken Burgers With Rainbow Sesame Slaw
MAIN DISH
CHINESE CHICKEN BURGERS WITH RAINBOW SESAME SLAW
This is Brigitte Nguyen's $50,000 recipe. Geared to big appetites, it could easily be turned into eight burgers rather than six. Cook them on the grill or in a frying pan if you prefer. As a shortcut, you could substitute 2 cups of already-grated cabbage for the julienned vegetables in the slaw. Look for Sriracha chile sauce on the Asian aisle of the supermarket. Any type of Asian chile sauce may be substituted.
Check out the Judge's Choice-winning butterflied chicken and all the finalists' dishes in the recipe database at www.chickencookingcontest.com.
2 pounds ground chicken
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil
6 cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon minced lemongrass
1/3 cup sliced scallions
6 hamburger buns with sesame seeds
6 tablespoons butter, softened
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
6 tablespoons hoisin sauce
Sliced scallions
Sriracha Lime Mayo (see note)
Rainbow Sesame Slaw (see note)
In large bowl, mix together ground chicken, soy sauce, sugar, sesame oil, garlic, lemongrass and scallions. Divide mixture into 6 patties and set aside.
Place grill pan over medium heat. Spread softened butter on hamburger buns and place on grill pan until light brown. Wipe grill pan with paper towel and brush with vegetable oil.
Place chicken patties on grill pan and cook over medium-high heat, turning once, until internal temperature reaches 165 degrees, about 7 minutes per side. During last few minutes of cooking, baste each burger with 1 tablespoon of the hoisin sauce.
To assemble, place 1 tablespoon Sriracha Lime Mayo on each bottom and top bun. Place chicken on bun bottoms and top each with 1/3 cup Rainbow Sesame Slaw. Serve with any remaining slaw and mayo on the side. Garnish with scallions. Makes 6 servings.
Sriracha Lime Mayo: In small bowl, mix together Ύ cup mayonnaise, zest and juice of 1 lime and 2 tablespoons Sriracha chile sauce. Set aside.
Rainbow Sesame Slaw: In medium size bowl, mix together 2/3 cup julienne bell peppers (red, orange, yellow or any combination), 2/3 cup julienned snow peas (strings removed), 2/3 cup julienned jicama, 1 ½ tablespoons rice wine vinegar, 1 tablespoon sugar, 1 tablespoon soy sauce, 1 teaspoon Sriracha chile sauce, 1 teaspoon sesame oil and 1 tablespoon toasted sesame seeds.
Source: The National Chicken Council.
Per serving: 762 calories (63 percent from fat), 53.6 g fat (15.2 g saturated, 17.2 g monounsaturated), 171 mg cholesterol, 33.2 g protein, 37.8 g carbohydrates, 4.1 g fiber, 1,279 mg sodium.
Kathy Martin is The Miami Herald's food editor.
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