Iron Chef America: Battle Maple Syrup
This week’s “Iron Chef America” battle was between Chef Brad Farmerie. He chose to compete against Cat Cora with the secret ingredient of maple syrup. The judges were actress Cady Huffman, inventor Philip Preston, and fashion designer Nicole Miller. If you looked closely, you probably noticed Mark Simmons from season four of “Top Chef” as a sous chef for Chef Farmerie.
Chef Farmerie served up five dishes: maple and soy-glazed eel (which Nicole called delicious), roasted scallop with pork and maple caramel (Philip insinuated he didn’t get any maple with his dish), chicken liver crème caramel, smoked venison with maple, and maple pecan cake with maple gelee (which Cady said had a sophisticated sweetness).
Iron Chef Cora served up six dishes: maple-glazed French toast (Cady loved that breakfast came out first), maple-chile popcorn with a rum drink (was that really a dish?), maple gravlax (Philip liked the caviar with maple), maple-glazed veal sweetbreads, maple-glazed squab breast (Philip felt the sauce on the bottom was pushing the edge of sweet), and maple-poached Asian pear tart.
In the end, it was a clear win for Chef Farmerie. He outscored Iron Chef Cora in all categories, beating her 25 to 21 in taste, 14 to 12 in plating, and 13 to 12 in originality.
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