Chef's Challenge!

Dan takes better pictures than I do, but he never posts them, so I am going to post mine from today's Chef's Challenge at the West Frederick Farmer's Market. The Chef doing the challenge was Bryan Voltaggio of Volt. Chef had to go around the market and get foods from the stands to cook in a demonstration and then share with the market patrons. Kind of like Iron Chef meets MacGyver.

Chef cooked up an amazing lamb loin dish and a strawberry shortcake dessert on a CAMP STOVE. When I not very seriously mentioned that people could do this camping, some ladies in the audience suggested that they could take Chef with them. To which he replied, "for a small fee". And then one of the ladies said, "oh a hug. I can do that."

For the first dish, Chef sliced lemon ginger scones from Cakes for Cause and grilled them in butter. Every time Chef was cooking something in butter I made some people in the audience say "butter". That was very fun for me. He made a strawberry sauce by cooking strawberries from Glade Link Farm with sugar and a little thai basil from Tomatoes, etc.. When the sauce was cooked, he strained it into some chopped strawberries. Then he made a mousse by whipping goat cheese from Caprikorn Farms and heavy whipping cream from South Mountain Creamery with a little salt. The mousse was savory.

Chef PLATED the desserts on paper plates. Here he is making the cannelles of mousse, which he demonstrated to the crowd.

This is my friend AJ making a face after trying the dessert. It was delicious. I stole a bite from my friend Amanda.

Here are the dishes, plated. The lamb loin was from Danny Rohrer. Chef seared it on the fatty side and then pan roasted it. He finished it in butter with a garlic scape from Summer Creek Farm. He poached a "tenderloin" of zucchini, which is the part of the zucchini just next to the seeds. Then he sauteed some broccoli raab (rapini) in - butter. The zucchini was seasoned with a Basque paprika, which smelled wonderful. There are also apples pan-cooked in a reduced sauce made with apple butter (zucchini, apple and apple butter from Scenic View Orchards), poultry stock, and some other ingredient I forget (garlic scapes?). We took the dishes around to the vendors to show what Bryan made with their stuff and they were pretty stoked. One of the farmers suggested that Chef could have used more greens because they are really good right now- so make a salad when you cook this meal on your camp stove! Or go to Volt. Either way.

Shannon