Chef Bryan Voltaggio of Volt Restaurant (and who can forget, runner-up on Top Chef to his own brother, after a nail biting competition and decision by the judges) was at the North Market Farmers Market on Wednesday for a Chef's Challenge. Bryan actually started the Chef's Challenges at the West Frederick Farmers Market last year- he was a big supporter of the market and had just filmed the episodes for Top Chef. I think he had really enjoyed cooking in front of people in a pressured environment on that show, because he suggested to me that he'd like to do a challenge at the market. The way we decided to do it was with just one chef for logistics, and the challenge would be that he would have to go around the market, get products from the different stands, and cook a dish onsite using what he found. Even before the Top Chef episodes aired, his Chef's Challenges were very popular with the customers, who would watch him cook things like lamb loin on a camp stove under a shade structure. Though his tools were crude, his finished product was always exquisite. Iron Chef meets MacGyver.
This time Chef made a poached egg with soft polenta, a vegetable and bacon hash, and potato souffles. He had much fancier equipment, but still explained how people could make the dishes themselves at home.
To make a soft polenta, he used three parts broth to one part polenta. He suggests never to use a metal whisk in a metal pan like he is doing here. Use a wooden spoon so the metals don't get in the food.
The egg was poached at 63 degrees C, the temperature at which the yolk and the white are the same consistency.
Bryan sweated onions and peppers, which means he cooked them to translucent without browning. He also added lardons, which are small strips of thick bacon about a few millimeters wide and an inch long. He also added Swiss chard.
The potato souffles are little slices of potato that are first fried at 250 degrees and then deep fried at 450 until they puff. Each of the souffles has a little dehydrated something on top. Bryan taught the audience how they could make their own dehydrated herbs in the microwave.
The audience really enjoyed Bryan and I enjoyed emceeing with him. The first Chef's Challenges we did last year, I prompted him a lot because he would get really involved in cooking. But this time he was a seasoned pro, and explained his processes really fluidly- it's obvious that being what the Denver Post recently called himself and his brother, the "hottest chefs in the country", has given him tons of practice to be not only an excellent chef, but also one who knows how to entertain. Thanks so much to Bryan for his ongoing support of the farmers and farmers' markets, and for having his wonderful restaurant, Volt, here in Frederick.
Friday, July 2, 2010
Chef's Challenge with Bryan Voltaggio at the market
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Top Chef Spoiler Alert
Last night's chef's challenge was all about TEAMS. The remaining 8 cheftestants drew knives. Jen [correction- I originally had this as Kevin...oops!] drew "first choice" and Michael V drew "second choice". The chefs had to break up into two teams for the quickfire challenge. Jen picked Kevin, Mike Isabella, and Laurine for her team. Mike picked Bryan, Eli, and Robin (who was picked last- this reminded me of gym in middle school and I really felt for Robin. But she had a great attitude about it, saying it was a chance for everyone to get along. She showed real class.).
The quickfire was awesome. Teams had to decide who would go first, second, third and fourth. Nobody was allowed to talk about food, and everyone wore a blindfold except for when they were cooking. Each round lasted ten minutes, and during that ten minutes, the only person without the blindfold was the one prepping and cooking the team's dish. When the round was over, that person would leave and the next would take their place. The first chef had to pick the ingredients and start the prep. It was interesting to see what people picked- Eli went first for his team and threw in some steaks and a bunch of greens. Jen went first for her team and picked black cod. The dishes were finished by Michael V and Kevin. Jen's team won the challenge and 10K. They were offered the chance to keep the 10K or try to win 40K in the next challenge, which was RESTAURANT WARS! Well of course they went for it.
Restaurant wars was fascinating. Each team had to open a restaurant in three hours, serve customers, and serve the judges. Kevin's team called its restaurant "Mission," which was a perfect name by all estimates. Michael's team called itself R3VOLT, which was cool in a way but kind of puerile, and the judges compared it to the word "revolting".
You would think that a team with Kevin and Jen in it would rock, but their timing was off, the rack of lamb was overly rare, the fish was bland, sauces were broken, mussels were undercooked, and their tartare was bland. Laurine was sticken as the front of the house manager. By contrast, R3VOLT had the best restaurant opening in the six seasons of the show. Apart from Michael V's tantrums, the team ran really well. Robin even did well- I think her strength is really in baked fruit desserts, judging by past competitions. It's obvious which team won and which one lost.
Either Laurine or Jen could have gone home. Nothing worked on Jen's dishes. It was as if a curse had fallen upon the kitchen, but her in particular. Laurine prepped the rack of lamb, and Kevin undercooked it. She tried to argue with him, but in the end gave up. She also forgot to introduce dishes and hid from the judges once the kitchen got too far behind schedule. It's sad to see a chef go home under those kinds of circumstances. It's one thing to be out-competed or to make clear errors the belong to yourself alone. But it's harder to suffer personally from a series of group errors, and she really took the fall for the team. That said, Jen is the better chef.
Michael V won for his exquisite dishes, including a chicken and squid preparation that one judge called genius. He generously shared the 10K that he won with the rest of his team. But his behavior during the show spoke for itself. Once again our local heroes did us proud with their cooking.
Monday, October 19, 2009
Top Chef Spoiler Alert
I am not the most faithful Top Chef blogger. But I do this for free and sometimes things like camping and getting sick and doing apple challenges get in the way of my duties. Even though this is late, I still want to blog about the past two Top Chef episodes because 1) I care and 2) laser eyes.
For the Dinner Party episode: This was my favorite quickfire to date because each chef had to pull a lever on a slot machine to see what combination of "key words" they would have to match their food prep to. And the words were quaint: "umami", "Vietnamese", and "tired", are examples. Local pal Bryan V had the words "adventurous", "crispy" and "Asian". Bryan and bro Michael did well, but did not impress chef Tyler Florence enough to win. Kevin took the quickfire with his grilled pork and Vietnamese-style salad. This challenge inspires me. When I go to Volt, I say "three courses, gluten free." And that is what I get. Maybe I should just give them key words. It would be fun for me. For the chefs at Volt, not so much.
I also liked the challenge for this episode. Cheftestants drew knives to see which famous chef's grocery bag they would have to cook with, and they ended up in teams. Ash got paired with Michael V. Michael had an unfortunate break because he was not watching his fish when the circuits went out. As a conseqence, his fish was overcooked without getting a crisp on his pancetta.
Where Michael's halibut crashed, Bryan's soared. Bryan and Laurine made a halibut with polenta cake and chorizo vinaigrette that wowed Tyler Florence and the other judges. Am I surprised that Bryan's fish was excellent? No. Nobody, in my experience, cooks fish better than Bryan. The winning dish, however, was prepared by Jen and Kevin, and was a kobe beef in tomato broth. Jen won the challenge overall for the tomato broth. This, I was glad to see for Jen's sake. Jen is obviously an outstanding chef and it's good to see her get a win under her belt.
Ash so abdicated his own tastes that when he and Michael ended up in the bottom four, he defended Michael as the executor of the dish and compared himself to washing paintbrushes for Picasso. I believe the only reason Ash did not go home after those comments is because the judges send home the main executor of a bad dish, and Michael's dish was not necessarily flawed in concept (Though Judge Tom suggested Michael chose the wrong fish). But I think Ash established himself as second-rate amongst the chefs there with those comments, and set the stage for what happened in the next episode. Ashley went home for the undercooked spot prawns and tough, oversalted gnocchi she prepared with Eli. Michael's dish might have been good in concept, where it was clear that Ashley's dish was never going to be good.
The best part of this episode, though, was seeing Bryan stand up for his brother in the waiting room. He said he was tired of hearing everyone second-guess each other because they had not tried each others' dishes. Then he made laser eyes and turned the people in the room into smoke while making prehistoric bird noises: 
That's how we roll in Fredrock.
On to the next episode! In the Pigs and Pinot episode, both Bryan and Michael faced their former employer, Charlie Palmer, as a judge. Neither one won. The end. Well not entirely.
Eli won the snack food product placement quickfire with a chive and fennel-influenced clam chowder. Eli also got into a tiff with Robin in the home kitchen where he told her that she's not his mom, basically showing his age (or lack thereof). At this point in the house it was "Everyone Hates Robin" because she kept outlasting their friends.
Michael, Bryan, Kevin and Jennifer ended up in the winner's circle, for matching pinot noir to their excellent pork dishes. Kevin won for his pork pate with mushrooms and pickled cherries, matched with an Oregon pinot. He stated early on that he had to win this competition due to his experience with pork, and it did come across that he knew exactly what he was doing with both the pork and the wine (whose vineyard he had visited many times, noticing the hazelnut trees on the grounds. Geez). There is no substitute for experience.
In the bottom three, we had Laurine, Robin and Ash. Laurine's dish was an abomination, where she tried to make a pork rillette using broth instead of fat. One of the judges compared it to cat food. Robin's dish with chick peas fought the wine...and itself. Ash's dish was "clammy" and did not speak to the wine. From watching the show, it was difficult to see why Ash went home. I figure his dish was worse than the editing made it sound, or the Judges had made their decision about him in the previous challenge, where he made himself out to be an also-ran. Certainly, it adds to the drama in the house to keep Robin in the competition. But honestly, there can be only one Highlander (to make an old reference) and she won't be it.
The competition gets more and more exciting every week. Good luck chefs!
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Top Chef Spoiler Alert
Another week has passed on Top Chef and our local peeps are still in the running. The Frederick News Post did a good recap this week.
The quickfire challenge saw Bryan V get dissed for a black and white angel and devil dessert dish that was supposedly "poorly executed". Maybe I am a favoritist but it looked well executed and he seemed surprised. Well it had lychee in it. Lychee is my favorite. Mike V made a dish of salmon smoked in traditional and nontraditional ways, and I wanted to eat it. According to contestant Eli in his blog post, "The dish that should have won was Michael V. Everyone in the room saw how elaborate his work was, the level of execution, and were just stunned. It was brilliant. He integrated two dishes, as opposed to a duo, while showing multiple techniques and philosophies." Robin won the quickfire with her salad and cobbler, which obviously seemed unfair to several of the chefs, including Eli, because they griped about it. But here's the thing: if she's not that good then she'll be out soon anyway.
The elimination challenge this week was to deconstruct a classic dish. And by classic I think the producers meant a classic dish that people can make at home. Chefs drew knives with the names of the dishes written on them. Lucky Kevin drew chicken mole. Bryan V got a Reuben and Mike V got a Caesar salad. According to judge Tom Colicchio, "Mike...created his dish brilliantly. Brilliantly. The dish had all the components of a Caesar Salad but was beautiful. If you ate it blindfolded, you’d think, “Oh, Caesar Salad!” Kevin edged him out for the win simply because his mole was just so flavorful. But they were both special." Kevin's mole looked awesome, and I was dying to try it. I also wanted to try Mike V's dish. Bryan's deconstructed reuben made with tuna also looked like something I want to eat as soon as possible. Eli's dish deconstructed itself by exploding out of its pressure cooker. And last but not least, Ashley's caramelized pot roast had pretty little foams and blended things next to it that looked like the rites of spring. Kevin won the elimination challenge, of course, and it was a great turnaround from a mole he had not done so well with in a previous episode.
Ron went home, because he some how mixed up overcooking a paella with deconstructing it, though the other chefs tried to give him pointers.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Top Chef Spoiler Alert
It took me a while to post this week because I promised some friends I would wait until this morning to watch the episode with them after getting together for breakfast. Granted, I already knew by Wednesday night who had won the challenges because all of my other friends were crowing about it on Facebook, but I waited. As much as I love the friends I breakfasted with, I am not going to wait next week. I am going to watch the episode at Volt and DVR it, so that I can enjoy the experience of watching the show there and then actually hear it later at home.
On the good side, about breakfast: we made gluten free blueberry pancakes with blueberries I had gotten at Glade Link Farms and frozen. We ate them with vanilla yogurt and strawberry preserves and they were awesome. And we had Danny Rohrer's bacon.
Now let's discuss this week's episode. The challenge had a Southwestern feel, with guest judge Tim Love. The quickfire challenge was to come up with a dish made of cactus. (Once, I was camping with a friend in the North Dakota badlands, and I decided I was going to cook and eat cactus. Needless to say I ended up with the spines all over my pants. The cactus itself tasted a lot like a mild roasted green pepper, but with less pepper taste and more slime. Anyway I was determined and I ate it. It was not particularly good but I was still proud of myself. My camping friend refused to try it). Chef Mike Isabella won the challenge and $15K with a preparation that involved soaking the cactus in salt to draw out the slime, and serving it with a tuna tartare. It was a well-executed dish that showed the knowledge necessary to showcase the main ingredient, and he deserved to win, though his comments on the show about women certainly don't make him my favorite contestant. I have it on good authority from a friend that he is actually a very nice person and I am willing to believe this is true and that he just needs to learn how to put a cork in it. But this he desperately needs to learn.
The elimination challenge saw our friends deposited in a desert ranch with very crude cooking conditions, including fire pits (these pits were actually supplied with propane, so not quite as crude as they appeared). The food storage was even more crude; several of the dishes ultimately served to the judges were rancid and made them ill. This was brought out some in the show, but even more in the blogs, where the judges complained about food poisoning. For preparing a ceviche with rancid cod, Mattin was sent home. Judge Tom Colicchio called Mattin "the Dauphin of the Overplan" in his blog, which was funny and smart but not very nice; nevertheless, I am not sorry to see Mattin go because he was always talking so highly of himself and making crappy food and the chasm just got to me. I also watched Mattin throw Ashley under the bus over a non-asparagus veloute last week and I had it in for him. I gave Mattin a going-away scarf for his exit.
Oh, and Bryan won. Again. His pork loin with polenta, dandelion greens, and rutabaga was solid, the pork perfect, and the quality so much higher than that of most of the other challengers. He also attempted to work within the language of the local food, and I think this won him the challenge. Frankly under the conditions he did exceptionally well.
I didn't think I had any point in writing these updates other than for my own amusement until I discovered today that some people actually do read them and get a synopsis from them. Sorry I was late this week-it won't happen again!
Shannon
Friday, September 11, 2009
Top Chef Spoiler Alert
For those of you following our local heroes Bryan and Michael Voltaggio on Bravo's Top chef, we've had a thrilling run to date. Last week (while I was gallivanting around the desert in Nevada), we saw a very touching episode with the Air Force Thunderbirds, where Michael made a bacon lettuce wrap that was braised in heaven's wonderfulness. The judges are still talking about it on their blogs. Preeti obliviously earned her exit with a boring pasta salad that many of us could make in our sleep.
This week, Jesse was knocked out in the quickfire. I will miss her; I think other than some obvious personal issues she was a talented chef who could go far with a better cooking vocabulary through a more formal education. Bryan won his challenge with an amazing "Warm Cured Trout with Deconstructed Bearnaise" that he made with the insecure thunder-stealing Mike I. Let's talk about this dish a little bit, because it was hard to understand what was so amazing about it from the show. Judge Tom Colicchio explains best in his blog why this dish won:
As Mark Kurlansky wrote in Choice Cuts (2002), “You have to be dominated by Escoffier [French chef, 1846-1935, who popularized French cooking] before rejecting him becomes meaningful.” 30 years ago, when I started cooking, we were taught French food, true classics like a Chasseur, a Béarnaise, an Américaine. Unfortunately, these are not generally taught properly here in the States nowadays...Michael Isabella was right to say that he would admonish future chefs to “learn a Béarnaise.” As we witnessed in the program, where Michael had the concept of deconstructing the Béarnaise, but Bryan had to walk him through how to execute that concept, all of our chefs should know the classics first.It’s funny – at this stage of the competition, we knew the chefs well enough to know that the winning dish was in the style of cooking that Bryan does, that it just didn’t seem like a Michael Isabella dish...
A note about the winning dish: remember how I said that the fish seemed simple, but I knew it involved a far more complex preparation than it seemed to? You can find out about a similar preparation of that fish in Thomas Keller’s book, Under Pressure: Cooking Sous Vide (2008), on page 88. Bryan took the two top fillets, placed a thin layer of prosciutto between them, used a powder called Ajinomoto RM Transglutaminase (affectionately called “meat glue”) to glue them together, and sous-vide them, cryovac-ing them. The flavors remain pure and the texture delicate. Bryan did this perfectly. While both leading dishes were excellent, we all just kept coming back to that fish in our discussions. It was simply the most memorable item we sampled in the whole challenge, and this is why it garnered Bryan the win.
For this challenge, Chef Hector went home for his butchery of Chateaubriand.
It's obvious now that the chefs to watch are our local faves plus Jen and Kevin. Of course you know who I am pulling for!
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Top Chef Spoiler Alert: Episode 2
Top Chef is definitely setting up a clash of the titans between the two bros and it's fun to watch.
Also notable: Hector's Tofu Ceviche looked rad and I want to try it.
On another note, Michigan's Eve went home after making a second bad dish with shrimp.
Shannon
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Top Chef remaining contestants
The judges have spoken and the angry chile relleno maker Jennifer Zavala has gone home. Friend of Frederick farmers, Bryan Voltaggio, is still in the running, along with his brother Michael.
Since my sister was in town from Boston, we met a few friends at Volt last night and watched Top Chef in their new patio area. It was so much fun! Lots of people, and we all cheered whenever our homeboy was on camera.
So what did you think about the show? The contestants?
Shannon
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
The Next Top Chef
Who will be the next Top Chef? Let's hope it's local food lover and friend of the blog and of the West Frederick Farmer's Market Bryan Voltaggio. Yeon and I did an interview with Bryan back in April and he shared with us his inspiration for cooking with local, sustainable and organic ingredients. (Picture is from Bravo). I love to visit Volt and try the seasonal dishes. Bryan likes to credit the farmers when the ingredients in his dishes are particularly awesome (Nancy's young eggplant, for example) and he makes a concerted effort to support local agriculture in his offerings. Bryan is also the chef who has done all of the Chef's Challenges at the Farmer's Market- they have been a big hit.
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
The secret is out!
It couldn't have happened to a better man. Chef Bryan of Volt Restaurant is going to be on Top Chef 6, Las Vegas. I am really proud that this guy made it; not only is he a great chef, he's an advocate for local, sustainable and organic who walks the walk. Bryan has worked hard to build relationships with local producers; this really shows in his exquisite dishes that showcase farm fresh food.
Chef Bryan is going to be doing the Chef's Challenge at the Summer Festival this Saturday at the West Frederick Farmer's Market. Here is a link to the first Chef's Challenge he did with us, where he made lamb loin and strawberry shortcake on a camp stove. And here is a link to the interview we did with him for this blog about local food.
More info about the Summer Festival at www.frederickfarmfresh.com.
Images are from the Volt website.
