Fishing for the Perfect Secret Ingredient

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Chefs Challenge June 16

Five challenges down and only eight more to go before the Final Iron Chef Challenge at the WNC Magazine Asheville Wine and Food Festival. Last Tuesday’s secret ingredient was really unique and in my humble opinion was one of the best possible. But first let us bring ourselves up to date. We have had coffee, honey and then apples for the first three events. All are great ingredients, local and sustainable.

The fourth secret ingredient was sweet potatoes (http://tinyurl.com/2aa69lq). This ingredient was not difficult to track down as I secured assistance from the NC Sweet Potato Association (www.ncsweetpotatoes.com) with assistance from the NC Dept Agriculture. They provided several distributor references and we selected a company called Fresh Point (www.freshpoint.com). Fresh Point provides fresh produce to restaurants thought-out the southeast and early Tuesday morning they delivered several cases of this great root vegetable. The chefs from Early Girl and Moveable Feast eagerly prepared unique and delicious dishes ranging from a smoked vegetable pastry paired with sweet potato soup, sweet potato soufflé, to a sweet potato pound cake.

This fifth challenge between Nico’s Café of Waynesville and Chelsea’s of Asheville really changed the concept of a secret ingredient. A protein was selected and it was announced at the challenge by Sally Eason, the CEO of Sunburst Trout Company (www.sunbursttrout.com). Sally had arranged delivery earlier that morning of fresh Trout and Trout Caviar! Imagine six dishes of mouth-watering trout! This was probably a difficult challenge for the chefs in just deciding what three dishes each to prepare. While most of our challenges have seen a dessert that does not mean that it will happen every time. I will say that the audience was not disappointed in any way. One of the dishes featured two of the previous secret ingredients, honey and sweet potatoes paired with trout! Another dish featured a crispy trout skin. All dishes were fantastic, and everyone was stuffed as we all cleaned our plates!

The real surprise for me actually was the dessert. You’ll have to read the next blog by Eric Seeger from WNC Magazine (www.wncmagazine.com) to hear about this incredible creation. While the next two challenges may be full, it is not too late to sign up for others. Make your reservation at the Flying Frog Café today by calling (828) 254-9411.