The Iron Pig Cook-Off
On Saturday I had the pleasure of judging the Iron Pig Cook-Off at Daybreak’s annual FizzFest. Tom and Teresa Akagi of Daybreak founded the Iron Pig gourmet cooking club, where members cook together throughout the year, with a final cook-off at the FizzFest. This is where the teams pull out all the stops and come up with some fabulous cuisine.
This time, the winners from the past three years competed in a “Best of the Best” contest, with the theme of Fire and Ice.
Sarah Molloy of Daybreak and Jules Lambert of North Salt Lake won, with just a few points’ difference among the three teams.
The other two teams were Laraine Hunt and Susan Clark of Layton; and Suzy Johnson and Celita Sporl, both of Salt Lake City.
The teams really got creative with the “fire and ice” theme, using temperature, spice levels, cooking methods and color.
Molloy and Lambert started out with an appetizer of Honduran & Ice Lobster with Coconut Mango Salsa served on a crisp plantain chip.
Their entrée was Herb-Rubbed Lamb Chops Blueberry Flambe, Fire-Roasted Root Vegetables, and Wasabi Mashed Potatoes. Dessert was a chilled Chocolate Mousse Cake with Cayenne Whipped Cream.
In keeping with the “fire and ice” theme, the duo made small ice “shot” glasses, in which they served flavored waters — sparkling cucumber, strawberry basil and raspberry mint — as a palate cleanser between each course.
The duo said their favorite dish was the lamb chop entrée. “Lamb chops can be very tricky to cook,” said Molloy.
Playing on the fire and ice theme, Hunt and Clark served a hot Asian Soup with cooling cucumber strips for an appetizer; fork-tender Beef Yakitori and Spicy Seafood as an entree.
The dessert was a hot rice pudding and a cold tapioca pudding. On the table, they had globes of colored ice, with with cans of Sterno providing flames.
Johnson and Sporl did Grilled Peach and
Cheese Stacks as a riff on the classic Caprese salad. They followed up it with Jalapeno Stuffed Salmon, and a flaming Unbaked Alaska dessert.
The Unbaked Alaska was topped with a sugar cube soaked in alcohol so it gave off flames when lit, contrasting with the cold ice cream below.
It was a hard contest to judge, since every team’s dishes were pretty much flawless in their execution.
Nothing was overdone or underdone; there were no flavor blunders that would make it easy to dock a few points. I think when we added the scores, there were only a couple of points’ difference in the teams.
