Hefty portions of sabotage and mayonnaise put two Hawaii guys on top in Food Network cooking competitions that aired Sunday night.
Kaimana Chee scored the win on the popular and frenetic “Cutthroat Kitchen,” while Reno Henriques advanced to the next round of “Guy’s Grocery Games.”
They defeated three competitors each, with their Hawaii ties front and center throughout, although Chee hasn’t lived here since 2008. He grew up on the North Shore, however, and graduated from Kahuku High School in 1995, so his roots run deep, even though he now runs a catering company and teaches cooking in the Maryland-Washington, D.C., area. Henriques is chef and owner of Fresh Catch, with locations in Kaimuki and Kaneohe.
Now, everyone knows that although these are cooking shows — food is produced and it looks quite edible — they turn more on personality, verbal jousting and the occasional meanness imposed by fellow competitors or by the show itself.
“It’s two parts resourcefulness — having a backup plan for your backup plan — another part strategy and then another part cooking,” Chee said in a pre-show interview while he was in Hawaii last week.
On “Cutthroat” the chefs are given a cooking assignment and 60 seconds to run through a giant pantry shopping for ingredients. Then they get to bid on “sabotages,” which let them hamstring the other contestants. This all happens in three rounds, with one chef eliminated each time.
Chee summed it up as “intense, hilarious, diabolical.” His first act was to bid on a package that let him take away all his competitors’ utensils and replace them with fairly useless tools. The poor guy next to him ended up with a cheese shaker.
And so it went, through the production of breakfast pizza, jalapeno poppers and sorbet (he went with an island mix of pineapple, ginger and coconut). And Chee was the last man standing.
Meanwhile, over at “Grocery Games,” host Guy Fieri has his contestants play games that determine their key ingredients or cooking techniques. Then they race the clock.
Henriques crafted seared ahi nachos, shrimp-stuffed salmon and a smoked chicken salad in his three elimination rounds, walking away with a $16,000 donation for the Kidney Foundation in honor of his late father. This despite a little mishap with quail eggs — he set them on fire when trying to smoke them.
The overarching ingredient in all three dishes: mayonnaise.
“What a curious thing to do,” one judge said as Henriques folded Best Foods into a dressing for a broccoli-cauliflower salad.
“Mayonnaise makes everything better,” was his response.
I’d like to tell you how to make something these guys prepared on TV, but given that conditions were less than ideal in all cases, they don’t really lend themselves to recipes. Instead I asked Chee for one of his current favorites, and he offered this creme brulee.
Lilikoi Creme Brulee
>> Kaimana Chee
>> 6 egg yolks
>> 2 cups whipping cream
>> 1/3 cup sugar
>> 1 teaspoon vanilla
>> 1 tablespoon lilikoi juice concentrate, defrosted if frozen
>> Boiling water
Brulee crust:
>> 8 teaspoons sugar
Heat oven to 350 degrees. Place 4 6-ounce ramekins in a 9-by-13-inch baking pan.
In small bowl, whisk egg yolks lightly.
In separate larger bowl, stir cream, sugar and vanilla until well mixed. Add yolks; whisk until evenly colored and well blended. Add lilikoi; mix well. Divide mixture among ramekins. Place pan with ramekins in oven. Carefully pour boiling water into pan, being careful not to splash into ramekins, until water reaches two-thirds of the height of the ramekins. Bake 30 to 40 minutes, until top is golden brown and sides are set.
Using tongs or potholder, carefully transfer ramekins to cooling rack. Cool to room temperature, about 2 hours. Cover tightly with plastic wrap; refrigerate until chilled.
Sprinkle each ramekin with 2 teaspoons sugar. Use kitchen torch to caramelize sugar on each custard. (In lieu of a torch, place the ramekins under a broiler until sugar melts and browns. You might need to rotate the dishes.)
Nutritional information unavailable.
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