This time, Rebecca Russo, Matt DeMille, and our very own Paul Lillakas were on deck to cook for an esteemed panel of judges.
The challenge with impressing the judges over the show's three rounds is that they were lightning fast, unpredictable, and at the mercy of high flames coming from the many grills. As chef Matt pointed out at the beginning, fire is something that you have to tame and work with, and all of these chefs really went in head first to cook outside with the scorching flames.
The first “Wildfire” round had to result in a dish that represented the chefs' personal styles. To stay true to himself, Paul opted for a seared bison ribeye, soy-birch syrup caramel, Jerusalem artichokes, and fire shallots. Throughout this competition, Paul was clever to choose vegetables that would endure in direct contact with fire, allowing him to hone in on the intricacies of the meat and sauces. The artichoke was sliced thinly into chips, capitalizing on their high sugar content. Paul's plating and overall creation was inspired by birch bark, making fires at the cottage, and memories of his vanaisa.
Chef Rebecca created a meat-focused Roman amatriciana with pork cheek, tomato, garlic, onion, and basil that simmered with the addition of pinot grigio. This dish was nicely situated between lovingly made food from your grandma to a high impact, streamlined barbecue with sauce, crispy pork, and smoked tomato fit together in mouth-watering layers.
Chef Matt made a Tuscan panzanella salad, upgraded with smoked shrimp. Blistered and slightly charred cherry tomatoes, smoked lemon, roasted peppers, fennel, and cool, crisp components of Greek yogurt and cucumber made for a balanced dish.
The show's judges—Andrea Nicholson, Dale MacKay, and Kevin Bludso— were watching like hawks for how these three chefs would attend to the proteins they chose to cook, as this would be the vehicle to drive all of the other flavours around.
The intense heat and billowing smoke made for disorienting conditions for the chefs to cook this meat, and Paul ended up taking the bison meat off the heat slightly too early, concerned that it was becoming overcooked. As it turned out, though, the meat was rare, which was a negative point with the judges. From outside the kitchen, they would have waited longer to slice the meat for plating; but behind the grill, the 30 minute countdown was rapidly dropping and decisive moves needed to be made.
At the end of the first round, Rebecca was eliminated for what the judges perceived as an overly simplistic dish. Paul won the first round, with the judges celebrating his soy-birch syrup caramel sauce.
Round two, the “Crossfire Round”, was a battle of sugar and spice between Matt and Paul. Paul's round one victory enabled him to choose Chinese Five Spice to underscore his dish: grilled duck, coal-charred fennel, five spice ketchup, and grilled apple.
Chef Matt prepared a roasted New York strip loin with maple sugar, Hollandaise sauce, roasted shishito peppers, and salsa verde. While Matt was bold to make a Hollandaise under such tight time restrictions, ultimately Paul won again for his ketchup and tender duck cooked to perfection on the open flame.
Round three brought judge Dale MacKay to the other side of the judges' table to cook against Paul in the “Feast of Fire”, where they would need to make a curry-themed main, sides, and a well-paired dessert. Paul was up for the challenge once again, founded on his early exposure to Indian cuisine. In 45 blistering minutes, he whipped up Murgh Makhani (aka butter chicken), Punjabi baingan bharta (smoky eggplant curry), cauliflower salad, and rice pudding with brûléed mango.
Chef Dale made a prawn coconut curry, red tomato curry with smoked salmon, jasmine rice, and a coconut custard with mango. Dale used heat and smoke to pack sophistication into these elements, leading host Dylan Benoit to proclaim the judges' verdict: that Dale had upheld his title of Fire Masters champion.
However, with all the dishes put away, Paul really made a mark with his take on the classic butter chicken, and his very learned approach to articulating complex, memorable flavours when the heat was on. As a great TV chef, he brought the excitement of food through to the other side of the screen.
This article was written by Vincent Teetsov as part of the Local Journalism Initiative.
