Tournament of Champions ™
Baker:
Season:
Week:
Challenge Type:
Celery Root Curry with Ground Beef
Celery Root Butter Curry with Seared Ground Beef
Chef Dan Jacobs on his direction: "I'm from Wisconsin, and so buttery, this is great. I'm thinking luscious. I'm thinking something elevated. I'm thinking luxury. I am comfortable in Southeast Asian cuisine. I'm going to go full in. But the challenge here with ground beef is how do you make it elevated and how do you make it beautiful?"
On his concept: "Started off with a celery root and butter curry, and then a Southeast Asian style seared meatball. The toaster is going to be the rough one, but we'll get there."
On using kombu and green curry: "For my celery root and butter curry, I'm going to add some kombu. This is basically going to be our base. And then I'm going to add some green curry paste to really reinforce that Southeast Asian style of cuisine."
On toasting spices in the toaster: "Using Szechuan peppercorns, five spice, chili flakes, and peanut. The toaster is not my favorite thing I've ever had on the randomizer, but I'm going to use it to toast my spices and my peanuts. You could smell it. That's what we wanted there. This sort of warming spice that's really going to bring everything together."
On butter as the fat: "For butter, I'm gonna substitute coconut milk. We're just gonna use the butter to be that fat. It's gonna create this lusciousness in this curry, the fat you would get from coconut milk, but I don't need it."
On pivoting from meatball to patty: "Key to a good meatball is keeping that moist ball. In the blender goes some oil, lime leaves, little garlic, shallots. Galangal is a root vegetable. Basically, what I'm doing here is getting that galangal as small as possible so it doesn't get stuck in the judges' teeth. I put a good amount of butter in here, and I realized these are not going to hold shape. I feel like we're going to kill them with flavor. Maybe not so pretty. I'm going to pivot here and go to almost like a seared meat patty."
On celery root as noodles: "The celery root, I'm actually going to mandolin it. I'm going to try to use these like noodles. We're actually going to poach these. Once those are pretty much cooked all the way through, I'm going to transfer that to a pan and finish the cooking in the butter just like you would pasta."
On the finished dish: "Ground beef is not necessarily the prettiest thing. So we're actually going to hide this. It really allows for that aha moment as you get into a dish. This is very one color, but I think there's so much flavor here. This could be a winner."
Voiceover (Justin Warner): "Esteemed judges, this is a celery root butter curry with seared ground beef. The ground beef was emulsified in the stand mixer with butter. It was seasoned with fish sauce, and then celery root was added to it. A foil packet filled with spices was toasted in the toaster and used to season both the curry and the meat. In terms of buttery components, a pound of it was added to the curry sauce."
Marcus Samuelsson: "How do you make ground beef sexy? This is how you make ground beef sexy. I don't think it's about the ground meat. I think it is about the accompaniments thereof. I think that this sauce is just deep and luscious. That green curry is really outstanding. I want a vat of this, and I want to swim in it."
Nancy Silverton: "The patty, even though there is a nice amount of fat in it, is still not as much fat as I would add to a patty. And so all the additions that have been added to it really help that texture."
Scott Conant: "This is like a tasting menu idea, but to do it in 30 minutes. Many people have thought about great dishes that might not taste great just to have the know-how. Well done, chef." Score: 87. Winner.
Would you like us to create a recipe to match this dish?
We try to create several recipes every day, and we'd love to prioritize a recipe for you. Just fill out the form and watch your inbox - no cost, no catch.
