Top Chef ™
Baker:
Season:
Week:
Challenge Type:
Roasted Charred Caraflex Cabbage
Tristen: "I'm cooking a little cabbage with a potato farsi and spring vegetables. Caraflex cabbage is really special because it has a really great sweetness when it's cooked. A really fantastic texture, and it always keeps its shape. These are some spring potatoes. They're very delicious when you just roast them in a lot of salt. They have a really, really nice sweetness to them. I also want to add a touch of umami, a little bit of substance into the potatoes. So I'm mixing that with flaked fish and a touch of butter. Just rolling up my potato farce into my cabbage, just like my Polish grandmother used to make."
Tristen: "To match the fish, I'm going to use a little bit of trout roe that usually comes in existence in the springtime during breeding migration. So I'm really just trying to evoke spring the best I can."
Presenting to Judges
"The only time I've ever really had to play with spring stuff is when I was in Sweden, in Scandinavia. So this is a caraflex cabbage that's been roasted and charred. Inside is spring new potatoes with smoked lake fish. I didn't waste anything. Even the bones from the fish went into making my butter sauce."
Judges
"Overall, great execution, but the sauce is just over seasoned. You know, punching in with salt.
"I find the potato under seasoned - needs salt."
"I decided to just go ahead and use the sauce to my advantage by eating it with the potatoes. Yeah, that's where it all came together for me."
