Tournament of Champions ™
Baker:
Season:
Week:
Challenge Type:
Salsa Macha Grilled Swordfish
In this challenge, the randomizer selected the following conditions that had to be met by each chef:
Protein: Swordfish
Product: King Trumpet Mushrooms
Equipment: Blowtorch
Style: New Year's Eve Dinner
Wildcard Ingredients: Canned Beets
Stephanie grilled thick swordfish steaks and rested them in a brown butter salsa macha to reapply fat lost during cooking. Her salsa macha was built from nuts and seeds fried quickly for depth, then hit with the blowtorch alongside morita, ancho, and guajillo chilies to caramelise them, before being finished with red wine vinegar and olive oil. Canned beets were blended with labneh in a food processor to create a vivid beet labneh puree as a base. Collard greens were prepared two ways: a coffee collard green chiffonade and deep-fried crispy collards, both chosen as a Southern New Year's prosperity green. King trumpet mushrooms were coated in a champagne batter (a New Year's nod) and fried to crunchy fritters. The dish was crowned with osetra caviar for celebration.
Maneet Chauhan praised the beautifully cooked swordfish and highlighted the champagne king trumpet fritter topped with caviar as a standout celebration element, calling the use of canned beets as labneh inspired.
Susan Feninger called it a great New Year's dish with gorgeous presentation and all the right celebratory elements, but felt the blowtorch could have been used more prominently, and suggested that combining yuzu and matcha may have stretched the flavour profile. She noted a thinner piece of swordfish would have been ideal for the torch technique.
Hubert Keller praised the fritter but felt the king trumpet mushroom could have been featured more throughout the dish.
Stephanie scored 84.
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