|
Squaring Off with Chef Guy Fieri for the 'Ultimate Recipe Showdown'
by Troy Rogers
As our own battle of the bulge continues into 2009 for what looks to be a new exciting and expanding food-aware year, the Food Network is ramping up its primetime line-up early with the second season premiere of Ultimate Recipe Showdown on Sunday, January 4 at 9pm with chef and multiple show host Guy Fieri.
 After more than 12,000 recipes were submitted from home cooks across America, the field has been narrowed and 24 new contestants will square off in a head-to-head battle for recipe glory in the six categories of Comfort Food, Burgers, Cakes, Hot and Spicy, Desserts, or Hometown Favorites. So what's up for grabs on the Ultimate Recipe Showdown? As the season progresses, each week the judges will pick the "ultimate" winner who will then take home $25,000 and get the chance to have his or her recipe featured nationwide at T.G.I. Friday’s restaurants. Great inspiration for any home cook throwing things together from the confines of their own kitchen.
With the Ultimate Recipe Showdown simmering and about to hit the Food Network airwaves for a second time, we turned off The Deadbolt stove long enough to hop on the line with chef, restaurant owner, TV personality, and host Guy Fieri to find out what he has cooking for this season's ultimate recipe battle.
THE DEADBOLT: Now that two years have passed since The Next Food Network Star, how has your stardom helped or hindered your cooking?
GUY FIERI: Well, I mean it’s helped in quite a few ways. I’ve been subject to all different kinds of food. I’ve seen things. I’ve traveled the country and that’s a pretty good eye-opener. It’s hindered me in a sense that I’m not in my kitchens. I’m not in my restaurants as much as I was and I was a six-day-a-week kind of guy. So that’s been the change. But I can’t say good or bad, it’s just life is ever evolving. Actually, I’d have to say good. I’d have to say much for the better. I’ve met the neatest chefs, the coolest people, and they made me some of the craziest food. But I’ve definitely learned a tremendous amount in the last couple of years.
THE DEADBOLT: So how would you say a person’s lifestyle helps in creating a recipe, ultimate or not?
 FIERI: Oh, I think if you’re living in an area that’s heavily populated with BBQ, I think you have a tendency to be a little bit more learned in that style. I think people that travel more have a more eclectic palette because they eat in different areas, different foods, different regions. So you pull all of those components together, which I think makes an impact on somebody’s style. These people we met, that came to do the show, these contestants were all pretty well-learned in food. They all had a pretty good curriculum of food already. I don’t think anyone would call themselves necessarily a chef. Maybe some of them would’ve, but they all had a pretty good diversity.
THE DEADBOLT: What’s the secret to creating the ultimate burger? Are there ingredients you should stay away from?
FIERI: Well, the first thing I would have to say is really good meat, fresh ground meat. I think it makes the difference of a lifetime. I think over seasoning a burger, like putting too many components to it can also be the issue. I think cooking the burger and messing with the burger is probably the biggest flaw. Anytime you hear sizzling, that’s usually juice or fat or some liquid coming out of it, which creates this opportunity for it to be dry. But I think cooking with high heat, I think seasoning properly, using great meat - You know, it’s funny. People say, ‘We don’t want all of the fat.’ That’s used in ten grind, you know, ten percent meat and ninety percent fat, and then they slather on mayonnaise. It’s kind of going backwards. But I really believe a dynamite, a really well made burger needs a fantastic bun, a fresh tomato, a nice big slice of some red onion, some good crunchy romaine lettuce, maybe a little bit of a whole grain mustard and that’s it, baby! It has all of its own flavor in there.
THE DEADBOLT: Since we’re seeing the dawn of a new health conscious era, do you find it tough to cook comfort food in its traditional sense so it still tastes the same?
FIERI: Well, here’s my belief on that, brother, and I think that’s right on point. It’s the same thing with alcohol. It’s not quantity, it’s quality. So I don’t really think you should cheat the mac and cheese. Mac and cheese needs killer cheese. It needs some cream, you know. It needs good pasta. And the thing is, maybe we just don’t eat ten ounces of it? Maybe we’re only getting four of it this time? So I would rather go to a smaller portion and stay with quality than go to a larger portion and not have the quality in it. I think it’s quality not quantity. And let’s just realize this: chicken fried steak is probably not the healthiest thing that you can enjoy, but in moderation it is what it is.
THE DEADBOLT: What’s your ultimate Christmas or holiday comfort food?
 FIERI: Oh, boy. I don’t know. I’m such a weird one when it comes to Christmas, holiday time. I did three different turkeys this year. I took all of the legs and wings off of my turkeys, because no one ever eats them, and made all of my gravy out of them. I made two gallons of gravy. I had thirty six people. I was camping with my dirt bikes and my kids, my wife, my buddies, and all of that stuff. I had to cook dinner for thirty people in a Webber on a mountain in the cold. But I made "gravy a la gravy". I made so much gravy you could have gravy as soup.
But I brined the turkey. I did a maple syrup/bourbon brine turkey. I am telling you, it tasted just like ham. It was out of this world. So me, what’s my favorite turkey or holiday food? To me it’s rolling it out and doing something different. I did a twenty eight day aged prime rib for Christmas this time. I dry aged it in fridge in my garage, so I had about a thirty percent loss. But you want to talk about incredible.
THE DEADBOLT: All of this food talk is starting to make me hungry.
FIERI: That burger question just about killed me. I’m trying to find a towel [laughs].
-- Troy Rogers
|
