Practice Run

The crab I used for this practice run was loaded with both roe and fat.

Practice Run

The crab I used for this practice run was loaded with both roe and fat.

*thump*

Testing...

Second Try: Father's Day Plate

The crab used for this second run wasn't quite as loaded with innards but was still stellar. The onion ring sauced kept the patis chimichurri sharp. Fresh cuttings from a nearby rosemary bush broadcasted a dank woodsy aroma.

The Chosen Two

Flash Smoking the Salt

Pre-Aromatics

06-22-2015, TOMAHAWK RIB CHOP: Two attempts: Home smoked salt, patis chimichurri. Dungeness crab fat and roe. Medium. Since this round fell around Father's Day, I figured it could double as a well-deserved gift for my pops. With these heightened stakes, I got two of these cuts and crabs to allow me one practice run the night before the holiday. The crab I opened for the first run was particularly generous in fat and roe making this steak a bit more transcendental than the Father's Day one. Sorry pops. The onion ring saucer kept the chimichurri sharp and fresh cuttings from a nearby rosemary tree broadcasted a nice dank woodsy aroma.

Affogato-Rado

06-29-2015, CHOCOLATE: Tsamporado (champorado) flight: Homemade ice cream "affogato-rado," white chocolate matcha "matchamporado," and hazelnut butter with crushed pili nut "Ferrero Rocherado." Homemade waffles. Just playing around with a Filipino classic and childhood favorite. It's as much of a celebration of rice as it is of chocolate. Plated like the cascading rice terraces of Banaue.

07-06-2015, SWORDFISH: Salted tumeric scallop congee, buttery pan-seared swordfish steak and mint pickled cucumber ripples. One thing I realized about myself after submitting this dish is how little I like to dress my fish. If you strip this dish down just a little, it's basically fish with rice. Beer battered Baja fish tacos? All day. Seafood ginataan? Amen I say to you. But generally, I just want good salt and a little citrus and vinegar on the fresh naked fish that I that I buy.

07-13-2015, FREE FOR ALL: Beef sweetbreads and pork brains dinuguan: Lobes of said offal seared and dusted in cumin and peanut powder. Scrambled eggs and brains. Spiced pork bloodbath. It was brilliant of Knife Fight to have no challenge ingredient for the final round and just have us contestants cook what anything we wanted for our final entry. Fellow cooks treated this as the fun swan song to the eight-week melee that it should be. As it's been with Harana on occasion, my entry was a bit off-putting but it was precisely the statement I wanted to make. It's gnarly but not without rhyme and reason. It's a callback to my heritage and upbringing, the improvisations were subtle but kept the dish recognizable, and it was actually yummy, even to the non-Filipino guests who were over when I was making this.