A gold medal feast!

All four members of the Sunday night chefs team were back in town, ready to compete in the Sunday night dinner Olympics.

We went with a Greek theme tonight: lemon chicken, babaganoush, and spanakopita. The first two recipes were from Cooks Illustrated, the last from foodtv.com.

First round: Spanakopita.




Fresh spinach was wilted in a saute pan with some olive oil. This was drained, and should have been chopped, but was fine in the unchopped form in which it was used. Once the spinach was cooked, some scallions and parsley were cooked and combined with the spinach. To this some crumbled feta was added. This mixture was wrapped in strips of filo. Or Phyllo. Whichever you prefer. The phyllo had been brushed with melted butter and the folded spanakopita were brushed with more butter!

Difficulty: 9.5. The use of phyllo was a challenging element of this routine.
Execution: 8.0. A few of the sheets of phyllo proved too difficult for the chef to handle. Additionally, the dismount from the baking sheet was a little rough.
Overall: delicious.



Second round: babaganoush.

Few images were available of this portion of the evening's competition. But to describe the routine, two gorgeous egglants were grilled until soft. The insides were removed and drained of their excess liquid. This eggplant meat was put into Bertha (Bertha!) and processed with lemon juice, tahini, garlic, salt and pepper. Before serving, the the babaganoush was drizzled with olive oil and parsley.

Difficulty: 7.75. Grilling of the eggplants and seasoning of the mixture were key to this routine.
Execution: 9.5. The dish might have been cooled a bit more before serving.
Overall: delicious!



Final round: Lemon grilled chicken

Again, few pictures for this round. The chicken was brined in a mixture of sugar, salt and water. This was cooked to near completion on the grill, and then dipped in the special lemon sauce. This sauce's most interesting component was a garlic paste. The paste was created using the back of a knife on a mixture of minced garlic and kosher salt. This was cooked with some lemon juice and thyme. The same sauce was drizzled over the chicken when served.



Difficulty: 8.5. Garlic paste is an unusual component for a recipe, and the technique for making it is quite specialized.
Execution: 10.0. The chicken was perfect. In fact, it could not have been better.
Overall: delicious!



Final score: Gold medal quality.



The chefs are popular among the neighborhood cats. There was another visitor this week.