Blue Dragon hosted a media cook off at the Calphalon Kitchen in Toronto on November 1st, yielding delicious, and charitable, results.
Blue Dragon, a UK Asian food line launching in Canada, invited 15 members of the press to create culinary masterpieces with their new line of products. With a grand prize of a $2,000 donation to the charity of the winners’ choice, we couldn’t say no. (It also didn’t hurt that we were sure to have some great grub, too.)
The beauty of the event lay in the fact that nearly all of the members had little professional cooking experiences. Sure, there were food writers and critics, but for most, the biggest cooking experience shared amongst everyone was cooking for kids.
Everyone was given a station in the kitchen, and we instantly felt like we were on Iron Chef. They gave us 45 minutes to come up with whatever we wanted, being judged on taste, presentation and creativity. Big bowls of meats, vegetables, sauces, pots and pans framed the front of the room as we chopped, grated, boiled, seared and sautéed away.
The final judging panel listened as each chef explained their creation, then scanned each plate, and finished with a generous spoonful, taking notes on their clipboards as they went. The unique meals ranged from stir-frys to beef tartare and every creative niche in between, all of which looked equal parts impressive and delicious. (We made a paprika chicken stir-fry and wasabi-infused rice rolls.)
The afternoon concluded with the winner being announced, and although it unfortunately wasn’t Notable (…this time), we’d like to congratulate Amy Rosen from House and Home Media who made a fantastic vegetarian Vietnamese pancake and donated her winnings to The Mikey Network, which places defibrillators in public areas to assist victims of cardiac arrest and give them a fighting chance at life.