The cuisine of Umbria reigned supreme last Thursday at the 3rd Annual Italian Cooking Show hosted by Italy-American Chamber of Commerce. I was invited to attend the event, the first in a monthly series of cooking battles that will run through September at Mia Cucina in Coral Gables. The audience, which is limited to 40 participants, tastes each course (the servings were surprisingly generous) paired with wine and then votes for the winning dish. Last week Liguria battled Umbria.
The chefs: Umbria was represented by Subzero & Wolf corporate chef Will Ratley. The contender, representing Liguria, was chef Ivo Mazzon from Joey’s Italian Cafe in Wynwood (pictured above).
Round 1 (ding, ding, ding)
From the Luguria corner, the appetizer was frittata con tonno e fagiolini (tuna and string beans frittata). From Umbria, parmigiana di melanzane ripiene (eggplant stuffed with parmigiana and ricotta). In this round, the eggplant was a big crowd pleaser.
Round 2: Entrees
Stoccafisso in agrodolce (sweet and sour baccala) from chef Mazzon. If it means anything, this is the first time I sincerely enjoyed eating cod fish. The dish was very similar to the pan-fried sole with cipolline agrodolce I loved at Fratelli Lyon. The battling dish was stinco d’agnello (braised lamb shanks with chestnuts). The lamb was fall-off-the-bone tender but I found it to be somewhat underseasoned.
Final round
By this time, the crowd must have been a little buzzed from the wine, for all but the first three rows seemed to be paying attention to what the chefs were saying. Chef Mazzon prepared ricotta, mascarpone and basil mousse with caramelized pine nuts. And chef Ratley, San Giuseppe rice fritters (Umbrian rum rice fritters). If we had to pick a winner for each round, I would have favored the mousse in this one mainly because the fritters were far from crisp by the time we had a taste.
The winner is …
My vote at the end of the night went for chef Mazzon’s baccala (we could only vote for one dish), but chef Ratley was crowd favorite and took away the victory with his eggplant parmigiana.
Next up
Lazio and Trentino Alto Adige – represented by the chefs of Blu and Cardozo restaurants respectively – will battle it out at Mia Cucina on June 18. Admission is $45 for the cooking show and tasting; an additional $10 allows you access to the reception, where you can sample various foods and wines from Italy. For more information or to RSVP, email tanti@iacc-miami.com.
Glad you got to check this out. Those fritters do look good though….too bad they were medio soggy when you got them.
Yeah, they prepared them before the show started so they had been sitting for some time. Everything that was served to the audience was pre-prepared but these didn’t do well with the wait. Let me know if you’re going to the next one.
These dishes look yummy! I don’t like cod either, but this one looks great. I’d love to know how he made it.
[...] next round of the 3rd Italian Cooking Show will take place on Thursday, June 18 from 6:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. at Mia Cucina in Coral Gables. [...]
[...] Chefs Nicola Carro from Quattro and Rosario Corrao from Caffe Milano will participate in a cook-off on June 17 at MiaCucina in Coral Gables. This is the second installment of this year’s Italian Cooking Show, a monthly series of cooking demos showcasing the regional cuisines of Italy that runs through September. Tickets to the event are $45; $30 for members of the Italy-America Chamber of Commerce. To reserve a seat, email tanti@iacc-miami.com. (You can read my recap from one of last year’s shows here). [...]