Perhaps it was a nod to Canada, but the secret ingredient in the Susur Lee vs. Bobby Flay matchup was bacon. Mmm. Bacon.
Susur was up to his usual creative tricks, presenting one more than the five requisite dishes:
- Irish bacon wrapped pork tenderloin
- Shanghai-style pork with cabbage, polenta and apples
- lionhead meatballs (twist on a traditional Shanghai dish)
- bacon-stuffed green onion cake, topped with a fried quail egg and caviar
- Irish and American bacon scallop with roasted pineapple
- pork tart with quail
I think facing Susur forced the insufferable Flay to up his game since the “BBQ master” went beyond his usual blackened something with corn. But the close-ups on Flay’s bloody cut finger as he continued to cook was kinda gross.
To his credit, Flay came up with:
- shellfish and bacon tapas (raw oyster with bacon bits, sea urchin, and a variation of clams casino)
- bacon risotto with quail egg and green onion
- jerk rubbed whole slab bacon with mango sauce
- deconstructed pancetta carbonara
- Irish bacon with pineapple and jalapeno sauce
Sadly, they TIED! The look on Susur’s face when he hears the decision is hilarious.
The Globe and Mail printed this the day after the show aired:
“Lee and his team had spent a month with his staff trying out different recipes they might be called upon to produce on the show, including a hefty helping of dishes featuring pig.
“A show like that, it’s all about performing,” Lee admitted this week, after he was freed to talk about the experience. (A confidentiality clause signed by those admitted to the taping calls for penalties of up to $2-million U.S. for revealing secrets such as who won.) Still, the bacon — possibly a nod to Lee’s Canadian base — did offer its challenges.
“Bacon, salted ham — those things are used only for side orders,” he said. “It’s very hard to have something so salty as a main focus. You eat so little, you’re already satisfied.”
In Lee’s Iron Chef America debut last night, he tied with Flay, which was a genuine shock for Lee: That expression on his face wasn’t produced for the cameras.
“I felt, ‘Oh, I did all this for nothing.’ I was dumbfounded. If I lost, okay, I would have said his dishes are great. But you have to have an answer. For me, if there’s no answer, it’s like, what the hell is going on?”
Iron Chef America: Lee vs. Flay repeats Sun. May 7, 9 p.m. ET/PT and Mon. May 8, midnight and 3 a.m. ET on Food Network Canada. (Photo above from sceneandheard.ca.)
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