The high tension and drama of competitive reality shows like ""Iron Chef"" make them extremely popular with a broad audience, college students included. For local fans of the show, the Madison Food & Wine Show hosted the final showdown for the Third Annual Dueling Chefs competition Sunday afternoon at the Alliant Energy Center.
The rules of the Dueling Chefs competition are based off ""Iron Chef,"" with some modifications: Chefs have 45 minutes to cook five dishes (the four best are judged), they must use the mystery ingredient provided, they can pick one assistant and they must choose from an identical set of ingredients to create their dishes. Added pressure came from commentators who, like in Iron Chef, were placed inside the kitchen to give play-by-plays.
After several rounds of competition, last year's winner, Shinji Muramoto of Restaurant Muramoto, 106 King St., returned to the final showdown. He faced Barbara Wright, who owns The Dardenelles, 1851 Monroe St.. The mystery ingredient in this year's Dueling Chefs competition was quail and duck eggs.
With condensed kitchen space, time constraints, the blasting of speakers' voices and more than 100 audience members, the two competitors had their ladles full.
The biggest challenges to the chefs were the time constraints and mystery ingredient. While the mystery ingredient made the competition hard to prepare for, Wright said she made a list of possible ideas before she came to the showdown. Muramoto, however, said he made up his dishes after time had already started.
""Thirty minutes is enough to make a meal, but it's just tough not knowing what to make,"" he said.
While competition was fierce among the local restaurant magnates, Muramoto considered the mystery ingredient his biggest challenge. Rather than battling against Wright, he said he saw himself ""cooking against the secret ingredient."" Moreover, he added that creating ""things I've never cooked with before"" made the competition even more difficult.
Both chefs chose to use the duck and quail eggs for breakfast-themed dishes, and each choose to highlight their distinct cooking styles.
""Since we are sort of presenting our restaurants, I wanted to stick with Asian-fusion style cooking as much as possible,"" Muramoto said.
Muramoto's first dishes employed a Japanese breakfast theme that differed with each set of plates. The first set was made with the two mystery eggs in addition to chicken eggs and sausages. His final dishes were a mixture of salad with Thai vinaigrette, duck egg yolk and sweet potato chips. He stayed to himself for most of the competition, saying little. Muramoto also faced a minor setback when his stove ran out of gas for a short time.
Wright's breakfast theme highlighted the Mediterranean style of The Dardanelles. In her first set of plates, she left the quail eggs soft-boiled alongside a duck egg omelet. Her second set of plates used eggs in combination with Italian bacon, sausages and havarti cheese. She constantly communicated with her assistant, also her sister, to coordinate their efforts.
The finale of the competition resembled the rush to finish on ""Iron Chef,"" with neither competitors' dishes ready in the last few minutes. Each had to scramble to put the finishing touches, with commentators shouting the time and what was not finished. The talking between chefs and their assistants became much louder as time ran down and last-minute preparations were made. Despite this chaos, Wright said the competition was less stressful than it appeared.
""If you work in a restaurant kitchen, more goes on than that,"" she said.
While Wright had the distinction of being the first female chef to compete in the Dueling Chefs competition, she was not able to defeat Muramoto, whose unique style of cooking once again captivated the judges.
Instead of savoring his second victory, however, Muramoto was already looking to next year.
""I want to get better ingredients, some kind of [meat],"" he said.
