The proposals of the winner and challengers in the final evening
Triumph of 26-year-old Edoardo Franco last night at Master Chef Italy, a program now in its twelfth edition. In describing his winning menu entitled ‘All world‘, inspired by the title of the mural created by Keith Haring, the winner explained: “For me, food must unite and not divide, my intent is therefore to get all three judges to agree with a menu of flavors for people from all over the world. My dishes are the fruit of my past experiences and encounters, which blend with my creativity”. The appetizer is a tribute to the land and to the origins of the cuisine, a mix of unusual flavours, which reserve a surprise for the diner: it’s called Medievale but not too much, it’s a sour beet stuffed with pigeon liver pâté, a medieval concoction, buttermilk and fried leek, accompanied by beetroot and dill infusion. Followed by the first – Ravioli kebab – is his reinterpretation of the kebab: a spiced lamb meatball inside a bundle of egg pasta served with apricot sauce and carrot leaves. The second course is Scallops in curry: the unusual combination of scallops, sweet and delicate, and curry, spicy and fragrant, with the addition of coral mayonnaise and fried coriander. Finally the dessert, Matrimonio in bianco, a fake coconut mousse with creamy licorice and orange and passion fruit insert: despite some small problems during the cooking, the result was, according to the judges, really excellent.
The menus of the other two finalists are also truly remarkable and well studied. For Thi Hue Dihn, 27 years old project assistant born in Vietnam and now in Florence, the menu was “The Seasonal Symphony” and featured the plant world, her workhorse throughout this edition: a tale of flavours, colors and sensations that want to recall the four seasons, using ingredients from Italy and Vietnam, for a union that creates culinary music and an explosion of colours. The menu begins with spring, the season in which the Lunar New Year is celebrated in Vietnam, the most important festival of the year: the appetizer is therefore Giardino di primavera, with apple cooked in red wine with creamed potatoes, leek, apple and wasabi; to follow, a first course dedicated to winter that tells the story of the union between Italy and Vietnam: Winter Universe, a reinterpretation of traditional Vietnamese flavors combined with those discovered in Italy, i.e. kohlrabi ravioli stuffed with lentils, Colonnata lard and broth of Pho (typical Vietnamese recipe used to face the cold days of Hanoi); then autumn in the second Under the light of the autumn full moon, green papaya with lemongrass flavored with Timut pepper, cooked in pork rib broth with porcini mushroom reduction and shitake; finally dessert, a reminder of a typical summer day in A summer day at home, with fried rice ice cream with bamboo jam, cotton candy nest and jasmine tea.
Antonio Gargiulo, for all Bubu, a 19-year-old student born in Vico Equense, raised in Cagliari and now in Rome, had a passion for cooking by watching his grandmothers, then in the last 5/6 years he has deepened it by studying books: «If you don’t know the traditional recipes it is impossible experiment», he said, and so he initially studied the tradition to then begin, only recently, to experiment. For him, cooking is a real urgency, so much so that he wants to demonstrate to his parents that he wants to continue in this field, rather than in the studies of Archaeological Sciences. His menu for the final told his life: Me between the island and the gulf was «designed to tell how I grew up between two very different regions and culinary realities, which formed me and made me fall in love with their flavors and aromas and their cuisine. Today I try to tell you about Sardinia and Campania – he explained – through dishes that want to connect them through my memories and my experiences. I would also like to give importance to everything I have learned here at MasterChef thanks to the study, the challenges and the incredible chefs we have had the honor of knowing». And so the Quasi Frattau appetizer was inspired by a historic Sardinian dish of recovery, pane frattau, which has carasau bread, tomato sauce and egg as its main elements: the dish is a fake cuttlefish egg filled with compote of yellow cherry tomatoes, carasau sauce with smoked herring, piennolo tomato confit and basil and lemon granita; followed by the first La spiga nel mare, with culurgiones filled with marinated red mullet, beurre blanc, orziadas in double consistency, tomato and red mullet chips; then the second course S’Angioni nell’orto, lamb in crepinette, glazed with mustard and honey, with its base of cannonau, myrtle and juniper, sautéed friggitello, white asparagus and Sardinian pecorino fondue; finally the Gioco di pastiera, pastiera mousse, crunchy pastry and cedar coulis, candied kumquat and orange and vanilla custard.
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