Wow, I’m so impressed. There were seven entries for Paper Chef this month, and they all looked really, really good. As you may recall, the ingredients were leeks, English peas, buckwheat, and (local) lamb. You can see the roundup of links and photos here.
Judging was not easy. First of all, I would have eaten every single one of these dishes and gone back for seconds (luckily, this was just a virtual tasting). Also, I didn’t know what half the things were that people made. Here’s a little vocabulary lesson:
Frikadellen: Northern European meatballs
Kefta: Moroccan meatballs
Sugo: Italian long-simmered, meaty sauce
Soubise: Béchamel (white sauce) flavored with puréed onions
Kasha Varnishka: Best I can tell, a Yiddish dish of toasted buckwheat groats with egg noodles and vegetables.
How the hell do you judge something like this when you have to keep whipping out the dictionary every five minutes? Clearly, I’m not the best one for the job, but you’re stuck with me so let’s see how I shook the dice.
I was looking for a recipe that integrated all of the ingredients into a cohesive dish, but which was also respectful of the individual ingredients, allowing each one the opportunity to shine. The use of local lamb helped since the theme was local. And, finally, there was the issue of how well I, in all my finite wisdom, thought it would taste.
Eventually, I arrived at a winner. But first, the runners-up in no particular order:
For adversity: Feeding Maybelle for powering through her power outage. Never in a million years would I have followed through with orange curried lamb with toasted buckwheat in tangerine vinaigrette. I would have given up and ordered pizza.
For supporting local farms: Living in the Kitchen with Puppies with her Greek-style lamb pot pies.
For diplomacy: My Kitchen in Half Cups for finally (finally!) bringing the Moroccans and the Russians back to the table with Kefta Varnishkas. The tension was getting to be too much.
For photography: Lucullian Delights who can make even soup with meatballs look elegant.
For spirit: Alosha’s Kitchen for her infectious enthusiasm during her stellar first-ever blogging event submission of lamb and buckwheat meatballs with pea and leek purée. Have you ever seen a more gracious competitor? Give that girl a trophy for awesomeness.
AND THE WINNER IS:
Hunter Angler Gardener Cook who made his own buckwheat pasta and utilized local lamb for his mouth-watering spring lamb sugo. Congratulations!
And the People’s Choice winner by popular vote:
Eat Me! for his buckwheat galettes filled with ground lamb and peas with leek soubise, which, incidentally, was my second choice!
Good job, everyone. Hope you all had fun and thanks for participating!!
The entries were fabulous, I wouldn't have liked to be in your shoes. I tried so hard to make time to get an entry in but I didn't make it. Next month, next month...
Posted by: Helen | June 16, 2008 at 08:12 AM
That is a most awesome round-up! I do agree with you everyone was a winner!!
Posted by: MyKitchenInHalfCups | June 16, 2008 at 11:01 AM
Whoo Hoo! My second win! This was a tough one -- I was especially worried about those galettes, which looked really good. Thanks, Tammy!
Posted by: Hank | June 16, 2008 at 11:27 AM
Congrats to all. And, nice roundup.
Posted by: maybelles mom (feeding maybelle) | June 16, 2008 at 03:43 PM
It seemed silly not to vote for myself on the People's Choice thing, so, you know, I did. But honestly, I really wanted to eat those galettes. :P
And congrats to Hank for doing such a fabulous job!
Thanks again, Tammy, this was so awesome. :D
Posted by: melissa | June 16, 2008 at 07:49 PM
Thanks for giving us the vocab lesson, I was feeling a little bewildered by some of the terms! I love the way you presented the runners up as well as the winners. So kind and generous. I can't wait to hear what the next ingredient list will be. Congrats to all who participated and congrats to the awesome winners of Paper Chef.
Posted by: Natashya | June 17, 2008 at 04:02 PM
Great roundup & congratulations to everyone who participated. All the entries were very different and it must have been hard to judge each entry, but that is the beauty of The Paper Chef - it allows you to be creative! Can't wait for the next one!
Posted by: Mikey | June 17, 2008 at 06:14 PM
This looks great - where do I find out about the next one?
Posted by: gillie | June 18, 2008 at 07:43 AM
Gillie: Look here at the beginning of July: http://paperchef.blogspot.com/
Everyone: Again, great job. See you next month when my gavel has been ripped out of my grasping hands.
Posted by: Tammy | June 19, 2008 at 10:48 PM