kauai cookoff 2011

I'm proud to say that I come from a family who enjoys cooking, drinking and most of all, competing. For our last family vacation we engaged in a fierce cooking contest, and our trip to Kauai was no different. Not wanting to give up our reigning title, Jeff and I pulled out all the stops when it was our night to compete. Cooking for fourteen people is no easy feat, so we started out day early with a trip to the Hanalai farmers market and fish market.

Cocktails and hors d'oeuvres were served on the patio: a Hemingway daiquiri and an individual serving of cucumber mint soup (above). The soup was served with a macadamia nut gremolata, tobiko and a slice of watermelon radish. 

After the soup, everyone came inside for the pasta course, a fettuccine with fresh tomato sauce, scallops and shrimp (we used a simpler variation of this recipe). We served this and our main course with a William Fevre Chablis.

For our main course we roasted Hebi (a local white fish) and served it on wilted escarole (sorry for the poor photo). We had made an avocado-mango salsa to go on top but forgot to serve it (whatevs - it was good for breakfast the next day!).

Our dessert was a roasted pineapple crostata (recipe curtesy of Brooks Hadley, pastry chef at Del Posto) served with vanilla ice cream.

The other teams had strong showing as well (see their meals here), but there can only be one winner....

Champs! Take that family!!