In Which Joule's Rachel Yang and Seif Chirchi Take on Iron Chef America

This weekend's episode of Iron Chef America featured only the second husband-wife cooking team in all of Iron Chef history: Rachel Yang and Seif Chirchi, the masterminds behind Wallingford Korean-French-American-whatever else eatery Joule. Along with being an award-winner in its own right, Joule just happens to be (friend of The SunBreak) Gastrolust Jay's favorite restaurant in town--and that's saying something. So we were more than a little intrigued to hear the local duo would be competing in venerable Kitchen Stadium.  Yang and Chirchi chose to take on the newest Iron Chef, Jose Garces. Secret ingredient: Hawaiian moi, the fish of kings.  Let's get ready to cook some fish!

So first everybody got busy scraping off fish scales. Scrape scrape scrape. Fish bones and heads were thrown into pots to make stock. There were different butchering techniques on display, with Yang doing more filets and Garces doing more fish fingers and strips, though Yang also made use of her fish skin, first stretched and then fried. So many ingredients at play:  daikon, carrots, and fennel in the rapid pressure cooker; onions, pear, apple, and jujubes, salted shrimp, and anchovy sauce made into puree; not to mention the soft-boiled quail eggs, banana leaves, salted corn nuts, nori, panko-fried sweet potatoes, and bechamel sauce. Moi was smoked, salt-cooked, stuffed, ceviched, tempura-ed, seared, and tartared.  Something for everyone!

With less than three minutes left, the Yang-Chirchi side was scrambling over some forgotten Korean turnips. It was close, but everybody got everything on the plate, of course. That's because they are all iron chefs.  Now to the judges: "lifestyle expert" and restaurateur Donatella Arpaia, traditional and avant-garde Spanish chef Jose Andres, and Jennifer Baum, a hospitality PR flack. In case you don't know Iron Chef rules, each judge can award a total of 20 points to each team: 10 points for taste, 5 points for plating, and 5 points for originality.

Challengers Yang and Chirchi presented their dishes to the judges first (starting at 4:00 in the video above). First off was a ssam trio of wraps--the moi was served tartare, seared, and deep-fried with aioli---with a bundle of rice in the lettuce wrap. Everybody loved it. Next was smoked moi with kimchi.  Then spicy moi soup with moi mousse dumplings. For this dish, the poached fish went over well, but the dumplings were found to be too thick. Then a moi bibimbop, which Andres liked much more than his non-chef judge counterparts. And finally, the moi crusted with gochujang viennoise, which is a fancy way of saying a spicy breading that somehow tastes like chocolate. I don't know how that works, but it sounds delicious.

The Iron Chef team countered with their Tokyo-meets-Peru mix (starts at the very end of the video above, continues here). First up was the moi ceviche with a moi leche de tigre all encased in a PLATE MADE OF ICE. But somehow, the tiger milk was just not cold enough for the judges. Next up was a moi take on takoyaki, with moi, daikon, and carrot in the fried batter. Then Garces served a moi chupe, which is a Peruvian peasant stew, with egg, clam, pepper, and cream. And then his moi fish and (sweet potato) chips with a recoto chile aioli, which managed to be not too greasy or overly battered.  But the piece de resistance, and the best-received food made by either team, was the salt-baked moi with jasmine rice and chile sauce.  The salt dome gave the fish a silky, decadent texture, and the judges felt the dish "truly captured the essence of moi."

Spoiler alert: the winner is Iron Chef Garces.  But it was close--Yang and Chirchi lost by only a single point.  The final score was 51-50, with both teams receiving 26 points for taste and 13 for plating, but Garces edged out the challengers 12-11 on originality.  Close but no cigar, Yang and Chirchi, but still, a great showing from the local team.