Amanda Cohen kicks some broccoli butt.
mike kravinsky
photo courtesy Food Network
OK, I'm a vegetarian, but, not really a foodie. For the most part, I'm one of those "taste's pretty good to me" person. But, the other night there was big news on Iron Chef America, the reality show pitting chef against Iron Chef.
Amanda Cohen, is the chef/owner of DirtCandy a vegetarian restaurant in New York. Their slogan is "Anyone can cook a hamburger, but leave the vegetables to the professionals". She appeared on the show to create a several course meal, battling against Iron Chef Masaharu Morimoto in the Stadium Kitchen
When host Alton Brown called her restaurant vegetarian, Cohen corrected him, "It's not just a vegetarian restaurant, it's a vegetable restaurant", meaning, a customer at her restaurant doesn't have to be part of a nitch group to have a great meal.
The special ingredient that both had to use was broccoli. She created crispy broccoli with avacado, broccoli chowder, broccoli pasta, pan seared tofu on broccoli, and finally broccoli ice cream with crispies.
Although, Cohen didn't win against Morimoto, she wrote in her blog, "I wanted to take this victory for the vegetarian community, I wanted to take it to earn vegetables some respect and I wanted to take it because Mark Dacascos (Iron Chef's "Chairman") said if I won I could cut off Morimoto’s ponytail."
The most important aspect of the show was that, although there was some ribbing about using only vegetables to create the dishes, a national show that appeals to foodies that does a show exclusively focused on vegetables, is helping to make vegetarianism mainstream. Considering the western diet, and volume of that diet is making Americans pretty fat, shows like that may be a step in the right direction.
It's pretty easy these days to get a vegetarian meal, but, only about 3.2 percent of U.S. adults, or 7.3 million people, follow a vegetarian-based diet in the US.
And in the self promotion department, here's a video I did several months ago, on becoming vegetarian.
Just saw a rerun of Battle Broccoli tonight (10/22/11) and got annoyed by Alton's constant ribbing of Chef Cohen's use of butter in her cooking. Granted I am vegan and never cook with butter, but I don't see Alton complaining about the use of butter in other episodes of Iron Chef. This wasn't a vegan competition (although that would have been REALLY interesting) so I wish Alton would have given the butter comments a rest. Other than that, great to see a vegetarian competitor on Iron Chef!