I heart the show Top Chef. If you have never seen it, I’m sorry, because your life is that much less richer than mine. If you have seen it, girrrrrrrl, then you know what I’m talkin’ bout. A bunch of professional chefs get a series of cooking challenges to compete in during each episode, and the lowest performing chef is kicked off. Unlike many reality game shows, this one maintains an edge by providing creative challenges, ones that really make you think. Like, here is $4.00. Go buy some shit from a vending machine and turn into a 4 star amuse bouche in 20 minutes (all while trying not to fight with the psycho cheftestant hyped up on coke), and feed it to Tom Coliccho and some other famous chef, and you best be prepared to tell them why it isn’t amazing. But no pressure. My favorite dish from a single challenge was from Season 2, episode 7, where contestants had to create breakfast for athletes on the beach. Elia make a Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner waffle that looked AMAZING.She took a frozen waffle and toasted it, covered it with refried beans, muenster cheese, maple syrup, some Coppa ham,and a fried egg. Hot damn, if that doesn’t make you hungry, someone needs to slap you. So in celebration of the latest Top Chef Masters episode last week, I decided to make my own version of Elia’s waffle. I stumbled across the original recipe here (Bravo decided to be stingy bastards and take it off their website so they could slap it in a book and sell it to us). I started by making a waffle from scratch (I used this recipe), and while it took a little extra effort, it was totally worth it. This recipe produced crispy on the outside, fluffy on the inside Belgian waffles even with my crappy $12 Toastmaster waffle machine. I sprinkled a bit of chopped up cooked bacon on top the batter before cooking the waffles, and was perfect. Bacony goodness in every bite! From there, I wanted to add a little heat to the dish, so I used refried black beans with a bit of chipotle, and spread it on the waffle. Next came the cheese, and again for heat, I used pepperjack, then a drizzle of real maple syrup, a pork sausage instead of the ham, and of course, topped off with a gooey fried egg.
And I think I had a heart attack just looking at it. The crazy part? It tasted SO delicious, I could probably eat this a lot more than I should. A crispy, fluffy, savory, sweet, messy and pork-filled treat. Viva la Top Chef!
~LTG!
