Food coverage is supported by a generous donation from Susan and Moses Libitzky.
A latke competition inspired by the Food Network television show “Chopped” took place last week in Walnut Creek, where four groups worked feverishly with a “mystery basket” of ingredients — really just inside a paper bag under the table — to come up with the best-tasting latke in just 37 minutes.
Chaya Berkowitz, who hosted with a helping hand from her husband, Chabad of Contra Costa Rabbi Dovber Berkowitz, started her day at a bris, ran the Chabad preschool and then cooked up a ton of latkes for noshing on before the competition.
The Dec. 12 contest was the second “Chopped” latke competition at the Chabad in seven years; I covered and judged the first one Berkowitz hosted, as well as this one. The mystery ingredients this time represented the five essential tastes in Japanese cuisine: sweet (date syrup), bitter (horseradish), salty (potato chips), sour (pickles) and umami (nutritional yeast).
On the long-running TV show, four chefs go head to head in three rounds, with one eliminated after each round, until one winner is left standing. Before they start cooking each round, they open a basket to reveal four strange ingredients. The chefs must incorporate all of the ingredients into their dishes in creative ways.
In Walnut Creek, there were four teams, each with five to seven women, and only one round. Contestants had free use of a pantry with a variety of vegetables beyond potatoes and onions, and many spices, vinegars, condiments and such. The two items Berkowitz forgot to include were applesauce and sour cream, but that only forced the teams to be even more creative with their toppings.
The competitors were given 30 minutes to create their dishes, but they ended up getting another seven minutes when time ran out and no one was near finished. (This would have never happened on the real “Chopped,” but the Berkowitzes were much more lenient than TV host Ted Allen.)
Two of the teams were made up entirely of Russian speakers, one mostly from Ukraine and the other from Belarus. The other two teams, which conducted most of their business in English, represented a blend of backgrounds. One was made up of Israelis and Americans, and the other was a multicultural mix of Israeli, Ukrainian, Bulgarian and Russian women.
With groups of chefs cooking together with so little time, there wasn’t a lot of opportunity to talk strategy. Most teams ended up with one person leading and her teammates weighing in every so often on what to add or leave out of the mix, which led to some challenges.
“It’s a very Russian thing to believe there’s only one way to make a dish,” Irina Berkon told me.
Each team only had one burner and one pan. The food processors helped with the time-consuming task of grating, but most teams didn’t avail themselves of the shredding attachment, so nearly all of the latkes had textural problems.
The latkes were judged in three categories: taste, creativity in using the mystery ingredients, and presentation.
As someone who, admittedly, has watched her share of “Chopped” — it’s a go-to on airplanes when there’s not enough time for another movie and I just can’t read anymore — I know cheftestants get docked when mystery ingredients are just placed on the plate without being transformed. More than one team committed that sin, with a small mound of pickles, for example, or a dollop of horseradish straight from the container.
The date syrup was favored as a topping. The Ukrainian team made a sauce with red and yellow bell peppers, for example, with date syrup and lemon juice. And most teams used their nutritional yeast by adding a little to the latke batter, hoping its taste wouldn’t come through so much.
Melanie Brodskiy, on one of the Russian-speaking teams, told a wonderful tale when she introduced their plate. Their latke entry began along the Black Sea, “moving through the Strait of Bosphorus to the Mediterranean, combining the flavors of the Black Sea coast cuisine and Ashkenazi Jewish cuisine.” It was the best story, but alas, the latkes had a common but fatal flaw: lack of salt.
The team of Israeli and American chefs who successfully incorporated every mystery ingredient, along with the unorthodox flavors of lime and ginger, was the runner-up; the latke was oversized (team captain Hagit Gayer said she was going more for a pancake look) with a ring of date syrup encircling a lime zest twist on top.
Coming in first place was the multicultural team with a “vegetable forward” latke. They made their own raw applesauce in the food processor (it had too much cinnamon, but points for effort), as well as a savory sauce with the horseradish that tasted more “interesting” than “delicious.” In presenting their dish, the chefs said they tried to incorporate flavors from all of their cultures into the latke and sauces.
Even though the winning latke had textural issues, falling apart from fork to mouth, it tasted the best of all four. Each person on the winning team took home a bottle of Invei kosher wine that Rabbi Berkowitz makes with winemaker Michael Kaye. Runners-up each got a copy of the book “Chicken Soup for the Soul.”
The competition was hardly the point, though. Julia Povlak told me she had been to the first “Chopped” latke competition seven years ago with a group of her friends, and all eight were back to take part in this one, too.
Complimenting the Berkowitzes for their community building, she said, “I come more for the kibitzing. That’s what community is all about.”
To that end, Berkowitz said she frequently thinks up activities to bring women together.
“Often I’m suggesting, ‘let’s try some art, let’s try different things,’ but I always hear, ‘I love when you do food, please do food again,’” she said.
She admitted that cooking isn’t one of her favorite pastimes (probably because she cooks so often as a Chabad rebbetzin), “but food is something that people get really excited about because it connects them to Jewish tradition. It really makes people feel like they’re part of a family.”
Anna Levin, who co-sponsored the evening, shared a few words about her late mother-in-law, Irina Hmelnitsky, who loved to cook and entertain. Levin’s husband, Leo, stopped by later and shared his own words about his mother. He said that when she lived in Soviet-era Russia, she was an expert in cooking potatoes because sometimes that was all the family had. He said she could easily whip up a three-course meal with potatoes cooked different ways in each course.
Small Bites
For the past four years, Bardessono Hotel & Spa, a luxury spa in Napa Valley’s Yountville, has been putting on a latke showdown, with area chefs going head to head and the proceeds going to charity. This year’s winner was Itamar Abramovitch, chef-owner of both Blossom Catering and Meat Carneval. His winning creation had three layers of latkes; he called it a “Mille Feuille of latke and creme fraîche” topped with salmon roe and truffle.
