Ariane Duarte travelled to Seattle this week for a “Top Chef” competition and she came away a winner. The Verona chef, who competed in season five of “Top Chef”, was pitted against Ashley Fulk from season six for a series of live cook-offs involving one of the Pacific Northwest’s signature ingredients, salmon.
Duarte made an Earl Grey tea-brined Copper River salmon, and served it with caper aioli, crispy chickpeas, mango, and a shaved asparagus salad. If that sounds much better than the leftovers you pulled from the fridge today, you’ll be pleased to know that the live audience of “Top Chef” fans and local judges thought so too. Duarte won, 3-1.
We didn’t get the recipe for the salmon, but we can bring some ideas for lamb, courtesy of a video that Duarte recently did with Ariane Daguin, the owner of the gourmet meats and prepared food maker D’Artagnan.
In this video, Duarte demonstrates how to make the rack of lamb she serves in her Montclair restaurant, CulinAriane. Daguin makes the classic French lamb sausage, merguez.
