Executing a great dish utilizing a mystery ingredient can be a nightmare for even the most seasoned of chefs. To Chef Charlie Loomis, it's just another day of cooking.
People gather to watch local chefs battle it out, including Charlie Loomis, left, during the FiveStar Food Fight at the Chattanooga Market at First Tennessee Pavilion.
Charlie Loomis, executive chef and partner, displays several culinary delights at the Feed Co. Tavern and Table.
Chef Charlie Loomis of Feed Co. Table and Tavern recently won on an episode of the Food Network's "Cooks vs. Cons."Loomis, the executive chef of the Feed Co. Tavern and Table, displayed that culinary expertise on Food Network's "Cooks vs. Cons" a few weeks ago. The competition pits two professional chefs against two amateur home cooks. The catch? No one knows who's who, not the contestants, the judges or even host Geoffrey Zakarian. The reveal doesn't come until end.
Loomis hung on until the end, was declared the winner and took home the $10,000 prize for genuine chefs (home cooks who win get $15,000). During the competition, he kept his cool and did what he does best.
"They [Food Network] had approached me quite awhile ago about a couple different options for shows, and some of them were just not really my cup of tea," says Loomis. "There was one that I thought I'd be interested in and I didn't wind up getting that one, but they called me back the next day and said, 'We've got this show; it's a new show."'
The first round of his "Cooks vs. Cons" was titled "Meatball Mayhem," and, as expected from its name, the episode involved creating an entrée featuring meatballs. The secret ingredients were a variety of mushrooms, including shiitake, white button and portobello.
"To be honest, [I did] the same thing I do everyday," says Loomis, who opened Feed Co. with friends Dustin Choate and Miguel Morales almost 10 months ago. "The nerve-wracking and scary parts are the parts leading up to the competition and then the actual judging. All I have to do is cook food, so that's fun to me and there was no real pressure."
For his entrée, Loomis created a new take on the Hot Brown, an open-faced sandwich layered with turkey, bacon and Mornay sauce, a white sauce traditionally made with Gruyère cheese and an egg yolk. Loomis rolled turkey and bacon into a meatball and fried them, then, after taking them out of the fryer, laid them on a shiitake, white button and portobello-infused slice of Texas toast.
"The meatball is perfect. The sauce, it's heavy; it's rich; it's thick, right?" Graham Elliot, one of the episode's judges, told Loomis. "But that meatball on its own and the mushrooms, I think speak for themselves."
In the second round, chocolate was thrown into the mix, but the contestants could create anything imaginable.
"[I was] a little taken back because I had to incorporate chocolate into a dish," says Loomis.
He played off Nashville hot chicken with a coating of Mexican dark chocolate and chiles on chicken, aka Hot Chocolate Chicken.
"The fried chicken itself, fried perfectly," Kardea Brown, the second judge, said on the show. "And I'm getting lots of the chocolate flavor and the cocoa flavor in the sauce."
At the end of the second round, Loomis' Hot Chocolate Chicken came out on top, giving him the overall win.
"I really wanted to represent our restaurant well," says Loomis. "I didn't want to overreach myself and try to [make] something that I wasn't necessarily comfortable doing or didn't do every single day."
He says he's planning to hold a tasting event at Feed Co. where guests can taste a refined version of the two recipes. If well-received, they will be added to the restaurant's main or late-night menu, he says.
Contact Hayden Seay at hseay@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6396.