Editor’s note: Hilo’s Felix Fang is a contestant on the Fox TV show “MasterChef,” which airs Mondays and Tuesdays at 8 p.m. on Oceanic Time Warner Cable channels 3 and 83. Her weekly blog about her experiences on the program will run each Friday in the Tribune-Herald until she either wins or gets voted off by the judges. Unless otherwise noted, the first names of those mentioned in this blog are other contestants on the show.
Editor’s note: Hilo’s Felix Fang is a contestant on the Fox TV show “MasterChef,” which airs Mondays and Tuesdays at 8 p.m. on Oceanic Time Warner Cable channels 3 and 83. Her weekly blog about her experiences on the program will run each Friday in the Tribune-Herald until she either wins or gets voted off by the judges. Unless otherwise noted, the first names of those mentioned in this blog are other contestants on the show.
Live sea urchin, uni, or wana as we call it at home, is not a creature that home cooks regularly work with. A lot of people have never tasted this delightful being. Some do not care to try it. But really, what insane genius thought to crack open the venomous sphere of needles to ingest the gonads? Perhaps they were following the example of the wise sea otters. Uni is on the top of my list of favorites to order when I eat sushi. Fresh uni is an out-of-this-world experience with its velvety texture, creamy bite, sweet ocean aroma and delicately savory finish. I see them carefully laid out on small wooden trays at restaurants and stores to be skillfully arranged on nigiri or eaten in the privacy of your own home with a spoon. Never as a live ingredient.
My only experience with sea urchin is eating it as sushi. But what kind of challenge would it be to cook sushi rice and just put the orange tongues on top? I needed to think outside the box. I decided to do a risotto using ginger, sake, fish stock, fresh peas, with yuzu and a uni butter folded in to finish and red shiso chiffonade on top. I was feeling pretty good about my creation and my only regret was that I did not save a uni filet to serve the risotto with. But all that goodness went into my sauce. Josh’s pasta dish looked amazing and he left a piece to plate on top so I was not so sure about winning out of top three. Editing made me look like such a jerk saying that I did not think Stacey was going to win. It was taken out of context. She was actually devastated before they announced top three, really worried about her dish and feeling like she messed up.
When Chef Gordon Ramsay said my name, I felt like I was back in the competition with a force. I was finally good enough to be in the top three and be the first person to win two mystery box challenges. What will my advantage be? Time for some inland fishing.
There were nine types of fish and I got to choose who would cook with each one. Becky was my biggest competition. I gave her the rock fish because it looked very tricky to work with. Frankie is also an amazing cook, but he has probably never cooked a catfish. I told the judges that Monti is competition because they love her and it seems that she can do no wrong. She got the John Dory and despite the long spines on top, is not actually a difficult fish to filet. Josh cooks like a champ, but I would have traded his sardines with Frank’s catfish any day. There seems to be a lot of focus on Monti being the victim of who we think may be going home.
We kept getting asked, “So do you think she’s a fluke?” What does that question even mean? We all have our stories.
Monti was, at the time, an unemployed single mom with a colorful history as a respected stand-up comedian (worked with big names) and she was (is currently) a radio personality with her own show. She is very real, funny, smart, and a super cool lady. Her constant studying of cookbooks and recipes gave me the impression that she was memorizing them to use in challenges. Saying that she is not creative is not nice nor is true. I have apologized to her and started to study more myself. Monti said that her passion for cooking is relatively new in comparison to some of the other contestants so she realized the importance of studying to stay on top. Nothing wrong with that as we were all there to win and she is a serious mom with Danger to lite her fire.
Choosing the California halibut for myself was not the most strategic move. I wanted to challenge myself with a stupid flat fish! Now I am just being spiteful! If I could have done it all over again I would have hooked the yellowtail for myself as hamachi is my favorite and done it three ways: poke, nigiri and blackened sashimi with a wasabi cream sauce. Frankie and Monti rose to the challenge and butchered any fishy doubts of their abilities. Also, I found out after the challenge that Christine loves salmon raw but hates it cooked, so she was not happy with my choice. Shoots!