I always like to watch the cooking demos at the Vancouver Home + Design Show and this year one of the big shows was a cook off competition between three teams of local amateur cooking enthusiasts and their local chef mentors.


Chef Jason Parsons of Peller Estates Winery Restaurant was host and judge of the competition which involved each team to make a secret recipe chosen by Samsung's wifi-enabled fridge. The two ingredients that the Samsung Fridge chose was steak and corn and each team were also allowed their own secret ingredient (chosen prior to knowing what the ingredients were) to make the dish with their own twist to it. Each team had 30 minutes to finish their creation.


First team up was Julie and Chef Sean Murray of YEW Restaurant + Bar. Their secret ingredient was cranberries!

Their version of recipe was steak with cranberry chutney and basil cilantro sauce, on a bed of potatoes! 

Their steak was delicious and tender, and the cranberry chutney gave a little heat to the yummy dish.

The second team up was Ryan and Chef Trevor Bird from Fable Restaurant. Ryan chose duck fat for his team's secret ingredient.

Using the duck fat, they made crispy crispy potatoes! The secret to the crispiness is to fry them multiple times.

Chef Bird slow cooked steak his steak and made a corn custard, added tomato jam, crispy potatoes, garnished the dish with jalapeños.

I thought the steak was a little tougher than the first competitors but their overall dish tasted better! I love the tomato jam!  

The last team up was Hannah and Chef David Robertson from the Dirty Apron Cooking School. Their secret ingredient was balsamic vinegar.

Chef Robertson was in teaching mode, explaining every he was doing to the audience!

They cooked the steak in a HALF POUND OF BUTTER! Holy smokes! He said a lot of dishes in restaurants have a lot of butter in them. That's what makes it so good!

I also liked their steak but it was oilier than the others for obvious reasons. lol




Below is the base recipe that the teams were making. Of course, they didn't follow the recipe exactly and you don't need to either. Recipes are just guidelines, it is up to you to put your own spin to it! Happy cooking!