I love bacon and pork chops, but I think this recipe may be a bit much.

The result was Pig-Wrapped Pig-Stuffed Pig, for which Webster won Mario Batali's Ultimate Grilling Challenge on Friday, announced on Rachael Ray's daytime talk show. A newcomer to cooking competitions (he has competed in the annual Build A Better Burger Contest with no success), Webster was strategic about his recipe.

"When I started planning my entry months ago," explains Webster, "I was really thinking about Batali's sensibilities. I knew he was a huge fan of pork."

Thus, his dish features homemade pork sausage flavored gently with orange zest and toasted fennel, stuffed in a pork tenderloin, then wrapped carefully with pancetta and grilled. It's a bold marriage of flavors, contrasting salty and sweet — but still, as Webster asserts, a simple dish.

"Everybody thinks that to be good, a recipe has to be complicated. The thing I keep hearing and reading is to keep it simple. I think that holds true. There are seven ingredients in my recipe . . . and three of them are pork. Some of the recipes entered had 50 ingredients, with four hours of prep time and diagrams. The longest single step of mine was grilling, which really meant opening the grill and turning the meat over."

Though there are few ingredients, the techniques, including making sausage, require some skills. The recipe is hardly for beginners.

Along with the recipe, Webster had to submit a video of himself preparing the dish. Webster's skill in the kitchen shines through. As with many 21st century home cooks, he credits the Food Network for his competence in the kitchen.

Posted by: eddiebear at 01:42 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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