Ilan and Dale

Top Chef season 2 winner Ilan Hall and season 3 contender Dale Talde stopped by Manila recently for cooking demos. We sat them down for a food chat.

Top Chef can be intense and stressful but you probably took a lot from the experience. Care to share?
Dale: I watched Blaise cook his brisket. He seasoned it, wrapped it in plastic wrap, wrapped it in foil a million times, and then put it in the oven, at like 210ºC for 18 hours for wedding wars. It’s like sous vide cooking but whole pieces of brisket. It was awesome.
Ilan: I learned how to pit olives with a funnel from Marcel. It’s a really good technique. Pitting olives is annoying especially if you want to keep them semi-whole. Just take the back of the funnel, hold the olive, then stick it through—it just knocks the pit right out. It’s a simple, silly little thing that you never think of.

Have you eaten anything worth raving about during your stay here?
Dale: The Corned Beef Sinigang (from Sentro 1771). I’d never put that together. It was delicious!
Ilan: I think the service everywhere here is great.
Dale: They make the soup and they present it to you and they ask you how sour you’d like it. That never happens in New York. Little actions like that make a difference.
Ilan: The sisig was good!
Dale: I had Chicken Joy last night and I think it was great.

What’s the one ingredient you have a hard time working with?
Ilan: Chicken breast! I don’t like chicken breast and I don’t like filet mignon.
Dale: For the life of me, I’ve never been able to cook a proper temperature for filet mignon. It always seems tender. I’ll cook a rib eye, New York strip, hanger steaks, but filet always feels like it’s raw to me so I always undercook it.

Any tips on how to upgrade everyday dishes at home?
Ilan: My advice: Use enough salt. I think people are scared of seasoning. I think people really don’t go the extra step. You can always adjust and add more. In the US, people don’t season their food.
Dale: I’d say put effort into food. Sometimes when you’re tired after work, you just want to make something just to make it. If that’s the case, you should just order out. If you’re you’re not going to make it well, then just don’t make it at all. So make the effort.