The editors at Food & Wine magazine had a challenge for the newest winner of Bravo’s Top Chef, Hung Huynh.  He was to make a gourmet meal…on a budget.  I thought that first this would probably be a difficult challenge, since most top chef’s spend the majority of their day working with high dollar ingredients, but then I remembered that probably most of these guys spent a great deal of their career to date in small apartments with little money in their pockets.

Kate Krader of Food & Wine spent a little time not only challenging this Top Chef, but also getting to know the contestant that so many viewers seemed to hate.  I always liked Hung.  It might because I was blown away by his obvious talents, especially with a knife, but I could tell he really was genuine.  He wasn’t there to eat, drink and be merry, he was there to work and win:

Hung claims he wasn’t surprised by his victory either. The 30-year-old Vietnamese-born chef, who is much sweeter in real life than his win-at-all-costs Top Chef persona suggests, entered the show with a few strategies that he considered foolproof. One approach—apparent from the first episode, when he proclaimed himself a CPA, short for Certified Professional Jerk—was to separate himself from the crowd. Which meant not always drinking beer with the more easygoing contestants back at their Miami hotel. “Top Chef wasn’t the place to do that,” says Hung. “Why would I sit there and pretend I like you when you’re talking about me, on camera and off? I wasn’t trying to win ‘fan favorite.’ I wanted to win the whole thing.”

But Hung had another, more efficient weapon in his arsenal: outstanding kitchen skills. “I figured I wouldn’t get kicked off with classic food combinations and great techniques,” he says. Avid watchers of the show will recall that this approach occasionally backfired—a too-retro salmon mousse on a cucumber slice landed Hung at the bottom of a challenge on a yacht—but he won or placed near the top throughout most of the series. (Hung tends to discount the episodes that didn’t go his way, like the one in which each chef had to mix original ingredients into vanilla ice cream. He chose cauliflower and tempura flakes. “Oh come on, that’s a ridiculous challenge,” Hung says. “A monkey could add fruit and nuts to ice cream and make it taste good. I was trying to do something different. No one appreciated it.”) Eventually, Hung’s ability to wield a cleaver got him the title. “Definitely, he has great knife skills,” says Colicchio. “The best of any Top Chef contestant I’ve seen.”

Hung recently had the honor of having his winning menu be offered at the Bubble Bar of Guy Savoy’s Restaurant.  Hung had been a sous chef for the Savoy and the award winning chef made an exception to allow Hung to share his culinary vision.

For Food & Wine’s challenge, Hung took a trip to Chinatown in NYC and took a page from his mother’s food repertoire.  His Lemongrass-Marinated Pompano with Dipping Sauce is not only affordable, but simple.  If you don’t have a clay pot, a skillet would probably be fine, or maybe take a tip from Chef Eric Ripert and cook it on slate.  It will probably give it that same earthy essence.

Lemongrass-Marinated Pompano with Dipping Sauce

• HEALTHY
• STAFF FAVORITE

ACTIVE TIME: 30 MIN
TOTAL TIME: 1 HR 30 MIN
SERVES: 4

When Hung Huynh cooks small pompano, he trims the head, tail and fins to square the fish, then cuts it into quarters: “I love to think I invented that presentation,” he says. But the recipe is just as good with pompano fillets: The crispy-skinned fish stays moist and is delicious with the hot-sweet-tangy dipping sauce.

ingredients

DIPPING SAUCE

• Juice of 2 limes
• 2 tablespoons Asian fish sauce
• 2 Thai chiles, minced
• 2 tablespoons sugar

MARINATED FISH

• 2 garlic cloves, chopped
• 2 scallions—whites chopped, greens sliced, for garnish
• 1 large stalk of lemongrass, bottom two-thirds chopped
• 1 tablespoon chopped cilantro stems, plus sprigs, for garnish
• 2 teaspoons sugar
• 1 tablespoon fresh lime juice
• 1 tablespoon kosher salt
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
• Four 6-ounce pompano fillets with skin
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• Lime wedges, for serving

directions

1. make the dipping sauce: In a bowl, stir the lime juice with the fish sauce, chiles and sugar until the sugar is dissolved.
2. marinate the fish: In a mini processor, puree the garlic, scallion whites, lemongrass, cilantro stems, sugar, lime juice, salt and pepper to a paste. Rub the paste all over the pompano. Put the fish on a plate, cover and refrigerate for 1 hour.
3. Scrape the marinade from the fish. In a large, nonstick skillet, heat the oil. Add the fish, skin side down, and cook over moderately high heat until the skin is crisp, about 3 minutes. Turn the fillets, lower the heat to moderate and cook until just opaque throughout, about 2 minutes longer; transfer to plates, skin side up, and garnish with scallion greens and cilantro sprigs. Serve with lime wedges and the dipping sauce.

WINE Riesling, especially a light-bodied, citrusy Australian one, won’t overwhelm this delicate fish. Look for the minerally 2006 Leasingham Magnus or the tangy 2006 Wolf Blass Yellow Label.