The duel between the two culinary northern lights on Kitchen Impossible presented Tim Mälzer and Johannes King with spectacular tasks between San Francisco and Montenegro. We managed to elicit Johannes King’s recipes for his dishes from the TV show.
At Sotto Mare in San Francisco, Johannes King presented the so-called cioppino with a difficult task. The seafood soup is a signature dish at North Beach-based restaurant Sotto Mare.
Johannes King’s recipe from Kitchen Impossible: Cioppino from Sotto Mare.
The ingredients for cioppino
- 1/4 cup olive oil
- 1 tablespoon crushed red chili flakes
- 8 cloves garlic, finely chopped
- 3 cups fish stock
- 1 1/2 cups peeled crushed tomatoes in juice
- 10 leaves basil
- 500 g cod, cut into 2 pieces
- 500 g cleaned calamari, cut into rings about 1 cm wide.
- 360 g medium shrimps
- 360 g scallops
- 16 clams
- 16 mussels
- 1 kg halved snow crab legs
- Salt
- Black pepper
First, heat the oil in a large stockpot over medium heat. Then add the chili flakes as well as the garlic. Let the oil, together with the chili flakes and garlic, cook for 3 minutes. Now you need to add the fish stock, tomatoes and basil to the pot.
Now reduce the heat and allow the ingredients to reduce slightly over 10 minutes. Now add the cod, squid, shrimp, all the mussels and snow crab to the pot. Cover the pot with the lid and let it boil for 8 minutes. Finally, you can season your cioppino with salt and pepper to taste.
Johannes King’s recipe at Kitchen Impossible: Kacamak with Sac from Montenegro
In Montenegro at Lake Scutari, Johannes King cooked two dishes at Kitchen Impossible. One was the kacamak and the other was the lamb, which in Montenegro was accompanied by potatoes and seasonal salad. But both also taste good together. Get involved and try at home the sensational hearty dishes that Johannes King cooked in the duel against Tim Mälzer.
Ingredients for the kacamak
- 1 kg potatoes
- 500 g white flour
- Butter cheese
- Sour Cream (Kaymak)
- Oil
- Salt
Ingredients for the sac
- 2 kg lamb meat
- 2 cloves garlic
- 1 tablespoon salt
- 1/2 tablespoon red pepper
- fresh rosemary
- Oil
- 1 carrot
- 1/2 liter water
Preparation of the kacamak
First of all, bring water to a boil in a pot, which you add a pinch of salt in advance. Then add the potatoes. After about 15 minutes, so when the potatoes are half cooked, add the flour. Here you already get to a somewhat difficult part of the recipe, which also made Johannes King sweat on Kitchen Impossible:
The flour must “float” on the water – not as a dense mass, so that water can still be seen and hot steam can get through. In any case, do not mix the flour with the water, because it is cooked on the surface of the water. When the potatoes are considered cooked through, you can drain the water from the pot. However, keep some of the water so that you have some left over if the kacamak is too dry and you can’t mix the potatoes and flour well.
The mixing of the potatoes and flour is now done. Make sure that there are no lumps in the quantity.
In a separate pan now heat some more oil. To this you now add the cheese and the kajmak or sour cream. Caution: Add the sour cream last, as it will “melt” or burn very quickly. Now mix the resulting mixture with your potato flour mix.
Preparation from the Sac
First, cut the lamb into pieces, they can be of different sizes. In Montenegro, the meat is placed in a large metal container called a sac. Alternatively, you are welcome to put the meat in a roaster at home. Wet the meat with a little oil, water and/ or beer – the herbs and spices also find their place on the meat now.
In Montenegro, Johannes King heaped hot coals on the sealed Sac as part of Kitchen Impossible. Since you certainly do not have such a possibility at home, it makes sense to simply put the roaster in the oven and the dish for 2 hours and 180 degrees Celsius in the oven.
