I've said it time and again on these blogs and in "My Big Friggin' Book," I am not a chef.

Besides viewing hours of PBS and Food Network shows, watching youtube and reading as many books as possible, most of my direct cooking knowledge comes from growing up in a family of female cooks (my mother, my two grandmothers, my great-grandmother and my aunts.) The only one in the family that is culinary-trained is my godfather, my uncle.

The rest of the stuff I learned about food was from life experiences—selling products for my father's Italian import company and meeting lots of chefs and talking shop along all my stops. I've had quite a few other food service related jobs from maitre d' to waiter to bartender, and later as a short-order cook in a breakfast cafe. I then ventured into my own personal catering service and now, for the past few years of course I've been specializing in cooking and selling my meatballs for a living. Does any of the above make me qualified to be called a "chef"? Probably not. So one would think I would have been intimidated when I was asked to go up against a trained chef at Chef Central in their fifth annual "Ultimate Chef Bergen County Competition." No sweat, I thought.

My old friend Joe Cerniglia (may he rest in peace) who used to run the kitchen at Campania in Fairlawn and was featured on the show "Kitchen Nightmares" was in this competition before and he took home the trophy. Gordon Ramsay also proclaimed his meatballs the best in New Jersey. I came out and rooted for him and he later came out and rooted for me when I competed at Chef Central in 2010 against Philly author, Lorraine Ranalli in a meatball throwdown--which I won. Joe wasn't classically trained either but boy could he cook. He did his own modern takes on a lot of traditional dishes and drew inspiration from his family. He used fresh, local ingredients and took pride in what he did. Just like I do. I figured as long as I could find the ingredients I needed, I would be able to whip up a winning menu and put on a good show. After all, this is all in good fun and entertainment and I am the ultimate entertainer. Plus, I had my right hand woman by my side, my wife Megin.

The judging panel was composed of The Record food editor, Susan Leigh Sherrill, Rosie Saferstein of NJ Monthly and John Piliouras, chef of Nisi in Englewood. For this contest, each team had to cook three dishes (appetizer/entree/dessert) with the theme being--what else--Italy! We had the option of duplicating classic dishes from our assigned regions of Italy using domestic ingredients or creating our own recipes using true imported ingredients from those regions. Megin and I actually did a little bit of both. "Team Johnny Meatballs" (yours truly and Megin) put up a good fight against "Team Ooh La La Catering" (Chef NinaMarie Bojekian and her assistant Jessica Marotta--who, ironically was Joe's assistant when Campania took home the title). The regions showcased were Sicily, Emilia-Romagna and Abruzzo. 

 Megin and I searched high and low but found all of our ingredients from Whole Foods, who donated each team $200 to shop for supplies. (Our bill came out to $199.75!) Some of the select imported products we used were: Ittica d'or Sicilian sea salt, Sicilian extra virgin olive oil, Partanna jarred Sicilian olives, Campisi Sicilian bottled tomatoes, Balsamico di Modena, Riso Vignola, Mediterranean organic white fig preserves, Italian chestnut flour, Polenghi mascarpone, ricotta, Parmigiano-Reggiano, prosciutto di Parma, and two wines.

Both teams had very different plating techniques, which is something I expected. Ooh La La was very refined and formal in their presentations, but we were very old-school family style. I appreciated the judges referring to our dishes as rustic and homey. The winners will not be announced until November 10th at the Sheraton Crossroads in Mahwah at the UNICO Charity di Vino affair. We will all then find out who goes on to the next round in January. This will also be broadcast on the News 12 program "Neighborhood Journal" and online very soon, so stay tuned. In the meantime, below is the menu we created along with instructions on how you can execute these recipes at home!

APPETIZER
Reverse Arancine Soup
Sicilian Olive & Caramelized Fennel Crostini
Inspired by and using ingredients from the region of Sicily

 Soup
Boil chicken stock seasoned with Ittica d'or Sicilian sea salt and cook Riso Vignola until tender. Saute diced onions in Sicilian olive oil until soft, drizzle in some Marsala wine and add a pound of ground veal into the skillet. Create soup broth by cooking beef stock, Campisi Sicilian tomatoes, peas, spices of choice and a bay leaf. Add in ground veal and onion mixture (liquid and all). Once rice is cooked, add it to the broth and allow everything to simmer for at least a half hour. Ladle the soup into crocks, draping crocks with a slice of mozzarella, a little breadcrumbs and a drizzling of oil. Finish in broiler until bubbly.

Crostini
Slice fresh Italian bread into pieces, drizzle with oil and toast in the oven. Saute chopped chunks of fennel in a skillet until caramelized. Dice up Partanna Sicilian olives, mix with fennel and scoop a tablespoon of the mixture onto bread.

Instead of simply duplicating the traditional Sicilian riceball, we decided to make it into a soup (using ground veal instead of the usual chop meat) with crostini on the side. We utilized 5 imported ingredients from Sicily: the sea salt, Marsala wine, Campisi tomatoes, olive oil and Partanna olives.

ENTRÉE & SIDE DISHES
Pollo Parmigiano Besciamella
Mascarpone Mashed Potatoes
Prosciutto Broccoli Rabe
Inspired by and using ingredients from the region of Emilia-Romagna


Chicken
Lightly season and flour chicken breasts and thighs, quickly pan sear in a skillet with hot butter, remove from pan and set aside. Immediately add chopped onions to pan once chicken is out (along with a bit more butter and oil). Saute onions until soft. In a pot, make a roux by whisking together equal parts flour and butter. Make besciamella by slowly pouring in cream, then add salt, pepper, a little nutmeg, grated Parmigiano, some ricotta, the onions. Periodically stir and allow to simmer. Place chicken into a casserole pan, covering with some of the sauce and bake in the oven for about 20-25 more minutes at 350. When plating entree, drizzle extra sauce on top and garnish with fresh chopped basil.

Sides
For the mascarpone mashed potatoes, simply peel and boil potatoes, mash by hand, season with salt. Stir in mascarpone cheese and top with fresh cracked pepper. For the prosciutto broccoli rabe, boil chicken stock and first blanch the broccoli rabe. In a hot skillet, pan-fry diced pieces of prosciutto until crisp in olive oil. Remove from pan and set aside. Drizzle a bit more olive oil into the skillet, add cloves of garlic, followed by broccoli rabe and lightly saute. Add prosciutto back in with a little balsamic vinegar and mix all together.

Being that Emilia-Romagna is known for their usage of butters and creams--it was an easy choice to do a Parmigiano cheese bechamel sauce on our chicken. The side dish of mashed potatoes blended with the mascarpone nicely to create another creamy component and the fried Italian ham added a crispy contrast to the broccoli rabe in garlic for a well balanced plate. We utilized 5 imported ingredients: Parmigiano-Reggiano, ricotta, Polenghi mascarpone, balsamic vinegar and prosciutto di Parma

DESSERT
Pepatelli Biscotti
Inspired by the region of Abruzzo



Butter an 11 x 17 inch baking sheet and preheat oven to 325. Cut two cups of almonds into fine slivers. Pour one cup of honey into a pot and boil, then add the almonds, 1/2 teaspoon of white pepper, 1/4 teaspoon of salt, zest from an orange. Stir everything together with a wooden spoon. Slowly add a cup of flour into the pot (by the tablespoon until mixture gets firm and a solid dough forms). If the dough fails to firm up, add a bit more flour. By contrast, you also may find that you don't need the whole cup of flour. Cool the dough to room temp once made. Cut dough into 8 pieces, shaping each piece into a flat 2-inch wide log and place them on the cookie sheet two inches apart from each other. Bake for 25 minutes until set, but still pale. Cool for 5 minutes, slice into 1/4 inch thick slices with a serrated knife. Makes 30 cookies.

Italians love to end their meal with a biscotti or cookie, and this one with its peppery twist is uniquely sweet and savory. These cookies do not contain imported ingredients but this recipe is an almost exact take on this traditional treat from the city of Teramo. We teamed it up with a little bit of regional red vino.