Alabama Gulf Seafood held the sixth annual Alabama Seafood Cook-Off June 21 at The Lodge at Gulf State Park in Gulf Shores. Local chef Michael Andrzejewski was among the four chefs selected to compete in this year’s event.
Andrzejewski, a native of Buffalo, N.Y. is currently chef de cuisine at Fisher’s at Orange Beach Marina. His long cooking career began in the 1970s. He opened his first restaurant, Tsunami with wife Sherri in 2001. Since closing Tsunami in 2006, Andrzejewski has opened several restaurants ranging from an upscale sushi bar to a Mexican restaurant.
His extensive background cooking diverse cuisines was an asset for the Alabama Seafood Cook-Off. To enter the competition, each chef had to create an original recipe that integrated Alabama Gulf seafood as the featured ingredient. Andrzejewski created a recipe featuring tripletail or blackfish as some refer to it.
“I wanted to look for something a little bit off the beaten path. Tripletail is a great fish and I think it is underutilized. I wanted to showcase a couple of different ways to do it by taking stuff that would not be served at a fine dining restaurant like Fisher’s with the scraps and smoking them. We can honor and utilize the whole product and the fishermen that catch it.”
When it comes to competing, Andrzejewski has some experience. In 2018, he competed on the Food Network show “Beat Bobby Flay” and won. But experience does not get you far unless you practice and prepare. Andrzejewski and his sous chef for the competition, Bree Delong, a pastry chef at Fisher’s, prepared for weeks.
“She is one of my right-hand people at the restaurant. She has been right alongside practicing with me and developing the final product. We wanted to make sure we could get the six plates done and garnished and looking great in the one-hour time. We started off just by making the recipe and refining the flavors and then looking at the techniques we are going to use to get it in the hour time slot,” Andrzejewski said.
The four teams competing at the Seafood Cook-Off cooked on the outdoor patio at The Lodge overlooking the Gulf of Mexico and the Gulf State Pier. The views did not distract the home team from cooking, smoking and plating the tripletail with corn and smoked tripletail fritter with bacon and onion jam with an herb puree.
Before the competition, Andrzejewski had said, “I am pretty confident about time, but the competition is pretty stiff.” He was right. The competition was stiff. Ultimately Andrzejewski and Delong did not win the trophy, but the home crowd showed them lots of support throughout the night.
In the end, the winning team of the night was chef Scott Simpson and sous chef Morgan McWaters from The Depot in Auburn. The winning dish of pan-seared Gulf yellow edge grouper, stuffed poblano chili on Gulf Shrimp, sweet corn, and Conecuh bacon risotto with cilantro crema won over the judges.
