Hannaford cooks up ‘Home Chef Challenge with Mario Batali’

Courtesy / Mario Batali Mario Batali stars in “The Chew,” a daytime talk show on ABC that celebrates and explores life through food. The Chew airs weekdays at 1 p.m. EST on ABC.

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By Staff

Hannaford Supermarkets is joining with ABC’s celebrity chef Mario Batali in a unique recipe contest designed to celebrate home chefs and their cooking inspirations.

The Mario Batali Home Chef Challenge invites cooks to submit a favorite original recipe, along with an inspirational story explaining the significance of the recipe and how its qualities and simplicity can excite others about cooking at home.

One grand-prize winner will receive an all-expenses paid trip for two to New York City to meet Batali on the set of ABC’s “The Chew” and enjoy dinner at one of his acclaimed restaurants. The first-prize winner will receive a $1,000 Hannaford gift card. The second prize winner will receive a $500 gift card.

“Hannaford is ecstatic to partner with Chef Mario Batali, a culinary visionary who shares our passion for food, home cooking and hunger relief," Hannaford President Mike Vail said in a news release. "We're looking forward to seeing how home chefs use locally sourced, fresh ingredients that are so incredibly popular in our stores. We know many things inspire home chefs — family tradition and heritage, living strong, healthy and well, and travel. We look forward to hearing exciting stories and eating fantastic food."

Contest rules

To enter the contest, participants must purchase a Mario Batali pasta or sauce and one additional qualifying item available at their local Hannaford store. At checkout, customers will receive an entry code for submitting their recipe at Hannaford.com/HomeChefChallenge. The participating products available at Hannaford include Mario Batali pasta and sauces, select produce and meats, fresh herbs and cheeses, and seasonings. A handful of other home entertaining meal accompaniments, such as chocolate and sparkling water, are also available as participating products. Participating products do not need to be used in the cook's submitted recipe.

For a full list of products, visit Hannaford.com/HomeChefChallenge. Participants must submit the full recipe, entry code, and a brief story explaining what inspires them to be a home chef.

An accompanying photo or video is optional. The submission deadline is Oct. 31, 2017, at 12:59 p.m.

Portland to host one tasting event

Nine semi-finalists will be selected to compete in one of three tasting events in Portland; Burlington, Vt.; and Albany, NY.

The semi-finalists will prepare and present their recipe to a panel of local judges, who will determine one finalist from each location. Batali will select the grand prize winner from the three finalists.

The Mario Batali Home Chef Challenge is open to legal residents of Maine, New Hampshire, New York, Vermont and Massachusetts ages 18 years or older. Limit one entry per customer.

The entry must be no longer than 1,500 characters for the recipe and 500 characters for the story. It must be created by the entrant and meet these requirements:

Not copied from another source
Not previously published
Has not previously won a prize or award.

Based in Scarborough, Hannaford Supermarkets operates 181 stores in Maine, New York, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont and has more than 27,000 employees.

Who is Mario Batali?

Mario Batali counts 26 restaurants, 11 cookbooks, numerous television shows and five Eataly marketplaces among his culinary enterprises.

In February 2016, he opened La Sirena Ristorante, located in New York City’s Maritime Hotel in Chelsea. In the barroom is the Tapas Bar where guests enjoy a food menu of small plates that pair well with cocktails and wine. In the more formal main dining room, La Sirena offers a Michelin-starred menu representative of the entire Italian Peninsula.

Batali also opened Eataly NYC Downtown in August 2016 and Eataly Boston in November 2016.

His 11 cookbooks include the James Beard-award-winning “Molto Italiano: 327 Simple Italian Recipes” (2005) and “Big American Cookbook” (2016), which features 250 simple and delicious recipes from San Diego fish tacos to Boston Cream Pie.

Batali appears daily on ABC’s “The Chew,” a daytime talk show on ABC that celebrates and explores life through food. He and his co-hosts won their first Emmy as "best talk show hosts" this year.