Make the 2018 Gilroy Garlic Fest's Winning Recipe

Will Simbol of New York created the prize-garnering Garlic Shrimp Lumpia.

THERE ARE THREE TYPES OF COOKS... in this world, where prize-winning festival recipes are concerned. There are those cooks who'd love to make the judge-pleasing meal at home, just to make it and enjoy it, and consider all of the creativity that the winner put into concocting the dish. There are those cooks who'd like to win the festival's big prize one day, and so making the first-place food helps them to further ponder what makes a chow-worthy champion at the fest. And then?

THERE ARE THE COOKS... who'd dearly love to do both: Enjoy the amazing meal at home, for its own savory sake, and to learn from it, and maybe enter a future cook-off contest feeling so inspired and creative. Are you firmly in the third category? And are there even more cook-cool categories beyond those? Surely, for cooking is a multi-prismatic pursuit. But to learn about the 2018 champion recipe at the world-famous Gilroy Garlic Festival, and winner...

WILL SIMBOL'S DELISH SHRIMP DISH, best pay a visit to the festival site, for the recipe is live and ready for garlic-obsessed home cooks to try. Mr. Simbol's original recipe, Savory Crunchy Freshy Tangy Shrimpy Herby Garlic Shrimp Lumpia, wowed the cook-off judges at the 40th annual festival in late July, and garnered the New Yorker a garlic crown (oh yeah, and $5,000). How many people competed? Eight amateur chefs in all, and you can bet the bites had bite to spare. What are the highlights of this scrumptious seafood fantasy? Garlic sauce is one zingy centerpoint, created with half a bulb of dehusked clove-tastic goodness, and ginger and chili and Thai basil chiffonade, to add more heat and sweet and flavor and depth.

TO GET INSPIRED, to build your appetite, and to maybe find what you needed to make for dinner tonight, read about Mr. Simbol's celebrated shrimp-tacular dish here, and find out what you need from the pantry or store to create this festival-topping favorite.

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