White House Executive Chef Cristeta Comerford, 48, and her teammate Chef Bobby Flay defeated Chefs Emeril Lagasse and Mario Batali in the Super Chef Battle on Iron Chef America, reports nowpublic.com.

In the January 3 episode of America's most popular cooking show, the "secret ingredient" was the newly-planted White House Garden, presented by First Lady Michelle Obama, reports CBS News. The catch? The competing chefs had to dig out the fresh vegetables themselves.

For their winning menu, Comerford and Flay created   "a fennel and apple salad with oyster, another salad with lobster and squid, a Filipino-inspired broccoli clam chowder, a barbequed veggie dish, and a meringue sweet potato tart. Flay said, 'I told her don't be afraid to use her Filipino background, which have a lot of flavors there,'" according to ABS-CBN News.

The show's   high profile panel of judges was composed of celebrity chef Nigella Lawson, actress Jane Seymour, and Natalie Coughlin, a former Olympian swimmer.

Chef Comerford is the White House's first Asian-American and first female Executive Chef, a position which she has held since 2005. She is a Food Technology graduate of UP and grew up in Sampaloc, Manila.

Here's the preview of the show:

And here's where their winning dishes are rated by the judges:

Read more about Chef Comerford in our Spot.ph stories Hail to the Chef and   25 Non-Dubious Achievements.

Screen capture photo above from You Tube.