PopTech! 2006 speaker Homaro Cantu has been called many things over the years: “techno-chef”, “mad scientist”, “a modern-day Willy Wonka” - to name just a few. But now he can add another epithet to his resume: Champion.

Last night in the culinary equivalent of the gridiron known as the “Kitchen Stadium”, Cantu narrowly edged out famed Japanese Iron Chef Masuharu Morimoto to capture a 52—51 point victory on the Iron Chef America. (If you've never seen the Iron Chef before, it's a “cooking battle” show in which two chefs — an incumbent Iron Chef and a Challenger — must each cook a meal in less than an hour including in each course a specific ingredient.)

To secure a win against veteran Iron Chef Morimoto, Cantu and his team (including sous chef Ben Roche) pulled out the big guns: liquid nitrogen, an ink jet printer, and of course, a class IV laser. After filling several balloons with beet juice (the “ingredient of the day” for the competition) he rolled them in a bath of liquid nitrogen to create beautiful frozen orbs. Next he fired up the laser to a scorching 2800 degrees to caramelize some cellulose-based packing peanuts (yes, the kind that are used in shipping boxes). And while Iron Chef Morimoto delicately sliced beets to make sushi rolls, Cantu simply printed out pictures of maki onto edible paper using an HP printer and soy-based ink.

If you missed last night's competition, you can catch the recap of the sushi smackdown when the show re-airs on the Food Network at the following times:

January 25, 2007 9:00 PM ET/PT
January 26, 2007 12:00 AM ET/PT
January 27, 2007 7:00 PM ET/PT
January 27, 2007 11:00 PM ET/PT
January 28, 2007 2:00 AM ET/PT