Ted Lee and Matt Lee Photo: The Lee Bros.

So you think you're out playing hooky from work on the promise of a lovely Southern lunch stewed up by your favorite cookbook authors and then all of a sudden, in strides Bobby Flay.

Yup -- "Throwdown."

Matt Lee and Ted Lee and the rest of the assembled had been lured to a barge on the Hudson River -- Matt's preferred canoeing channel -- on the premise that the brothers would be filming a segment for a Food Network special called "Lowcountry Lowdown." They'd filmed the first half in Charleston, S.C., and reportedly, the duel would have gone down on their home turf, had Chef Flay not fallen prey to the vagaries of air travel.

Read more about throwing down with the Country Captain after the jump.

So as it happened, on Tuesday afternoon, the Lee Brothers found themselves cooking Country Captain -- an iconic Lowcountry chicken curry dish, rare in that it contains no seafood at all -- for friends, family and semi-inexplicably, dozens of uniformed sailors on a swaying, docked barge in New York City. The duo out-shouted an armada of helicopters, which were alighting every few minutes just up the river, as they bantered, stirred, proselytized about pork products and tantalized the crowd with the rising scent of rendered fat, sweet currants and garam masala.

And then from out of the crowd came Flay. He was fresh from the Food & Wine Festival in Aspen and a grilling lesson with President Obama, flanked by his usual sous chefs and seemingly prepped for battle. The brothers, while clearly caught off guard, commenced immediately with the amiable smack talk as both teams razzed back and forth about ingredient choices -- the Lees up-clouting with Cava over Flay's white wine and the Iron Chef harrumphing the aforementioned garam masala.

"Is that really Southern?" he snorted.

"Yes," deadpanned a brother. "Yes it is."

Ted Lee, passing bowls of the brothers' signature boiled peanuts through the crowd as Chef Flay's team assembled his cooking station, appeared charmingly dazed as he explained how someone who'd watched the Food Network for more than five minutes could not be slightly suspicious that a "Throwdown" might be in the offing. "The Food Network psychs you out in so many ways that when I saw his face today, I was actually surprised," he said.

Asked for his thoughts on the competition, Chef Flay noted, "This is a special 'Throwdown' to me because Matt and Ted Lee have been friends of mine for a long time, I've done stories with them before. They're just wonderful ambassadors of American food, especially Southern cuisine. And to do a 'Throwdown' against somebody -- especially somebody who does Country Captain, to me, they're the perfect competitors. This has been a really fun and special one for me."

As to the identity of the eventual winner, all were sworn to secrecy, but it it without doubt that the true victors were those who were handed heaping plates of the beguiling Country Captain. The sultry meld of heat, sweet, smoke and a touch of game, courtesy of a healthy base of country ham, along with the bracing textural contrast of luxurious tomato gravy, fluffy rice, tender meat and a closing flourish of slivered almonds proffer a heartfelt salute to the Palmetto State.

Want to try it for yourself at home? The Lee Bros.' Country Captain recipe can be found in their James Beard Award-winning book, "The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook" and a mighty fine recipe was published in the New York Times' Dining Section back in January. The Lee Bros.' second book, "Simple Fresh Southern" arrives in bookstores in November 2009.

Chicken Country Captain
Modernized from Mrs. E.H. DeSaussure's recipe in Charleston Receipts, 1950

1 bunch parsley, chopped
4 green peppers, chopped
2 large onions, chopped
1/4 pound slab bacon, diced
2 tablespoons butter
1 large can crushed tomatoes
1 teaspoon mace
2 teaspoons curry powder
Salt and pepper
1 clove garlic, chopped
2 whole chickens. cut into pieces
Paprika
Flour
1/2 cup currants
Cooked rice
1/2 pound slivered almonds

Render the bacon in a large skillet and add the butter. Fry the parsley, peppers and onions slowly for 15 minutes.

Transfer the bacon, parsley, peppers and onions to a Dutch oven or stock pot, leaving the bacon fat and butter in the skillet, then add the tomatoes (undrained), curry powder, mace, salt and pepper to taste into the stockpot. Simmer this for 15 minutes, then add garlic.

In the meantime, dredge the chicken, skin on and bone-in, in flour, with paprika, pepper and salt to taste. Fry this in the bacon and butter mixture until brown.

Place the browned chicken in the stock pot with the sauce, cover and simmer at 275 degrees F for 90 minutes to 2 hours. Stir in the carrots 30 minutes before the end of cooking time.

Twenty minutes before the end of cooking time, place almond slivers on a cookie sheet in a 200 degrees F oven until lightly toasted.

To serve, spoon white rice onto individual plates, top with chicken pieces and a generous amount of sauce, top with almond slivers and serve.

Kat Kinsman is the Senior Editor of AOL Food and Slashfood. She loves She-Crab soup and livermush.