Welcome to the third and last installment of Chopped – Home Edition! Today’s post is the last course – dessert – prepared by my girlfriend’s amazing twin! I think it may have been a little unfair that she got the dessert round, considering she’s a regular Betty Crocker, and can make the most amazing cake poppers ever… but that’s the way the chips fell. Maybe it’s a good thing – because the dessert turned out to be very tasty. WIN!
Be sure to check out Part 1 and Part 2 to see the appetizer and main course. Not only that, but check out this dessert chef’s hilarious website: Outdoor Voice Blog! On with the photo journal of this cooking adventure…
The dessert round – and the basket is revealed!I think that smile means she’s not too pleased about the ingredients…The basket – Pomegranate juice, marmalade, and pre-formed cakes!Wasting no time, the chef gets started. Looks like she has a direction already!The pomegranate juice and marmalade are combined in a pot to be reduced.Strawberries and chocolate have been procured from the pantry, and are being chopped and shaved!She’s plating already! Looks like some kind of parfait or trifle is being assembled.The cake cubes are now being drenched in that reduction… Some booze would have been a nice addition here.A special technique is being applied to the dessert in these glasses.Another layer is being added to the parfaits… fresh strawberry! A drizzle of Drambuie or orange liqueur? Unfortunately, no.The finishing touch of shaved chocolate on top of some ice cream round out this dessert nicely. How will it taste?The finished product! These desserts definitely tasted as good as they looked! (Still not booze-y enough for me, but everyone has their own taste 😉 )
What a great adventure in cooking! What have you done differently in the kitchen lately???
Welcome to Part 2 of Chopped – Home Edition! You can read all about how this came to be in Part 1!
Today’s post features a photo diary of the main course, which I was fated to create from mystery ingredients purchased by my lovely girlfriend’s identical (and perhaps evil) twin! OK, so her ingredients weren’t all that evil, but she does write a mean blog.
Here’s the main course!
Ready for the challenge – two thumbs up!The ingredients: Chicken, coconut milk, and hot banana peppersLet the cooking begin! Slicing the chicken into thin fingersCoconut milk goes in a sauce pan with milk, dill, and other seasonings. Looks like some kind of sauce!Flour going into what looks like a hospital vomit trayApparently the tray was sterlized… Looks like a flour-based coating for the chicken!The chicken is being lightly floured before going into hot oil!Close attention must be paid to the chicken, or it might burn!The sauce is ready, the banana peppers have been sauteed together with red peppers in bacon fat! But what’s this? There seems to be sabotage afoot in the kitchen – someone has turned off the burner for the boiling water!!!The pasta did get done after all! Dill chicken spears with sauteed peppers on a bed of penne with dill coconut sauce!The finished meal! I think I rose to the challenge quite well, especially since it was stipulated that I couldn’t go with the obvious thai curry recipe! The only flaw? Too much food! 🙂
My girlfriend introduced me to a great show featured on Food Network, which quickly became a favourite channel of mine. If you haven’t seen it, the show is called Chopped and they start with four chefs, give them each a basket of four or five random ingredients, and set them off to cook an appetizer under a time limit. All of the basket ingredients must be used, and the finished dishes are judged by a panel of food experts. The weakest dish is “Chopped” along with the chef who created it, and the remaining three are given a new basket of items with which to cook a main entree! The battle ensues until only two chefs are left to battle over dessert. It’s a neat show, because you get to see how they creatively incorporate ingredients like miso into dessert, how they cook a whole rabbit for an entree in under 30 minutes, and other fantastical food challenges.
The aforementioned wonderful girlfriend came up with an AMAZING idea, “Why don’t we do Chopped at home?” she proposed to me one lazy evening as we watched old episodes of Chopped together. “Let’s get random ingredients for each other and each cook something!” We discussed the details of this absolutely awesome idea, and settled on the rules. We would randomly choose who was doing appetizer, main, or dessert. For this, we needed a third – so it only made sense to rope in her twin (who also dearly loves the Food Network awesomeness) to join us in our food adventure!
It was decided that my girlfriend would do the appetizer, I would do the main dish, and the twin would follow up with dessert! I ended up buying ingredients for my girlfriend, the twin bought ingredients for me, and my girlfriend bought ingredients for her twin! We assembled in the kitchen for an adventure in cooking!
Today, I present to you the appetizer round in photographs! This is my superbly awesome girlfriend creating an appetizer from some admittedly evil ingredients that I purchased for her. Enjoy!
The chef is ready to unveil her ingredients and cook a succulent appetizer!The ingredients: Koala Crisp (organic, sweetened, with cocoa), garlic stuffed olives, whole Chilean Sea Bass (with the head and eyes!!!!)Chef tenatively cutting the head off her fish!The deed is done – now on to cooking!The fish is cubed, placed in a bowl, and spiced. What will it become?Chopping the garlic-stuffed olivesThe gluten-free Koala Crisp proves difficult to crush! A crust or breading perhaps?The ingredients have been combined, and the chef is now cannelling the mixture, then placing them into hot oil.The fried mixture – it looks delicious!The chef begins assembling the plates, laying down a bed of lettuce and a spiced sour cream sauce for dipping.Putting the final touches on plating, the chef is feeling confident in her dish. It looks good!Finished “fish nuggets” on the plate. They were amazing!
What have you done NOW? 