iron chef

On competition day, everything appeared to go smoothly. I wrote down a list of all the ingredients and equipment needed for each element of the dessert, so everybody had somewhere to look and could help gather/prep ahead as needed. I also brought the tuile templates I had made the night before (basically thin cardboard cut into circles, just like how I did for fortune cookies before).

While savory (appetizer and main course) only had 1.5 hours to work before presentation, pastry got an extra half hour. So with 4:10pm as our presentation time, we were off and running at 2:10pm.

I tackled poaching the pears first since it would take the longest. Was slightly worried because the pears we had ordered were not the ones I had tested at home - they were Chinese pears (labeled Korean pears at the market I went to) instead of the Chinese white pears I got. Went ahead with the process anyway.

As soon as that was on the stove simmering, I got to work with the honey tuile cookies. I felt very professional doing this, what with the silicon mat and the template and the spatula-spreading of the batter, and the perfectly round tuile shapes. There was even a photographer or two photographing the process.



These went quickly in the oven, just 10 minutes. At home I had formed the tuile cup shape with two metal measuring cups (one smaller than the other). Those weren't available at school so I had the idea of using muffin trays - putting multiple tuile cookies down and bringing a second tray down into the tops. Sadly this broke our tuile cookies so I had to do a second batch, and this time we used tart molds. Here they are stacked into a tuile tower.



After that I sliced up the poached pears, took some of the poaching liquid and reduced it down with some pinot noir. At this time the ice cream machine was going with the cardamom ice cream base we were allowed to make ahead of competition. I didn't worry too much about it - until we were almost finished with everything else and discovered that the ice cream was rather liquidy (kitchenaid ice cream attachment not cold enough?!). In a panic we switched ice cream makers, then threw the mixture into the freezer... but to little avail. By plating time the ice cream was not solid enough to be scooped, and thus in my presentation to the judges I referred to it only as cream.

You can see our black triangular plate and the sad puddle that is there.



Backstage we salvaged what was left... by eating it. Jordan came around with a whipped cream maker and injected some tuile cups with it - and we lamented that we didn't think to turn the tuile cups right side up to contain the cream so it wouldn't be a sad puddle.



Oh well, we gave it our best shot. Team Nori 2012 lesson learned: don't rely on technology.

iron chef testing

For Iron Chef this year we had a choice of two out of three proteins: duck breast, pork tenderloin, and scallops. My team chose to do scallop for appetizer and duck for entree. I wanted to do dessert, so I used flavors for the two previous courses in order to tie everything together.

From the scallop dish I got lemon, and from the duck dish I got asian pears, cardamom and thyme. Cardamom would make an ice cream, asian pears would be poached, and lemon and thyme would be candied and/or incorporated into a tuile cookie.



Utilizing my poached pear skills from first semester, I set to work at home. This was 9 cups of water, 1.5 cups of sugar, 4 asian pears halved, slices of 1 meyer lemon, 1 cinnamon stick, all simmered for 1.5 hours.



The poached pears, warm from the pot, were delicious. I diced one up and added some gelatin in the attempt to make a compote. It wasn't as exciting as just the plain poached pears.



Then at school I tested two different tuile recipes. And garnished them differently (some plain, some with lemon zest, some with lemon zest and thyme leaves). The lemon and thyme ones tasted the best.



My teammate Charla tested candied lemon and candied thyme (and different shapes of each) at home. Her experiments were fun to eat.



With our powers combined we got together for a plating session. We didn't have ice cream made yet, so we substituted with shortening (the good thing is that it doesn't melt like ice cream). Sadly, right after we put this together we were kicked out because the kitchen was shutting down for the night. And then when we tried to meet again the next day, we were told that teams were not supposed to be practicing at school.

So I went home and plated by myself.



This time I used some butter pecan ice cream I had in the fridge - you can see it melting as I arranged and rearranged. Honey tuile cookie I made, thyme sprig I brought home from school, and lemon zest was from the lemons in the poaching liquid. Instead of dicing the pears really fine (brunoise cut), I sliced the pears instead - figuring that since so much work went into the poaching process that the pears might as well be shown off. The arc of pink liquid is some poaching liquid reduced down with a drop or two of red food coloring (standing in for the wine to be used during competition).



I wasn't too satisfied with the previous plating so I refroze the ice cream and tried again. This time I put everything on a slant, and visually it was tighter, more together.

Once I had this I decided that I could take a break, that enough testing was done and we were ready for competition.

patacone pita

Last day of A La Minute Vegetarian, wanted to use up all the pitas. So I found this Latin inspired recipe.



Sadly the plantains I ordered came in green and didn't ripen as expected, so I ended up using bananas. They were sweeter, but provided good contrast to the savory components. One customer actually came up to me after her meal and asked how I prepared them since she loved the sweetness and saved them for last to eat, almost like a dessert. I told her I just fried them and crumbled some feta cheese on top.



Besides the portabello mushrooms that the recipe called for, I also added caramelized onion.



And instead of mixing the arugula into everything, I just dressed it (olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt & pepper) and topped that with sliced avocado like a side salad. Made it delicious and pretty.

falafel three ways

Day 4 of A La Minute Vegetarian I decided to take on falafel, that vegetarian standby of the Mediterranean/Middle Eastern world. While traveling through those regions I had always opted for the meaty kebab instead - I actually never quite understood the appeal of falafel, personally likening it to fried dough with vegetable bits. Like a ball of fiber. Not exciting. But I think I wanted to change my mind and making them from scratch definitely helped.



I went off this recipe. Mashed all the chickpeas with my hands - was pleasantly surprised to find that the flat part of my fists were shaped just like one of those potato masher tools.



The onion, parsley and garlic were food processed into a paste before they were mixed in - but for some reason the onion taste was really overpowering and I ended up starting everything over. Didn't have time to food process again so the end result was more rustic.



Also didn't have breadcrumbs so I substituted panko.



Here's the result of the batter shaped into balls - I realize they're just like vegetarian meatballs.



For the sides I did what the recipe suggested for cucumber yogurt, except I added tomatoes and fresh dill.

I wanted more sides though, taking some inspiration from Liba's falafel truck since she provides so many sides with her falafel. I ended up doing sweet gherkins & onions (in pickle juice) as one side and lettuce and carrot ribbons in tahini dressing as another.



These also sold pretty fast, deep-fried falafel balls with freshly grilled pita. I ate the sample, and the falafel balls were really tasty with the cumin and various spices. Would make again.

grilled veggie stack

Day 3 of A La Minute Vegetarian and I'd moved on from stuffing vegetables to stacking them.

I was inspired by this recipe, but wanted to do more vegetables and make it Italian with tomato/basil/mozzarella.

Even though the station is called A La Minute and required cooking things to order, I pre-cooked everything so I would only have to assemble to order (basically cutting down my stress). So this meant that all the vegetables were marinated days in advance and then broiled the day before.



On the day of, I just heated the cooked veggies on the griddle and melted cheese between them. Here I have eggplant topped with mozzarella topped with portabello mushroom.



That formed the base layer, along with some leftover jambalaya, grilled zucchini and squash.



The next layer consisted of marinara sauce, grilled onion and more eggplant.



This was finished off with mozzarella, basil and cherry tomato. Mr. P called this my best special yet. I definitely could have sold way more plates than I did, but I was content with the amount of food I prepped so I just left it at that. Still had other things to worry about...