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Tonight was the Iron Chef competition. The secret ingredients were phyllo dough, canned tomatoes, and honey butter. We planned on the phyllo dough and tomatoes and were ready for either peanut butter, honey butter or corn flakes for our dessert, so we were way excited.
For our appetizer, I put together chicken with spinach artichoke pyhllo cups. I cut phyllo dough and put it into muffin tins, then filled them with the chicken and spinach artichoke topping. When baked, the phyllo dough browned and retained it's shape so it could be eaten by hand, similar to the lasagna cupcakes I did a couple weeks back. We plated them like pros. I put two phyllo cups between a spread out leaf of kale. It looked like something you would pay $10 for at a restaurant and it tasted that good too. No joke.
The entree was my Rustic Tomato and Quinoa soup. We made a half gallon so we could serve the judges and have lots of samples for the audience. It turned out AMAZING and we put it in green bowls on a white square plate with parsley for garnish and home made garlic croutons. It looked, tasted and was phenomenal.
Our dessert was a banana cooked in honey butter, topped with white and milk chocolate ganache, peanut butter mousse, and candied corn flakes. It was plated on blue plates and also looked and tasted like it came from a restaurant.
Of all the groups, ours received the most attention from the audience and the people documenting the night with cameras and video cameras. Once everything was plated, it looked like we were presenting a sample of a fancy restaurant.
The judges rated everything by taste, presentation, and creativity. None of the other tables had the experience I had on plating and presenting food. We easily blew everyone out of the water on that one. It shouldn't have even been close. We tasted other people's foods and what everyone in my group and everyone who was rooting for us noticed is that none of the groups had 3 good dishes. Each group had 1 recipe that was good, but many had one that was either average or in some unfortunate cases, just poor.
Anyway in the end, in what is the biggest shock I've ever had on an outcome of anything, we lost. One of the judges told us it was close, but she didn't like the tartness of the soup. She wanted it to be sweetened out a lot. The quinoa soup is a peruvian recipe and it is, by nature, a lightly spicy soup. We had half a gallon of soup and we only tossed out the soup the judges ate. Everything else was cleaned out, with people coming back and back for more. What offends me most though, is that we did win an award. The soup won "most likely to end up in a food storage cookbook." How dare they. I was so upset. That award sounds like that's a recipe that's never going to be made. Like a recipe that's going to sit on the shelf until you have to get rid of stuff. Well, first of all, every single ingredient in that soup is fresh, high quality stuff. Second of all, that soup is more likely to be served in a restaurant than ever be put into a cookbook for food storage. THERE IS NOTHING FOOD STORAGE ABOUT IT! Outrageous.
I talked with a lot of people and everyone, with the obvious exception of the winners, was surprised we lost. What's worse is we lost to a group who made a spaghetti for one of their recipes...so original, so creative, so good looking...bull crap.
I'm upset by the outcome of tonight, infuriated by my "award", but I have no regrets. I went in there and made food these people loved and were privileged to see. They likely will not see food of that quality for years to come. I am proud of my team and I am proud of myself for some of the most phenomenal looking and tasting food even I have ever had. It's unfortunate my teammates had to suffer the judging of some professors, but I told them that the food they made tonight was hands down the best. Sometimes you win, sometimes, you lose. Tonight we may not have won the title, but we definitely won the competition in my eyes.
Pictures of our amazing food to come.
For our appetizer, I put together chicken with spinach artichoke pyhllo cups. I cut phyllo dough and put it into muffin tins, then filled them with the chicken and spinach artichoke topping. When baked, the phyllo dough browned and retained it's shape so it could be eaten by hand, similar to the lasagna cupcakes I did a couple weeks back. We plated them like pros. I put two phyllo cups between a spread out leaf of kale. It looked like something you would pay $10 for at a restaurant and it tasted that good too. No joke.
The entree was my Rustic Tomato and Quinoa soup. We made a half gallon so we could serve the judges and have lots of samples for the audience. It turned out AMAZING and we put it in green bowls on a white square plate with parsley for garnish and home made garlic croutons. It looked, tasted and was phenomenal.
Our dessert was a banana cooked in honey butter, topped with white and milk chocolate ganache, peanut butter mousse, and candied corn flakes. It was plated on blue plates and also looked and tasted like it came from a restaurant.
Of all the groups, ours received the most attention from the audience and the people documenting the night with cameras and video cameras. Once everything was plated, it looked like we were presenting a sample of a fancy restaurant.
The judges rated everything by taste, presentation, and creativity. None of the other tables had the experience I had on plating and presenting food. We easily blew everyone out of the water on that one. It shouldn't have even been close. We tasted other people's foods and what everyone in my group and everyone who was rooting for us noticed is that none of the groups had 3 good dishes. Each group had 1 recipe that was good, but many had one that was either average or in some unfortunate cases, just poor.
Anyway in the end, in what is the biggest shock I've ever had on an outcome of anything, we lost. One of the judges told us it was close, but she didn't like the tartness of the soup. She wanted it to be sweetened out a lot. The quinoa soup is a peruvian recipe and it is, by nature, a lightly spicy soup. We had half a gallon of soup and we only tossed out the soup the judges ate. Everything else was cleaned out, with people coming back and back for more. What offends me most though, is that we did win an award. The soup won "most likely to end up in a food storage cookbook." How dare they. I was so upset. That award sounds like that's a recipe that's never going to be made. Like a recipe that's going to sit on the shelf until you have to get rid of stuff. Well, first of all, every single ingredient in that soup is fresh, high quality stuff. Second of all, that soup is more likely to be served in a restaurant than ever be put into a cookbook for food storage. THERE IS NOTHING FOOD STORAGE ABOUT IT! Outrageous.
I talked with a lot of people and everyone, with the obvious exception of the winners, was surprised we lost. What's worse is we lost to a group who made a spaghetti for one of their recipes...so original, so creative, so good looking...bull crap.
I'm upset by the outcome of tonight, infuriated by my "award", but I have no regrets. I went in there and made food these people loved and were privileged to see. They likely will not see food of that quality for years to come. I am proud of my team and I am proud of myself for some of the most phenomenal looking and tasting food even I have ever had. It's unfortunate my teammates had to suffer the judging of some professors, but I told them that the food they made tonight was hands down the best. Sometimes you win, sometimes, you lose. Tonight we may not have won the title, but we definitely won the competition in my eyes.
Pictures of our amazing food to come.
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