Instead of a sappy Valentines Day filled with commercialism and spending money at an overpriced and crowded restaurant Lauren, Neil and I decided to do a cook-off!
In advance, we each chose 10 “mystery” ingredients and we entered them into a database.. we then took turns drawing a total of 4 numbers which corresponded to a secret mystery ingredient. Additionally, we had to select one secret pantry ingredient…
The rules were pretty simple and not that strict… We had to use the 4 ingredients and 1 secret pantry ingredient in the dish of our choosing. We could prepare as far in advance as necessary but the main cooking was to take place on Feb 14th! Aside from that, we also had to nicely share the kitchen, cookware and dishes…
For the ingredient list, we ended up choosing the following:
Neil chose:
- Shrimp
- Pita Bread
- Chicken thighs
- Shallots
- Croutons (secret pantry item)
Lauren chose:
- Peppers
- Crab meat
- Bok Choy
- Cabbage
- Melba toast (secret pantry item)
I chose:
- Fresh Tuna
- Chicken Stock
- Ginger
- Corn
- Acini de pepe pasta (secret pantry ingredient)
Now let me first begin by telling you all who didn’t win… and that would be me… I will explain later. Actually we didn’t choose a “winner”. It was more of an event to have fun and in the absence of un-biased judges, we were happy with just eating the food.
The cook-off was a blast but utterly exhausting!!! Neil and I were preparing things the night before. I made homemade chicken stock and he marinated meats. On the day, Lauren started cooking early as she had a ju-jitsu class to attend and Neil and I started cooking around 3pm! We finally sat down to eat at 10pm!!!
I think the biggest challenge we were faced with was that we underestimated the amount of time to prep everything. Mis en place et al.. I don’t think we realized that on Iron Chef, they have sous chefs and a pantry with unlimited items. They also have several cooking vessels/methods available.
The actual cooking part was fun! Most of my food was a last minute assembly sort of thing so I offered to help Neil and Lauren out with their chopping/prep. Don’t get me wrong, my dishes took a long time as well but during my downtime, they gained a sous chef! 
So here are the menu descriptions that we all came up with:
Neil:
- Valentines Day Salad – baby spinach, shallots, beets, cucumbers and tomatoes in a beet vinagrette.
- Chicken and shrimp international skewers - chicken, shrimp, peppers, mushrooms and shallots done 3 ways in tzaziki, sweet and sour & tikka masala marinades.
- Pita chips, crouton crumb crusted shallot rings with tzaziki, sweet and sour & tikka masala dips.
Lauren:
- Crab and cabbage wontons two ways - crab, diced cabbage, roasted red peppers and melba toast. Served with roasted red pepper ponzu sauce.
- Crab stir fry - fresh crab, bok choy, peppers, oyster mushrooms and shallots with ponzu and hoisin sauces.
Me:
- Ahi Tuna Tartare – Fresh Ahi tuna, avocado, black sesame seeds, tomato, green onion and nori in a sweet soy vinagrette.
- Chicken consumme with mushrooms – chicken stock, enoki, oyster and dried chanterelle mushrooms
- Mushroom pate with crispy corn chips – enoki, oyster and dried chanterelle mushrooms blended with butter and chicken stock
- Vodka corn shooter – fresh corn puree, vodka
- Ginger-ale Jelly with candied ginger
The reason for my failure?? I forgot the acini-de-pepe in my dish. It was supposed to be in my consumme. Argh!!!
The food was amazing! Very tasty and creative. The photos and plating took so long that a lot of it was cold by the time we got to eat but in general, it was a lot of fun. We were really exhausted at the end of it all and I can guarantee we won’t want to do this more often than annually but we will definitely do it again. I think we have all agreed to some additional rules…
- maybe get judges to not only decide on a winner but to also help eat all the food
- make portions smaller or focus on one main dish
- fewer secret ingredients
- perhaps span it all over several days with each of us cooking on a day so we can get more done in less time
I am often told that I am a good cook and should cater or become a chef etc.. and the bottom line is, its too much work… I think I will stick to entertaining my friends and family.
The one thing I take away from this experience is that cooking with fresh ingredients is really important. Although we all took very different approaches and it seemed to take forever, we all used very fresh ingredients. The food tasted healthy and delicious and I loved it all!
I invite both Lauren and Neil to post their comments to this blog. Even though we had a big discussion about the cook-off while we were eating, I think that it would be nice to capture it all here.