Chopped
A pontification... and pickles.
From about 2010 until 2014, I watched a lot of Chopped on the Food Network. For those of you who don’t watch cooking TV, the premise of the show is 4 contestants compete to make the best three course meal, using mystery ingredients that are revealed to them only moments before they start cooking. There are three rounds — appetizer, entrée, and desert. The dishes are judged based on creativity, presentation, and, of course, taste. At the end of each round, one competitor is eliminated, and the best chef wins*.
There’s a formula, I think, to winning. Since each mystery basket contains the same general ingredients — typically a protein, a vegetable, a starch, and seasoning — the dishes can usually be prepared as riffs off a classic recipe. The catch is, the ingredients are usually a little off kilter. You might get, for example, dandelion greens, quail, tomatillos, and Aztec rice. The key, of course, is to match these ingredients within your oevre of dishes to make something delicious (which, in this case, I’d probably go with something like a jambalaya).
Of course, there’s more to it than that, but I was always fascinated watching the really good chefs prepare their meals. It’s almost like a puzzle — how can I turn this random assortment of stuff into something amazing. Watching the great chefs get rather cerebral about it probably expanded my cooking skills more than any other single thing.
Christine and I have started taking that in mind. We started growing a small (but overgrown) veggie garden this year, and also are part of a CSA at a local farm. Having ingredients “chosen” for us that we’d normally not buy (like fennel, Chinese cabbage, turnips… or even lamb ribs) forces us to get creative. This week, for example, we got a boat load of cucumbers and radishes. How does one go about consuming a pound of radishes and three pounds of cucumbers (not to mention the dozens now popping in our garden) without eating a garden salad every night?
So I started thinking about Thai and Korean pickled sides (thanks, Ha). Last night, I very thinly sliced (probably should have used a mandolin!) our radishes and a couple cucumbers and bathed those in rice vinegar mixed with sugar, grated ginger, chili flakes, and salt while we bathed Leina. By the time she was cleaned and put to bed, we had a lovely pickled salad to go with our pork noodle stir fry. Efficient, and, I have to say, fun way to solve a “problem.”
That’s the post for today. No real recipe (but if you’d like, you can use a cup of rice vinegar, half a cup of sugar, a decent pour of salt, and a dash of chili flakes), but something to think about.
Just a few links. Enjoy the weekend.
Living with sharks [Adventure Journal]
Is a Snoo worth it? [Gear Patrol] (Based on our experience, probably not)
Staying mentally sharp [Art of Manliness]
Languishing inside [Outside]
*If you liked Chopped, I’d highly recommend Knife Fight, which is a grungier, fewer ruled version. Two chefs have one hour to make as many dishes that as they can in an after-hours LA kitchen. Awesome.