I
hope you have all been watching the Knorr Taste Quest (KTQ). It’s been mad fun
I tell you. I am having such a good time. I am learning loads, pushing myself really
hard and I get to share this experience with some amazing people, real foodies.
I am having an awesome time I tell you.
I want to share my journey with you… so here is a recap of all
the episodes so far including YouTube clips where you can catch all the episodes you've missed:
Episode 1 – Peppery Fingers
Imagine
after chopping tons of hot pepper you mistakenly rub your eyes or some other
delicate part? I shudder at the thought!
Episode 2 – Cat Fish Murderer
I
was having an out of body experience on this episode and not a very good one. I
don’t do well under pressure especially when it comes to cooking. I am not sure
I have ever really cooked under pressure before. When I saw that we had to kill
a fish, I almost passed out.
Have you ever had to kill your own food?
I have to say it is a horrible feeling. I could literally feel the life leaving
the fish. It made me really sad. I began to wonder how murderers live with
themselves after this horrible act!
When
you watch me kill the fish you would argue that I did it like a pro, at least that’s
what my sister thought. In my defense, this is a competition, I had to compose
myself. She sent me a bbm, a one liner, "Murderer!"
When
Dr Roberts said we had an hour, I felt it was so short I needed to do something
quick. All I was thinking was I needed to plate my food. I was scared of
timing. And if I am honest I under estimated the quality of the food that was
expected.
I have to admit I disappointed myself on
this task and I needed to go back and think about why I was on the show, what I
wanted to achieve.
Episode 3 – What is Breadfruit?
What the hell is breadfruit? Well I thought I knew what it was
until we were given it as one of the ingredients to make a dish out of
including okro and chicken livers. I was like what the ….? I had never cooked
okro in any way other than the traditional way. I was really scared! I also
needed to up my game after the previous week’s disaster. I had to think outside
the box. No recipes books or Internet here to help me out here.
I decided to make a pudding and stir fry. I chopped the
breadfruit and boiled it in milk and whipped cream and sugar with some rum extract.
I thought the breadfruit would thicken into some custard texture or something
but it didn't. It wasn't even dissolving and time wasn't waiting for me. I was
so worried. While that was boiling, I made a stir fry with the okro and livers.
To thicken the pudding I poured the mixture into a blender and blended it. I
had to wash up the blender before use so I forgot my okro stir fry on the stove
with all the commotion thereby over cooking it. ARGH! The tension!
In
the end the pudding turned out really good and the stir fry manageable.
Episode 4 – Nutty Feelings
What
can one do with an unripe avocado? Any
ideas? I am learning to touch, feel, taste and smell on this show. As there are
no second chances, no start-overs, you have to get it right. Lucky I realized
early that this avocado was very unripe so I used just a bit to make a pecan
butter sauce and served it with pasta. I
would have been so screwed otherwise because I had planned to make salad.
We
were also given prawns and beef steak. I would never prepare prawns and beef for
the same dish, the thought never occurred to me. The combination just didn't feel
right to me so I cooked them separately and served them on the pasta. I did
learn one or two tricks from my fellow contestants though I am not afraid of
that combo any more.
Episode 5 – Yorkshire on my mind!
I
have never actually been to Yorkshire before. Or have I? I know it’s close to
Leeds where Wifey used to live so maybe I went past it on the train once. Anyway
when we were told what ingredients we had to cook for this episode, I thought
of Yorkshire pudding. I don’t know why. I lived with Maggy, my host mother, in
Cambridge for a year and half while attending A-Levels College. She introduced
me to Sunday Roast (which was incomplete without Yorkshire puddings), chocolate
cake with loads and loads of double cream and Eastenders! I should give her a
call to say thank you!
The
main ingredients we had to cook with were mince beef, pine nuts, baby carrots,
unripe banana, mushroom and couscous. I made meat balls which contained crushed
pine nuts, couscous, spring onions and some chili. I steamed the meat balls in
a tomato sauce (mama taught me that!).
We
had only 10 minutes left when I realized that I hadn't prepared the banana and
mushroom. I quickly mixed sliced banana and mushroom to the remaining Yorkshire
pudding batter, more eggs and sprinkled some couscous in the mixture to give a
crunchy texture and deep fried it and served with piri piri sauce from the fridge.
The
judges loved my dish and I won the challenge for this episode. It felt so damn
good! I want to get that feeling every day. So y’all know I shall be pushing
myself even harder now.
It was a good weekend for me. I won the KTQ weekly challenge, Man Utd won their match against Everton and are now 12 points clear and the Super eagles won the AFCON cup! Amazing!
