Friday, 5 April 2013

Knorr Taste Quest - Episodes 6-10 Recap


Episode 6 - The Cooking Class

I really appreciated this episode. I have a feeling it was Dr Roberts that insisted we took this class. I imagined Dr Roberts having nightmares about the way we hold our knives and butchered our meat. LOL! It was a great learning day. Chef Fregs was a good trainer! He taught us the right way to chop (Chinyere almost passed out!), how to sear meat and make delicious lovely sauce in no time. We also leant how to plate our food, it goes to show that with food eighty percent of it is in the eyes!  And most importantly we learnt to stop, breath, think and plan what we are going to cook!


Episode 7 – The Group Challenge

This was the bestest episode ever! I thoroughly enjoyed this day. I have to say so far this has been my most enjoyable episode. I had a lot of fun. For this challenge we were placed in groups to compete against each other. As the bottom two the previous week, Dami and Aaron were asked to pick people they would like in their team and as the winner of last week’s challenge (grins) I was given the opportunity to pick the team I would like to join. I chose Dami’s team because Aaron’s team had Ify, Patricia, Chidi whom are all very strong characters and didn’t want to drown in that. It was a gamble though!

We were given an hour to come up with three a course meal with mussels, mushrooms, Poisson, aubergine, radish, spring onions, artichoke, walnuts and all three courses have to have Knorr in it (even the dessert? *confused look*)

For starters we made chopped spiced up mussels on a boat of parsley soup. We steamed with the mussels first, chopped them flesh and fried it with mushrooms, peppers garlic and ginger. We placed the fried back into the shell and placed them on a sea of parsley soup thickened with corn flour.

For the Main course we seasoned the Poisson and pan fried it and served it with aubergine sauce and potatoes and beetroot. Dami seasoned this baby chicken to ecstasy. It was soo yum!

For the dessert we made crème Brulle with radish and walnuts. And I can’t believe we used Knorr in our dessert. It tasted amazing!


Episode 8 – Chocolate Fetish

Dr Roberts started saying “today you have the most simple and basic ingredients….” Here he goes again. We were given chocolate, fettuccini pasta, sweet peppers, melon seed (egusi) and lamb chops.  Yes they are basic ingredients but using them in one dish. As in how is that a basic combination?!!!!

Learning from last week, I spiced my lamb chops and seared them. I infused chili in melted chocolate and mixed in blended toasted egusi. To finish, I coated the lamb chops with chocolate egusi mixture and left it in the oven to keep warm. I served it with creamy fettuccini cooked with red peppers and garlic.

I didn’t win this week’s tasks but the comments from the judges were mind blowing. I should have cooked my fettuccini pasta just a bit longer. I love the way Chef Fregz face lit up when he tasted it. LOL!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bj8Z74UPZp8


Episode 9 – Pineapple Chicken

For this episode, we were given, rice, beef, yam, pineapple, chicken wings, sweet chili peppers, pumpkin. For the starters, I boiled pumpkin and yam and carrots and blended and sieved it. I served it with deep fried grated yam to give it a crunch.

I made fried rice and served it with grilled beef and chicken with caramelized pineapple chicken.  I boiled the chicken in pineapple juice and to caramelize the chicken, I deep fried it. Overall Tara the guest judge said this was a complete meal.


Episode 10 - Burnt Notice

For this episode, the secret ingredient was lemon grass. The other ingredients were asparagus, scallops, garden eggs, rice, Brussels sprouts, coconut and goat meat. We had to do a two course meal featuring lemon grass.

This week was one of my worse weeks. Everything was going alright until I burnt my plantain. HOW? WHY? Instead of getting a clean pan, I fried the plantains in the same pan I had friend the scallops in. Disaster!

For my starters, I made pan fried scallop coated with soy sauce infused with lemon grass served with steamed asparagus. For the main dish, with the ingredients we were given I made a goat curry and served it with coconut rice.  

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