createIron Chef Looking for Help! Theme Ingredient: Ginger
I teach at a public middle school in Burbank and the foods teacher has organized a Cast Iron Chef cooking competition, where seven teams will have 1.5 hours to utilize a theme ingredient in one or more dishes. The ingredient is ginger and I wanted to get some greatgrub input on menu suggestions for my team because, frankly, I want to win.
I’d like to do three courses, if possible, and because the competition is an homage to the wacky Japanese program, I’d like to push the culinary boundaries a bit — but still win in the taste portion of scoring. So no scallop ice cream please.
Thoughts/ideas I’ve had…
App:
????
Main course:
With ginger as the theme, it must be a fish dish, no? Something Asian?
Dessert:
Was thinking a ginger lemon or ginger saffron ice cream.
Help, Fukui-san?
Ted
This sounds great. I like combining the ginger with galangal. I asked if we could showcase cousins of the ginger like galangal and I received blank stares, but combining it with ginger would provide a nice teachable moment, as we teachers say.
Thanks for the delicious suggestions! Hopefully I can do a test run this weekend.
Ted
Are you allowed to use stem ginger? (It comes in a jar.) If yes try a syllabub for pudding. Very English, very easy and delicious.
I’ve never heard of it. Sounds amazing, but I can’t bring any alcohol onto campus. Not that a good flask wouldn’t come in handy teaching thirteen year olds.
Thanks, Ted
P.S. I just pitched a school trip to London today. I look forward to getting back to England (I worked as a cook at Harrod’s Green Man Pub in 96/97). And I look forward to trying syllabub!
When you say “Cast Iron Chef cooking competition” will you be cooking in cast iron?
Here are some suggestions:
Appetizer:
- Carrot and ginger soup
- Leek, parsnip and ginger soup
- Vietnamese tofu soup with mushrooms, tomato, ginger, and cilantro
Main Course:
Ginger-scented Monkfish baked in a Banana leaf.
Dessert:
Your suggestions are good. You could also do sorbets or Ice. I have done a Ginger and ripe fig ice that is always good.
On many wine dinners I have done a savory ginger/tomato sorbet as an “intermezzo” (Doesn’t seem to fit with this menu).
I am assuming everything is to be produced at the competition. If it wasn’t, for another dessert I would have suggested a Ginger Baked Alaskan. Gingerbread cake bottom drizzled with Grand Marnier mounted with ginger ice cream and enrobed with a brown sugar meringue made with a touch of malt vinegar.
That Vietnamese tofu soup sounds perfect. Is it like a pho?
That main course sounds incredible and the banana leaf fits perfectly the wild spirit of the competition - and the cook.
Thanks, Ted
That monk fish recipe sounds amazing. Here’s another option that fits your ginger secret ingredient: Red Miso Ginger Glazed Salmon
Prepared the monkfish - except I had to use fresh (still twitching) cod instead - and it was easy and beautiful.
The flavors were delightful with a dash of salt. Also I recommend putting the red Thai chili strips on top of the fish along with the basil for color.
It’s a go. Thank you for this recipe. I will let you know the judges’ responses.
And I went with a ginger vanilla creme brulee. I’m feeling confident.
Still not sure if I will have time for an app.
At our Facebook fan page, a fan has suggested the following:
“Chevre grilled on toast on a bed of rhubarb and ginger conserve. Try it before you tell me no!”
Sounds intriguing!
To answer your question the soup is a scaled down version of a traditional Vietmese “Canh chua”(Sour Soup).
I made sweet chili sauce for a dinner party recently. It uses a lot of ginger and galangal (in the ginger family). It’s impressive and simple to make (though worth doing a trial run beforehand). You could then take a lovely piece of robust fish (maybe black cod, halibut, etc) and steam it with juliennes of ginger and scallion (a typical Asian treatment). Serve with the sweet chili sauce on the side.