Wanted to share my take on SalsaLady's entry into the Chopped TD. I wasn't here in time to submit my own entry, but I would not have qualified unless cooking just for myself as hubby's allergic to apples, and does not tolerate heat the way I do anyway. He can barely tolerate poblanos--I add serranos and habaneros to most everything I eat. Though I'm not sure I'm ready to try the T-Scorps or ghost peppers just yet.
Since I'm too late to enter, I wouldn't be able to use the required ingredients, and since it would still seem like plagiarizing SL's dish, I've gone ahead and made a few more substitutions based on what I had on hand. The results were delicious nonetheless, and would encourage everyone to try it as well.
Anyway here are some pics of the process along with my approach:
I made some medallions out of assorted boneless porkchops. I discovered too late that I haven't replaced my meat tenderizer after the Great Nashville Flood of 2010, so I improvised with a potato ricer to flatten them out a bit.
Nectarine, plum, and mango along with teriyaki sauce to make a sauce which substituted for apples,
As long as I'm making substitutions, added this to my fruit sauce in lieu of bourbon which I didn't happen to have on hand.
And then took the diced fruit and sauce (and the other sauce)
and simmered it down...
until I ended up with a beautiful reduction!
Meanwhile... I liked SL's own professed mistake and breaded the medallions with AP flour and cayenne (the only actual heat I added to the dish.) and pan fried it in sesame oil so that I ended up with this:
As long as I've got the frying pan out, let's make another substitution for SL's spaghetti and sear some fresh udon noodles...
Since I couldn't add any scotch bonnets to the mix for my hubby's sake, I used some mini sweet peppers instead to at least make it look hot.
The peanut sauce for the noodles didn't turn out as well as I hoped. Using natural peanut butter, honey, and dijon mustard seemed like it would work but it dried out instead of becoming smooth and creamy... added a little bit of my fruit sauce to it just to keep enough moisture to work into the noodles. I then added the peppers, a couple heaping teaspoons of minced garlic (hubby loves it) some sliced mushrooms, then the pork and the sauce I made one final substitution from SL's dish... I toasted the sesame seeds
To compensate for being extremely mild, I wanted to top mine with sriracha, but discovered I was out... Oh well... My old standby habanero sauce will have to do instead...
Again, it tasted wonderful and I thank SalsaLady greatly for her contribution!
Since I'm too late to enter, I wouldn't be able to use the required ingredients, and since it would still seem like plagiarizing SL's dish, I've gone ahead and made a few more substitutions based on what I had on hand. The results were delicious nonetheless, and would encourage everyone to try it as well.
Anyway here are some pics of the process along with my approach:
I made some medallions out of assorted boneless porkchops. I discovered too late that I haven't replaced my meat tenderizer after the Great Nashville Flood of 2010, so I improvised with a potato ricer to flatten them out a bit.
Nectarine, plum, and mango along with teriyaki sauce to make a sauce which substituted for apples,
As long as I'm making substitutions, added this to my fruit sauce in lieu of bourbon which I didn't happen to have on hand.
And then took the diced fruit and sauce (and the other sauce)
and simmered it down...
until I ended up with a beautiful reduction!
Meanwhile... I liked SL's own professed mistake and breaded the medallions with AP flour and cayenne (the only actual heat I added to the dish.) and pan fried it in sesame oil so that I ended up with this:
As long as I've got the frying pan out, let's make another substitution for SL's spaghetti and sear some fresh udon noodles...
Since I couldn't add any scotch bonnets to the mix for my hubby's sake, I used some mini sweet peppers instead to at least make it look hot.
The peanut sauce for the noodles didn't turn out as well as I hoped. Using natural peanut butter, honey, and dijon mustard seemed like it would work but it dried out instead of becoming smooth and creamy... added a little bit of my fruit sauce to it just to keep enough moisture to work into the noodles. I then added the peppers, a couple heaping teaspoons of minced garlic (hubby loves it) some sliced mushrooms, then the pork and the sauce I made one final substitution from SL's dish... I toasted the sesame seeds
To compensate for being extremely mild, I wanted to top mine with sriracha, but discovered I was out... Oh well... My old standby habanero sauce will have to do instead...
Again, it tasted wonderful and I thank SalsaLady greatly for her contribution!
