"Chopped"

Watched my first full episode of Chopped last night on Food Network. I thought it was quite interesting. Almost an Iron Chef-like experience but starts with 4 regular chefs (no Pro vs Amateur type setup) and they're given different ingredients for each round.

Round 1 was an appetizer and the ingredients were tomato paste, tofu and proscuitto. My gut reaction would to be immediately open, drain, filet & press the tofu for 5 mins then cube it and marinate in maybe a balsamic/EVOO marinade, possibly with some herbs. Then crisp up the proscuitto. Make a salad dressing using the tomato paste, maybe some red wine vinegar, garlic and some dried oregano. Saute the cubes of tofu and make a spinach & fresh herb salad to pick up what was used in the marinade and the oregano in the dressing. One contestant actually did make a salad but I didn't like her use of the proscuitto or tofu.

Round 2 - Entree. Ingredients were thai chiles, pork loin, Napa cabbage, oysters and daikon. Here we have some ingredients I haven't used and/or don't like... so hmmm. First thing to tackle has to be the pork loin because you need to get it cooked through before the end of your 30 minutes. First of all, do something to make it smaller so that it will cook in the 30 mins. I'm thinking that you could keep the entire length but cut it length wise so it's thinner. Throw a rub on it - salt, pepper, dried mustard, cumin, paprika. While you're prepping this, put a pan over low heat with oil and the diced thai chili. Cook the pork in the infused oil - sear on stove top, finish in oven.

I'd have to taste the cabbage and daikon together (need to taste daikon, period since I don't know what it tastes like) and maybe make a cabbage/daikon slaw as a bed for the pork. The oyster is hard to incorporate in this plan, though. As I was typing and realizing I needed to incorporate the oyster, I thought of taking some of the pork I trimmed off to make the pork cookable in 30 and sort of make an impromptu stuffie (for non-RI'ers, that would be an oyster equivalent of a stuffed quahog).

I'd do a very fine dice on a bit of the pork - almost like a chunky grind - and dice up the oysters and add in. Some crusty bread, and egg, thai chile, salt and pepper, a little shallot and stuff the mix into the shells and bake. Since the oyster shells are much smaller than a quahog shell it should cook in the alloted time.

Dessert - filo, blueberries, dried pineapple and gorgonzola cheese. Not even slightly happy with the cheese. I just have a problem eating something that has MOLD in it. I throw that away when I find it in my fridge - why is it okay on some cheese?

Time-wise start on the filo - layer away and put it in individual sized tart pans. Then make sort of a custard base with eggs, cream, sugar, vanilla, and mix in the blueberries and diced dried pineapple. Mix in little bits of cheese, pour in the waiting filo shells, bake. (Is this possible in 30? not sure but I'd try.)

Well - if I ever try any of these theories, I will let you know. Otherwise I'll post again when I see another episode of Chopped. :)