It was Iron Chef time again as Sandy came for a visit to Edmonton. In an effort to ensure the secrecy of the ingredient, I was forced to let my coworkers know about the Iron Chef gameplay so that they could come up with a secret ingredient that would be truly secret. When it was time for the reveal, Sandy opened up the envelope and there it was: SPINACH!
There was much swearing (and from Jason a plea to "Change the ingredient") but we spent our 15 minutes quickly coming up with recipe ideas.
Despite Jason's almost consistent whining about the fact that "spinach has no taste" and that he was a "one-trick pony" with respect to his cooking technique (read: only cooks asian food)and that "spinach just doesn't lend itself well to that style of cooking' - he WON. (55 out a possible 60 marks). His 2 dishes - lobster kabobs stuffed with spinach and served with spinach dip and spinach soup shooter - we by far the best of the night. The soup shooter had wanter chestnuts within and was topped with fried onion bits -so good!
Sandy made spinach and chicken canneloni with a spinach cream sauce and spinach salad. I made spinach, asiago and artichoke stuffed mushroom caps for an appetizer. For the main, it was chicken stuffed with spinach, dill, feta and pinenuts served on spinach pasta. We both scored around 45 of 60 - and though our dishes tasted good, they just did not have the panache and originality that Jason's did.
There was much swearing (and from Jason a plea to "Change the ingredient") but we spent our 15 minutes quickly coming up with recipe ideas.
Despite Jason's almost consistent whining about the fact that "spinach has no taste" and that he was a "one-trick pony" with respect to his cooking technique (read: only cooks asian food)and that "spinach just doesn't lend itself well to that style of cooking' - he WON. (55 out a possible 60 marks). His 2 dishes - lobster kabobs stuffed with spinach and served with spinach dip and spinach soup shooter - we by far the best of the night. The soup shooter had wanter chestnuts within and was topped with fried onion bits -so good!
Sandy made spinach and chicken canneloni with a spinach cream sauce and spinach salad. I made spinach, asiago and artichoke stuffed mushroom caps for an appetizer. For the main, it was chicken stuffed with spinach, dill, feta and pinenuts served on spinach pasta. We both scored around 45 of 60 - and though our dishes tasted good, they just did not have the panache and originality that Jason's did.
