Fans Iron Chef Week V

[Sanis Prent]

Well I think we all deserve a hiatus this weekend since yall are slackers (me too lol).

That said, next weekend is July 4th weekend. To that end, I tried to think of a pretty damn American ingredient we could use. In America, we like Captain America, Baseball, Pickup Trucks, Puppy Dogs, Mom, Jesus, and Apple pie. Since thats all I could say in one breath, your ingredient, due in a dish on July 6th (End of that weekend) is Apples

[Yeart Quenn]

Aye.... apples it shall be.

[Park Kraken]

Heh, forgot about the Iron chef competition, too busy working and playing WoW this past week.

Apples. I have something brewing in the back of my mind, just gotta squeeze it out of there. I'll have to post it up during the week since I work the weekends though.

[Nya Halcyon]

Okay, here comes my entry:

Rosemary & Sage Burgers with Chive Cream and Apple Slaw

I was looking for something with apples and didn't want to do anything sweet, but the only thing I could think of doing was some roasted poultry with caramelized apples or pork and apple sauce so.... I rifled through various books and websites until I chanced upon this rather simple recipe. The apple slaw that was part of it was pretty basic, and I was going to stick to it - until it was done and tasting and looking rather bland. So I spiced it up a bit.

Ingredients:

As with the last entry, I added things as I was cooking, so my ingredients on the picture didn't have all items I used.
The recipe also only called for half the amount of meat, but I like to make more and use the leftovers for other things so I doubled the amount.

http://www.nyahalcyon.net/misc/apple/apple1.jpg

1lb ground beef
1lb ground turkey
1 tbsp fresh sage, chopped
1 tbsp fresh rosemary, chopped
coarse sea salt & pepper
1 small red onion, diced
1 clove garlic, crushed

For the Chive cream:
1 cup sour cream
2 tbsp fresh chives, chopped
salt & pepper

For the Apple slaw:
3 medium apples, peeled, cored and grated
2 tsp olive oil
2 tsp lime juice
1/3 cup fresh blueberries
a small piece of freshly grated ginger
1 small red onion
salt & pepper

Freshly baked wholewheat bread rolls
a few leaves of romaine lettuce

Preparation:

http://www.nyahalcyon.net/misc/apple/apple2.jpg

This is not all that complicated. I chopped all the herbs, mixed the rosemary and sage with the meat, and added some salt, pepper and then later the red onion and garlic. This I formed into patties (okay, so they were a bit thick) and then grilled them until they were done.

To make the chive cream, I simply mixed all ingredients for it together in a bowl.

To make the slaw: I grated the apples, then squeezed out a whole lime over them and added the oil. Aftter seasoning it, the mix was quite bland and tasted too much of olive oil so I added some freshly grated ginger. The lime juice had made it a bit too tart, so I threw in some blueberries we picked the other day, and rounded it off with thinly diced red pepper for some extra crunch and variety.

The result:

http://www.nyahalcyon.net/misc/apple/apple3.jpg

I'm sooo going to make this again! The apple slaw was an interesting combo with the burgers. We added a slice of cheese as we're all cheese lovers here, and it really was a huge success. I'm going to make the slaw again as it really is something we don't do over here... and next time I'll try out other extras.

[Ryan Pode]

Mine will be posted within the hour.

[Jan Claasen du Toit]

Mine is in prep right now :)

[Park Kraken]

I'll edit in pictures tomorrow, as I'm about to fall asleep and would rather do so in my bed than at my computer desk.

Chicken Casserole with AppleBerry Sauce

Ingredients:
2lbs of Chicken Cutlets
1 can of Yams or Sweet Potatoes, sliced.
1 can of Cranberry Sauce.
1 can of Apple Filling.
1 cup of Cheddar Cheese, shredded.

Preparation:

Okay, first off, oven temp at 350 degrees.

Combine Apple Filling and Cranberry sauce in bowl, then set aside after beating well.

In a baking dish, spread chicken cutlets on bottom, then add yams or sweet potatoes around them, before sprinkling about 3/4 cup of cheese over the potatoes/yams and chicken. Proceed to pour on appleberry sauce and spread evengly, before spreading remainder of shredded cheese over the sauce.

Place in oven and bake for 30 minutes, or until chicken cutlets are cooked through.

How it came out

Delicious. It should be a fairly healthy dish, as I didn't use any seasoning whatsover, and the chicken was Greenwise, which is 99% fat free. The combination of yams, cranberry, and apple filling was more than enough seasoning for the chicken in it's own right.

[Jan Claasen du Toit]

I know at least somebody here who will appreciate this recipe :)

Bobotie with Kerriekerrie Yam Crisps

Centuries before the term fusion even came into vogue in culinary circles, it was being done more awesomely than your local neighborhood Brazilian-Mongolian mashup could ever hope to achieve. South Africa used to be a vital link-up in trading routes, and it allowed for some unique east-meets-west sort of dishes that manage to have a bit of history behind them. Dutch traders and Malay traders set up shop in Cape Town, and something started cooking in the kitchen.

I don't profess to be any expert on South Africa. Don't skewer me on a Zulu spear if I mess something up. All I know is that Bobotie is delicious, and there was also a movie with that guy in Titanic where he called a helicopter a "dakadak". Also, Apartheid :( But there's no apartheid in this dish because we're going to mix a whole lot of weird crap together and its going to be awesome I promise.


http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p156/LoungieMu/bobotieprep.jpg

More ingredients than Afrikaans has redundant vowels, I assure you :)

Use this crap:

2.5 pounds of ground or minced beef or lamb (lean would be best)
2 eggs
2 onions, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, crushed & minced
2 slices of day-old bread (or cheat and put in the oven on 200 for about 10 minutes)
1 cup milk
1/2 cup almond slivers
1 lime, juiced
1 apple, finely chopped
6 bay leaves
3 tbsp chutney (I used mango)
2 tbsp canola oil (any neutral cooking oil will be fine)
1 tbsp curry powder (one of the few times you'll ever hear me suggest powder)
1 tbsp sugar
2 tsp salt
1 tsp black pepper
1 tsp turmeric

Okay, now that we're introduced, lets mix things up. Heat your oil in a skillet on medium heat and add your onions and garlic. I need to start wearing goggles for this because my eyes were streaming the entire time I did this. Through your bitter tears, toss in your curry powder and one teaspoon of salt, stirring together until you get a nice color to the whole mess:

http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p156/LoungieMu/onions.jpg

While that is cooking, soak your bread in the milk. When each slice is saturated, remove it from the milk and give it a gentle squeeze to get as much milk out of the bread as you can. Retain your milk, you will use it later.

Once the onions and garlic are done, combine EVERYTHING (sans meat, one egg, and your retained milk) into a huge bowl and mix it up.

http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p156/LoungieMu/mix.jpg

From here, add your meat, stir it very thoroughly, and spread it into a greased baking dish:

http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p156/LoungieMu/dished.jpg

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees, and toss that in there. Let it cook for about an hour. After the hour is up, combine the remaining egg with enough milk to make a sort of viscous mix. This is going to get poured over the whole thing, and you'll bake it for another 20 minutes or so.

Now, while you're in the middle of your long cooking times, lets make some kerriekerrie yam crisps!

Kerriekerrie is the Afrikaans word for curry, so this is another one of those east meets west sort of things. Get this stuff:

2 yams
5 cloves
5 cardamoms, crushed
1 tsp mustard seeds
1 tsp cinnamon powder
Oil for frying
Fine ground kosher salt

Not rocket science here. Lets cut up some yams. You can either do it by hand or with a processor as I did:

http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p156/LoungieMu/yamsyamsyams.jpg

Heat your oil in your pan or fryer or whatever to about medium high heat and toss in your spices. They're going to pop like crazy so be ready for that. Once they settle down, add your yam slices and turn the heat down to medium. You should get about 4 minutes for a good color and texture.

http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p156/LoungieMu/karriekarrie.jpg

Once your crisps are up, catch them with a spatula or slotted spoon and let them drip a bit. Then set them on a wire rack and sprinkle a light dusting of salt over them.

By now, your bobotie should be ready to come out of the oven. Make a batch of rice for it, and serve the bobotie on top of that. Arrange your kerriekerrie crisps around that and drizzle some chutney over them.

http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p156/LoungieMu/bobotie.jpg

There is so much happening in this dish. The savories of the onion and garlic balance out the sweet of the sugar, chutney, apple, and lime. The beef and egg go great with both of them, and you have this great little dish that has a bit of everything going for it. The kerriekerrie crisps are very earthy, but with a pleasant spice that's distinct enough from the bobotie to be a nice diversion.

I goofed on this and didn't use lean beef and it came out a bit fatty. I'd suggest using lean if you can, or if not, brown the beef before mixing. Also, my egg mix was way too milky, and it didn't really grab on like it should. I'd suggest making sure to make the mix pretty eggy, so that it can coat the top sort of uniformly. Other than that, the egg was there, and tasted just fine.

[Wyl Staedtler]

Baie lekker, Charley! Wat lyk heerlike - nou Ek wil besoek my ouma. ;)

[Lilaena De'Ville]

Er, isn't the point of a secret ingredient in Iron Chef that the recipe showcases the ingredient? Your apple seems lost, sir. :)

[Sanis Prent]

It really isn't. The taste of bobotie is distinctly sweet and shows off the fruit inside.

[Yeart Quenn]

I gotta try that!

[Miranda Tarkin]

Charley is right. Long as the secret ingredient isn't lost in the taste, that still works :)

[Ryan Pode]

OKAY! I forgot about it Sunday and was busy all day yesterday, but I promise it was made sunday. Anyways, without further ado, I made apple dessert pizza.

What you'll need:
2-3 apples.
2/3 cup brown sugar
2/3 cut rolled oats
1 tbsp lemon juice
1/2 cup butter (half a stick)
1 cup confectioners sugar
1 tbsp water
1 crust
3/4 cup yellow cake mix
1 tbsp melted butter
Ground cinnamon

1. Peel the apples (I used 2 granny smith and a red one, to balance the flavor personally but they should be medium sized apples).

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v310/veryangryjew/GEDC0495.jpg

2. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
3. Dice them into small little pieces.
4. Place the apples in a large microwavable bowl, then mix in the lemon juice so it covers them well.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v310/veryangryjew/GEDC0496.jpg

5. Dice up the half-stick of butter into little chunks, mix it in with the apples along with the brown sugar and rolled oats.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v310/veryangryjew/GEDC0499.jpg

6. Microwave the apple mix for 2 minutes. Stir.
7. Microwave it again for a minute, stir.
9. I used a pillsbury premade pizza crust for the crust because it was just simple. Follow the directions on the crust tube (in case it has a higher listed temperature), spray the pan with PAM and place the unrolled crust on it.
9. Distribute the apple mix evenly across the crust.
10. Sprinkle on as much cinnamon as you see fit. I used a light coating and it turned out quite well but it was completely eyeballed.
11. Melt 1 tbsp of butter.
12. Mix in the 3/4 cup of yellow cake mix and stir it around. Let it become hard.
13. Sprinkle the hardend cake mix across the pizza.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v310/veryangryjew/GEDC0501.jpg

14. Bake for 14-15 minutes.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v310/veryangryjew/GEDC0502.jpg

15. Mix 1 tbsp water with the confectioners sugar, this will be your icing.
16. Once the pizza is done, wait for it too cool a little bit then apply the icing on it so that while it doesn't remain as thick as it is, it does not melt away completely.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v310/veryangryjew/GEDC0503.jpg

And enjoy.

[Wyl Staedtler]

Ohhhh yum. :yum

[Lilaena De'Ville]

Aaaaahhh that looks delicious!! Winner!!!!!

[Ryan Pode]

It was amazing. My roommate and I ate it in four slices, and for dinner.

[Nya Halcyon]

So Charley - are you going to put the poll up for this?