Carrot FantasmagoriaAlright, so I decided to do my entry for the GW Iron Chef competition tonight, since it was pretty much the only day I had completely free for the next as long as I care to look forward, I had the ingredients at hand to make most of the dishes I was thinking of, and that I ought to get it done before I procrastinate myself out of doing it. So anyway, I went to Giant Eagle right after school today to buy some of the things for the recipes I wanted to create, I spent like $12.13 or something like that so right off the bat not bad. Anyway, I came right home and got down to work.
Alright, so I know a thing or two about how to time the cooking of an entire meal, so I began by making the batter for my dessert. It was pretty simple, all that went into it was flour, a whole egg, another egg white, cinnamon, salt, flat beer and of course... carrots.
Next I began to prep the soup, the ingredients were as follows (in order of addition to the soup): Olive Oil, Balsamic Vinegar, red onion, (badly) diced carrots, minced garlic, cumin, ginger, tomato paste, lentils, diced tomatoes, chicken stock, salt and pepper. (following pictures are of a few random steps in the soupmaking process. Basically the idea was to create a nice blend of complementary flavors done up as a simple soup (you'll see what I mean by simple later)
Next I worked on my salad, which was really pretty simple. It was just grated carrots, raisins, parsley and a dressing that I made from lemon juice, olive oil, honey dijon mustard and a seasoned pepper blend. Nice and refreshing imo, some sweet and sour stuff going on, very nice color as well. Pictures detail the dressing and carrot preparation:
Next up was the curry/raita which was pretty much just plain greek style yogurt, feathered carrots, lemon juice, walnuts, cumin and cayenne. Only one picture of this prep stage
Again... nothing special concerning preparation here, it was a pretty straight prep and mix procedure just like the salad.
After the curry/raita/whatever was finished I had some work to do on the soup still, which basically meant bringing the soup off the heat and blending it. Turkish soups of this variety are generally not... like Italian soups. They prefer a smooth homogenous texture, but alas I had not a submersion blender so my humble food processor got to do like triple duty this afternoon. This was one of the more difficult parts cause the soup was uh.. hot. And spilling it would just be unacceptable.
I had to put it through the processor twice, the first time through it just didn't turn out right, but I kinda saw that coming so I didnt freak out or anything. Previous picture was taken during the first run through the processor. After I got the right texture and consistency it was time to work on the dessert. This part was a lot of fun.
Basically all that was left to do was season the batter and fold in the egg white and carrots to the batter that had been setting for the last 2 hours. In went the cinnamon and the egg, folded with extreme care. Then the carrots, and the batter ended up looking like this:
So then I had to create a deep-fryer on my stovetop. Not too difficult... thank god I could find my candy thermometer though I'd have been fucking lost without that.
I had a picture of those damn things frying but it was kinda shitty and the flash fucked it up but anyway. So by this point, I bet you guys are wanting to see some finished products. I will now present them to you in order of what I feel would work as far as courses go.
Carrot Salad on hearts of Romaine Lettuce
Turkish Carrot, Tomato and Lentil Soup
Carrot Raita
Cinnamon Carrot Fritters
So basically what you have is a nice appetizer salad, the main course, a palate cleanser (the raita) and then a nice crispy fried dessert (the fritters) with a cinnamon clove yogurt sauce for dipping.... all together now!
(another take lol)<embed src="
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Carrot Fantasmagoria - Iron Chef GW (warning music)