Blog number two.... it might explain my current lack of enthusiasm for blog number 1
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Saturday, May 10, 2008

Platinum Chef, Challenge 7.... Mother's Day Edition

I actually dubbed it mother's day edition because the recipe I came up with that used the five ingredients I considered to be "girly" and even though my husband would of probably eaten it..... it was more fun to have a girls luncheon.

Ok - down to business....

Platinum Chef was started by Cara @ Cara's Cravings. It is a spin off from the Food Network show "Iron Chef" where the chefs are given one secret ingredient and have to come up with multiple dishes all featuring that one ingredient.... and they only have one hour. You try making dessert out of shrimp!!! Or whatever the secret ingredient is that day. Cara made it a little easier for us bloggers. She set out 5 ingredients and gave a couple of weeks for everyone who wanted to play, perfect their dish(es) and submit it (them). The most recent winner is Danielle @ Make No Little Meals. That means that she gets a turn to host the event which entails picking the ingredients, having the dishes submitted to her and then the most important part, selecting the winner.



Her five ingredients were -

Bok Choy
Panko
Mint
Yogurt
Mango











Side note - I had a bad shopping experience that thankfully didn't affect my meal too much. My mint was a little wilty, I wanted really small shrimp and all they had was 21/30 count (which ended up being perfect), the mango wasn't fully ripe on one side and the bean sprouts had turned into a wormy mush. I could salvage the mint and mango but the bean sprouts were trash.

My first thought when reading the ingredients was "lamb" because mint and lamb go together so well. But I had never cooked lamb and it is rather expensive to buy around here. So I went back to the drawing board. Since the bok choy is a popular Chinese vegetable and panko is a Japanese bread flake, I chose an Asian theme. But.... that just helped me with the theme. I needed an actual dish. After much thought, I decided to go the summery route and make a salad.

I present to you, my Platinum Chef submission:

Bok Choy Salad with Mango Mint Dressing and Shrimp "Croutons"

Let's start with the dressing. Which by the way I think would be excellent to dip chicken fingers in. It was so summery and light and sweet but with a tiny kick of spice. I honestly was not expecting it to be as great as it was.



the ingredients are -

1 cup plain yogurt
juice and flesh of one mango
1 oz of mint leaves (about half a cup)
2 tbsp rice vinegar
1 tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp honey
1 tbsp sweet hot mustard





Dump everything into a blender and use the "liquefy" button to turn it into a dressing. I did this the night before and let all the flavors party in the fridge.









See how delicious this dressing looks!!!

For the shrimp, I used a store bought Sesame Ginger marinade and let them soak overnight (peels and tails removed). I must say that I am not too fond of Asian marinades that contain mandarin orange, and actually did not know this one even contained it until I got home. I was a little apprehensive to use it, but after I tasted it, I must say this is my new favorite marinade for shrimp. It really compliments the taste of shrimp!







To turn the shrimp into croutons, I toasted one teaspoon of sesame seeds.





I combined the toasted sesame seeds with 1/2 cup panko, 1/4 teaspoon onion powder and 1/4 teaspoon ground red pepper.







From there, take the shrimp straight out of the marinade and dredge them in the panko mixture. Really press it into the shrimp.









Drop them one by one into hot vegetable oil and fry for about 30 seconds each. It really does not take long at all to fry shrimp! You don't want them to be overcooked and chewy.








Now the fun part - putting it all together!!! I plated up one head of chopped bok choy leaves, which perfectly served two people.


Topped that with fun asian inspired ingredients such as - chopped water chestnuts, diced red, green and yellow bell peppers, chopped carrots, enoki mushrooms, and crunchy rice noodles.

And for the finishing touch on my Platinum Chef submission, I spooned the dressing onto the salad and topped with the shrimp croutons. It looked amazing and the taste was equally amazing!



9 comments:

Danielle said...

Wow! Totally impressed! First off, thanks for participating! Secondly--your meal looks wonderful! I'm printing this one out and putting it in my "to try" folder for this summer. My husband doesn't do shrimp so I'll wait until my girlfriends come and visit this summer--they love shrimp!! Thanks again--this looks wonderful and very creative!!

That Girl said...

I'm totally cheating and going the Asian route too. I mean Panko basically screams "Asian" to me ;-)

Jaime said...

You know I hate salad, but this looks great Dela! I would definitely eat the shrimp. They look and sound delicious!

Nicole said...

Wow. Did you make it all up? Sounds great. Good job. Your dressing looks perfect.

Anonymous said...

Hi Dela, This looks fabulous! We're having a mushroom recipe contest and I'd love to have you submit one of your best recipes, as well as spread the word to your 'shroom loving foodie friends. The winner will be mailed 2 lbs. of fresh morels! Recipes can be submitted to MarxFoods.com

deLa said...

thanks, all! yes i did make it all up ! :) i also have two great shroom recipes, one of which is on here and one of which i have no idea why it is not on here. it is the most requested by friends and family. i will work on submitting them!

RecipeGirl said...

Wow, this looks really great. I can't believe you made it all up. I'm so impressed!

Jaime said...

Tag, you're it! Go here to see it:
http://myburnttoast.blogspot.com/2008/05/look-what-i-made.html

Jared said...

Looks good. I like the shot of the shrimp hitting the oil.