My National Cooking Contest Debut

This recipe got me into the finals! It is pretty simple, and doesn’t involve many special, or unordinary ingredients!

Here was the layout for the competition…

Students must create a meal or dish or dessert following specific guidelines laid out in the Cook-off Requirements.

All entries must be homemade and the work of the person making the entry.

Recipes must yield at least two portions.

All competitors must have an adult proctor present during the Cook-off that can verify upon submission that all rules and requirements are adhered too.

The Top 5 competitors will get the chance to compete in a Live National Cooking Competition held via Zoom Webinar.

In terms of ingredients…

All recipes must be made using at least 2 of the following ingredients:

-Lemon

-Spinach

-Lentils

-Protein (Of your choosing)

-Kiwi Fruit

-Cauliflower

-Starch (Of your choosing)

-Coconut Oil

And any of the following pantry staples:

-Flour (Or gluten-free substitute)

-Milk (Or lactose-free option)

-Egg

-Butter

-Oil (Olive/Veggie/Canola)

-White Sugar

-Salt

-Pepper

Here are the judging criteria…

Presentation - 30%:

Nutritional Value -30%:

Creativity - 30%:

Completed in 90 Minutes - 10%:

Here are the ingredients I chose, and which category I chose them for…

Starch: I chose Quinoa for my starch because of the nutritional value!

Protein: I chose salmon for my protein because if it is cooked nicely, it can be beautiful!

Lemon: I chose lemon to use for my Kiwi Glaze to go over the salmon!

Spinach: I chose Spinach to use as a garnish!

Kiwi Fruit: I chose to use Kiwi for a comport to go over the cauliflower, and for a glaze to go over the salmon!

Cauliflower: I chose to bake the Cauliflower after cutting them into “steaks”!

The Pantry Staples I used were…

-Egg (I poached the eggs!)

-Butter

-Oil (Olive/Veggie/Canola)

-White Sugar

-Salt

-Pepper

Now, let’s learn how to make it!

Ingredients…

1 Fillet of Salmon

Olive Oil

Salt

Pepper

5-10 Kiwis (Depending on how many people)

Sugar

Water

Lemon

Quinoa

Cauliflower (Regular head of cauliflower)

Steps:

1 (Quinoa)- It’s time to prepare! Let’s get the quinoa going first! Let’s start by boiling water on the stove! Also, make sure to add 1 3/4 cups of water for each 1 cup of quinoa! (Pro Tip: Add salt to the water to add flavor, and make the water boil faster!)

2 - Great! Now that the water’s boiling, turn it down just a little, so it is a light simmer, now, let’s add the quinoa, like I said before, if you only put in 1 3/4 cup of water, you put in one cup of quinoa! If you doubled the water, double to quinoa! (Keep in mind that quinoa is fluffy, but fills you up!)

3 (Salmon)- After you put the quinoa on the stove, let’s start the salmon! I am using a little different recipe, and way of cooking it today, I am cooking it on the stove instead of in the oven! Start by putting around 1 Tablespoon of olive oil on a pan and let it heat up! (Put the heat on medium-high heat!).

4 - Now, while the pan is heating up, it’s time to cut the skin of the salmon off! (if you do not want to do this job, I am sure that your salmon source could cut it off for you as well) It is pretty simple and easy, all you have to do is carefully take a knife, or scissors and cut the skin off!

5- Okay! Now that the oil and pan have heated up, it’s time to put the salmon on the pan and season it with salt and pepper! Now, let one side cook until it looks like it is halfway cooked! (Maybe around 5-10 minutes, while checking on it!) Reminder, when it’s done cooking it should be pink, but not looking raw like when you bought it!

6 (Kiwi Compote and Glaze)- Alright! Now that you’ve finished the salmon and it is on the stove cooking and doing its thing, it is time to start the Kiwi Compote and Glaze! Start by getting a pan, and adding around 1/2-1 cup of water and one lemon! Then, add about 1-3 teaspoons of white sugar to it! (If you do not want to use sugar, you don’t have to, but I would suggest you do, even if it is a little bit!). Also, when you are slicing the kiwi, I suggest that you slice them in half, then scoop them out with a spoon!

7 (Let’s check on everything)- Now that the salmon seems pink on one side, flip it to the other side and re-season it if you’d like! (Tip: When the Quinoa is finished, you will see a visible ring around it, and the water would have been absorbed/evaporated!) If you see those rings and way less water around the quinoa, it’s time to take it off the heat and onto the counter for plating! Now, the Kiwi Compote and Glaze might take a little bit, but when you see that the water has some kiwi, lemon, and sugar in it then it’s time to strain it to create one compote and a separate glaze! Then, pour the glaze into a smaller bowl either on the side or in a small bowl to place on the platter!

8 (Poached Eggs)- You definitely want to cook the poached eggs last so then they are still warm, and they are fragile, so be careful with them! Start by boiling a big pot of water for the eggs! Once the water has boiled, carefully crack the eggs into bowls, but only cook one egg at a time so that they will exceed your expectations of their appearance! Now, get a big spoon, or soup ladle and create a swirl in the water, by almost drawing a circle in the water many times! Now, carefully slip the egg into the ladle and slide it into the water! Now wait around 30 seconds, to 1 minute and you should see that the whites of the egg are cooked already! Now carefully use your ladle to scoop it out and place it on a plate! Here are the three “S” words to help you! 1-Slip, slip the egg into the ladle! 2-Slide, slide the egg into the pot! and finally, 3-scoop, scoop the egg out of the pot and onto the plate! Does that help?

9 (Plating)- It’s time for the most fun part, plating! You can plate it however you’d like, but I plated it like this… take a big bowl (I used my family friend’s big pottery bowl/plate) and start with the Quinoa, Take a lot of it and shape it onto a section of the plate, or bowl then, take the cauliflower and kind of overlap them onto each other on the opposite side of the salmon, but still partially on the quinoa! Next, for the spinach, spread it around the bowl, or platter around the quinoa, but still over it a little, and outline the platter you are using! For the poached eggs, place them in front of the quinoa and place a small bowl of the kiwi glaze in front of the eggs! For the compote, spread it on top of the cauliflower steaks!

10 (Enjoy)- Finally, it is time to enjoy!

This recipe is the one that helped me win bronze/3rd in the National Cooking Competition! Let’s start with learning the layout for the Competition!

Competition Layout…

The Top 5 competitors from the Virtual Cook-off will be invited to participate in a Love Cooking Competition held via Zoom Webinar.

Competitors will have 30 minutes to create a meal for one using this list of ingredients + and pantry samples.

In terms of ingredients, competitors can use…

At least one green ingredient

An ingredient that starts with “C”

An ingredient from the freezer

A source of protein

At least three spices that are not salt or pepper

Pantry Samples include:

Flour (or gluten-free substitute)

Milk (or lactose-free option)

Egg

Butter

Oil (Olive/Veg/Canola)

White Sugar

Salt

Pepper

Here are the judging criteria…

Presentation - 30%

Nutritional Value - 30%

Creativity - 30%

Finished in allowed time - 10%

Let’s learn to make it now!

Tip: In this recipe, you want to make sure that you have all of the correct ingredients, organization, and also space for preparation!

Ingredients…

Fresh Cilantro

Fresh Parsley

Fresh Dill

Fresh Mint

Fresh Basil

Olive Oil

Cornmeal (Make sure to get cornmeal, and not corn flour)

Water

All-Purpose Flour

Peeled and Deveined Shrimp (If you can’t find this already done, you can either do it yourself or ask whoever you get your shrimp from)

Saffron (Optional)

Onion Powder

Garlic Powder

Chipotle Powder

Paprika

Vegetable Oil

Frozen Cauliflower Rice

Steps:

1 (Cauliflower Rice)- Let’s start by preheating the oven to 400° Fahrenheit! Then, get out a sheet pan and add some spray olive oil onto the pan, and then spread the frozen cauliflower around the pan! But, make sure that the cauliflower rice is not in groups, make sure it is evenly spread out! Then put it in the oven for 10 minutes!

2 (Cornmeal Tostadas!)- Now, let’s start making the batter for the tostadas! Start by taking 1/2 cup of cornmeal and putting it into a big bowl! Then add 1 cup of flour! Then, get around 1 cup of water and mix it all together. The batter shouldn’t be thick like dough, you should be able to see it flow off of the whisk and not clump together! In total, add around 1 1/2 cups of water to the batter! Then, heat a pan of vegetable oil and scoop around 1/3 cup of the batter and pour it in a circular shape into the pan! Let the tostada cook until the bottom looks a little golden brown, and then flip it! (Do this until you have the amount of tostada you’d like! Reminder, two tostadas can feed one person most likely!)

3 (Salsa Verde)- It’s time to start the Salsa Verde or at least the version of it! Start by chopping your herbs! (Basil, Cilantro, Parsley, Mint, and Dill!) Then, add around 1/2 - 1 cup of olive oil! (Depending on how many herbs you chopped! Also, remember that you can always add so don’t add too much oil first!) After that, add some salt and/or pepper and mix it well! Then give it a taste! (Remember that it doesn’t have to taste like perfection, because the shrimp and seasonings will also affect it!) Then, you can put it aside!

4 (Shrimp)- Alright! It is time to start cooking the shrimp! Get out your seasonings and put a little bit of olive oil in a pan, and set the temperature on medium-high heat! Now, I figured out that it is easier to season the shrimp before cooking them, so get out a bowl, add some olive oil if you’d like, and add a little bit of each spice! But for the saffron, put it in a small bowl of hot water! (Not all of it though!) If you don’t want to use saffron for this dish, that is alright too!

5 (Plating)- Yay! It’s the most fun part again, plating! So, you could plate it however, if you want other people to choose the portions of each ingredient, then you could put each ingredient in different bowls, but how I plated it was I stacked all of the ingredients! I know that one part of the judge’s feedback was because there was too much green on the plate, but I thought that it was too crowded myself as well. Anyway, how I plated it was, I placed the tostadas on a plate, then scooped some cauliflower rice on top, then I placed one shrimp on top (Maybe place one to three instead as well!) then I spread the Salsa Verde on top of that (You could do that, or put it around the shrimp)!

6 (Enjoy)- Even though I got 3rd place with this dish, I am still grateful for being able to do this wonderful learning opportunity and will keep cooking!