Paper Chef #12: Round-Up & Results

No more hypotheticals, it’s round-up and judgment time!

First of all a huge thank you to Owen for allowing us to do the whole shebang: hosting, selecting, and judging. Oy, was it work! Fun, but work. (Next time remind me not to do this in the same week I’ve scheduled 10,000 words of writing and a trip to the mainland. Kerthunk, indeed!)

So, first things first, a reminder of our intriguing set of ingredients. We opted for the grab-em-out-of-a-hat method and came up with a threesome of basil, oranges, and fish sauce. To that, being ever devious (and just to see what amazing concoctions we’d get), we added lamb. This intriguing foursome took our participants on a culinary trip around the globe with influences from the Mediterranean to South East Asia to right here on our home turf of the Pacific Northwest.

In addition, we had two first-time participants, four pseudo-participants (not including our own non-entry entry), and a nifty collection of discoveries along the way. So, follow along as we check out this month’s Paper Chef extravaganza. (And don’t forget to drop by all of these great blogs to see what other goodies they’ve got to offer!)

First up, Shauna of Gluten Free Girl, just a short jaunt from here in Seattle, brings us a twosome of Lamb Shank Braised with Orange and Basil, and Shauna’s Seafood Soup. A one-time vegetarian, Shauna had a lamb epiphany with this post. She cooked it for the first time, and she’s going to cook it again and again! The soup — with Shauna’s creative, gluten-free substitution of fish fumet for fish sauce — sounds just delicious and brings a Northwest flair to this month’s Paper Chef with fresh Dungeness crab. Yum! Shauna’s post also celebrates her return to the kitchen after far too long of being laid up with a miserable foot injury. As Shauna says: “Oh goodness, of all the good meals I’ve eaten in the last few months, this was one of the best. It was made with joy, It tasted of joy.” Welcome back, girl!

Next, another full and tasty meal from the Bay area’s B’gina at Stalking the Waiter. B’gina, who is still sadly sans photos this month (curse you, evil technical difficulties!), takes us to the Mediterranean with her Pastitsio (Greek lasagna) inspired Greek Lamb Trainwreck with Orange, Basil, and Onion Salad with Feta and Poppyseed Style Dressing. B’gina says, “What actually gave me the idea for this dish was a Greek pork sausage flavored with orange zest.” (Ah, orange zest. I can’t express how cool it is to see so many participants discover the joys of orange zest!) The match of “Trainwreck” and Greek salad sounds quite good, and I particularly liked B’gina’s addition of fennel to both dishes.

Sticking with the Mediterranean/Middle Eastern influence, we’ve got first time participant and brand new food blogger Tanja from Tanja Dahl with Couscous with Kebabs and Sweet Orange and Chili Sauce. Tanja is a Swedish blogger now based in the UK and has been at this for less than a month, so stop by and give her a hearty food blogger welcome. She told us, “Being new to the food blogging scene I was a tad apprehensive to begin with but I couldn’t stop thinking of the ingredients so I had to give it a go.” Hurray for enticing ingredients! Her kebobs look juicy and succulent and we appreciate the simple presentation and the nifty cheese cups for the couscous. Also, who can resist a good spicy sauce? I’d go drizzle-happy with this one.

Now we jump from the UK to Down Under and to An Electronic Restaurant where 2-minute Noodle Cook (a name that has nothing to do with the astonishing amount of time and dedication to his craft) brings us Bush Tucker Lamb Parfait with Orange Basil Seed Champagne Jelly and Whitebait Tapanade Sauce. Noodle Cook, who regularly wows us with unique Australian-influenced dishes, chose an extra challenge this time: a budget of $5.00 AU for all four ingredients. Now, I had to go check the exchange rate on this and was floored to see that $5.00 AU came to only $3.66 US, so… damn! Several things about Noodle Cook’s entry impressed us, including the home charcuterie of the lamb parfait, the home-made fish sauce, and the ingenious substitution of basil seeds for basil. Says Noodle Cook about the results: “The champagne jelly not only looks sensational, but the licorice, citrus and honey aromas can only be described as WOW!” Sigh. When is someone going to invent smell-o-vision for the home computer, huh?

Also working on a low budget and impressing us with his attention to detail, was Magic Tofu from Kitchen Blog based in Ottawa, Canada. At first he was concerned about combining fish sauce with lamb, then said “faced with such dilemma, the best option available to me was a South-East Asian inspired curry dish. After all, citrus fruits, herbs and fish sauce are great flavoring accents to curries.” Ah, curries. A chef after our own hearts. MagicTofu didn’t just make a curry dish, he made his own curry paste, and (as we know all too well) that’s not easy. His presentation with Napa cabbage, orange segments, puffed wild rice, basil chiffonade, and chopped pistachios turned his Lamb Medallions with Orange Curry Sauce into one hell of a feast for the eyes — and, we imagine, for the stomach as well!

Next up, Stephen, from Stephen Cooks, straight across the continent in Maine, brings us a traditional lamb chop with quite a twist: Shiso-Marinated Lamb Chops with Orange Curry Gastrique. Stephen’s revelation for this Paper Chef? “Fish sauce! Wow! It’s like liquid anchovies!” Stephen had a challenge tracking down fresh basil and came up with a clever substitution — shiso, a Japanese version of the herb — at his local Asian market. Armed with that and a memory of roasted curry-citrus flavored cashews, he set to marinating, juicing, and reducing and produced what sounds like a scrumptious meal with the orange curry gastrique as a perfect complement to the lamb. Stephen served this one to hungry and appreciative guests and promises details about his tasty side dishes in upcoming posts. We’re looking forward to it!

Heading south to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, we’ve got the Culinary Bookworm of Weekly Dish, and her impressive spread of Lamb Stuffed Acorn Squash with Spicy Marmalade Vinaigrette and Buttermilk Basil Biscuits. Undaunted by the (rather evil) addition of a cuddly lamb photo to our Paper Chef announcement, the Culinary Bookworm snagged some tasty lamb sausage from her local vendor and assembled acorn squash stuffing that included orange, pesto, garlic, and Fontina cheese. The vinaigrette turned out so well she drizzled it over the whole plate, and as for the stuffed squash? “The lamb sausage filling really worked well with the squash: the eating experience involved mouthfuls of creamy, savory filling and sweet, buttery squash flesh, with hints of the sweet heat from the vinaigrette.”

Another first timer for Paper Chef is Katherine from ToastPoint, based in Washington DC, where people are so culinarily in tune with the universe they can go to bed and dream an entire menu. How cool is that? Katherine almost skipped this one, but then she woke up with a breakfast of Chilled Caramelized Oranges with Yogurt and Tangy, Spicy Lamb Sausages in her head and had to make it! Good thing too, because this looks mighty delicious. We are especially fond of her unique take on oranges for this entry, and… breakfast! It’s always great to see a surprise breakfast entry. Says Katherine of her tasty dish: “The aromatic basil complimented the super-sweet oranges, the tang of the fish sauce made the sausages sing.”

Last, but certainly not least, our Paper Chef Founder Owen of Tomatilla, brings us South-East Asian Lamb Braise with Orange-Basil Rice. Since Owen’s got (go figure) tons of tomatillas on hand, he’s putting them into every dish, and this one is no exception. He added tomatillas to a marinade of fish sauce, garlic, orange juice and chiles, and while the lamb was doing its tasty thing for an hour or so, he made a lovely, sweet basmati rice dish by substituting a cup of coconut milk for water. But for Owen, the real revelation was the crispy orange zest he created as a garnish. “The crispy orange zest was totally brilliant,” Owen says, “I will be trying it again with many other dishes.”

Now, of course no Belly-Timber version of Paper Chef would be complete without a nod to our brilliant comic relief team of pseudo-entries.

Yesterday we posted Cookiecrumb’s Hypothetical Imperial Rolls, which, though hypothetical (there I go with that word again) sound awfully good and definitely worth a try.

Adding to that, we’ve got Lady X over at Experiment in Writing whose craving for sweets outdid her desire to participate and prompted her to post a Not Paper Chef #12 entry of Pink Lemonade Cupcakes, “which uses none of the ingredients suggested and was totally about me eating something pink and sugary.”

And lastly, Rachael of Fresh Approach Cooking cracked me up with her pseudo-entry from the Paper Chef Announcement comment thread: “A salad of Lambs Ear Lettuce and Purple Thai Basil, with a Taramosalata and Dried Orange Peel dressing (Get it? Fish egg sauce. I’m so darned clever.)”

Hee.

And now for the moment we’ve been waiting for.

Whose cuisine reigns supreme?

(dramatic pause)

This month’s winner of Paper Chef is…

Noodle Cook of An Electronic Restaurant! Remember when we said knock our socks off? Well, consider us officially sockless. Noodle’s combo of Lamb Parfait and Orange Basil Seed Champagne Jelly is nothing short of stunning both visually and in the description of flavors — flavors so uniquely combined we can only begin to imagine how sublime this dish tastes. Well done!

We’d also like to give special nods of recognition to three other entries that especially impressed us: Magic Tofu at Kitchen Blog for adventuring into the labor-intensive land of homemade curry paste, Culinary Bookworm at Weekly Dish for great utilization of what Chopper likes to call “nature’s edible servingware,” and Katherine at ToastPoint for dreaming up a breakfast treat for the morning after all our tasty dinners.

Many thanks to everyone for participating. This was a fine group of entries and a challenge all around. Next month, I swear we’re making something simple. Really simple so we can sit on the sidelines and cheer all of our fellow crazy food bloggers on.

Good show, everyone!

Oh, and…

Kerthunk.

Mrs D & Chopper out.

Tagged with: Paper Chef

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 10th, 2005 at 10:41 pm and is filed under food blogging events, paper chef. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.