Battle 4 - Melon and Red Pepper Flake
As I’m starting to learn from these battles, people are really spending some time and doing original and interesting things which is so awesome. I mean, that is what Dan and I were hoping would happen. These are the entries for this battle. Check out all of the posts, vote for your favorite, and leave some comments. They all did a great job!
Prix Fixe - Tomato Confit with Watermelon Salad
Bake-Off Flunkie -Grilled Pork and Cantaloupe with Spicy Balsamic Glaze
Danger Kitten Bakes – Smart Minds Watermelon Sorbet with Spicy Chocolate Wafers
Cre8tive Kitchen – Honey Cantaloupe Sorbet with Dark Chocolate Pepper Ganache
Chef Charley Sinden - Grilled Watermelon watercress radish red pepper salad, humbolt fog goat cheese with mango red pepper vinaigrette
Potato Candies – Spicy Cantaloupe Amba
Judges! We have two really awesome guest judges for this battle. Returning from a win from the last battle is Neal from Burning Pasta. Also, we have Lori, also known as the Recipe Girl! So excited to have both of you as guest judges.
But also, you are a judge as always… so vote for your favorite! You can only vote once and this poll closes on Wednesday at 6PM EST.
Results
As always, our judges have some thoughts on this wonderful battle before we get to the overall winner!
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Judging
Lori aka The Recipe Girl
This week’s foodie fight involving Cantaloupe + Red Pepper Flakes sounded good to me. Heck, I’d whir both of them in a blender with a little lemon sorbet and be a happy camper, so I was excited to see what other folks would come up with.
RecipeGirl’s Winner: Bake-Off Flunkie (+300)
Since I’m hugely pork-chop-challenged, this recipe immediately grabbed my attention. The pork chops themselves sound (and look) amazing with the sweet & spicy balsamic glaze, and the additional sweet grilled cantaloupe is the perfect accompaniment. If I were browsing a magazine, this recipe would be calling out to me. I have no idea why this blogger isn’t winning bake-off contests… this recipe seems pretty genius to me!
RecipeGirl’s Runner Up Choice: Chef Charley Sinden (+100)
Yikes, that’s one long recipe title! (Grilled Watermelon Radish Red Pepper Watercress Salad w/ Humbolt-Fog goat cheese & Mango-Red Pepper Vinaigrette) I’m pretty sure this blogger wanted to make sure that readers got the gist of what exactly was in this salad. J. One of my favorite salad recipes on my site is a Grilled Watermelon Salad (and it actually has watercress and goat cheese in it too!) This salad has a different twist with the added radishes & red peppers as well as a sweet & spicy vinaigrette. I’ll be trying out this recipe for sure this summer.
Thoughts on the other entries:
Prix Fixe
This blogger was thinking gourmet a la French Laundry with an Amuse Bouche. The low, slow preparation of the tomatoes in this recipe had me drooling. Seems like it would be a delicious bite before a gourmet meal.
Danger Kitten Bakes
Watermelon sorbet is good stuff… the perfect entrée into summer. I once recipe tested for a cookbook baking up a chocolate pepper cookie recipe. While I loved the spicy flavor that the cookie imparted, there were other tasters who didn’t like it at all. I can imagine that it would be great paired with the sweetness of the sorbet.
Cre8tive Kitchen
Cantaloupe + honey are an awesome combo, and they must make for a fresh & sweet sorbet. I have to admit that a ganache with red pepper flakes in it sounds perfect. I’d love to dunk the top of a chocolate cupcake in it too.
Potato Candies
Before reading this blogger’s post, I had never heard of an Amba. I did a little research on it, and it appears that it’s a Middle-Eastern Condiment often served on sandwiches and falafel. Sounds like it would be quite delicious.
Neal from Burning Pasta
It gives me great pleasure to join you all this week as a guest judge.
First off, I was quite pleased by the variety of entries, both savory and sweet. While I was hoping someone might try and dig up one or two slightly more obscure melon varietals (you can still get fantastic Chinese winter melon this time of year if you look for it), or perhaps make their own hot pepper flakes (a good knife and an oven is all you need), I was thoroughly impressed with the ability of these bloggers to take basic supermarket ingredients and turn them into high-quality examples of cookery.
Neal’s Winner: Danger Kitten Bakes (+ 300)
I loved how visual this entry was; food blogs, after all, are not just about recipes; they’re about description, presentation and aesthetic beauty as well.
This has a lot going for it; a very nice command of the featured ingredients, contrasting textures, seasonality, detailed, visual, meticulous instructions; this is an excellent presentation. I also appreciate that, while the wafer and sorbet work well together in a contrast of hot and cold, each element could easily be adapted into any number of other settings on its own. Finally, as someone who has little to no sweet tooth, I liked that this was light, bright, and not overly sugared; this is the kind of dessert I’m always on the lookout for.
Neal’s Runner Up: Prix Fixe (+ 100)
A very nice entry; I imagine that this would be a lovely start to any summer meal.
The inclusion of the confit was quite inspired — all too often, I feel as if I must wait until July to find decent tomatoes; any recipe that helps draw out great tomato flavor from out-of-season fruit is welcome at my table. Special mention should go to your combination of salty elements together with watermelon; it’s an old-school trick that never quite goes out of style. The fried caper garnish was nice too; a choice that’s both delicious and functional.
Bake-Off Flunkie
Excellent use of the primary ingredients; your ability to go outside the box, to look past the well-trod pairing of prosciutto and melon and explore other combinations of pork and melon is inspired. Most importantly, the attention to detail here, the beautifully composed photos, the detailed instructions, and the care and emphasis given to the main ingredients – all of that impressed me quite a bit.
Potato Candies
I love the idea of making an amba out of melon – too many people shy away from warm pickle sauces, when, the fact is, anyone who’s ever made a Provençal-style roasted fish with warm olives or stuffed themselves silly on Achari Lamb will tell you just how good a hint of salty sourness can make an entrée.
There’s a lot to like here – fenugreek, tumeric, lots of garlic – a tempting trio in any dish. This being said, this recipe is for a sauce, not a complete dish; I would have liked to see your entire vision for it realized. Additionally, when dealing with more obscure preparations like amba, it’s best to give your readers a visual reference.
All that being said, this is very creative work; I have no doubt the final product was quite good.
Cre8tive Kitchen
Another strong dessert. You have an eye for plating – a difficult thing to pull off. The combination of cantaloupe and chocolate is nice, and it was a great idea to use the honey together with the melon – I imagine the two flavors melded together seamlessly.
Comparisons to Danger Kitten Bakes’ entry are inevitable; as it is, DKB has to get the edge because of the wafers and the crunchy, contrasting texture her chocolate element brought to the table. In a way, I would have loved to see the two of you working together in the same kitchen – something tells me that sorbet-wafer sandwiches half-dipped in ganache would have been absolutely killer.
Chef Charlie Sinden
There’s nothing quite like a good blue cheese to pair together with fruit; for that matter, there’s nothing quite like a good blue cheese, period. There’s great potential here: the mango/pepper dressing, the sharp freshness of the watercress and radish, the grilled melon and aforementioned cheese, a bit of herbal basil, the sly echo of the pepper flakes with fresh red pepper slices – a big part of what food blogs are about is the idea of vicarious experience, and the ingredient list alone was quite appealing. I would have loved a bit more description and a few more photos, but these are small complaints.
All in all, each of these competitors clearly took the time to present a well-thought out, lovely course; a dinner of all of them would be more than divine. Just think about it: Prix Fixe’s Amuse to start, followed by Bake-Off Flunkie’s entrée and Potato Candies’ amba. Chef Charley Sinden’s salad would be next, and a duetto of Danger Kitten Bakes and Cre8tive Kitchen’s desserts would round out the meal. That’s what I call a good lunch.
Great work, all around!
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RESULTS!
Danger Kitten Bakes – Smart Minds Watermelon Sorbet with Spicy Chocolate Wafers: 300 + 84 = 384
Bake-Off Flunkie – Grilled Pork and Cantaloupe with Spicy Balsamic Glaze: 300 + 52 = 352
Chef Charley Sinden – Grilled Watermelon watercress radish red pepper salad, humbolt fog goat cheese with mango red pepper vinaigrette: 100 + 12 = 112
Prix Fixe – Tomato Confit with Watermelon Salad: 100 + 4 = 104
Cre8tive Kitchen – Honey Cantaloupe Sorbet with Dark Chocolate Pepper Ganache: 31
Potato Candies – Spicy Cantaloupe Amba: 5
Thanks to everyone who voted and participated! This was the closest battle we’ve had so far on Foodie Fights and also the only battle where there was no overlap in judge votes. Very interesting stuff. Dan will be back next week (Wednesday, June 10th) to kick off the next battle. Be sure to sign-up for Battle #5 before then if you want a piece of the action!
Also, be sure to check out the Foodie Fights Hall of Fame and Past Battles.
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