Chopped Challenge

[Jester]

For all you cooks and foodies in here, I have an idea.

I've been trying to figure out, for some time now, how we could do a version of the TV show "Chopped" in here, and I think I may have finally figured it out.

For those unfamiliar with Chopped, it is a competitive cooking show in which chefs compete over various rounds making dishes which must include the four items they all get in a "mystery basket" at the start of the round. The four items are sometime odd or exotic, sometimes not, but always seem odd in combination.

For then CS.com Chopped Challenge, it would not be three rounds, simply one (at a time, anyway), and it would be less a competition and more a challenge of "what can you make with THIS?" Here's how I envision it:

1. Anyone here can suggest any ingredients they want. Proteins, veggies, grains, sweet things, whatever. Suggest however many things you want, whether or not you plan on participating.

2. A Final Arbiter will make an initial decision determining the four items in our Mystery Basket. The initial decision will be subject to availability....if anyone participating knows they cannot get a particular item in their local area, the Arbiter will adjust the Mystery Basket appropriately. From the time of the initial decision, any participants will have one week to accept the Mystery Basket or inform the Arbiter of the unavailable ingredients. If a week from the announcement of the Mystery Basket passes without an availability challenge, the Arbiter will announce the Mystery Basket as final. If there is an availability challenge, and one or more new ingredients are announced, another week will be open for an availability challenge. In any case, at some point, once everyone wanting to participate has accepted the ingredients (or failed to challenge them), the Arbiter will announce the final Mystery Basket as final, and the participants will have one month to make and photograph their dish, and present the photograph and explanation of the finished product in here.

(If the final Mystery Basket is announced and a would be participant discovers they can't get one or more of the ingredients, well, too bad. They had their time. They can still attempt to make something with the remaining Mystery ingredients and whatever else they have available to them, and presenting it here, as long as they explain what is missing.)

3. Since we all live in various places, tasting or really even judging the various dishes is pretty much impossible. Which is why this is a challenge, and not a competition. Basically, it's to see what we each can come up with with four randomly selected often disparate ingredients.

4. I have asked Mathnerd to be the Final Arbiter, and she has graciously accepted this role. From this point on, her word is law in this challenge. As I want to participate, and it could be perceived as a conflict of interest to both participate and arbitrate, I will not be running this show. Mathnerd's say in this challenge will be final, no matter who disagrees with it or why, including me. You have a problem with her? Tough. She has teenage sons, so you don't scare her.

5. You can make anything you want. Appetizer, dessert, entree, soup, whatever. The only rule is you must use all four Mystery Basket ingredient in some way, and must explain how you used each. And of course, you must photograph the final product. Who you feed it to is your business. Though I encourage you sharing it with others. Feel free to include their feedback on the dish in your presentation.

6. Anyone caught cheating (how, I don't know, but some people will always find a way to cheat) will be relentlessly mocked and ridiculed for being a first class weenie, and may thrown in a box and shipped to Nunavut. Or worse: Congress. Or may be forced to sit next to me during an ASU football game, without ear plugs or any liquid refreshment. Anyone who attempts to harass or intimidate the Arbiter will be summarily executed the following dawn, by being beaten to death with butcher's twine and pizza dough.

Any questions? Any answers? Any suggestions?

Who's in?

[Jester]

By the way, I think that all suggestions for Mystery Box ingredients should come from the gallery, i.e., those who don't want to actually participate, but just watch, as it avoids people trying to suggest items that play to their own personal strengths, and allows the gallery an opportunity for a bit of paricipation and whole bunch of evil in their suggestions. Of course, that is a decision that is no longer in my hands, but in those of the Arbiter, as my authority here ended once I posted the initial rules. Just a thought.

[NecessaryCatharsis]

Couple questions:

If someone says they are interested, is that a firm commitment? I would probably like to do it, but ingredients are going to cost different amounts in different parts of the world, (ie, you and I Jester would pay very different amounts for a swordfish steak and moose) and if the ingredients are too expensive in my area I would probably have to bow out.

Does the meal have to be prepared on a clock like chopped, or just during the month. For instance if salmon is an ingredient, in a month I would have time to smoke it, then use it. If it is on a clock, how long?

Would entries be posted as they are complete, or just on the last day of the month? (If entries are posted as they are complete some challengers could then 'cheat' and use ideas of previously entered items, but if they are only entered during a specific time frame anyone who is not available that day would be excluded)

Cool idea!

[Jester]

Excellent points.

As this is a casual challenge and not a competition, anyone who says they want to cook in it can bow out at any time for any reason. And they can state their reason or not, as they see fit. As there are no prizes for winners, there will be no penalties for those who decide to discontinue their participation.

Your second point is actually something I had not thought of, and an excellent one. Here's the way I see it: from the time the final basket is determined by the Arbiter, everyone participating will have one month to do their dish however they want. There will be no clock (how could we enforce it?), there will be no time limit beyond the one month thing. If you want to marinate something for two days for your dish, knock yourself out. All pictures of finished dishes should be posted on the day or two after the final day of the challenge. In other words, if the last day of the challenge is the 31st of the month, participants will post their pictures on the 1st or 2nd. I feel two days is appropriate leeway to give everyone for varying schedules. So even if you complete you're dish and photograph it on the 15th, for example, refrain from posting any photos of finished dishes until the two days a designated for photos.

Hope that all makes sense.

And yes, obviously some ingredients will not be available to everyone. I've not seen moose meat down here, and various exotic Asian sauces and hebs are going to be more readily available to people in California or the Pacific Northwest. Hence my suggestion for the availability challenge. I'd still like to see some funky ingredients in the final basket, but they have to be items that everyone participating has access to. Though of course, costs for such items will vary market to market. Pretty much the nature of things.

[Kittish]

I'm very interested in participating. This sounds like it could be fun.

And, let me point out that Amazon is terrific for getting hold of not too expensive non-perishable ingredients that are not locally available to a participant. Whether a participant chooses to or is able to make use of this resource is entirely up to each individual. I, for one, would be quite amenable to sharing an amazon order for stuff; say a particular sort of sauce is declared an ingredient, and it's sold in multipaks (or even if the multipak is just a lot cheaper than singles)- one participant orders it, then splits it up and sends the rest on to other participants sharing in the order. This sort of sharing should probably be limited to participants on the same continent as international shipping gets prohibitively expensive rather quickly, plus there's all that bother with customs.

[Jester]

Good idea, Kittish! Sharing locally available ingredients is a great idea, though I dont think it would work for proteins, produce, or cheeses. So moose is probably still out for me.

[dalesys]

Braunschweiger

[EricKei]

Just a thought -- Perhaps alternates could be suggested for people with allergies -- e.g. if one of the ingredients is "peanuts," perhaps allow for substitutions of almonds or something similar. (I don't have any allergies that I know of, and I won't be competing)

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Anyhoo, peanut gallery here ^_^ None of these are meant to go together unless you think it would be pleasantly devious to have people try and do so. How about...

Feta cheese

Vienna sausages

Lemon curd (kinda sorta similar to lemon pie filling)

Dried fruit (any)

Cola/soft drinks/soda (any)

Game fowl (as available locally)

Whole Cranberries

[mathnerd]

As an allergy sufferer myself, I'm definitely sensitive to other people's need to avoid certain foods. If I was playing instead of being the arbiter, we'd have to do the entire challenge sans tomatoes, as I can't even touch them. I think that in the stage where we wore proposing ingredients, any objections like that should be mentioned and I will use that information in deciding the final ingredients.

[NecessaryCatharsis]

It all sounds good. I don't cook anything fancy, but I'm willing to try in the name of fun, count me in.

[Kittish]

1. Anyone here can suggest any ingredients they want. Proteins, veggies, grains, sweet things, whatever. Suggest however many things you want, whether or not you plan on participating.

By the way, I think that all suggestions for Mystery Box ingredients should come from the gallery, i.e., those who don't want to actually participate, but just watch, as it avoids people trying to suggest items that play to their own personal strengths, and allows the gallery an opportunity for a bit of paricipation and whole bunch of evil in their suggestions. Of course, that is a decision that is no longer in my hands, but in those of the Arbiter, as my authority here ended once I posted the initial rules. Just a thought.

So... which is it to be? Because I have a list of suggested ingredients, some of which play to my strengths, and some of which most certainly do not.

[cindybubbles]

Can we make a beverage (alcoholic or not) using all four Mystery Ingredients? Chopped never did that, so I thought that this would make a nice addition to our challenge.

How about savoury versions of desserts, like a bacon and mashed potato parfait or a potato and gravy sundae with a meatball on top instead of a cherry?

As for ingredients, I suggest the following:

- instant ramen noodles
- mineral water
- a bread bowl
- animal blood (you can get that at a butcher shop or a Chinese supermarket)
- smoked cheese
- smoked ham
- edible flowers
- edible gold
- the hottest chilis you could find
- kimchi
- tuna eyeball (they have it in Japan, not sure anywhere else)
- squid
- sheep stomach
- pork tongue
- Chinese-style roast duck
- Chinese-style roast pig
- chicken feet
- fresh dates (The fruit! You know, the kind you eat!)

and so forth.

[MoonCat]

Sounds like something I used to hear on the radio called "Stump the Cook." It turned into a joke in my house: We have tuna, half a bag of pretzels and some leftover jello. What should we make? Answer: Reservations at a restaurant.

Possible ingredients:

Honey (any kind)
Maple syrup
Fennel bulb
Mushrooms
Polish sausage
Farmer's cheese
Sour cream

[mathnerd]

Sounds like something I used to hear on the radio called "Stump the Cook." It turned into a joke in my house: We have tuna, half a bag of pretzels and some leftover jello. What should we make? Answer: Reservations at a restaurant.

I play this game at least five or six times a month! Only I have to actually make food appear, as I don't have the luxury of taking a family of 5* out to eat very often.


*Can I point out how weird that number seems to me? For 13 years I've been a family of 4.

[Kittish]

Sounds like something I used to hear on the radio called "Stump the Cook." It turned into a joke in my house: We have tuna, half a bag of pretzels and some leftover jello. What should we make? Answer: Reservations at a restaurant.

Make tuna salad. Most households have some condiments on hand, and you can use mayo, mustard, salsa, even bbq sauce in tuna salad (well, except mathnerd). If you don't have any pickle relish, chop up whatever pickles you have on hand. If you're a fan of chutney and keep it around, use some of that. Grated parmesan cheese, or any other cheese you can find, if you have any (even those little packets that come with pizza). If you can scrounge an egg to cook and chop into it, it'll go even further. Serve with the pretzels in lieu of bread. Jello for dessert, and if you can come up with any fresh, dried or canned fruit top the jello with it.

And I'm going to say now that animal blood is not an ingredient that is available in my area (small town, no actual butcher shops), nor is it anything that can reasonably be ordered given its highly perishable nature.