Pistonheads Inaugural Cooking Competition

[zakelwe]

Ladies and Gentlemen, cooks and bottle washers, the first PistonHeads cooking competition for those fine folk who frequent this, the most tasty and calorific part of the forum, is now underway.

Below you will find the initial starting point and rules, no doubt by the time we have finished we will have fine tuned it down with many edits so that everyone leaves satiated. With no further ado :-


COMPULSORY INGREDIENTS

Chicken
Pasta - Lasagne sheets (selected because you can roll them or cut them to how you wish)

COMPETITION RULES

1. Competition open from Saturday 19th September to Sunday 27th September
2. Presentation on Monday 28th September by forum post of photograph plus description of ingredients and also a small essay why this was the best meal ever even if it turned out really bad
3. Judging in a new thread on Tuesday 29th September by peers using a poll.

COOKING RULES

1. You can cook as many courses as you wish.
2. All ingredients must be listed in the entry
3. All other single ingredients are allowed as long as they do not become the main ingredient. Onion yes, lamb no.
3. Sauces are allowed but must be cooked from scratch, bechamel ok, Lloyd Grossman Patek Indian Tai Numchukas Caribbean hot pot curry no.

Hopefully that gives everyone a lot of options and I hope the rules are pitched at just the right level not to be too authoritarian and let people have a bit of fun but also give us some goal posts to aim towards.

Please post your entry and I will copy into the below.

LIST OF ENTRIES

Zakelwe
Pferdestarke
Cactussed
BigJonMcQuimm
thegavster
Anna_S
Chim Girl
Papoo
grumbledoak
captainzep
madbadger
bazking69
trix-a-bell

Edited by zakelwe on Friday 25th September 14:04

[Pferdestarke]

Count me in.

[Cactussed]

I'll give it a nudge...

[BigJonMcQuimm]

Game on ....

[Anna_S]

Horrendously busy week, but can't miss out on the first one - count me in

[skibum]

Excellent idea - this competition reminds me of a show we have here in the US called Chopped. Four restaurant chefs get presented with a basket containing four mystery ingredients that they must use in the dish. The kicker is that the four ingredients seldom go together, hence its a challenge to incorporate them effectively. They have 20 minutes to make a starter, then one chef is "Chopped", a new basket of 4 ingredients to the remaining 3 chefs for main course, then one is chopped. Final 2 chefs have yet another basket and 30 mins for dessert with the winner taking home $10,000. Get some pretty high calibre chefs on there too with the head chef at Gordon Ramsay's London in NY winning his show.

[Chim Girl]

Not sure when I'll fit this in, but yep I'll give it a go too.

[Papoo]

thegavster said:

Similar to "Ready, Steady, Cook" over here which is fronted by a complete and utter prick.

Off the fence, you..

I'm in if I get the time this week, definately will be taking part in the various 'events'..

[grumbledoak]

Also in if I can find the time...

[zakelwe]

Time is always a problem so I will pencil people in but if you don't get around it it no problem, have a go at the next one. I don't want people to feel pressurised.

As for having to list your ingredients and method that would add to the time taken, a quick photo and description and why it was the best meal ever will do.

I'm still in two minds on whether to do a pole for the winner or ask people to give marks for artistic licence and technical merit like gymnastics. That might be more fun.

Best to see how many dishes we have to judge first though

Regards
Andy

[Wadeski]

why is using curry sauce a no-no? if only bechamel is ok, basically everyone makes chicken lasange and then we judge on whose.....looks best?

not a massive opportunity for originality, no?

[captainzep]

I'll try to have a go on Saturday. Got to feed four on Sat night.

The two ingredients don't have to appear on the same plate do they?

They can appear in different courses?

[Cactussed]

I would have thought on the same plate, or it defeats the purpose?

[madbadger]

Cactussed said:

I would have thought on the same plate, or it defeats the purpose?

I assumed this too. Makes it a bit easy if you just need to come up with two separate dishes.

I'm in. Bought stuff last night.

As I understand it cooking done by the weekend but no entries posted until Monday to avoid people claiming ownership of one dish.

[captainzep]

Cactussed said:

I would have thought on the same plate, or it defeats the purpose?

That was my initial assumption but its not clear from Zakelwe's first post.

Spread across courses gives more culinary licence, but I'd be happy to get more inventive if required.

[bazking69]

I'm in, but at the moment I'm struggling for anything more exciting than a chicken lasagne!
To the drawing board I go!

[Anna_S]

Making mine now

Can I use chopped tinned tomatos or is that cheating?

[grumbledoak]

Two courses from two ingredients would rather feel like cheating. Too much freedom.

But, I think tinned tomatoes are ok.

[Chim Girl]

grumbledoak said:

Two courses from two ingredients would rather feel like cheating. Too much freedom.

But, I think tinned tomatoes are ok.

I agree. Is the general view that it should be one dish using both ingredients?

[Anna_S]

Brilliant, well I have used them now, some nice smells coming from my oven