Armchair Chopped - Dessert All-Star

As of late, it seems that I have not had much time to entertain my culinary imagination. Work and sleep have gotten in the way (the former more than the latter). Consequently, I have had a couple of mystery ingredient "baskets" in my que waiting to be manipulated. 

To refresh, Arm Chair Chopped is a creative exercise I submit myself to now and again. I watch the Food Network program Chopped and submit myself to the same requirements as the contestants: create a dish using a collection of random, unusual ingredients in a specified period of time. The following list of ingredients was sent to me via text message before I had a chance to watch the actual episode. That said, I did actually watch the episode before concocting this "dessert." In the fourth episode of Chopped All-Stars, two of the distinguished Chopped judges (Aaron Sanchez and Geoffery Zakarian) faced off in the last round of the competition to make it into the championship round. These two chefs were tasked with making a dessert using the following ingredients:

Green Plantains: A relative of the banana, green plantains contain much more starch than a banana most people in the U.S. are used to and are typically boiled or fried.

Peanut Butter Puff Cereal: Depending on the brand, a corn-based cereal which are made with peanut butter or peanut flavor.

Chinese Bacon: Smoked pork belly cured with a mixture of spices and intended as a seasoning for stir-fry and other dishes. The spice mixture can include salt, sugar, 5-spice, pepper and other spices.  

 

 

Frozen Lemonade*: A mixture of lemon juice, sugar, water and additional flavorings or ingredients which can be reconstituted with the addition of water to prepare a lemonade drink.

The chefs both opted to make souffles, so I knew that I couldn't use this idea. Frankly, however, I know I wouldn't have even considered making a souffle, if I were in their shoes. So, after contemplating the list carefully for some time, I came up with the following dish:  

Peanut Butter Puff Ice Cream with Candied Chinese Bacon, Frozen Lemonade Caramel
and Crispy Plantain "Spoon"

Given the time restraints, I would have a hard time completing all these elements. The ice cream base would need to be made, bacon rendered until crispy and then candied in simple syrup, green plantain peeled and sliced through a mandolin, and finally a frozen lemonade caramel sauce made.

My idea for the peanut butter puff cereal would be to finely grind it into a powder. Some of the powder and the whole puffs would be incorporated into the ice cream as it begins to set up, hopefully allowing the whole puffs to stay somewhat crisp.

The frozen lemonade was the difficult component for me. After much contemplation, I decided that melting the frozen lemonade, the additional sugar could be added and made into a caramel sauce with a fresh lemon accent.

The crispy Chinese bacon would be candied and the cure would provide some salt to counter all the sweetness. Slices of plantain would be fried until crispy and then dusted with additional peanut butter puff cereal powder and white sugar.

After all of the components were completed the presentation would be just as shown. A single, generous scoop of the ice cream would be placed in a square bowls topped with a drizzle of the frozen lemonade caramel sauce, pieces of the candied Chinese bacon, some finely chopped salted peanuts and garnished with a dusted plantain "spoon."

This one sounds so good, I might actually try to make it someday.

*The ingredient used in the original preparations was generic and not associated with a particular brand. The use of the image in this post was not intended to promote this brand of product.