After two days of classroom style teaching about different food coating systems and the technologies behind them it was time to take the last half day of TTU and have our participants put practical application to what they’d learned. This year we divided them into four teams and set them loose in the kitchen with proteins, cheeses, breads, seasonings, and of course…batters and breaders. Each team was tasked with creating a minimum of two dishes to share with the rest of the group but, came up with many more.
Group one started with an Asian-style chicken finger with a soy and wasabi dipping sauce. Then they did a play on the traditional bruschetta but battered and fried the bread. On top of that they put bacon, tomato, basil and mozzarella cheese. Their third dish was called “Eye of the Storm” potatoes which were baked potatoes, glazed in a hot buffalo sauce with cilantro and lime. Delicious!
Group two started off with a Mediterranean flat bread, using our specialty crumb, Pizza Panko to add crispness to the crust. A spread of ground beef, stewed tomatoes, cumin, salt and pepper provided the topping. Just a squeeze of lemon delivered a nice clean finish. Their next dish was a chicken meatball covered in a vodka sauce with shaved Parmesan cheese over the top. Their final dish was shrimp coated two ways. Using our chili Thai breadcrumbs as a base they then added Chow mein noodles to one set of shrimp, and an Asian rice cracker to the second set. It was an interesting use of chow mein noodles, and very striking on the plate.
Group three started off with steak nachos. The steak was breaded in a tortilla crumb, and piled high on top of cherry peppers, beans, avocado slices, and corn chips. Dish two was a simple baked asparagus, but breaded in a salt and peppercorn breader. It was paired with an avocado and Greek yogurt sauce for dipping. Finally, and possibly my favorite thing on the table, was the fried cheesecake bites. Soft crunch on the outside with a coating made of coconut, oats, marshmallows and an American Bread Crumb, and a warm gooey bite of cheesecake on the inside…so good.
Group four came up with a bacon/apple meatball with Honey Sriracha drizzle. They fried cauliflower and seasoned it with Mexican seasoning. They made delicious steak taco with a deep fried taco shell and steak that was marinated in pineapple and Sriracha. They finished off with some breaded and fried mushrooms, a savory waffle, and a hominy slaw. They added mushrooms and peppers to the batter before making the waffles.
Most impressive was how quickly the participants seemed to master the kitchen and the techniques. At first it was just total chaos in the kitchen, with people running everywhere and trying to find ingredients or tools to use, but very quickly things calmed down and you could hear the conversations turn to double battering or discussing how their dish best fit in with the trends they learned about. By the time we stopped the cooking everyone was done, and plated and ready to serve.
All the in-progress pictures as well as the finished products are below. It was a fun ending to a great educational experience. After a lunch of all these great recipes we said our goodbyes to the “Spring class of 2016” as they all went their separate ways.
We encourage you to speak with your sales rep and join us in a future seasonings or batter/breading TTU sessions.
