Iron Chef Dueber

My sister, Marcie, decided to host an Iron Chef party, so my brother-in-law Brian and I created succulent variations on the theme of cinnamon. Now, before I get into that, let me just say that creating 5 dishes in one hour is not practical - the real Iron Chefs have crazy mad skills with which I cannot compete. Julie and I spent nearly two and a half hours preparing our five dishes. Thankfully there was no penalty for using extra time.

The challenger, Brian, went first (because I won in a Rock-Paper-Scissors tournament that took forever!) and had a comfort food theme to his dishes. His four dishes were a cinnamon crepe filled with a sausage and sweet potato hash with a pomegranate sauce, a butternut squash bisque with amaretto croutons, a cinnamon and anise crusted pork tenderloin with sweet cinnamon apple sauce and buttery cinnamon spinach, and a pear crisp served over a slice of cinnamon bread topped with cinnamon whipped cream and a few red hots. He also made a mexican hot cocoa in really neat mugs to go with the dessert, but I don't seem to have a picture of that here.






I took an around-the-world approach to my dishes. My five dishes were cuban picadillo stuffed wantons served with mole sauce, moussaka, scallops wrapped in cassia bud crusted bacon and skewered with a cinnamon stick served with a butternut squash risotto fritter, Mughlai style curried chicken breasts served with basmati rice and potatoes, and cinnamon ice cream with red hot apples served with a mexican hot cocoa. All of the recipes from my dishes can be found on Marcie and Ben's website; just search for "Iron Chef." The Mexican hot cocoa has a Tbsp of cocoa powder and an ounce of bittersweet chocolate per cup of milk!







I ended up winning by one point, but in truth it was a rounding thing. I think it should be considered a tie. After all, we tied in the taste category, and that's what counts!