Is FoodFu for everyone? When we invited our friends Maria and Daniel over to play FoodFu Maria’s response was something like, “We don’t really like to cook but sure we’ll play FoodFu.” I immediately thought maybe we shouldn’t have a food fight with them but then I was curious. Will people who don’t like to cook still like playing FoodFu?
In the conversations I had with Maria it sounded like her and Daniel had a really good salmon recipe. So when I was trying to decide what the featured ingredient would be for the battle I thought I should give Maria an advantage since she didn’t like to cook. I chose salmon.
Who participated in Battle Salmon?
For someone who is not really into cooking Maria arrived with everything she needed for battle including a bag of spices I had never seen before. Maria is from Peru and I’ll tell you a little more about those spices later. When we play FoodFu I set up our kitchen so there are two prep stations. These are separate areas that have a cutting board, a knife and a kitchen towel. Maria and I set up by our stations and Daniel, our emcee, announced the start of FoodFu Battle Salmon and we were off! Time always flies in the chef role so it seemed like barely any time had passed before Daniel was prompted by the FoodFu app to ask us questions about the battle. He asked Maria, “have you cooked salmon before?” She instantly responded “no!” I was stunned!!! So much for giving her an advantage in our food fight!
What did the chefs make to highlight salmon?
Maria’s secret weapon – Peruvian spices.
Chef Maria made salmon with an Italian and Peruvian spiced mayo glaze (her husband’s recipe), Peruvian rice and Asian green beans. On her salmon and green beans Maria used a Peruvian spice (Piment péruvien Rocoto en Poudre) that doesn’t have any flavor but gives a kick and intensifies existing flavors. Like I said earlier, I had never seen this before so I was worried Maria brought a secret weapon into the kitchen!
I made roasted salmon and broccoli with chile-caper vinaigrette and creamy mashed potatoes. I made this dish for Christmas a few years ago and thought it was yummy. The combination of the acidity from the capers and the heat of the jalapenos really brings out the sweetness in the salmon. I found the salmon recipe online at Bon Appetit, here is the recipe if you would like to make it at home:
Watch battle salmon unfold:
The plates for FoodFu Battle Salmon:
During judging Jim and Daniel both seemed to enjoy the dishes so it was difficult to tell if there was a clear winner from their reactions. Jim did remember how I judged him in Battle Veggie Burger – I said the spiciness of his dish overpowered everything – and he laughed at that since my dish had jalapenos I could suffer the same fate! Hmmm…I hadn’t thought about how my judging record could influence my own battles! I want to believe that Jim was an unbiased judge but I did lose!!! Maria won battle salmon. To be fair I tried Maria’s dish and I would have made the same judgement. Her salmon was delicious! The mayo glaze she used really sealed in the flavors and juiciness of the salmon.
After the battle we asked Maria and Daniel what they thought about playing FoodFu. They said they were both surprised by how much fun it was because they didn’t expect to like it.
The next time I ran into Maria she said Daniel was already thinking about a grilling battle! So there you have it, you don’t have to be into cooking to have fun playing FoodFu.
