OC Food Diva: April 2019

Some of the ingredients and products in this post were provided by Melissa’s Produce, Springer Mountain Farms, Bolner’s Fiesta Brand, Lipton Iced Tea, Red Gold Tomatoes, and Happy Chef but the opinions expressed here are my own.

I woke up excited and nervous. I made it into the World Chicken Championship Top 10! Since our signature dish for the opening round was also our infused dish for the Top 10, we went over our game plan. The most important thing was to watch that sauce on the stovetop. And since we needed to feed 10 judges instead of 5, we decided to double the marinade and sauce. We knew the leftovers could go to the volunteers and VIPs.

Our infused ingredient was Lipton Tea. Per the rules: “The required, infused ingredient at the World Chicken Championship will be Lipton Tea. Competitors will be given a choice between the following two Lipton Tea with a Splash of Juice flavors – Berry or Tropical. Competitors will be required to create a chicken dish using whatever recipe they can dream up but it has to feature one of these two Lipton Tea flavors! How those decisions are executed is solely at the cook’s discretion. Competitors will also be required to use, and will be provided, their choice of the following Springer Mountain Farms chicken products: Bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs; wings; drumsticks; boneless chicken breast.”

Since we were the first round of competitors in kitchen arena for the day, you could have cut the tension in the air with a knife. Once the clock started, it was heads down and time to cook our Huli Huli Chicken Skewer Plate Lunch infused with Lipton Tropical Iced Tea. We had 1 hour and 30 minutes to prepare, cook, plate, and walk our entry over to the turn-in table. My dad, the Chicken Master, started breaking down the chicken thighs.

Credit: World Food Championships

Lynn started the marinade. I started on the sticky rice and macaroni. Plate lunch is not complete without sticky rice and mac salad!

At the 30-minute mark, we had the chicken marinating, sauce thickening, rice was almost done, and starting on the meson plas for the mac salad.

Credit: World Food Championships

At the 45-minute mark, my dad started skewering the chicken, Lynn was watching the sauce like a hawk so it reduced down perfectly, mac salad was chilling, and I started working the platter presentation. You don’t realize how much time it takes to go through your produce to find the perfect pieces – I picked through orchids and found the best parts of the banana leaves to use on the plates.

At the 1-hour mark, my dad was ready to grill, the sauce reduced perfectly, and everything seemed fine. This is when the time warp happens and stuff beyond your control starts. Our grill wasn’t heating evenly so my dad was having trouble finding the hot spots to get the chicken grilled.

We were down to the last 5 minutes. The turn-in window was open but I didn’t have enough chicken yet. Lynn and I started to freak out. Miraculously, my dad, the Chicken Master, must have summoned Pele for her help and the chicken was done. I am so glad I had my platters set up because the chicken skewers went on and we walked briskly to the turn-in table. My hands were off the platter at the 8 second mark. I have never cut it so close to the end of the round before. I think I may have held my breath for the moments before I put the platter down at the final countdown table, because I felt faint. If you’ve seen me in other competitions, I cried, #cryingcook. It was just the stress of that last 5 minutes and then the relief that I made it in on time. I don’t have a final picture of the platter since we only had seconds to turn-in. Our presentation plate was requested by Bo Jackson and his crew to eat before it could be shot for professional photos. That was an enormous honor!

At the awards night, I was excited and nervous to see if I went up or down in the ranks. As the names were called, I kept thinking, “Okay, Mike is going to call out your name next.” When he got to the fifth spot and had not called my name, I thought to myself, “I think Mike forgot to call out my name…” When I heard Mike say, “I need the other 3 to step forward,” I felt like I was in a dream or about to have a heart attack. Carrie Rickman to my right helped nudge me forward because I just couldn’t believe my ears. I remember seeing Lidia Haddadian walk toward the front and we hugged and screamed. My Huli Huli Chicken Skewer Plate Lunch scored 91.4444 for a Final Score of 92.6664, moving up 4 spots to 3^rd place! Here is my recipe and hope you enjoy!

Huli Huli Chicken Skewer Plate Lunch

Serves 6-8

The tropical flavors of Lipton Iced Tea take you on a trip to Hawaii without leaving your seat. Pineapple and mango flavors infuse perfectly with Hawaiian-style BBQ sauce on tender chicken skewers. No plate lunch is complete without sticky rice and mac salad.

Mac Salad:

1/2 box Barilla Elbow macaroni

4 eggs, hard boiled, chopped

¼ cup sweet onion, finely chopped

¼ cup frozen peas

1 cup imitation crab, chopped

1 dash Bolner’s Fiesta Brand black pepper

1 dash kosher salt

1 dash Ajinomoto

15 oz. jar Best Foods Mayonnaise

Chicken:

2/3 cup Red Gold Tomato Ketchup
2/3 cup Aloha Shoyu
½ cup brown sugar
½ cup agave syrup
½ cup sherry
4 tbsp sesame oil
2 tsp ginger powder
4 tsp Bolner’s Fiesta Brand garlic powder
2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
2 tsp Sriracha

1 tsp liquid smoke

1 - 15 oz. bottle Lipton Tropical Iced Tea

1 cup pineapple juice

1 cup mango juice

8 Springer Mountain Farms chicken thighs

1 green onion, thinly sliced

Hawaiian salt

Sticky Rice:

4 cups Calrose rice

4½ cups water

8 tsp furikake

Heat grill to medium heat and cover grill.
Combine all ingredients for marinade.
Boil water for pasta. Once water is to boil, make macaroni per package directions. Drain and rinse with cold water.
Boil eggs for 7 minutes. Let rest off heat for 7 minutes. Cool in cold water for 7 minutes. Peel and chop.
Debone and remove skin from chicken thighs. Pound meat into 1/4” thickness. Slice against the grain into 1” thick strips. Place chicken in ½ of marinade for 15 minutes.
Combine mac salad ingredients together and chill.
Put other ½ of marinade in a sauce pan and reduce on medium-high heat until thickened.
Start sticky rice by rinsing rice 3 times until water is almost clear. Combine rice and water into a covered pot to boil on high heat, about 5 minutes. Reduce to low heat and cook for 5 minutes. Remove pot from heat and let sit, covered, for 10 minutes. Fluff rice and cover to keep warm.
Skewer chicken strips and set aside for grilling.
Grill chicken for 2 minutes on each side. Remove, baste with thickened sauce, and wrap in foil to keep warm.
On individual plates, scoop sticky rice and sprinkle with furikake. Scoop mac salad and place next to rice.
Place 4-5 skewers in front of the mac salad and rice. Sprinkle diced green onion and Hawaiian salt on top of skewers. Serve immediately.

Again, I want to send HUGE MAHALO to my dad and Lynn Beamer! I promised Lynn that I wouldn’t cry again. I will try my best. HUGE THANKS to my produce sponsor, Melissa’s Produce, for the produce and garnish for the Huli Huli Chicken Skewer Plate Lunch; Springer Mountain Farms for being the category sponsor and providing great chicken thighs to work with; Lipton for sponsoring the infusion of Tropical Iced Tea, Bolner’s Fiesta Brand for the black pepper and garlic powder; Red Gold Tomatoes for the ketchup; and Happy Chef for providing the World Chicken Championship Chef Coat! Congrats to the new World Chicken Champion, Lidia Haddadian, and break a “chicken” leg at the Final Table!

I can’t wait to see what World Food Championships has in store for me this year in the World Sandwich Championship! See y’all in Dallas!

For more information:

World Food Championships

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OC Food Diva

Tuesday, April 16, 2019

2018 World Chicken Championship – Top 10 Round + Recipe