Welcome back to CHOPPED Thursdays!!! Greg is the chef tonight, and Bob was chosen to pick the 4 basket ingredients. Bob chose Center-Cut Pork Loin, Plantains (6 total), Pickles, and Nutter Butters. Total Spent = $18.
The basket that Greg’s basket ingredients were delivered in was beautiful…see it pictured here:
With the timer set for 30 minutes…we gave Greg the GO to begin. There was already a pot of boiling water, and the oven was already pre-heated.
First thing Greg started to do was split the Nutter Butters. He was removing the peanut butter in the middle (it’s a sin, I know)…so that all that was left was the sweet peanut butter cookie. He then began to pound them down into a crust. The below picture is Greg coating the Pork with the Nutter Butter crust:
Once he was done with that, he takes each of the 4 pork loins and deep fries them for about 2 minutes each (to prevent them from drying out), then he puts them on a baking sheet and throws them in the oven.
Now he turns his attention to the plantains. They were already in the pot of boiling water (it loosens the skin and allows it to fall off a little easier than if you were to peel them raw). This picture is Greg attempting to hand-peel each HOT plantain directly from the water – a little silly if you ask me…
After he peeled each plantain, he threw them into the blender, along with some chopped up pickles, and Macintosh apples. He attempted to blend it without a liquid at first, but it didn’t work out so well – a blender needs a liquid to “get going”. Here’s a picture of Greg fighting with the blender:
Now he’s getting down to the wire – trying to get everything together, and just barely makes it – the last dish lacked some semblance of “organization”, because it was literally THROWN from across the kitchen onto the plate, but…
Here’s the Entree: A Nutter Butter crusted Pork Loin served over Pureed Pickle and Apple Plantains.
Now…the “Judging” begins….
Entree Summary: Pork Loin actually tasted a little bit like peanut butter – it was very well crusted (it held up well in the deep fryer and the oven). The Pureed Plantains with Apples and Pickles was (admittedly) a little odd, but I think it worked out well – it was a little “off” as far as presentation goes, but I’m partial 😉
Scoring: PRACTICE ROUND – SCORING NOT APPLICABLE
To summarize, Greg did well – he took all that was thrown at him – 50% of the basket he doesn’t even LIKE, and made a dish that made sense – a little “odd” – but it made sense. Great Job Greg!!!
I look forward to a New Chef and New Basket NEXT THURSDAY on the GCBM’s CHOPPED!!!
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What a totally fun idea! I'm PJ and I found you through Sew Many Ways Find a Friend Friday, I'm your newest follower.
Hi PJ!! I saw you on SMW also – and I follow you now too!! Welcome to my blog! And happy reading!! As far as CHOPPED goes…we're pretty much going to do this every Thursday until we get bored of it – it's pretty fun. It's my turn on Oct 11th (so stay tuned!!) 🙂