A Royal FLOP (flopped, challenge 2)

Here's what Chef Josh picked out as Chef Leah's four Mystery Ingredients:

Vanilla wafers, pickled asparagus, pork loin and a lovely large plantain. 

Eww. 

I had no idea what to do. 

I seriously walked back and forth and back and forth across the kitchen for 30 minutes before I started anything.  I had to peel the plantain to see what it was like since I'd never handled a raw plantain before.

It looks like a banana but it has the consistency of wood.  Hard and tough.  Not like a banana at all.

The only thing I knew I had to do from the beginning was crush the vanilla wafers.  I grabbed a meat mallet and went to town.

Then I started pounding on the meat because I already had out the meat mallet and that seemed like a good thing to do. 

Plus it gave me more time to think about what I was going to do next.

The asparagus. 

My next goal became to hide the asparagus in my dish as much as possible.  When I opened the jar they smelled disgusting, and they were mushy as heck.  Definitely hide the asparagus.

I decided to make a fresh pineapple salsa with red onions, red bell pepper and the asparagus.  Hopefully the other salsa ingredients would drown out the asparagus. 

I stuffed the salsa inside the pork.

Now it was time to incorporate the vanilla wafers.  I rolled up the meat log and patted the vanilla wafers on top to make a crispy crust.

I stuck the pork in the oven.

Time to tackle the plantain.

The only way I've ever eaten plantain is fried, so I decided I better try to fry it.  I chopped the plantain and dipped each piece in egg, then in crushed vanilla wafers mixed with cornstarch, then in egg again, and finally in shredded coconut.

I dropped them in the hot oil and crossed my fingers that it was somewhere near the right temperature, whatever that was.

Each batch had to fry for 6-7 minutes to get the plantain soft enough to eat.  It did not turn out like the fried plantains of my dreams.  They tasted okay but were still really tough.  And DRY.  

The meat didn't turn out much better.  I pulled it out of the oven and went to slice it, imagining a beautiful bright salsa swirled inside the meat. 

But no, it just looked like a pile of disgusting mush.

My beautiful crispy vanilla wafer crust?  SOGGY.  Sog sog soggy.

Please don't tell Chef Ramsay.  Please.

At this point I was doubled over, laughing so hard in the kitchen that Josh came over to make sure I was okay. 

I mixed a little maple syrup into some sour cream to try to salvage something good..."maple syrup fixes everything" is my motto. 

But it didn't really help.  Just added to the overall goop effect of my dish.

Roast pork stuffed with pineapple and asparagus salsa 

with coconut fried plantains and maple sour cream

Chef Leah...MAJOR FLOPPED!


It actually didn't taste as bad as it looks.  The salsa inside the pork was pretty tasty (the pineapple definitely drowned out the pickled asparagus), and I must say the pork was very tender after all that tenderizing. :)  

But the fried plantains sat like a rock, let me tell you.

Chef Josh has definitely won the FLOPPED challenge.  Hands down.  Way to go, Josh!

And I was reminded why I LOVE RECIPES! :)

Bon Appetite!