MasterChef Tryouts Submission and Cast Iron Therapy Original Recipe: The Winston.

Yesterday I promised that my next post would be something to knock your socks off. Well here it is, my latest original recipe, the Winston. I’m not going to say this is a quick thing to do, and there’s a few different recipes involved in the making of this.

I’ll just lay out what the Winston is before I get too far into storytelling mode.

It’s an open faced sandwich with a buttered and grilled French roll, slathered with an aioli, which is topped with slices of grilled country style rib glazed with root beer barbecue sauce, slather with even more root beer barbecue sauce, and top all that with a generous pile of light and tangy honey mustard barbecue sauce.

What brought about the Winston? It was actually the dish I came up with to serve to the professional taster for the MasterChef casting call a few months back. While I haven’t been selected to be on the show (at least I don’t think so!) I can state this one awesome fact.

The taster went for seconds. Not trying to brag too much, but he didn’t do that for anyone else on my row! Ok, maybe I’m bragging just a little bit. But there you have it, not just from my opinion, or even my friends’ opinions, but also the actions of a professional taster.

Why the Winston? I wanted to showcase the ribs which has been a friend favorite, but in a way that mitigates the lack of impact of it coming straight off the grill, and I didn’t really trust the tasters to completely remove the last of good temperature from their calculations of how good a dish is. An open faced sandwich sounded like a good idea to me, and was met with hearty approval from my chums on Google+. I’d say the results show that their faith was not ill placed!

For those of you who are curious about the MasterChef tryout process, here’s a handy picture to get you started. This laminated piece of paper highlights what all the preparation, hard work and waiting comes down to in the end.

 

Light and Tangy Honey Mustard Coleslaw

I’m going to be honest here; growing up, I actually somewhat liked Kentucky Fried Chicken’s coleslaw. My mother seemed to have a bit of a fondness to it, and I could handle small bites of it from time to time when I wasn’t focused on the mashed potatoes and gravy, further proof of my lack of good taste in youth.

It wasn’t until later (much, much later) that I realized that coleslaw could be elevated to something far beyond a very sweet mayonnaise laden mass of limp vegetables.

After a bit of research and tinkering, this is my version of a slightly sweet and tangy coleslaw. Clear measurements at the end of the post.

First thing you need for coleslaw are the vegetables. Cabbage, onion, celery and a carrot are required. Green bell pepper (not pictured) is not, but a welcome addition. Unless you have a friend who is highly allergic to it. Which I do.

I’m just making a modest batch of coleslaw this time, so I only needed about a third of that cabbage and half the onion pictured.

Beyond the vegetables, you need flavor of course. Paprika, apple cider vinegar, honey mustard, olive oil and ground white pepper are what I use to bind everything together, along with an optional certain something. More on that later.

Yes, my family keeps white pepper in the black pepper container. We’re very frugal around here.