Battle Three Tea!


 
All of you did a great job with this battle. I had asked earlier during the battle if anyone had their own ideas about what they might make. So i am just tracking back to see what anyone else not competing had thought of, or if you competed, were there any dishes that you thought about but decided against?
 
Jeff, Don and I did a lot of plus.google.com talking with each other to brainstorm and sort things out; making sure our dishes were complimentary and showing the strengths of our talents. I cook a lot of Asian and southeast Asian food, so the tea-smoked duck (a Chinese classic) came to mind immediately.
I'd be interested in how the Swedes came up with their dishes...
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Well we talked about a great dinner experience and then we all did what we thought would fit in.

(Facebook conversation)

But when we come home from work we have 30 min of daylight and its been rainy/cloudy the this past month (exept for a few days). So non of us had the "spark" needed to win this battle.

And the food produced from TEAM USA is priceless! Summer time i will do this again. But with this weather/cold/darkness i guess non of the Swedes will join in the dark month.
 
I immediately though to do a rack of ribs rubbed with lipton, sweetened, lemon, ice tea drink mix. But Gary and I already had our ideas and it didn't fit with them. Plus, I didn't think it would go over too well with the judges.

I still might do it though
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as far as my dish, I started getting all these ideas of how I could use tea (rub, cure, brine, etc) and couldn't setting on one, so I thought I try them all. Special occasion meals in Japan consist of many small dishes (the more, the more special), and the dishes will follow a typical pattern: steamed, fried, grilled... (I don't know the order), so having a few grilled dishes in row fits the format (I'm looking at you Clark
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My wife found a menu from a tea shop in NYC that uses tea in a lot of their dishes. No recipes, but that's where I got the idea for the tea marinaded seaweed.

I thought the do shrimp and pumpkin gyoza, and by some weird coincidence I found a recipe online. Since I now had confidence that I wasn't insane, I used the recipe as a skeleton. Same for the dipping sauce, plenty of recipes online to give us a skeleton to work off of.

The tea brine for the wings is pretty standard.
 
Are you thinking of the Tea Box Cafe Jeff? That's where I first saw the matcha shortbread idea. They used to be in the first floor of Takashimaya on 5th Ave, but not sure if they still exist...

Wolgast, I hadn't realized you folks were fighting the daylight. Things get darker here this time of year too, but I'm sure nothing like up north in Swedenland.
 
Ok, I guess for a non contestant I will throw my idea out there. I was thinking for an app. Cold tea smoked scallop, after the smoke, pan seared. On a bed of hand made pasta with ground tea or chopped tea in the pasta. The pasta is then boiled in tea to cook. Served with a light tea infused cream sauce. Granted there are alot of unknowns that would have worked out if I was making the dish but that was my initial idea. Thoughts?
 
Cold tea smoked scallop, after the smoke, pan seared. On a bed of hand made pasta with ground tea or chopped tea in the pasta. The pasta is then boiled in tea to cook. Served with a light tea infused cream sauce. Granted there are alot of unknowns that would have worked out if I was making the dish but that was my initial idea. Thoughts?
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during my thought process, I ask these three questions in this order:

1)will it be good?
2)will the secret ingredient be prominent enough that someone could figure it out if they didn't know?
3)will it be best made on a weber product?

best being the key. certainly a lot of stuff can be made on the weber (and I don't mind trying to make everything on it), however not everything has to or should be made on a weber. I feel sometime we are just making stuff on the weber for the sake of the contest.

Anyways, I think you got the first two covered. I'm not so sure on the third.
 
J,

Sorry for the delay and thanks for the critique. With the holiday and work its ben a busy week. Great comments and I like your thought process in dish development. Thanks again and I look forward to the throwdown.
 
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