Food Network Star Episode 2 Dish: Yellow Chicken Curry with Spaghetti Squash

The challenge: make a dish in the shades of your spatula. The options were: red, yellow, purple, green, and red. Which one would you want?

As I mentioned in my Episode 2 recap, I was pretty happy with yellow. You can go sweet: mango, pineapple, oranges. You can go savory: curry, turmeric, spaghetti squash, corn, yellow squash, endives…

the dish as it appeared on Food Network Star

In the end, my teammate Adam and I chose to go savory and made a chicken meatball in a coconut curry with crunchy spaghetti squash and pickled corn. What I love about this dish is the different textures. Oftentimes, curries or stews suffer from sameness syndrome -- an unexciting monotony because everything kind of blends into each other. We tried to avoid that, building flavors and textures from top to bottom, including an al dente spaghetti squash, a creamy curry with bell peppers, a pillowy flavor-packed chicken meatball, bright and fresh pickled corn, and toasty coconut.

I’ve slightly adapted the recipe from what we did during the competition, and made it more suitable for a single person to cook in a home kitchen. For example, here the meatballs are smaller and simmered in the curry, rather than pressure cooked. On the show, I used a method of blanching, salting and squeezing the spaghetti squash (described here), but that’s a bit labor intensive with all the other components so I left that out here.

Also, since this was a team challenge, I’m not exactly sure what Adam did. So… I filled in the blanks with what I know and love.

RECIPE
Yellow Chicken Curry with Spaghetti Squash

1 2-lb spaghetti squash

Curry
1-inch knob of ginger
1 large onion
3 cloves garlic
2 yellow bell peppers
1 lemongrass stalk
1 can coconut milk (reduced fat or full, whatever your preference)
2 oz yellow curry paste

Meatball
1 lb ground chicken or turkey
1 tsp salt
1 tsp garlic powder
3 tbsp dried chopped onion
1 tsp black pepper

Pickled Corn
½ cup water
½ cup white vinegar
2 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt
3 ears of corn
½ tsp grated ginger

¼ cup grated coconut

Slice the spaghetti squash and remove all the seeds. Microwave for 15 minutes.

Prepare your curry ingredients. Mince the garlic and ginger and dice the onions and bell peppers. Heat a large pot to medium-high and add olive oil. Add all the ingredients and season with salt. Sweat until onions are semi-translucent, about 7-10 minutes. Add the coconut milk and curry paste. Slice lemongrass into three large pieces and add to pot. Simmer for 5 minutes.

To make meatballs, mix all ingredients until just incorporated. Do not overmix or else the meatballs will be too dense. After the curry has simmered, make small, loosely-packed meatballs and gently place them into the curry. Simmer with the lid on for 10 minutes.

To make the pickled corn, add the water, white vinegar, sugar and salt to a small saucepan. Heat on medium-high until sugar and salt have dissolved. Take off heat. Slice the corn kernels off the corn and add to pickling brine. Add grated ginger. Let sit for at least 10 minutes -- the more time, the better!

Toast the coconut in the oven using the broiler, or use the toast setting on your toaster oven. Remove when golden brown.  

Scrape the strands out of the spaghetti squash. The interior strands should still be crisp, like biting an apple. Remove the lemongrass from the curry. Place the spaghetti squash on the bottom of the plate, then add curry and meatballs, pickled corn, and toasted coconut.

We got some flack for our plating, so if you have a better presentation idea, let me know :P.  

TIPS & TRICKS

• Don’t worry about browning the meat or onions. The curry has so much flavor, that it would overpower any browning flavors anyway. Plus, brown would ruin the yellow look!

• The microwave can be your friend! I love it for vegetables because it heats the existing water in the plant -- unlike steaming or blanching which *adds* water, resulting in a potentially waterlogged or diluted end-product.

• I’m a fan of adding chopped dried onions into my meatballs. They act like bread crumbs -- absorbing the meat juices, adding texture and lightness -- but also bring a lot of flavor.

Food Network Star Episode 2 Recap: Destination Videos

Ok… let’s talk about the elephant in the room. Or rather, the rats.

Some important reminders and clarifications:

• The rat line was only one take of many. Once I said it, I knew it was wrong. My teammates also steered me in a different direction. Think of it as a first draft -- a first draft that everyone sees. As you saw, the presentation Bobby and Giada saw had no mention of rats.

• Some people think I said my mom ate rats. Ew, no! I meant that she had pet cats to eat the rats. I realize that’s only slightly better and still an offbase story, but worth a clarification all the same. 

Ok, that being said, I totally own being off the mark in this presentation. I had a hard time wrapping my head around the challenge: pick a food outside your comfort zone, tell us why it’s outside your comfort zone, and then make a personal connection to it. ::head spins::

The fact that it was a burger was another challenge. I’m very familiar with burgers! I eat them, I make them, but I had to create some sort of distance so it was outside my comfort zone. Enter: a story about my mom not eating meat because resources were scarce. I wanted to talk about my mom’s humble childhood and how I grew up appreciating foods that celebrate abundance -- like a Hawaiian burger with two types of meat.

If you think that sounds like a lot to explain… yeah! And try doing it in one minute. I think I got too caught up in meeting the challenge requirements that I didn’t think about the most important thing -- describing the food in the most mouthwatering way.

Now that I’ve gotten that out of the way, let’s talk about the Mentor Challenge: create a dish in shades of yellow and then deliver a podcast describing that dish.

I was surprised to hear that our very first cook in the Food Network Star kitchen would be a team challenge. I really wanted to show my stuff. But I was really happy being paired with Adam. It can’t hurt to have a teammate who knows the ropes, plus has experience hosting TV shows and podcasts. It’s kind of the jackpot.

I think we worked together really well -- from dish conception to execution to podcasting. I’m glad we got yellow. I’m also glad we picked a curry -- even if it didn’t photograph that well. All in all, really happy with that challenge.

Now onto the Star Challenge... 

psssst.... can you see my tanline from my Episode 1 outfit? 

Even though I felt really confident about our Star Challenge presentation, I thought the other team -- Amy, Harrison, Manny, Rebekah, and Samone -- did really well, too. They also transitioned from presentation to presentation, something that didn’t even occur to us.

But we were safe. And that meant I was safe.

photos courtesy of Food Network

Whew! Another whirlwind week in Food Network Star-land. What did you think?

PS: Last thing about rats and then I hope to put this to bed forever. For better or for worse, I have an affection for rats. Here’s my dog posing next to his rodent collection. I probably have a higher tolerance for rat talk than most :P.  

Do you like my rodent collection?? They are my pride and joy 😊🐀 🐁 🐭.

A post shared by Wally the Welsh Terrier (@wallythewelsh) on Jun 13, 2018 at 9:21am PDT