The Food Bloggers Battle Royale Cook Off
Let the challenge begin!
Those words “Cook Off” are still ringing in my ear, and I don’t think I am ready to face those words for quite some time. When there are food involved, it is almost effortless to get a group of food bloggers together for a dinner party, but with a twist. Ellie, Linda and I thought about having a dinner party but we also wanted to have a bit of fun instead of just another pot luck, so we decided to have a cook off because there is nothing better or more evil than putting everyone’s dish on chopping block to be judged and scored. But the real challenge lies within the ingredients and how to incorporate it into our dishes with only one rule – savoury dish must use “fruit”, and dessert must use “vegetable”.
But of course the food bloggers are no quitters, it really brought the competitiveness out of everyone and ready to share our culinary skills. We make food, not war. But have to say, I was traumatised for one whole month trying to come up with a dessert that uses vegetable! I had my mind set on using eggplant as the vegetable in my dessert but not until the last minute when they ruled out most of the seeded-vegetables as fruits, including eggplant! Ridiculous! So I had to add an extra component to my dessert by using purple carrot to make it qualified.
Ellie kindly offered her beautiful home to be the battle royale stadium, and the kitchen was already taken over by feisty food bloggers cooking away when I arrived. It was a very hectic evening I must say, everyone had the last minute stage fright and frantically preparing their dishes in the kitchen. Helen the flamer, pulled out the big gun and started blow torching her ribs, Ellie pan fried the pork belly skin and the hot oil just started splattered everywhere, a strategic move to kick all food bloggers out of the kitchen! Then there are the girls who like to be on all four plating their desserts in the carpeted rumpus room. But somehow everything still ran smooth without delay and we able to finish 11 courses just before 10.30pm.
We kicked off the evening with five savoury dishes:
Dish 1: Pumpkin Soup with port melon and vanilla creme fraiche by Minh of Eat, Show and Tell.
Dish 2: Triple Melon Salmon Tartare by Richard Here Comes The Food.
Dish 4: Twice-cooked orange salt rubbed pork belly with toffee-crisp crackling, caramelised cherry and brandy glaze, potato and apple mash with smoked bacon and savoy cabbage with smoky bacon by Ellie Almost Bourdain.
Dish 3: Korean Fried Chicken – twice fried chicken thigh pieces with a pineapple chili sauce by Simon The Heart of Food.
Dish 5: “Pig Goes On A Holiday” - marinated pork ribs in lychee and soy served with lychee and green olives by Grab Your Fork.
Surprisingly, we finished all five savory dishes within an hour! Which means it left us heaps of time to plate our desserts. The girls were in to win and went all out and making tasting plates! So here are the six desserts we’ve tasted:
Dish 1: Trio of beetroot: Chocolate and beetroot macaron, beetroot chocolate brownie with beetroot ice cream and a beetroot lollipop with fizzy sherbert powder by Raspberri Cupcakes.
Dish 2: Tasting Plate of Rhubarb: stewed rhubarb financier, roast rhubarb crumble, lemon shortbread and rhubarb jam and a layered gateau of strawberry gelée, rhubarb mousse and chocolate sponge by Karen citrus and candy.
Dish 3: Rainbow Vegie Layer Cake: beetroot and chocolate, carrot and spinach with cream cheese frosting from the queen of multi-coloured cakes, Chocolatesuze.
Thanks Ellie for the photo!
Dish 4: Fennel Crème Caramel with fennel mousse & beetroot sorbet by One Bite More.
Dish 5: Eggplant Chocolate Tart with candied carrot, purple carrot ice cream with citrus peels and roasted almond by me.
Dish 6: Caramelised onion panacotta with burnt butter ice cream and olive macaron by Linda of Eat, Show and Tell.
And the winners are :
Winner of Savoury: Ellie of Almost Bourdain with her super-duper pork belly!
Winner of Sweet: Steph of Raspberri Cupcakes with her beetroot
Most Outrageous: Linda of Eat, Show and Tell with her most outrageous but definitely interesting cameralised onion panna cotta.
Was it a fun night? I think the aftermath says it all:
A Table For Two (ATFT) is Billy Law's food blog that features best eats in Sydney and around the world with drool-worthy food photography to salivate your appetite. I also throw in a smidgen of my food and travel photography for good measure. Billy Law also happened to be a contestant on MasterChef Australia 2011. 
I love everyone’s dedication! And I love this idea!
.-= Maria´s last blog ..Creamy pasta with salmon and capers =-.
WOW! What a brilliant night you guys had, thanks for sharing as I was curious as to what everyone would have come up with. Your dessert looks cute with the polka dots. Great work Billy!
.-= Phuoc’n Delicious´s last blog ..Taking some time out =-.
looks so good! is it just me or does that cherry tomato look awfully dark coloured?!
.-= AY´s last blog ..Taste of Sydney 2010, Centennial Park =-.
Ha, weren’t the organisers super strict on what qualified as a vegetable or fruit? lol.
Loved your chocolate eggplant tart regardless. Such a good combo! And those carrot corkscrews were so pretty!
.-= Helen (GrabYourFork)´s last blog ..Sensory Lab, Melbourne =-.
better than masterchef! you guys rock.
AY: the cherry tomatoes are dark because they are Kumatoes, much sweeter than normal ones.
I loved the carrot Billy! Thanks for organising!
I just had the greatest idea:
You should run a competition for 4 lucky people to be guests at one of your infamous food blogger cook-offs! It really is difficult as a humble blog reader to just sit by and salivate over a computer screen whilst we see concoctions like your purple carrot ice cream, or Ellie’s twice-cooked orange salt rubbed pork belly being eaten up…
Also, your beautiful photography Billy, makes reading your blog even more torturous than watching Masterchef without being able to taste or smell the dishes that they so cruelly parade on our screens, night after night.
Think about it…
.-= Helen´s last blog ..helenlovesfood: @grabyourfork congrats Helen! RT From food blogger to columnist. My first restaurant review in Time Out Sydney out now! http://bit.ly/cXCxdc =-.
LOL ! Your idea is crazy! Im not sure anyone would really want to see all the panic foodbloggers throwing pots and pans around jsut to make something taste aweful! LOL
.-= billy @ a table for two´s last blog ..Video footage of Tetsuya Wakuda’s Masterclass. Competition is closing soon, enter now! =-.
Thank you so much for being the mastermind behind the cook off. Thanks to your organisational skills, everything went off without a hitch. It was great fun to see you in action, hopefully there’ll be many more cook offs in the future.
It was great fun. I couldn’t stop admiring your candied carrot swirl. What’s next?
.-= Ellie (Almost Bourdain)´s last blog ..Malaysian Style Sardine Sandwiches =-.
Next is Winter!!!! we must do it! But less work please….
.-= billy @ a table for two´s last blog ..Video footage of Tetsuya Wakuda’s Masterclass. Competition is closing soon, enter now! =-.
that olive oil macaron looks so darling! All your dishes look amazing. A job well done, you are all wonderful!
.-= Renita´s last blog ..Bungalow 8 – King Street Wharf =-.
It was such a mad night but a blast no less. I seriously can’t wait for the next installment
Thanks for organising this and letting us join in the fun.
One more thing, I can’t believe you included a photo of people on all fours. *blush* Oh Billy…
.-= Karen | C&C´s last blog ..Sydney Food Bloggers’ Battle Royale =-.
nothing wrong to be on all fours! LOL just how you like your frolicking! KAKAKAKAKA
.-= billy @ a table for two´s last blog ..Video footage of Tetsuya Wakuda’s Masterclass. Competition is closing soon, enter now! =-.
Billy I loved your eggplant tart! I think you combined it with the chocolate flawlessly. Thanks so much for organising this great night, it was so much fuuuun
Yay for bloggers battle. Your dessert looked great Billy. With plating skills like that I could imagine it in a restaurant.
.-= Mark @ Cafe Campana´s last blog ..Borrowing a Winner – Vanilla Pannacotta =-.
Everything looks beautiful! The rainbow cake looks interesting. That’s quite a challenge though, using veggies in desserts. Not really used that often in desserts. The fried chicken and the pig on a holiday looks great!
Gooooddd Timmmesss!! Thanks so much organizing Mr B, Ellie and Linda! Lots of interesting, weird and wonderful dishes indeed!
Mmm that carrot twist was a very nice touch
.-= FFichiban´s last blog ..boozeday toozeday #7 – Kahlua Especial and Chocolate Kahlua souffles =-.
What a GREAT idea! Wish it could be teleported here for a tasting.
.-= penny aka jeroxie´s last blog ..Where is the best ramen in Melbourne CBD =-.
Seems like you guys all had so much fun! I’m sooooo disappointed that I couldn’t make it
Plan another one soon!!
Your dessert looks great btw! (never seen purple carrots before. I’m going to google it.)
.-= Yas @ hungry.digital.elf´s last blog ..Quick update: a (soy) saucy night. =-.
A meal of epic proportions! All the offerings looked so good that it must have been quite difficult to pick a winner. Great stuff
Looks like a fun night and it’s nice to see you didn’t have to do much washing up
.-= john@heneedsfood´s last blog ..Bau Truong, Cabramatta =-.
what an awesome event of lovely food although plating food on the floor isn’t the most hygienic. i reckon for your next event you should try and get yourself into a professional kitchen for the day or cooking school and plate everything on real plates and serve on a nice dining table. perhaps in partnership with one of the Merivale restaurants?
.-= Simon Food Favourites´s last blog ..Seven days of eating in Melbourne: Snapshot Summary (2 May 2010) =-.
This looks like so much fun! That multi-color cake looks amaaazing, but everybody is so talented and creative to come up with so many interesting dishes!
.-= Kirstin´s last blog ..Strawberry cupcakes =-.
hi bill this is too bad there is not your recipe or did I miss it?
thanks !! Pierre de paris
.-= pierre´s last blog ..enu tletalertet uxa rasfeis =-.
I think the aftermath says “too. much. dessert!”.
Quite a challenge but a lot of fun at the same time. Thanks for being one of the organisers for this.
So what’s on for the next challenge?