catheroominations

November 10, 2006

Junk food=amuse bouche

On this week’s Top Chef, for the quick-fire challenge, the chefs had to create an amuse bouche (a small bite to tempt your tastebuds before the meal arrives), using only items from vending machines. Each chef had $10 in quarters with which to purchase their ingredients.

Michael, the class clown of the group stuck a Cheeto into a Snickers bar to create a particularly phallic-looking, no-effort mouth teaser. Others were a bit more inventive, taking the fig mixture out of a Newton for sauce on a frittata, or creating a tostada from a Do-r-rito (roll the r) and some chicken salad out of a sandwich. The winning entry was a sunflower seed and carrot loaf with cilantro, sesame, and Squirt.

How do they come up with this stuff? This got me thinking of what type of amuse bouche I would make from vending machine foods. But all of my ideas were chocolate, or otherwise sweet. And as I learned from Top Chef, an amuse bouche is not supposed to be dessertish. For sure I’d sure try to find a way to use Munchos. Muchos are a highly underrated snack food.

What would you prepare?