Selected bloggers (including myself) was invited to join the Bloggers Culinary Challenge in tandem with US Potato Festival. We need to find a teammate, figure out a name for our team and lastly think of a dish that incorporates potatoes. What’s more, the winner of this culinary challenge stands to walk away with RM1,000 cash as grand prize.
My team mate for this challenge is none other than my buddy Dewi who happens to be a homecook and elected as the chef for this mission, whilst I self-elected myself as sous chef 🙂 We named ourselves the Kitchen Warriors and our dish is Mash Potatoes Pop! The event was held in KDU University College, Glenmarie that comes with a kitchen that is fully equipped. Before we begin our challenge, there were some activities held to give us a better understanding on the nutrition of potatoes.
Being a female, we’re always worry about putting on weight and potatoes is one of the well-known food that’s rich in carbohydrates. However, no one is aware that potatoes are also rich with potassium, Vitamin B6 and Vitamin C. It’s also a source of fibre and contains gluthathione which is an antioxidant. Highly nutritious, potatoes are low in calories, fat and cholesterol-free so it’s time to eat up ladies! There are a few varieties of potatoes such as blue & purple, fingerlings, round reds, round whites, yellow flesh, long whites and russets. Most of the time, I used russets to prepare my potato dishes 😀
As demonstrated by Chef Kenneth Kam, there are several ways to prepare potato like bake, boil, mash, steam, roast, fry, saute, microwave bake and microwave.
After watching the demonstration by Chef Kenneth Kam, it’s now our turn to demonstrate our cooking skills. The winning dishes are judged by creativity of using potatoes, taste and plating. We’re given an hour to prepare our dish and boy was it stressful. At the moment, it really reminds of Masterchef Asia, where we’ve got a crew to time us and judges walking around seeing us preparing the dish.
In total, there are 10 teams who participated, take a look at the beautiful feast prepared:
The judges are having a hard time deciding who wins as every dish looks amazing!
Congratulations to the Top 3 winning team!
I had so much fun at the event and along the way picked some up new tips to cook at home. Not only that, I left the event armed with new knowledge of potatoes and will definitely try to include more potatoes dishes at home. Thanks to US Potato for giving me this opportunity!
