We'd been talking about it for a while and the plan had finally materialized. Jon and I would join our friends Tom and Dora in Chicago so Dora and I could audition for the Food Network series "The Next Food Network Star."
We'd giggle and enjoy the auditions, grab a light lunch and maybe end the night with a show. That was the plan anyway, until Dora nailed her audition and was instantly offered a callback for the following day.
Dora's callback required her to bring a completely plated, camera-ready offering of a signature dish and would include three-minute demonstration of a cooking technique that would be filmed. We four immediately formed a foodie brain trust over a celebratory cocktail and the ideas began flying. Dora would now be making us dinner as a trial run for the following day.
First, we tackled her signature dish, deciding almost instantly that hot food would be out. Keeping things hot and perfect during travel to be camera-ready upon her arrival seemed like a fool's errand. A chilled salad would be much easier to transport and after rejecting a few esoteric ideas, Dora finalized on a Mediterranean-inspired grain salad featuring couscous, raisins and almonds.
There were lamb chops in the freezer perfect for pairing with a collection of eclectic spices. Curry and mint were familiar to me, as well as the increasingly popular ras el hanout, and they were mixed into a paste and painted onto the beautiful chops before grilling to a perfect medium rare. The secret ingredient was mitmita, a Ethiopian spice blend of chili pepper, cardamom, salt, with a variety of other notes like ginger, cinnamon and sometimes cumin.
After tasting the results, I now understand Dora's passion about popularizing mitmita in the United States. It reminded me of a flavorful cousin of cayenne pepper -- I'll be ordering some online and joining in the crusade to popularize it, too. The lamb chops would also be served chilled and sliced into thin strips delivered with the couscous.
The dish was almost finished. Dora had settled on muddling as the technique she would demonstrate on film, so we tested a mint sauce, combining fresh mint from the garden, lime juice and sugar into her mortar and pestle and pulverizing it into a thin, flavorful sauce. It was perfection on the lamb, the sweet acid combining perfectly with the spicy goodness of the lamb. The only casualty of the night was the plastic handle of the colander that melted as the couscous steamed in it, but even that didn't dampen our spirits. It was an fun meal to be a part of and was a joy to live in such an exciting moment, with a friend on the brink of fame.
