Come Dine with Kirsten

As part of a uni project, I had to create an interactive model of some sort that related to new media and something that interests me. So what interests me? Cooking? Bingo. I decided to host a dinner party, whereby each of the particpants could choose an ingredient of their liking to be included in the meal, and this was done by text messaging (interactive). The participants were:
1) James
2) Karen
3) Tony
4) Jim
5) Kirsten (myself)

I told the first particpant, James, one item that would be included in the meal. This was mozzarella. He then chose an item to match with this - pepperoni. The next particpant, Karen, knew the previous ingredient that James had picked. She texted me the next ingredient - chicken. I could see where this was going - they assumed I'd be making a pizza because of the generic ingredients of pepperoni and mozzarella. Nope, it wasn't over yet. The next particpant, Tony, knew of the chicken. I requested he suggest a vegetable to accompany this - he texted saying green beans. Jim then knew about the green beans, and I suggested he request a type of potato to accompany them - hence a full meal! He asked for mashed potato. As the host, I decided to add a flavouring now that I knew ALL of the ingredients in the meal and started to plan a dinner - paprika.

So - what to make?! I knew they were expecting a pizza of some sort. But that seemed too easy. I've always been good at New York chicken so I made something similar to this. I sliced the chicken breasts down the centre, but not quite all the way through. Then I added sliced of mozzarella cheese and pepperoni. I prayed this was going to taste nice. I chose the paprika because I thought it would complement the spicy chicken well, and not make it too boring. These I then baked in tin foil for around 30 minutes, then removed the tin foil for another 5 minutes to crisp them up. I also like to serve green beans with NYChicken so this was a good match.

Now for the mashed potato, I decided to bring a modern twist on the traditional recipe. I recently went to a restaurant that served "crushed" potatoes - half mashed, half roasted/boiled? I'm not quite sure. But it was yuuuuummy. I thought this would be a good spin on the mashed potatoes, so to make them I boiled about 8 potatoes until they were very fluffy. Then I roasted them in a pre-heated dish for about 10 minutes to get them slightly crispy. Then for good measure, I transferred them to a frying pan and half-mashed them up. Add a little rosemary and garlic for some gooooood flavours!

When serving, I used a metal rings on each plate and spooned heaps of the mash into each ring, then pressed down. When you remove the ring, it gives a restaurant-standard quality of presenting the mash - nifty, huh!?

I chose Vanilla baked cheesecake for dessert, too. This was the majority result of a Facebook (new media) poll in my status - where I simply asked "Chocolate/Cheese/Fruit for dessert?" and six out of 10 friends replied "cheese."

Comments from the participants:
1) James - I really liked the meal. We were all expecting something like Hunter's chicken for dinner because that's what Kirsten always makes - don't get me wrong she does that well, too! So it was a nice change for her to do something different. I admit, when she said mozzarella I thought it was a pizza so that's why I said pepperoni!"
2) Karen - "Tasty, the mozzarella and pepperoni were a good combination with the chicken. Very morish!"
3) Tony - "A unique experience. I had a wonderful time."
4) Jim - "I think the crushed potatoes were amazing. I normally hate mash potato so that's why I challenged Kirsten to try and make me think different - and she definitely did! The chicken was good, too."

So, overall it was a good evening. I initially had doubts that this wouldn't work out well, hence why I chose to have some input in what type of ingredient could be included e.g. a vegetable. But I think the combination of chicken, mozzarella and pepperoni really worked out and I can't wait to try out crushed potatoes again!!!

Any feedback on this post is greatly appreciated and would be included in my final evaluation. I thought it would be an idea to get comments from my followers to see what your reaction to the whole process is, and how it could be improved/changed etc. Again, this is using new media and interactivity, so my tutor will be very happy! Many thanks for anything you say :)

Happy Baking x