Recently in FF4- Original Category

(Photo of FF4 entries, my entry bottom right not eligible, of course.)

Update: VOTING CLOSED- The winner will be announced Monday morning.

The voting is still open for the best FF4- Interpreted recipe submitted, until this evening. Will Paul hold on to his lead??

Please take a few minutes to look at all the entries here before you vote, because the way the post was written should be important, too. I have to say, I get quite a kick out of seeing them all in one picture, great job all!

Again, unlike previous Food Fights, I've decided that anyone reading can vote. I set the poll up so you can vote once a day, but PLEASE, no stuffing the ballot box!!!! I'm not saying that I'm closely monitoring IP addresses, but...

Voting will be up until sometime Friday evening, October 7th. Good luck!!!

The ballot is below the fold.

Okay, the recipes are in! As you may remember, the theme of this Food Fight is "Recipe Grab Bag", and the first phase of this is complete. Once this contest is over, everybody reading gets to vote on a winner of the best recipe/technique submitted and in the style that it was presented as well as on the interpreted dish. You might want to take a minute to follow the link above to read the original post, just to refresh your memory. Naturally, my submission and my interpreted dish aren't eligible.

To 'assign' recipes, I put them in a database in the order that they came in and arbitrarily picked a number to shift them down. Here's what I came up with:

Our last entry to Food Fight #4 is a doozy! Meg from I heart bacon has entered a pork dish called Su Dong Po Pork. Featuring a terrific marinade and a double cooked technique, I'm really curious to try it. She served it with brown rice and sauteed long beans with chili peppers and pine nuts. Wow.

Her original post, along with pictures, is here. The recipe can also be found on her terrific recipe site here. I'd love to try it with a pork shoulder, or maybe use the pork belly and tea-smoke it for a while as well.

All of these entries have been terrific. You can find them all in the FF4- Original category.

MC has sent in a cool combination of flavors, a great piece of Pacific salmon with a citrus-Creole seasoning, accompanied by some grilled sausages, corn and sauerkraut with some cool cantelope. Great, simple flavors well executed, which as you well know by now, I'm all over that. MC's entry is another example of how variations there are to grilling, as long as you follow the basic guidelines.

We do have to work on his choice of seasonings, though... :©)

Recipe and more pics in the extended entry.

I know a few of you that had indicated that you wanted to submit recipes haven't yet, so if you come up with something over the weekend, email it here. Monday I'll put the recipes in a hat, and we'll get cooking! The recipes submitted so far are here, in the FF4- Original category.

The latest entry comes from Matt, who sent in a really interesting venison dish. Sadly, no picture because it's not deer season yet. It's a venison tenderloin with an Oriental twist:

Slice Venison tenderloins into 1/4 thick medallions. Rub with olive oyl then sear. Add whatever variety of hot sauce or peppers suits your fancy. I prefer roasted jalapeno for the flavor. simmer a little then stir in a pinch of garlic, sesame seed and a couple huge spoons of peanut butter. When meat is done, serve over lettuce and garnish with mandarin oranges.

Wow, I've never done this kind of treatment with venison, I'd like to try it. No specific quantities of ingredients, but you get the idea, I hope.

(Photo: Mary, of TPC's version of Matt and Jerry's Mississippi gumbo)

I'm submitting a recipe this time, not for judging, but as a tip of the hat to New Orleans and Mississippi, and I thought it would be fun for someone to make.

I love gumbo, and there at least as many ways to make it as there are cooks. This technique comes from my friends Matt and Jerry, both from the Biloxi/Ocean Springs part of Mississippi. Even they make it a million different ways, too, but this is my way of smashing their techniques together.

Every gumbo has a roux at its base, usually made from oil and flour. This roux is cooked together first, and the color can end up anywhere from a light golden to very nearly black. This acts as part of the thickener and is what differentiates a gumbo from a soup. Remember, a dark roux will not thicken as well as a light one, so you'll need more of it.

Gumbos also thicken by the addition of either okra or filé powder. I love okra, but left it out of this gumbo at the request of those who were going to eat it with me, sadly. Filé (feelay) powder is ground sassafras root and thickens a gumbo nicely, but used it properly. You add it at the very end of cooking, off the heat. Stir it in and wait 10 minutes. Warning: Don't add it to the pot if you're not going to eat it all in one sitting. If you boil filé, it can get stringy, you're better off just adding a bit to each bowl as you dish it up, stirring it in well.

In the spirit of Food Fight, I've made this with simple, inexpensive ingredients but this technique can be embellished with any type of seafood including fish, oysters, mussels, clams, crawfish and prawns. If you're making a seafood gumbo, I would substitute some of the chicken stock for fish stock or clam juice. Andouille sausage is great if you can find it.

Jerry and Matt serve this gumbo over rice with a scoop of potato salad in the bowl as well, which I'd never seen before.

The recipe is in the extended entry.

(Photo: Diana's Everyman's Edible Slider w/homemade Chili Sauce)

Wow, Major John should have been so lucky! Diana has submitted an over the top take on what could be an ordinary meal- a simple burger, but made with beef tenderloin, blue cheese, sauteéd onions, and to really gild the lily, a homemade chili sauce that I can't wait to make.

I've said this a lot, but the best home cooking is all about great, simple elements smashed together. Diana's terrific recipes are below the fold.

(Photo: Ana's Salad with Homemade Falafel and Pita Bread)

I've got more entries to post, with everything going on I'll keep the contest open until Friday, just let me know if you're working on something. Email your picture and recipe here.

Ana kicks ass. Her entry shows off her homemade falafel, and though there's no pita in the picture she sent, she's included her favorite pita bread recipe as a bonus. I guess if I was a runner like Ana, I could eat falafel and pita in the same meal, too!

Her recipes for falafel and pita bread are below the fold.

(Photo:Gourmet Magazine- Puffy Corn Omelet)

Sorry to take so long to get this posted, but lots going on at Desert Island Foods™.com, and life in general.

Paul "Chile" Brown has submitted a recipe he found in Gourmet magazine called a Puffy Corn Omelet that I don't have a link for yet. Paul is also a recent runner up from Food Fight #3:

This recipe is from Gourmet Magazine. I liked it because the ingredients are few and simple. Right now corn is the bomb. I want to make this recipe with my Homemade bacon. I saw a recipe that you use this cure on Pork Butt for 10 days. You rinse and then smoke to 140 degrees. It is supposed to turn out like a cross between Canadian Bacon and country Ham. We will see. I should be smoking it next Tuesday.

Peace, Paul

Paul's heading out on vacation soon, so we probably won't see his version before the contest ends, but you gotta like the idea of adding bacon to just about anything. Right? I have a few more entries to post yet. Keep em coming by emailing them here! See the posts below for rules and guidelines.

Chile's recipe is below the fold.

(Photo: Shauna James, glutenfreegirl.blogspot.com)

Wow, Shauna. The Gluten Free Girl has set the bar high with her "grilled cheese with amaranth leaves and blackberry sauce". The entire post is so informative and entertaining I'd like us all to read it, in order to factor in Shauna's great writing when we vote on the original recipes.

So well done. Stunningly simple flavors smashed together. Wow.

I'm creating two new catagories in the side bar so we can all reference the original and the interpreted recipes easily- FF4- Original and FF4- Interpreted.

Shauna's recipe for the blackberry sauce and her sandwich notes are in the extended entry.