'Crazy Delicious': Lynn's Bloody Mary macaron sounds good on paper, but was she able to execute it?
Tomatoes are wonderfully versatile and is a common kitchen ingredient. Often, we find ourselves making regular, standard dishes around it. Most of the time, it features as a supporting ingredient - a norm that saw a 360-degree shift on Netflix's 'Crazy Delicious.' The food gods aka judges - Carla Hall, Heston Blumenthal and Niklas Ekstedt - tasked chefs Chris, Lynn, and Hanelore to create dishes, sweet or savory, using tomato as the magic and main ingredient.
The idea of the show is to get as crazy as possible and present a dish that has never been thought before. 'Crazy Delicious' encourages and rewards experimentation with food and that was exactly what the novice chefs served.
Lynn says she loves Blood Mary and will try and make an edible one only in the shape of a giant macaron. While the idea sounded good on paper but she lost the plot while trying to release air bubbles from her batter. She rocked her baking pan too hard against the floor, which resulted in a cracked, dry macaron, which the gods were unimpressed with, but Lynn made good the loss by putting together a large chicken pie that sat in a pastry egg. It was grand but not delicious enough to keep her going till the finals.
Chris and Hanelore were consistent in their efforts and presented something new each time. Their afternoon tea plating was a sight for sore eyes. Since the theme was junk food tea, Chris played with the shapes and names of regular tea snacks, albeit with completely different ingredients. Basically he took a bunch of fast-food classics and presented it in a completely rehashed manner. His menu starred fish and chips sandwiches, mini burger macaroons, and tart-shaped chili quesadillas.
Hanelore's dishes were a bit different. For her fairytale afternoon tea, she created blueberry meringue, salmon toadstool sandwiches and choux bun fairies filled with creams and curds. The golden apple eventually went to her for sticking to making all of her dishes equal parts crazy and delicious. She probably got extra points for the theatrics of her plating. Hanelore presented her afternoon tea snacks on the branches of a tree.
In a nutshell, 'Crazy Delicious' Season 1 came to a scrumptious, most-inventive end. Here's hoping the makers will return with more such twisted yet mouth-watering recipes.