There Can Be Only One...Dish That Makes the Difference, That is

As most of my friends know, I am auditioning for Season 4 of MasterChef this Saturday. I have been quite nervous about it since food is really my passion and I would love to get onto the show. For the audition, I have to bring a dish to the site and then there's 3-5 minutes to plate it. They will be judging on presentation and taste. Since there's no cooking on-site(we have to bring all food, plates, utensils, etc), I figured I have to make something that will taste good when it's not heated up.

To showcase my Asian based cooking skills, I decided to do something Vietnamese because some of the flavor blends are intense, the colors are bright, and it's MC-worthy. One of my favorite dishes to make and eat is a cabbage salad. It contains cabbage with a sweet onion vinaigrette, pickled daikon radish and carrots, pork belly, shrimp, fresh Asian herbs, peanuts, and topped with nuoc mam cham(a Vietnamese fish sauce mixture). It is served with multi-colored shrimp chips on the side. I love the sound of the shrimp chips sizzling when you put the salad and the sauce on top of it. I will post the recipe of it next week since I'm taking this week to focus on the audition.

I already have most of the ingredients prepped, so I made the dish last night to practice putting it together on Saturday. My mom, unfortunately,  hasn't really been supportive of my cooking venture, only that turned out to be a blessing in disguise. I sent a picture  of the finished dished to her and she actually said it looked good, but told me that I don't know how to fry the shrimp chips. Apparently to keep them from curling up(like the pink ones), I need to push them down into the oil when they're frying. That's how they stay flat when they plump up. I will keep that in mind when I do the batch for the auditions. Since they will be flatter, I'm considering arranging them "interlocking" as an arch on half of the plate. 

The taste, however, was perfect and I think I'm ready to WOW them with my skills! I will keep you posted on what happens next. Stay tuned next week for two recipes: this dish and one for my lemongrass pork with rice noodles and fresh vegetables.