Tips for Recipe Contests – Week 2

20 January
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Welcome back to week two of our series on winning tips for recipe contests!  Below is an excerpt from Discover Contest Cooking by Jean Sanderson published over 35 years ago.

This week is all about thinking creatively and finding ways to spin a classic dish into an award-winning recipe.

If you missed last weeks article, here is the link:  https://cookingcontestcentral.com/tips-for-recipe-contests-week-1/

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A Dash of Creativity Makes a Winner

If you’re already in the kitchen several hours a day, why not make it more worth your while?  And, more importantly, why not have a little fun?

Creativity – remember that word.  It’s the key to winning most cooking contests, and to stockpiling three or four recipes for each one you already have.

Everyone has the capacity for being creative.  Creativity can be developed by exercise.   And in cooking contest circles it can win you a new car, buy you a new kitchen, send you to Hawaii or put cash in your bank account.

It’s important to remember from the start that your first recipe entries may not win.  But unlike some contests, cooking contests do not require years of experience before you become a true contender.  In fact, at this moment success may be only as far as a few changes in a family favorite recipe.

It’s also a low overhead business.  Your only investments are 1) your time – which you were already spending in the kitchen, and 2)  your groceries – which you were already purchasing.  In your family you have the perfect sounding, or tasting, board, too.

Chances are they will love your new cooking approach and gladly join in the fun.  My children were willing tasters except for an occasional “Oh Mother, not again!”  To insure their cooperation, I made a deal with them.  I told them if they tasted, they shared in whatever winnings came out of that recipe.  When I won $5,000 I gave them each a check.

So what is cooking creativity?  It is the process by which you look at a tried and true recipe and imagine something entirely new.  It is a new version of a longtime favorite.

For example, one of my first contest winners, and many thereafter, were offspring of an old favorite, Chicken Kiev.

Chicken Kiev is boned chicken breasts filled with chilled butter and seasonings, rolled, dipped in flour, beaten egg and fine bread crumbs, and deep-fried.

My first creative cooking effort, in 1971, was Crescent Chicken Kiev.  I used refrigerated quick crescent dinner rolls, filled them with chopped mushrooms, cream cheese and chives, butter, cubed chicken and seasoning.  They were dipped in melted butter and crushed seasoned crouton crumbs and baked for 20-25 minutes.  My creative effort won a trip to the 22nd Pillsbury Bake-Off contest in Hawaii.  It was titled Chicken a la Crescents.

There was even more creativity to be found in the likes of old Chicken Kiev though.  I competed in the National Chicken Cooking Contest in Birmingham, AL, in 1972, with Mexican Chicken Kiev (deep-fried with a cheese and green chili filling).

That was not the end of it.  I won the General Electric Microwave Cooking Award sponsored by General Electric in the 25th Bake-Off contest (a trip to Phoenix, AZ, $5,000, and a General Electric Microwave Cooking Center) with a recipe for Fiesta Chicken Kiev.

Fiesta Chicken Kiev took two major changes:  1)  dipping rolled cheese-filled chicken breasts with taco seasoning and cooked 10-12 minutes in a GE microwave, and 2)  the eight rolled chicken breasts cooked all at once instead of deep frying separately.  This quick-cooking method keeps the cheesy butter filling inside the rolled chicken breast producing a crunchy outer coating.

Then, in 1975, still creating the new from the old, I represented Kansas in the National Beef Cook-Off in Denver, CO.  My recipe was titled Beef Kiev Ole.  I used beef round steak with narrow strips of Cheddar cheese and taco sauce in the center, dipped in butter, rolled in Cheddar cheese cracker crumbs and baked.

Finally, there was the Farm-Raised Catfish Cooking Contest held in Jackson, MS.  My recipe was Farm-Raised Catfish Kiev Style – and it was good enough to garner first place.

It contained filleted catfish, filled with butter, cream cheese, chives, lemon pepper seasoning and chopped mushrooms, rolled secured with food picks, dipped in butter, seasoned with crouton crumbs and baked until golden brown.

Bob Finley’s “Today’s Catch” column in the Chicago Tribune pointed out exactly what made Farm-Raised Catfish Kiev Style a winner:

“Farm-Raised Catfish Kiev Style brings together all the qualities that make a recipe great.  It is simple and the ingredients are readily available.  It is easily assembled and has a short energy-saving cooking time.  The finished recipe has tremendous eye appeal and the mild, pond raised catfish blends perfectly with handy on-the-shelf ingredients to produce a superb flavor combination.  It has all the style and interest of a Kiev without the deep frying.”

All these Kiev recipes are included in this book.  (Reading recipes is a great help in coming up with an idea and cannot be stressed enough.)  Kiev is just one example of making a winner out of a dish you already cook –  a dish that with a little of your own brand of creativity can go a long way toward winning a cooking contest.

If you aren’t already a member of Cooking Contest Central, what are you waiting for?  Subscribe today!

https://cookingcontestcentral.com/become-a-member/

Recipes mentioned in this post:

Please follow the link below to view or print the recipe:

Chicken ala Crescents

Mexican Chicken Kiev

Beef Kiev Ole

Kiev-Style Catfish Recipe

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