The fifth episode has the most challenging mystery ingredients to date, all picked by viewers through social media.  From prairie oysters to blueberry compote to Peking duck and gefilte fish (no, not all in the same basket), it was definitely…different.  For this week, the main course basket, containing gefilte fish (a white fish often served during Passover), frozen cranberries, squid ink and Beavertail pastries were used.  While it’s definitely weird, it was probably the easiest out of the three courses.

A plain Beavertail pastry

So what would I make?  Gefilte and squid ink quinoa salad with garlicky sweet croutons.  Sounds weird, but it could very well work.  First, I would cook white quinoa in water with a little bit of squid ink (so that it would colour) and then chop the beaver tail pastries into small pieces, toss them in a mixture of olive oil, herbs and chopped garlic, then toss them into a baking tray to toast for a few minutes.  The frozen cranberries are placed in a pot with a bit of water and cooked down into a cranberry sauce.  While the quinoa is cooking and the beaver tails are in the oven, I’ll slice the gefilte fish and some cucumbers.  Other elements I’ll add to the salad include cherry tomatoes, shredded carrots and some watercress.  The tomatoes, cucumber, carrots and quinoa (still warm) will be tossed together, along with the croutons.

Presentation is important, so to build the salad, watercress will be placed in the bottom of a bowl.  The vegetables and quinoa are then placed on top, followed by slices of gefilte fish.  A little bit of goat cheese is crumbled on top, followed by a bit of cranberry sauce.  Finally a sprig of mint is added as garnish.  As the quinoa is still a bit warm, the watercress will wilt a little bit after the salad is tossed.  This could make a pretty good lunch main!

By jpatokal (http://wikitravel.org/en/File:Food_Beavertail.JPG) [CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons