Whose cuisine reigns supreme?!
We may not be quite up to battling Bobby Flay over cuttlefish, but we think we're game for challenging our next door neighbor over flank steak!
Lately, we've heard about a lot of these kinds of Iron Chef dinner parties, inspired by the Food Network and FujiTV series. Culinary-inclined friends create a dish using the same ingredient and your party guests become judges. What a fun idea!
Want to throw one of your own? Here's how!
The host picks the secret ingredient and taps a few lucky friends to be iron chefs for the evening. Guests are invited to come by either during cooking or after to taste and determine the winner.
Here are a few versions we've heard about:
Potluck Version
The secret ingredient is revealed beforehand (often the morning of the party), and each cook comes to the party with their dish already prepared.
Supermarket Sweep Version
The host and cooks assemble at the grocery store. The secret ingredient is revealed, a time and money limit is established, and the cooks go wild.
The cooks go home to make their dish and have to arrive at the party at a certain time. We've also heard of people from the same neighborhood co-hosting and opening their kitchens to cooks.
Iron Chef Version
If the host's kitchen is big enough (and the host is generous enough!), the host pre-buys the secret ingredient and any possible supplementary ingredients. Cooks assemble at the host's home, the secret ingredient is revealed, and the host opens the kitchen and pantry for cooking chaos.
These competition can be as laid back or as intense as you want, obviously! It would be fun to have a trophy to pass from winner to winner or score cards for guests to fill out.
Has anyone hosted or participated in an Iron Chef dinner party?! Tell us all about it!
Allez Cuisine!
Related: Theme Parties and Pie Socials
(Image Credit: Food Network)
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I haven't yet, but I think it'd be a lot of fun!
view ronzo's profile
A few friends and I had a "battle of the stews" last winter. Not quite the same as an Iron Chef battle, but tons of fun!
view Michelle of Montreal's profile
My husband and I do a version of Iron Chef. We draw each week to determine what the "secret ingredient" will be. Then we each prepare a dish on Saturday. It's a really fun thing to do together.
view twosavoie's profile
We created two teams of four and gave them a four-item shopping list that had to be filled out in chinatown. I cannot recall the entire list, but two of them were "something that begins with the letter X" and "something you cannot identify". Teams were also allowed to buy one item that had to be used in a dish by the other team.
view textexerson's profile