I believe they already did that one.
Once. In the 1960’s.
There was one I saw where the theme ingredient was a bunch of long, skinny, pinkish things, and was sure Kaga was going to say “hot dogs”. It wasn’t, of course, but I forget what the stuff actually was.
My suggestion? Pop Tarts.
Honeycomb tripe. Love the stuff in menudo, but don’t know what else you can do with it.
Armadillo. The Joy of Cooking (the original, at least) describes how to prepare it, so people do eat it…
They did do angler fish once - and gave the cooks 90 minutes because it takes so long to clean. Dam’ ugly critters, too.
I like that suggestion! I’ve also only had tripe in various soup/stew contexts, from menudo to Hungarian pacalporkolt (tripe goulash) to Vietnamese pho. I really wonder what the Iron Chefs could come up with.
I would suggest something like plantains, or perhaps something even more prosaic like ground meats of various types (beef, pork, lamb, veal). Lot of fun to be had there.
Walnuts and grits would both be fine ingredients, and actually not at all difficult to do. Walnuts can be key in plenty of tasty savory recipes (I make a mean walnut-stuffed tofu and walnut-vegetable loaf), and obviously works in desserts. Grits have got all kinds of possibilities: I make a version of Anadama bread with yellow grits, and you can use it to pan-fry fish when mixed with cornmeal for a little extra crunch, and shrimp-and-grits is sublime, and I imagine you could even make a type of corn pudding out of it, or a souffle-type dish with eggs and cream.
Lavenderlemon, I was also thinking of doing lavender: that’d be very interesting to see. Better yet, just say: “Secret ingredient is…bouquet of flowers!” and have them use the entire bouquet of lavender, violets, roses, marigolds, etc.
Or, if you just want one ingredient, I’d be very intrigued to see what they’d do with rosehips.
Daniel
Gold leaf
Chocolate chips
Carbonated water
Pixie Stix
Cardamom
A very serious suggestion:
Deer. Just have a couple of dead deer up on the platform and let the Iron Chefs figure out what to do with it
Has tofu been suggested? It would be interesting to see how they would flavor it.
Tofu’s been done. It was a great episode.
That had been my intention, but I realized about 5 posts in that there was no way this thread wasn’t going to be goofy. Which is fine.
My next suggestion (and maybe it’s been done): olives. Chefs get a range of green, black and Greek olives. I don’t even like olives much, but I’d like to see what they’d do. (Or has this been done as well?)