Iron Chef

Cook shifts at Harkness are a few hours of the week that I can look forward to for some peace, music, and vegetable chopping. I love these times to decompress with other members of my coop, especially the occasionally efficient shift where I can spend my hour making a tasty thing for the meal. However, everyone needs a little excitement and a sprinkle of stress sometimes, and for me, the OSCA Iron Chef competition was my perfect opportunity.

It started when I lost the election for Tasty Things maker. Obviously, many people want to be in charge of making fun desserts and tasty treats for the coop, and I still hold hope for next semester. Though I non-resentfully hear that the vote was closely divided, I knew upon my loss that I wanted to get a little more involved tasty-thing-wise. It was then that a friend of mine recommended I take over Tasty Things for Iron Chef, the upcoming competition; after hearing that last year, a cream-puff croquembouche with mustard was created, I was sold.

From then on, things were on a roll. My coop’s meal theme was Mexican, which is perfect given my Mexican father and our family’s emphasis on food. I was super excited to get to share some of my cooking with my friends, and of course, the judges; after considerations of chocolate flan, pan dulce, and everything in between, we landed on a tres-leches cake for its virtues of taste and transportability. With a garnish of mini churros spelling out an “H” for Hark, of course.

We started prepping the night before Sunday, when the competition would go down. After our secret ingredient of cranberries was delivered, it was go time. We had a very small budget for outside ingredients, meaning that everything had to be made from scratch--both a blessing and a curse. I now know how to make condensed milk from scratch, but I also know that cranberry-infused evaporated milk is not something I know how to make. Prepping the night before helped us roll with the punches, so that our tres-leches could chill overnight for maximal moisture and flavor. The next day, we would tackle cranberry incorporation and mini churros. 

The day of the competition was when things got a little hectic in the kitchen. With appetizers, salsas, rice, beans, tortillas, horchata, tres-leches, and every other component being created at one time, I felt like I was in a real cooking competition. To incorporate cranberries into our dessert, I made a quick cranberry compote to go between the cake and sour cream icing, a tangy component that I never would have thought to do. While cranberries are not native to Mexico, I might even have to recreate this flavor palette for my next family get-together.

At the competition itself, every coop came together to sample all of the food and discover who the true OSCA Iron Chef of 2025 was. While the judges went in another well-deserved direction of TWC, I got to enjoy all of the food and take inspiration for next year.