Iron Chef: Fresh Mozzarella

It's been too long since we did Iron chef. So on Saturday Erik bought me a secret ingredient: Fresh Mozzarella. At first I thought this would be an easy ingredient. But the more I thought about it and tested it with different flavors, I realized that it was a more difficult ingredient. Either that or I've lost my creativity! I didn't want to do the usual - tomato, mozzarella, basil, and garlic mixture too much. So I tried to mix it up...somewhat.

Iron Chef Fresh Mozarella

Erik's mousse

The dishes I made were:

1. Sauteed tomato with garlic, basil, and mozzarella. I wanted to stay away from the usual pairings of fresh mozzarella but couldn't stay away entirely. This was yummy but I put too much garlic on.
2. Roasted red pepper and mozzarella ravioli. This was an excellent dish. I roasted red peppers then made a butter/wine/garlic sauce and added the red peppers to it. Mozzarella was the finishing touch on this sauce that covered cheese ravioli. 
3. Mozzarella Mac and Cheese. I thought it would be a great idea to make my usual Velveeta mac and cheese but use mozzarella instead. Sounds great right? Wrong. It became a clumpy cheesy mess. So we had to research this and found that adding wine helps mozzarella melt better. This makes sense since wine is usually added to cheese fondue. So I learned something from my mistake with mozzarella mac and cheese. This dish was okay but it needed more flavor.
4. Buffalo chicken and mozzarella enchilada with corn salsa. This was amazing. Erik especially loved it. The corn salsa actually decreased the heat of the dish. Whereas in most dishes the salsa adds heat. I'll be making this again!
5. Chocolate dipped mozzarella and bacon. I wanted to try something different as dessert. I knew that plain mozzarella dipped in chocolate would not be flavorful and knew it needed some salt. So I thought the perfect thing to add salt would be bacon. I mixed mozzarella, bacon, sugar, and cream (I know - sounds weird) and dipped it in chocolate. Erik said it was strangely good. 

Erik's concoction

After learning about wine and how it helped the melting of mozzarella, Erik took the rest of my melted chocolate, added some wine, mozzarella, cocoa powder, heavy cream, cool whip, and vanilla to make chocolate mousse. This was rich and yummy. A perfect ending to our iron chef!