A Food Science & Technology major with a passion for experimentation and deconstruction is Monash’s Top Chef winner for the appetizer round. With a fresh, creamy, delectable, luscious, bruschetta inspired egg-tastic dish, Aurelie’s ‘fresh salad shrimp stuffed devilled eggs’ truly is the kind of dish you’d see being made on a cooking show or served at a Michelin star restaurant.
Not only is its name a mouthful, but this exquisitely well-prepared appetizer is a burst of egg-tastic freshness; fluffy, flavourful, and crunchy, a celebration of textures and flavours, delighting your taste buds.
Q: Have you participated in Monash cooking competition before or is this your first time?
“This is my first time! I’ve always loved cooking and baking. Whenever I’m not busy studying, you’ll see me in the kitchen constantly trying out new recipes, and experimenting with food, so I just knew I had to try my luck here. I would love to participate again next year.”
Q: What’s the inspiration behind this dish?
“It really is something I just experimented and came up with! Let me tell you an interesting story…
When I first saw MUSA’s Instagram post about this, I did not realise that eggs were the secret ingredient I had to use, and had initially intended to make bruschetta because I love fresh vegetables, especially tomatoes! Only at the beginning of the cook-off week did I notice that I had to use eggs and that certainly does not go well with bruschetta.
However, I still wanted to maintain a similar concept and so, after doing a bit of research, I came across this interesting recipe of eggs stuffed with a tuna salad but I felt that tuna would have been a bit too heavy of an ingredient for an appetizer.
It was then that I decided to substitute the tuna for a vegetable salad and came up with this interesting concoction of flavours, an already existent dish that I entirely modified and made my own. Not to forget, I topped it off with a piece of shrimp for that extra oomph factor!”
How would you describe the taste of your dish?
“The vegetable salad would be cold and fresh, and because I topped it off with a soften egg yolk mixed with mustard and mayonnaise, it tastes really creamy, it just melts in your mouth.”
The presentation of your dish is incredible! How did you learn how to do this?
“I was thinking how to combine everything into one dish, one bite essentially, and so I just topped everything on top of each other, with the shrimp right on top, garnishing the entire dish with parsley. I really wanted each and every flavour to be prominent with each bite.”
How are you going to spend your prize money?
“I’m probably just going to save it and pay my quarantine fee (laughs). I have to use it as beneficially as possible.”
That’s it for today, thank you Aurelie for such a fun interview! Good luck on your cooking ventures!
Recipe
1. Hard boil the eggs.
2. Boil the potatoes till it’s soft and then together with the cucumbers and tomatoes, cut them into cubes. Mix them all together with salad dressing.
3. Substitute the egg yolk with the vegetable salad.
4. Crush the egg yolk and mix it with mustard, mayonnaise, sugar, and a little bit of tomato to balance the taste of the mayonnaise. Mix it until a creamy texture is obtained.
5. Take a scoop of the egg mixture and place it on top of the vegetable salad.
6. Finally, just place the shrimp, balance it on top of the egg mixture and garnish with parsley.
Article by Shabnam Sidhu
Featuring Aurelia Wangsa
musamonga.com 