Week 36 - Hot and Cold

The theme for Week 36, "hot and cold," popped up in the upcoming challenge list right around the time that there was a challenge on Top Chef Duels involving a hot and cold duo. I wasn't exactly sure what to do when the challenge was named. Hot and cold complementary dishes? Hot and cold elements mixed in one dish? A spicy salad, therefore being both "hot" and cold? When the week rolled around (since I was still behind on challenges), I learned that it was the second - mixing hot and cold elements in one dish. The BBQ bean sliders that I really like would have been the perfect dish for this challenge, but I wanted to do something new. I decided to use the slaw from the BBQ bean sliders and pair it with a turkey sloppy joe. This well-reviewed recipe for Chef John's turkey sloppy joes sounded good, so I decided to make a trio of sloppy joe sliders for the challenge.

The ingredients for the sloppy joes (only slightly adapted) were:

- 1 tbsp butter ($0.25)
- 2 small onions, diced ($0.50)
- salt and black pepper to taste ($0.10)
- 1 lb ground turkey ($4.60)
- 1/2 cup cold water ($0)
- 3/4 cup ketchup ($0.48)
- 1.5 tbsp brown sugar ($0.08)
- 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper ($0.03)
- 1/2 tsp Worcestershire sauce ($0.08)
- 1/2 tsp unsweetened cocoa powder ($0.05)
- 2 cups water ($0)
- 6 mini hamburger buns ($1.27)
- 1/2 cup chopped green onions ($0.25)
- 1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese ($1)

The total for the sloppy joe ingredients came out to about $8.69. The slaw cost about $3 (as usual) so the total amount was approximately $11.69. Not really cheap, but not bad for a filling dinner for 2.

I followed the directions from the recipe pretty closely on this one (details here).

The steps for the sloppy joes were basically:

1. Melt butter, saute onions and season with salt and pepper.
2. Add ground turkey and 1/2 cup cold water. Cook turkey and break up meat.
3. Add ketchup, brown sugar, cayenne, salt and pepper.
4. Keep stirring and breaking up turkey until liquid reduces.
5. Stir in Worcestershire sauce and cocoa powder.
6. Keep stirring frequently. Add a cup of water and after reducing, another cup of water. Liquid should be reduced and a thicker sauce.
7. Cut hamburger buns.
8. Remove from heat and mix in green onions and cheddar cheese.
9. Assemble sliders.

(Don't forget to make the slaw while all this is cooking or make it the day before like I did!)

My final steps for the sliders were a little different because I was making a trio. I wanted to try a slider with the slaw, but without the green onions and cheese, so before step 8, I scooped out some of the turkey and assembled it with the slaw on one slider. For the second slider, I added only the sloppy joe as the original recipe dictated, and for the third, I added some more cheddar cheese and green onions as non-mixed in garnishes. It's too bad our rectangular plates are in storage because that would have been much better for presentation.

We liked the sloppy joe sandwiches. A had been picturing Manwich the whole time, so he was expecting it to have much more sauce than it did, but we both thought it tasted really good. The slaw worked well with it, and we ate more of it as a side dish to our sliders. I guess only one slider was technically "hot and cold" but since we ate it all together, it counts. Between this and the BBQ bean sliders, I think I prefer the bean sliders as an everyday dish for our rotation, but this was really tasty. I would make this again.