Top Chef prep, second course: amuse bouche

We continue our relentless march to the premiere of Top Chef: New York by celebrating a course that's played an integral role in many of the show's classic episodes: the amuse bouche.

An amuse bouche is a course eaten in a single bite, designed to awaken and excite the taste buds and to provide a snapshot of the chef's approach to cooking. Top Chef likes to use them for quickfire challenges, like in the first episode of Season 3, where they had to make one using the leftovers from a snazzy welcome reception the judges had tricked them into enjoying.

But the most memorable amuse bouche challenge on Top Chef was the one where they had to make an amuse bouche using ingredients from a vending machine. And by far the most memorable amuse bouche from that challenge was Mikey's creation: a ball of molded Snickers topped with a single Cheeto.

Strangely, this recipe didn't make the cut for the cookbook. But I thought it couldn't be too hard to figure out. My mise en place:

As you can see, you'll need a single Snickers bar and a snack sized bag of Cheetos. I recommend the traditional Snickers and the original flavor Cheetos, though the Red Hot Cheetos with the Snickers Dark might also be an interesting combination of flavors.

Unwrap the Snickers bar and carefully chop it into pieces, like so.

Please take a moment to admire the awesomeness of my knife skillz. Oh yeah. No one cuts up a Snickers like I cut up a Snickers.

Using a blender or food processor, grind the Snickers to a fine dust.

Mold the powder into several small balls. Even though it's powder, it will still adhere--it is, after all, made of caramel, nougat, and chocolate.

Arrange the balls on a plate. Open the package of Cheetos. Select the necessary number of Cheetos, considering appropriate shape and size.

Gently but firmly press the Cheetos into the balls. You want to make the Cheetos stand upright in the Snickers balls, like the stick to a lollipop. Or something. I'm sure you can think of your own analogy.

These were not half bad. I'm serious. It's not like they were the best thing ever, or anything I'd serve at a fancy party, or that I think that the Snicker-Cheeto-pop is going to take the culinary world by storm.

But seriously: it's Snickers and Cheetos. It's like the delicious taste of Snickers with the fantastic crunchiness of Cheetos, followed by the cheezy taste of Cheetos.

If I had one complaint, it would be that there's too much separation between the Cheeto taste and the Snickers taste. You get sweet then salty, but you never really get the combined flavors for the salty/sweet experience.

Oh, and also, it looks like a dick. If I had one complaint, it's the flavor separation. If I had two, it's the flavor separation and the dick looking thing. You eat first with your eyes, after all.


* Sidenote: this dish and its chef have been widely decried in some circles, largely due to Mike's publicly stated desire to "make [guest judge] Suzanne Goin eat a Cheetos dick." While I would never condone such misogyny, something I condone even less is assholes who don't have a sense of humor. On that note: fight the power, Mikey.