Skate, Traditional Flavours Powdered - with changes

I have been merrily working away at the Baking Beauties challenges, having great success and really enjoying learning how to bake.

I noticed Tina joined the Daring Cooks and I just had to get in on it. July was my first challenge and I threw caution to the wind. Apparently I threw the recipe into the wind too, because I went crazy with the substituting. When I started the Baking Beauties I made a pact with myself to keep substitutions to the bare minimum. I knew it was what got me into trouble in the past and if I wanted to improve I had to start following the rules. And so far it has worked out really well. I am not sure what happened with the Daring Cook's challenge, but it started as soon as I saw the title. I wasn't going on a hunt to find Skate, and looking at pictures of the animal on the internet, I was okay with finding something else. I figured the challenge was to create a molecular cuisine dish and as long as I stayed true to the challenge that was all that mattered.

So Skate became Tilapia, green beans became peas (cut in half so that you wouldn't get the familiar pop and technically the eating experience would be different), and no bananas, banana chips, parsley, cilantro or powdered creamed. I kept the red onions, lemons and capers.

Dehydrating sucked. It took a lot of time and a lot of burned lemon rinds to figure out what power level the microwave should be set at. The onions just wouldn't dry out and it was very frustrating. In the end I did get all three ingredients dried and ground into a fine powder.

I thought the challenge was interesting and I did like the idea. Without the bananas I missed the tropical feel. Andrew thought the dish tasted "fine". Buttery fish and peas are good anytime with me. The thing that bothered me is that the dehydrating took away all the freshness. I get that is the point, but even with the concentrated flavours I felt like I was eating remnants from a dusty old spice rack not bright fresh food.

The final plated dish sure did look pretty.