Create

During the first week of cooking our group tested out our three products: Lumpia Shanghai, Schnitzel Tenders, and Coxinha. We ultimately decided to nix one of the ideas, but the other two were successful and we are currently talking about different ways we could make them successful. Throughout this post I will be discussing how we came to our decisions and what factors we are looking towards in the future.

---

Lumpia Shanghai:

The first product we started with was the Lumpia Shanghai. This filipino fried spring roll appeared to be relatively easy. We made the mixture for the inside. This consisted of ground chicken, chopped garlic, green onions, water chestnuts, and soy sauce. As soon as the rolling process began we knew there was going to be an issue. The spring roll wrappers were cracking as we were rolling, so as a group we decided to wet the wrappers and see how they would react. While this helped with the rolling of the wrappers, the frying was still unsuccessful. At the time we were unsure of why and we all started researching reasons, as well as solutions. It turned out that the spring roll wrappers that we were using were only intended for fresh spring rolls. This obstacle could not be overcome due to the lack of availability in fry-able spring roll wrappers. The group decided that this would be an unsuccessful item and moved along to the other two. This was a good example of how we all worked together to overcome an obstacle. Since it was the first day we could have all panicked, but we worked together to think of a solution.

Schnitzel Tenders:

The Schnitzel tenders were a successful product. We attempted two different types of breading, pretzel and American breadcrumbs, but decided to move forward with the pretzel bread crumb. Since this was a quick product to produce we had the time to compare the two breading on flavor, crunch, and color. The pretzel breading was more successful in all categories. The acceptability and ability to be versatile swayed the groups decision to keep thinking of ways to develop this product. The audience of this product is being changed as we think of ways to modify it. There are two different directions this product can now go in. We can either make an appetizer type food with thinner strips of pretzel schnitzel tenders and accompany that with a beer cheese, which would appeal to young adults, or we can make a Belgium waffle schnitzel tender breakfast sandwich, which would appeal to a younger audience. The team is weighing the pro's and cons of each dish to determine whether we can move forward with them.

Coxinha:

The Coxinha was by far the most difficult dish to prepare, but it also has the most potential. Fried potato dishes are very popular in America, but this also encourages people to expand their horizons. The potato dough was simple to make, but if we move forward with this product we will have to find a more productive way to create the flattened dough pieces. As a team we decided that rolling the dough out with a rolling pin and making uniform circles with a dough cutter would create the most efficient product. The filling of the Coxinha was not as flavorful as a consumer would expect out of a Brazilian dish. The next step for this product would be to find a way to improve the flavor of meat filling.

Overall:

The overall experience so far has been productive. We worked as a team to eliminate one product while also finding a way to improve the two remaining products. Everyone in the group inputs their own ideas and helps find solutions to problems as they occur. Going forward we will look further into our remaining products and determine which one will be most successful.