Competition Kitchen Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Game Includes
• Set-up
• How to Play
• How to Present
  • Tips for Creating a Tasty Dish
• How to Judge
• How to Win
• Imagination Stadium
  • Pantry
• Garnish the Game
• Example: Dish Presentation
• Variants - Rules à la Carte

Game Includes

• 3 Basic Ingredient decks: Protein (18 cards), Vegetable (18 cards), Flavor (18 cards)
• Secret Ingredients (18 cards)
• Challenge cards (18 cards)
• Game Instructions

Set-up

• Shuffle each of the three basic ingredient decks (Protein, Vegetable, and Flavor) and the two judge decks (Secret Ingredients and Challenges).
• Decide who will be the first Judge: find the player who most recently cooked a meal (we'll say that means combining two or more ingredients).
• If you have three or four players, use one Judge; five or six players, two Judges; seven or eight players, three Judges. Add players to the right of the first Judge to complete the Panel.
• At the end of each turn, Judgeship rotates to the left. If using two Judges, we recommend getting one new Judge every turn and letting the other stay on. If using three Judges, we recommend getting three new Judges every turn.

How to Play

1. Starting with the player to the left of the first Judge, each player a few things about themselves: their name, where they're from, and some of their tastes. Think about your all-time favorite dish, a food you can't get enough of recently, or an ingredient that you just cannot stand.

   Note: the printed sentence for step 1 has no verb after "each player"; transcribed as printed.

2. The Judge draws two Challenge cards and two Secret Ingredients (in total, not per player). They will review the cards and choose, in secret, which one of each to play. Keeping the chosen cards, place the others in their respective discard piles.

3. Every Chef draws two cards from each basic ingredient deck, creating a hand of six cards.

4. The Judge reveals the Challenge card, reading it aloud. This is the directive Chefs will use to create their dishes. Judges are encouraged to provide more details about what they're looking for from this dish.

5. Chefs now have an important decision to make: they can only keep one of each kind of ingredient. Chefs, in secret, choose one Protein, one Vegetable, and one Flavor to keep, and place all other ingredients in their respective discard piles.

6. The Judge now unveils the Secret Ingredient, reading it aloud. Every Chef must incorporate this ingredient into their dish in some way.

7. Chefs take a moment to think about what they want to create, typically not longer than 30 seconds. Judges may announce a time limit on this and say when the presentations must begin.

8. Beginning with the player to the left of the Judge, and continuing around the table, each Chef presents their dish. (See How to Present)

9. The Judge or Judges (who may deliberate if there is a Judge Panel) will determine which dish was the best and award that Chef the Challenge card. A runner-up will be awarded the Secret Ingredient card for use on another turn.

Note: the printed How to Play steps are numbered 1 through 9, then 12, 13 and 14; there are no steps 10 or 11 in the printed rulebook. Numbering is reproduced as printed.

How to Present

• It's up to the Chef to describe how they have created their dish. Use your words and imagination to describe how you prepare the food, how it's cooked, how it's plated, what it will taste like. Details are great. Geek out!

• Chefs must use every card in their hand, which includes the basic ingredients they kept at the beginning of the turn and any Secret Ingredients they were given by a Chef at the beginning of the turn. All Chefs must also use the Secret Ingredient selected by the Judge this turn.

• Ingredients can be used a little or a lot in any dish, but must be used in some way. Chefs can be specific about the type of each ingredient they use, if they wish. (See Garnish the Game)

• To help create the best dish possible, Chefs can incorporate any piece of kitchen equipment or utensil they can imagine, and are able to pull staple ingredients from a pantry without needing any cards to represent them. (See Imagination Stadium)

Tips for Creating a Tasty Dish

• Believe in your dish! Be excited about it. Tell everyone how you finely chopped your ingredients and cooked it all to perfection. That goes over way better than, "I don't know, I fried it?"

• Give it a backstory! It could either be real or totally made up, too. Something true: "Every family get-together, Grandma would always make this - and I learned it from her." Or something that were true: "I was a covert spy in the 1980s and I first tasted this dish while I was undercover deep in the bayou."

• Give it a name! It'll be much easier for the Judge to remember your dish if it's called "The Stars and Stripes" or "The Sea Captain Surprise."

• Explain how it fits the Challenge! The Judge may not immediately see the thought process of creating your dish, so be sure to tell them how your dish makes sense and, as such, is the obvious winner.

How to Judge

• When you are the Judge, remember: it is totally subjective and there are no wrong choices. The Chefs are there to please your palette, and you are allowed to follow your gut to determine who you think should win.

• Once every Chef has presented and you have the floor again, feel free to recap everyone's dishes, or ask any follow-up questions you had of the Chefs.

• As a Judge, each turn you will award two cards:

  • The Challenge card goes to overall winner. Best dish, most creative, touching story, whatever you want - but this is the card that Chefs want to win the most.

  • The Secret Ingredient card goes to a chef for special recognition. Most creative use of the Secret Ingredient, close runner-up, made you giggle, whatever. Think, fan favorite. The recipient of the Secret Ingredient card holds onto it until they choose to give it to any Chef at the start of a another turn. (See How to Play)

• The two cards can be awarded to the same or different Chefs. It's probably more fun to give them to different players, but hey, you're the Judge!

How to Win

• A round is complete when the Judgeship has made a full circle around the table; a round will be made up of as many turns as there are players.

• If you're playing with three or four players, play three rounds around the table; five or six players, two rounds; seven or eight players, one round.

• Those are our recommendations, but, really, play however long you want! Probably until you're all too hungry to continue. Sorry not sorry.

• When the final round is completed, players count the number of Challenge cards they won. The Chef with the most is the champion of Competition Kitchen!

• If there's a tie, consider a final cook-off with all the other players collectively judging!

Imagination Stadium

The world of Competition Kitchen is set in Imagination Stadium, which has some pretty useful and unique features.

• Chefs have access to every piece of kitchen equipment, utensil, and cooking process they could imagine. From the basics (pots, pans, bake, fry) to the expert (ice cream machine, dehydrator, sous vide) and beyond (using lava as a heat source, sending an ingredient to space before adding it to your dish).

• Time is not a factor in Imagination Stadium. If you want to baste a turkey for 12 hours, go for it! If you want to bury a fish underground, let it ferment, then serve it, do it! Gross, but do it! The only time limit is how long it actually takes you to describe the dish - c'mon, other people gotta go, too!

Pantry

There is also a pantry with staple ingredients that every Chef has access to:

• Flour & Sugar
• Oil & Vinegar
• Salt & Pepper
• Eggs & Lettuce
• Grains (pasta, bread, rice, etc.)
• Dairy (cheese, milk, cream, etc.)

Everything above is included, as should ingredients of a similar tier. Think about what those home-meal-boxes expect you to have - that's what you might find here. A Chef cannot find anything in the pantry that already exists on a card in the game, and the Judge has final say on what Chefs can get from the pantry for that particular turn.

Garnish the Game

The heart of the game exists between the cards, with your imagination and creativity.

• Each card is meant to be open-ended. Use any type of that particular food you want.

  • Example: the "Potato" card could be any potato, from Yukon gold, to French fingerling, or even purple majesty!

• Judges can (and are encouraged to) elaborate on the Challenge or Secret Ingredient cards they selected.

  • Example: "I drew Stardate: 2190 - in my future, we've been stranded on a spaceship and everything must be freeze-dried."

• Chefs should consider thinking outside the box for how their dish can fit the Challenge presented - for almost all of the Challenges, there are more than one way you could create the perfect dish.

Example: Dish Presentation

• Challenge card - After the Little League Lost the Championship
• Secret Ingredient - Sriracha
• Ingredients - Potato, Garlic, Pork

Thank you for having me here on Competition Kitchen. It's been an honor to cook for you today. I've named my dish Red Hot Red Hots with Red Hot Red Tots. I came up with this idea after I went to a baseball game and a guy in the stands was selling red hots. So, what I have done is minced some garlic with Sriracha, tossed it in with ground pork, then made a nice sausage out of it. I've grilled the Sriracha garlic sausage on an open flame and placed it on a toasted roll with some goat cheese on it, drizzled with a thin line of Sriracha sauce. I've also finely chopped a bunch of potatoes with garlic, shaped them into tots and threw them in the deep fryer really quick. I'll serve them on the side of the sausage with a Sriracha aioli I whipped up real quick to dip them in as well.

-Enjoy!

Variants - Rules à la Carte

Find your favorite way to play Competition Kitchen! Every play group will have a different taste for the best way to play. Feel free to mix it up and make your own house rules - here's a couple of our ideas to get you started.

• "Sabotage" - At the start of the game, every player is also dealt a Secret Ingredient card. This means Chefs can add a Secret Ingredient to another Chef's hand, even on the first turn. (see How to Play)

• "Scorekeeper" - If a Chef wins the Challenge while using a Secret Ingredient added to their hand by any Chef (including themselves), they win an additional Challenge card (use the one the Judge discarded this turn).

• "Stacked" - Each turn, Judges can choose any combination of ingredients from which the Chefs will draw their six total cards.

• "Scraps" - The Chefs can choose any three cards from their hand to discard each turn, instead of being required to specifically discard one Protein, one Vegetable, and one Flavor.

• "Hungry" - Chefs draw more than six total cards, such as an additional one of any (or each!) basic ingredient.

• "Expert" - Let Chefs draw three cards from each basic ingredient deck, discarding one each kind, and keeping (and using!) the remaining two of each.

• "No Leftovers" - Chefs don't discard any ingredients from their hand at the start of the turn; they can still only use one of each ingredient type in their dish, but the remaining ingredients are kept in their hand. You can decide if you want Chefs to use just these three for the next dish, or draw three more cards (making a total of six in their hand) to choose from in the next turn.

• - Choose an all-time Judge or Judges. Instead of choosing their favorite dish each turn, they'll choose their least favorite dish. That player is Sliced! Consider letting Sliced players become part of the Judge Panel. Keep playing until only one player is left standing! Works great for big groups.