Meat cake, poached egg, lemon sauce

The meat cake on the bottom is about 60% ground beef and 40% grain.

The grain will absorb its bulk in water and ground beef is processed beyond the usual texture. 

The ground beef is processed in a mini blender to mush. Then, along with the water that will hydrate the grain the ground beef is processed further into a another substance unlike familiar ground beef, a watery substance that could accurately be described as pink proteinaceous sludge. You have to decide how far to go and I went very far.  

The grain is divided equally between brown rice and hard popcorn kernels milled to powder.

The combination of 

* meat and water and grain powder is blended together in a bowl and seasoned. 

* Baking powder is included for lift. 

* Ramekins are sprayed with vegetable oil and the 

* meat/grain mixture spooned halfway up the ramekins. The ramekins with meat/grain mixture are 

* microwaved in pulses for two and half minutes. 

It's a microwave meat cake. I can think of more elegant, more restaurant-y, more chef-y, more valid ways of doing this, less extreme processing, baking in rings or steaming, and so forth, but this is fast and easy and delicious. I'm telling you, if you were to pull a stunt like this on Chopped and disguised as pleasantly as this some weird off-the-wall ingredients like ground beef, dent popcorn kernels, and prepared lemon curd, and the judges all saw you going for the microwave and muttered amongst themselves and for the microphones, "oh my," then you very well might surprise them all and win the round. 

An egg is poached the usual way in simmering water with vinegar. 

The sauce is the lemon curd given to me earlier mixed with heavy cream and heated. I wasn't sure if this would work but it did. 

Snipped mint. The mint is more than garnish. I'd say it is essential. And if no mint then some other herb that is fresh and strong.