I entered an Iron Chef competition and we had an hour but we lost. Now, I wanna find a good strategy to practice for next year so that any secret ingredient they throw at me and my team, we'd be able to get started right away with it.

So I know I need to practice timing and all. Like let's say the secret ingredient I have to work with is nutmeg, that's a good secret ingredient to train with because then if they give another spice like cloves or cinnamon or anything like that, I can STILL use the same recipe, but just add that spice instead of the original one.

Please I need help-I wanna amaze the judges next year at creativity and difficulty and I wanna be one of the people with that competitve edge. Thanks guys!! ; P

Aside from losing because of time, (you said and all), look at your weaknesses & what you could improve on. I would look at a variety of cookbooks at different cusines to familiarize yourself with the ingredients. Watch Food Network, but watch a variety of the cooking shows – Italian etc. Look at your strong points and embellish those. Work with tools that are familiar to you, knives, cooking appliances etc. Practice as often as possible and on other people that will give you good input re taste and how you can tweak the recipe or method. Good luck.