Top Chef Masters - Speedy Quickfires And Hungry Band Members

Top Chef Masters – I’m with the band

Top Chef Masters was all about speed challenges this week. I think I’ll give it a try (being speedy), so here goes:

The Quickfire is a race with the clock. The chefs have a table of amazing, high quality ingredients that they are thrilled to see. THEN they find out that they have exactly SEVEN minutes to prepare a dish, after being reminded that Tom had gotten the job done in 8 minutes and 37 seconds.

It is truly AMAZING what some of the chefs come up with, especially Naomi with her seared Foie Gras with Fried Lady Apples. I LOVE that idea. They are my usual Roast Turkey garnish, but I’ve never thought to fry them.

The dishes are here.

Hugh is worried that one of his two tuna preparations will turn out like catfood.

After seeing Naomi’s foie gras, Celina feels she hasn’t challenged herself enough. (I think she should have gone home weeks ago.)

Curtis tells the chefs that THEY will be tasting each other’s dishes and scoring them best to worst – 1 is the best, 7 the worst. The interesting thing is that the chefs are very realistic about their own dishes and don’t judge them too easily.

Celina is on the bottom after the scores are tallied and the top two spots go to Naomi’s dish and Traci’s Beef tenderloin. And the winner is…Traci. She wins $5000 for La Cocina and immunity. Naomi is disappointed but says that Traci has been cooking for 20 years longer than she has. (Meow!!!)

Traci gets to pick a team for the elimination challenge. She picks 3 chefs and leaves the other team with 3 – Alex, Floyd and Celina.

The challenge is to cook a meal for Maroon Five. This cross-pollination of “celebrities” on the networks of NBC is getting kind of tiresome. I’m sure plenty of people have seen Adam Levine on The Voice, and Maroon Five will be included on The Today Show Concert Series.

I know that’s how it works these days, but it’s as if someone is saying to Adam Levine, “Okay, we have you on The Voice, let’s design an entire episode of Top Chef around you guys to air when The Voice is on and we’ll guarantee a Today Show appearance AND we’ll even get Nate Berkus to design your tour bus (I actually have no idea if he’s on NBC) and Katheeeeeeeeee LEEEEE to write a song about you and you can make a cameo on Jay AND we’ll get you on whichever Housewives you want and you can chat to Andy after that episode. Enough already! (Oh, I guess my desire for brevity is going out the window.) It doesn’t help that his demeanor during most of the episode is kind of smarmy and superior.

All the members of the band say what they want included in their meal and the chefs have to prepare family style dishes with these requests in mind, which range from steak to vegan to Thanksgiving. Oy! AND each team has to cook in the tiny kitchens of giant RV’S.

The space situation is really tight. Floyd is searing beef on an induction burner set on top of the toilet. Ew.

Oh, the meal is being served at the Roosevelt Hotel. We were just there a few weeks ago. We opted to stay at the Roosevelt, because I was told that was where I would see the most famous people. Can you imagine if they had been filming Top Chef while we were there?!!! No such luck.

The most notable thing about this hotel is that it’s bathed in darkness. If you’re over 26, you better bring a flashlight, especially to see the numbers in the elevator.

Also, we were shown to a room that was SO small we actually didn’t have room for our suitcases. (There WAS a portable bar, though, with many varieties of chic vodkas.) They did switch our room and it was bigger, but, unfortunately, it was also the site of a major fight between a despicable birthday boy screaming at his girlfriend IN THE HALL AT 3AM about what she WOULD and wouldn’t do.

Wait, I’m wrong. It was all about what she WOULDN'T DO (in the bed chamber). I was about to call protective services when they finally disappeared into their room. It was a memorable night...not in a good way. (As we left at 5:30 am to catch our flight, I stopped in front of their room and yelled at the top of my lungs about HOW BRATTY SOME PEOPLE COULD BE ON THEIR BIRTHDAYS.)

The rest of the Maroon Five band was kind of cool, but Adam was sort of full of himself. I think he wanted to be the main event.

The band tastes the food along with the judges - (Gail is in for Alan Sytsma this week). They sit at a long table in the middle of a huge (dark) room. The team of Alex, Floyd and Celina have a lot of misses with the judges. And Alex, for some reason, was responsible for four different mediocre dishes. They think Floyd’s salad is tasteless and no one is a fan of Celina’s Spanakopita with Couscous Salad.

The other team gets called into the judges first after the meal. Danyelle says she liked Mary Sue’s fried avocadoes coated with seeds. That’s funny. At the table, various people said it looked most unattractive, even if it did taste good.

James says he liked the addition of chanterelles to Naomi’s mashed potatoes. That’s funny. At the table, various people really didn’t like it. They did praise Hugh’s spanakopita and liked it tons more than Celina’s.
AND the winning chef is…Traci…again. That’s awesome. $10,000 for La Cocina and Traci has won $25,000 dollars in total.

The other team comes back in and the judges give them a really hard time. James says Alex’s enchilada was bizarre.

In response to lots of criticism, Floyd says he gave the salad less seasoning, because he wanted it to go with the other dishes. Gail kind of yells and says WHO CARES how well his dish goes with the other dishes. HUH?!!! They always talk about that. The menu, as a whole, is often criticized (or praised) for its integrity as a unit.

Celina’s spinach pie was awfully indistinctive and forgettable, says Danyelle. And James doesn’t understand why she paired it with couscous. She EXPLAINS (I use the word loosely because Celina’s answer is nonsensical) that she wanted to make it a bit traditional and give it a touch of home. Wah? HUH? Is couscous a traditional accompaniment to spanakopita.

Curtis says that the “duress” they were under on the bus has come through in the food. (I DO like how Curtis takes the side of the chefs in many instances and tries to give the judges a chef’s perspective.)

Okay, so who gets the boot? Alex’s pasta dish was particularly bad. Floyd's salad was unremarkable, Danyelle says again. Celina continues to confuse James with her combination of dishes. And going home…it better be Celina…is ALEX. Oh puleez. These judges are getting it wrong as much (or more) than they get it right.

Alex IS happy, though, to discover that after 30 years of cooking, he still has the fire. I’M unhappy that the chef I wanted to go home weeks ago is still there. Why is there one of those in every group? Hey! It’s the end of the episode and I’m at least 2 pages shorter than usual. Until next time…

Top Chef Masters - Naomi Might Be A Pain, But Her Soup Garnish Is A Complete Revelation

I’ve garnished soup every which way with the usual things - croutons; chopped vegetables, frico, cream and sour cream, full-blown cheesy croutes loaded with gruyere (the best way to garnish onion soup); seafood, puff pastry crowns (LOVE THOSE!) and probably lots of other things that are escaping me for the moment.

But I have never garnished any soup with the interesting combination of items that Naomi used for her Celery Velouté. They turned out to be an ingenious, lively and quite masterly addition to a very basic soup that I don’t even like that much.

Naomi won last week’s episode of Top Chef Masters with her Celery Velouté, which, at the time, was a bit of a surprise. As I said, I don’t even like cooked celery, except in turkey stuffing, but I needed a pretty Easter soup, so I decided to try it.

The recipe is rather loosey-goosey, which annoyed me at first. Then I realized that I NEVER follow any recipe exactly, so why should I care?  Aren’t most cooks like that? When you’ve been cooking for a long time and you know your way around certain techniques, you tend to follow your instincts when you think aspects of a recipe can be improved upon. 


The funny thing is that, as lackadaisical as I am about FOLLOWING other people’s recipes, I’m completely the opposite about WRITING them. Feel free to follow this recipe exactly as written, but, of course, feel free to play with it too.

Back to the garnishes. Believe me when I tell you that I have NEVER had such delicious additions to any soup, anytime, anywhere. These were the three garnishes:
1. Shallots steeped in white wine vinegar and a little salt. 



2. Chopped Parsley steeped in olive oil.

3. The best and most fragrant and flavorful Lemon Olive Oil.
AND listen to this, I only realized, JUST NOW, as I was looking over Naomi’s recipe that I was supposed to COMBINE the chopped herb/oil mixture with the shallot and vinegar, but I didn’t. I used them separately and I will again. And again.

WHY were these garnishes so exceptional? The shallots gave an unexpected crunch to the soup. And the vinegar with it gave the soup some sharpness and brightness. The parsley added a brilliant complementary color.

And the lemon oil.  Ahhh, the lemon oil! It took the pedestrian taste of a soup  I don’t usually care for and elevated it to a richly complex set of flavors that was absolutely irresistible.

  

Plus I was lucky. I happened to have a twenty-plus dollar bottle of lemon olive oil  (unopened) in my pantry. I know it’s really pricey (it was a gift), but I’ll give you an alternative in the recipe. It’s not the put-your-head-in-tailspin-rush-of-flavor, but it will do in a pinch. Enjoy this recipe. I can’t believe how much I did.

Celery Velouté (4 generous servings)

Adapted from Naomi Pomeroy’s Celery Velouté With Salsa Verde & Lemon Oil

2 tbls. butter

6 stalks celery, chopped

2 leeks, most of green tops cut off, halved and chopped

2 onions, chopped

Kosher salt

4 cups vegetable stock

½ cup cream

Garnish:

4 tbls. chopped parsley

2 tbls. olive oil

2 tbls. shallots, finely minced

2 tbls. white wine vinegar

¼ tsp. kosher salt

A few swigs of lemon olive oil

Melt butter in large Dutch oven or heavy bottomed pot. Add celery, leeks and onions. Stir well. Add a big pinch of salt, which will draw out the liquid and help to soften the vegetables. 

 


Start pot on medium heat. When it sizzles, cover and turn heat to low. Stirring occasionally, cook until vegetables are completely soft, at least 10 to 15 minutes. (I did 20.)

Stir in stock. Bring to boil, cover and simmer for 25 minutes.

Meanwhile, stir together parsley and olive oil. In a separate little bowl, stir together shallots, vinegar and salt.

Add cream to soup. Simmer, covered, for another 5 minutes.

Let cool slightly. Purée in batches until completely smooth. Pour into individual soup bowls. Add a teaspoon of shallots to the center of the bowl. Spoon a teaspoon of the parsley mixture next to the shallots. Pour in a dab of lemon olive oil next to the other garnishes.  Serve.

Notes:

·         Soup can be served hot or cold. It can easily be made a day or two in advance.

Instead of the lemon olive oil, add plenty of lemon rind to the parsley/olive oil mixture and the shallot/vinegar mixture. And grate a bit extra over the top just before serving.

  

Top Chef Masters – The Term MASTERS Really Fits And The Judges Got It Completely Wrong

I wish there had been a break Between Top Chef and Top Chef Masters. To have TCMasters IMMEDIATELY following Top Chef was a bit onerous, so I took it upon myself to casually watch the first two episodes and not analyze the heck out of them.

The first thing that occurred to me was WHY are these chefs doing this? They are an illustrious bunch and many of them certainly don’t need more awards, but I guess they want the challenge, plus a little more fame (and more fortune) never hurts.

The number one sweetie pie has to be Mary Sue Millikin, the cooking partner of former Top Chef Master competitor, Susan Feniger. Formerly half of Two Hot Tamales, Mary Sue has the calm of a Zen master and the skill set too.

In fact, all of the chefs are wildly talented, but there are some I like better than others. Traci des Jardins could be the chef to beat, but her furrowed brow and serious demeanor scares me somewhat. The fact that she’s such good buds with Mary Sue humanizes her a little for me.

Hugh, who reminds me of a young Hugh Laurie, seems like he could be a bit tool-ish, but the other chefs are so sure of themselves and so lacking in hubris for hubris’s sake, that I don’t think HIS overactive ego is going to get any traction.

In the very first Elimination Challenge, there was a lot of hugging going on, much of it to and from Mary Sue – she seems to be the heart of the kitchen.

Hugh was eliminated at the end of episode one, which didn’t bother me one bit. Then John Rivera Sedlar had to drop out and they brought Hugh back. Note: I can’t tell if this is why Sedlar left so suddenly - that it was all too much for him to handle as he was about to open a new restaurant.

The second week, they had to redo awful 60’s classics. The best part was when Floyd Cardoz had NO clue what Ambrosia was and managed to make the almost-winning dish.

Mary Sue won with deviled eggs. James said they were unctuous in the mouth. I’m guessing that’s a good thing. Is it even possible to be unctuous anywhere other than the mouth?

At the end of episode two, Chef Sue Zemanick was eliminated for not getting all her food on the plate. Afterwards, she and Suvir totally confused their competitors when they walked back into the kitchen and he said "I’m leaving" and she said "He’s leaving with me". The others said WHAT??? They were kidding, but it was dumb. Don’t be making jokes about two chefs leaving. It might be true next time!


So here we are at Episode Three. 

The chefs come into the kitchen and see Curtis standing next to a table with stuff that looks like houseplants. The chefs ask Hugh Acheson what all that stuff is. I guess he’s some kind of outdoorsy expert. He starts rattling off salsify, leather fern, but tells us that something else is hidden there.

Curtis says you can find these things in the wild - grass, leaves, flowers, roots - AND (if you saw the previews you know what’s next) HORNED WORMS. Gross. Alex says “Horned WHAT?” There’s more. Darkling Beetles. John Currence says (to us), “We’re going to have to cook with freakin’ BUGS!”

Curtis adds some more to the list - crickets, which have 3 times more iron than beef and Canadian night crawlers. All of these things are very much alive and crawling around in glass containers. I’m guessing there are no vegetarians there. OH, wait, Suvir is one, but he cooks meat and NEVER tastes it and seems to have no problem...for the moment. Oh, lastly we hear there are scorpions. Lovely. They have to make a five star dish for enthusiastic bug eaters. They have 20 minutes. Barf.   

Here are the dishes, many of which are southeast Asian inspired.      

I love Suvir saying he grew up in New Delhi in a Hindu household and they ate “what was abundantly available without somebody having to take another life. Butchering animals is something (he) just can’t do.”

He comes up with what I think is an ingenious solution, although others may say it’s a copout. He’s making a Himalayan salad (even the NAME sounds peaceful) and he’s serving it with a jar of worms and a torch. If the tasters want to immolate the worms themselves, that’s fine, but he won’t.

The judges are Ruth England and Mykel Hawke from Man, Woman, Wild. Ruth says Naomi’s nightcrawlers have a bitter aftertaste. Myke doesn’t seem to notice. Curtis will only try the salad; Mykel doesn’t bother with the salad and goes right for the bugs. Ruth loves Hugh’s carrot purée with crickets. Myke hates the look of it, but loves the taste. (I kind of think he would like a bug in any form, any where, any how.)  Interestingly, Myke wishes that Celina had removed the legs of her crickets (ew), because they’re a bit scratchy going down. 

So how do they feel about Suvir’s presentation? Initially, Ruth says it was a copout. Then Myke takes the challenge and snaps one of the worms in half and torches it and eats it. He says the whole dish has a nice flavor. Suvir is happy that they don’t reject it out of hand.

John’s grilled scorpion with a smoked egg does well. Mary Sue uses her beetles in a vinaigrette over a Thai sunchoke salad. Ruth and Myke both love it, especially with all the fresh cilantro.

Ruth thinks Traci’s scorpion salad is a bit bitter, from the aloe, though, not the scorpions. Myke really “digs” Floyd’s nightcrawler omelet (gosh, that would give you nightmares, wouldn’t it?). Alex’s angel hair with beetles goes over well. George’s hornworm soup did NOT.

Their least favorites:

George and Suvir, who says his “hands can cook” but he can’t take a life. Myke says that’s “all good”.

Favorites – Hugh and Mary Sue. The winner is Hugh who gets $5000 for Wholesome Wave  AND immunity. He says he is the phoenix of the competition.

The Elimination Challenge is to cook a ten course dinner for a fund raiser for the chefs’ charities. Each chef is responsible for one course. They have to work with what’s in the pantry and they have 3 hours to cook.

Traci says this sounds too easy. Oops, don’t say that. Is that a clue that she’ll be going home? Suddenly Curtis throws a wrench into the works, of course, he does. He says there will be a curve balls coming their way. What? One-handed cooking? No implements? Changing dishes midstream. I hate all that.

Naomi takes it upon herself to organize the menu and write everyone’s dish down, so they don’t have duplicates, which is quite smart, I think. Alex thinks she’s bossy.

George discovers rather quickly that there’s no running water in the kitchen. GROSS! Why do they always have to do things that impact kitchen hygiene?

When they (a different group) cooked from pots and pans just opened in a Target with no visible running water, it was very worrying to me. How can they cook with no water, when they didn’t know that was coming? I know that’s the point, but I don’t like it.

I like when Floyd says he’s worried, because he’s working with raw fish and he can’t wash his hands. EXACTLY! That’s horrible.

George finds this somewhat fitting, because he’s competing for a charity that brings water to people that don’t have it. (Okay, that IS a bit interesting, but not if they weren’t expecting it.)

I love Floyd worrying about contamination. He takes some ice and starts to boil water. (He’d be good if a baby were coming too.)

I also love Suvir who says he never gets stressed in a kitchen. He says for him, it’s calming and therapeutic (being in a kitchen, not being without water). Let’s see how he reacts when Curtis comes in and says that service will start 30 minutes earlier than he had said. He gets mildly fluffed, but not crazy. (I have to try that. Maybe it’s all in the breathing. Iiinnn and ooouuuttt. Iiinnn and ooouuuttt. Mmm, THAT does feel better.)

Naomi admits that she’s become the bossy person, but she doesn’t care. She just wants the meal to go off without a hitch. Curtis comes back in and says he has some bad news. OY! Now what? There will be no waiters, they have to serve the dishes themselves. Oh good, there’s nothing like a sweaty, dirty chef with unwashed hands, serving all the plates that really makes me feel good about a meal.

Guests arrive, including judges James Oseland and Danyelle Freeman.  She looked super familiar to me in the first episode. She was (is?) an actress, but I’m pretty sure I never saw any of her stuff, but I feel as if I know her from somewhere.

Celina is out in the dining room pouring wine and Curtis introduces her to one new judge, Alan Sytsma, editor of Grubstreet. CELINA SHAKES HIS HAND! Eww! Does he realize that there was no water in the kitchen?!! Alan says he worked as an intern for James when he started his food writing career. That’s kind of interesting. He says it was his first job of NOT cutting carrots.

The dishes are here. James says Mary Sue’s Ceviche is attractive, but doesn’t have a lot of flavor. Alan says it’s like “a poorly made guacamole”. They all love Suvir’s chickpea salad.

James: George’s shrimp is “a really gorgeous plate of food”. They all rave about it, except that it has perhaps a bit too much salt. Naomi’s celery velouté is beautiful and delicious. Curtis thinks it may be too rich for a ten course meal.

Alan is unsure if he likes the crunch of the pine nuts in John Currence’s risotto. Danyelle likes it. James says the same basic thing about everyone and in a rather ponderous, pompous tone – that the dish is not a stretch for the chef and they’re not going outside of his or her comfort zone.

Floyd’s sole with roasted cauliflower is fantastic, says James. Various folks think the broth underneath is a bit too strong.

Naomi and Hugh bat heads a bit, because she’s getting the plates out the door. (Maybe before they’re ready…What does she care? Her soup already went out. I could see that that could be annoying.)

What I’m REALLY FRUSTRATED about is Hugh telling us multiple times that there are some frustrations between “Naomi AND I”. NO!!! There is frustration between Naomi and ME!” Oy! WHY do people say that? It sounds sooo dumb! The word “I” NEVER comes after “BETWEEN”, unless someone’s actual NAME is “I”! Got it?!!

What I can’t understand is, that with the reputation that most chefs have, they wouldn’t be thrilled at saying ME, ME, ME, every chance they got!

I like the sound of Alex’s roasted salmon with gazpacho vegetables and tomatillo salsa. James thinks it’s too raw. Danyelle thinks it’s perfect.

James LOVES Traci’s rib eye. Curtis says just by looking at the dish you can tell the chef knows how to cook meat. Danyelle calls it “musty”. Alan calls it “swampy”. James says they’re young and brainwashed and that what Traci has given them is “BOLD, cooked vegetables.” I’d probably side with the old guy.

Hugh is serving panna cotta, but he’s not worried because he has immunity. Delicious, folks say.

I hate Celina calling her dish, Chocolate Puddin’. Why does that make me vaguely uneasy like they’re in a Cracker Barrel or something? Suvir tells us that this is not HIS idea of pudding. He thinks hers resembles the mass-marketed, plastic tasting junk sold in America. He says the texture is not good. James says it’s chalky and gritty. Danyelle says it’s sort of tasteless.

The diners are to vote on their favorite dish and give that chef a 100 dollar donation to his or her charity.

Naomi and Suvir are the first called in. That HAS to be good, right?

The judges stare at the chefs. The chefs stare at the judges. James, in particular, has the stone-faced look down to a science. I would just giggle, I think.

Their dishes received the most votes from the diners. Oh good, I like it when a chef who doesn’t murder animals gets recognized. Naomi’s dish got 43% of the votes, so $1800 goes to Seed Savers Exchange.  Alan says the acidity of the lemon oil on top brought a brightness to Naomi’s soup.

I love this show. The only thing better than watching people cook and watching people taste AND hearing what they say about the food, would be tasting it and blathering about it myself.

Suvir’s dish got 40% of the vote and his charity, Agricultural Stewardship, will receive $1700. The judges, critics, whatever, pick Naomi as the winner and her charity gets an additional $10,000. I bet Hugh will be po’ed.

They call in Mary Sue, Celina and John. I hope Mary Sue and John make it to another week. I like Celina, but I’m more interested in the other two going further. More chef/judge and judge/chef staring back and forth.

                

James says Mary Sue’s ceviche was too bland. Alan seems to criticize the fact that John’s risotto was TOO classic, too perfect. He definitely should NOT go home for that.

They move on to Celina’s pudding and how it wasn’t rich enough. I don’t like that judges, Alan and Danyelle, actually say PUDDIN’. I would have refused to. It seems clear that Celina’s dish was the worst.

And going home is…JOHN!!! WHAT???!!! GMAB! That IS ridiculous. REALLY ridiculous! I’m mad. Really mad. Celina SHOULD have gone home. I am SOOO mad. That is a really wrong decision!!! John goes home for making an excellent risotto that just wasn’t ground-breaking and Celina stays for making a BAD pudding?!!@#$%*. 

Really poor decision. I wouldn’t just be disappointed if I were John, I’d be enraged. I MAY tune in this week, after I do some deep-breathing.