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Top Chef Chicago Season 4

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TexasLady:
Apskip: Glad to hear you are feeling better. I'm looking forward to your recaps.   :-*

apskip:
This is going to be done in two parts. My tape of the Neigborhood Fiesta episode ran out halfway, so I have notes for half. fortunately, that episode is showing right now on BRAVO, so I will have to duck down in 13 minutes to tape the last half hour.

The Guest Judge is Rick Bayless, a Mexican food expert who owns restaurants Topolobambo and Frontera Grill in Chicago. He has a daily cooking show shown much of the time of one of my local PBS stations. He is an inspiring man about Mexican food.

The Quickfire is to create an upscale dish from the mundane taco. dishes offered are:

Spike - ground pork taco with tomatillo sauce
Richard - jicama tortilla w/ avocado, papaya, and cilantro stems
Erik - chipotle braised chicken w/ avocado, pomegranate salsa and guacamole
Andrew - duck breast w/ plaintain and cotija cheese
Manuel - chorizo, picante verde, cilantro, goat cheese
Ryan - pomegranate, jicama salad, ?  in paper
Mark - grilled squash and stewed chick peas
Lisa - grilled skirt steak w/caramelized onions, pineapple and cabbage slaw

Losers group as judged by Rick Bayless were Lisa, Ryan and Erik.
Winners group were Richard, Spike and Andrew.
Richard wins and gets immunity.

Elimination Challenge is to cater a picnic for 70 kids and their families at a neighborhood block party. The Teams are chosen by the contestants. They are:

RED - Zoi Dale Spike Ryan Jen Erik
BLUE - Stephanie Antonia Mark Richard

I don't have the rest placed properly yet, but I will add that when I have it. Teams were told to go into the neighborhood and scrounge all ingredients and materials for this challenge. They went door-to-door to obtain them.

The menu chosen by the RED team was: Slider(mini-hamburger), Corn Dog, Pork Skewers, Waldorf Salad, Pasta Salad, Taco salad, and S'Mores. There was  a more refined description of some of these, but it doesn't add any real value for picnic food.

The menu chosen by the BLUE team was: Paella, Slaw, BBQ Pulled Pork, Bean Salad, Inside Out Cookies, Sexy Drink(an exotic combination of fruit flavors with seltzer), Fruit Cobbler.

It looked like the neighborhood was having a fine time with the food made with their ingredients and materials. However, the judges were not quite so positive.

Richard was criticized for having too much chicken on the plate. However, he had immunity.
Zoi's pasta was bland, oily, with no taste.
Erik's corn dog had major problems.
Ryan's Waldorf salad was unfocused.

Stephanie got universal acclaim for her Sexy Drinks. They won the blue team the victory and herself the individual winner.

It was pretty clear that Rick and Tom both felt that Erik had made a major error in judgment by electing to serve corn dogs with their inherent transportation, reheating and drying out problems. Erik's defense was that he has a history of serving thousands of them in his restaurant environment, but that is beside the point when an outdoor fiesta is the challenge. Erik was the 3rd person eliminated.

puddin:
thread jacked to welcome apskips back, good to see you posting again, hope you are feeling like yourself again  :jumpy:

apskip:
I was feeling well enough last night to watch all of the 3rd episode and do its recap, then watch episode 4. The Guest Judge this week is famed French chef Daniel Boulud. The Quickfire is a test of ability to demonstrate multiple techniques, at least 3. Chef contestants have 30 minutes to select vegetables from a very beautiful stockpile of them and them blanch, marinate, or perform any enhancing techniques on them to fill up a veggie platter. The final products noted on the show were:

Richard- blanched mushrooms, pickled beets, sliced radishes with lime juice and scallions
Dale-Daikon marinated in Tobanjan(don't ask until I have time to look it up; I'll let you know), tournees of avocado and cucumber
Manuel-blanched asparagus, brunois of yellow peppers, supreme of lemon, endive and fennel fronds
Spike-carpaccio of cucumber, tagliatello of asparagus, cucumber cup, tournee of mushrooms
Zoi-asparagus, poached egg, batons of green beans, chiffonade of radicchio frisee
Nikki-blanched green beans, asparagus quenelles, shaved fennel and radish salad
Lisa-poached egg, blanched asparagus, batonnettes of bell pepper, grilled zucchini

Boulud picked Lisa, Nikki, and Manuel for the losers bracket. He picked Richard, Zoi and Dale for the winner's bracket. The indivudal winner was Dale, possibly because Boulud had to bend over backwards not to show favoritism to richard who had apprenticed under him. The reward was not immunity, but the ability to add himself on to any of the other 6 teams which were formed by drawing knives for order in the meal and by individuals pairing up. Those pairings were:

1 - Richard and Andrew
2 - Spike and Manuel
3 -  Jen and Nikki
4 -  Mark and Ryan
5 - Antonia and Zoi
6 - Lisa and Stephanie

It looks like a no-brainer for Dale to add himself to team 1. This was Dinner at the Movies, with the dishes all based on themes from a favorite movie. One of the hosts, Richard Roper is the movie critic who took other for Gene Siskel when he died years ago and now has Ebert and Roper at the Movies in weekly syndication. The other host Aisha Tyler is an actress. 6 of their friends joined the 2 of them plus the four judges in eating the 6 course meal and commenting. The movies and menus are:

1 Willy Wonka;  Smoked Salmon, Faux Caviar, White Chocolate, Wasabi Sauce
2 Good Morning Vietnam;  Summer Roll w/ Black Vermicelli, Green Apple, Chilean Sea Bass, Swiss Chard
3 Il Postino;  Tortellini Cavolo Nero, Ricotta, Pecorino, Squash, Peppercorn
4 A Christmas Story;  Quail Breast, Carrot Puree, Cranberry Chutney, Quail Spring Rolls
5 Talk to Her;  Rack of Lamb w/Saffron, Cauliflower Puree, Romesco, Gramalata
6 Top Secret;  NY Strip Steak, Braised Short Rib, Apple Potstickers, caramel sauce

For the first movie, Boulud said that this was a very creative approach.
For #2, Padma said it was oobvious that they wanted to cook Viet food and let the choice of movice be based on that rather than the correct way.
For #4 it was noted that it was actually the Christmas season in Chicago when this episode was filmed so The Christmas Story was a particularly harmonious choice.
For #5 the chefs claimed that their lamb was fiery in colors and flavors, but the judges found little of either.
For #6 This was well-executed all the way.

So, it's no surprise that teams #1 and #6 and the ones selected for the winners group. Within that the winner is #1. Within that team the individual winner is Richard. He had publicly proclaimed at the begining of this challenge that he was going to "step it up a notch" and lead this team to victory. He did just that. It was cautionary to see how close his margin of victory was. His vaunted blowtorch stopped working on the 3rd of 12 meals in smoking the salmon, so they had to improvise, which they just managed to pull off successfully with lit wood chunks waved under the salmon. Stephanie also has a history of high performance, so I would not be surprised to see a Richard vs. Stephanie Finale on TopChef 4.

The worst of the worst competition was a tough call. Zoi and Antonia were there, but not really since Colicchio stated that their flavors were OK(that's not what I remembered from earlier in the episode, but he obviously does not want to have all the women wiped out). So it is Spike vs. Manuel. Spike was clearly the mastermind of Viet food and Manuel went along with it. The final judgment was that the one who didn't have the skill to take an independent course was the weaker and will go. Manuel was eliminated on the application of that logic. The more brash Spike stays longer, but it won't be for long. He talks a better game than he cooks. Similarly, Antonia impresses me as someone who has it together. Lisa looks like someone who will be leaving soon.

apskip:
Food Terminology Update

Daikon - a mild-flavored East Asian giant white radish
Tobanjan - depnding on which one of these you like, Spicy Miso Bean Sauce, Chinese chili bean paste, Chinese hot chile sauce   
Brunois - Finely diced vegetables: carrots, celery, onions, leeks, used as a basis of a soup or stuffing; usually cut in 1/8 inch squares
Supreme - a boneless and skinless breast of chicken (in French: suprême de volaille ), or the same cut of duck
Tournee - cutting fruit or vegetables into a certain shape for garnishing
Chiffonade - a julienne cut except that it is reserved for leafy vegetables and herbs; often this type of cut is used on basil and the result is used as a garnish.
Cavolo Nero - Tuscan kale sold in bunches of deeply ribbed, long narrow dark green leaves on tall stalks
Romesco - Catalonian sauce of finely ground tomatoes, red bell peppers, onion, garlic, almonds and olive oil, typically served with salads , grilled vegetables, meat, chicken, or fish
Gramalata - The meat around the bone on the lamb shank becomes tender and juicy as it slow cooks in the liquids. The gramalata is a traditional garnish made from fresh  chopped parsley, minced garlic and a hint of citrus zest.

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