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Top Chef Masters
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One of the videos available is http://www.bravotv.com/top-chef-masters/videos/hubert-kellers-macaroni-and-cheese . I can highly recommend this almost 8 minute redoing of the Hubert Keller mac and cheese recipe as Fabio Viviani and Michael Demmert (who may be a sous for one of the Hubert Keller Fleur de Lys restaurants, I'm not sure) demonstrate this recipe:
Ingredients - pasta, prawns, onions, white cheddar cheese, parsley, egg yolk, heavy cream, half-and-half, carrots, mushrooms, olive oil
Instructions:
1. chop carrots and stir in with onions, adding ground pepper and salt
2. Add olive oil.
3. Saute mushrooms, add more salt and ground pepper
4. Dice shrimp (or you are Fabio, shrimps) and saute
5. Toss shrimp and cook until they are turning red, then take it off the heat immediately
6. Add pasta to boilingwater
7. Add cream and half-and-half to the main pan and heat a little.
8. Add cheddar and adjust salt and pepper.
9. Strain pasta.
10. Stir pasta into sauce.
11. Add egg yolk and parsley.
total cooking time appeared to be about 7 minutes (assuming boiling water ready to go), just less than the length of the video.
TexasLady:
Thanks for the video link! :tup:
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Top Chef Masters, Introduction
The creators of Top Chef have extended that franchise to run a competition much like regular Top Chef for some of the finest chefs in the U.S. The 24 competing master chefs (all of whom have numerous awards that I will not bore you with here) are:
Michael Schlow from Boston - owner/chef at Radius and involved in 4 other restaurants; Tom Colicchio does a voiceover to type him as a preeminent Italian chef; Michael is competing for the Cam Neely Foundation for Cancer Care
Hubert Keller Chef/Owner Fleur de Lys restaurants in San Francisco and Las Vegas as well as Burger Bar, on Top Chef 1 ep. 1 as a judge, so he wants to see what it's like as a competitor (he will clearly find this out!), is French with culinary training in France, playing for Make A Wish Foundation
Christopher Lee - executive chef at Aureole in New York City, trained with Daniel Boulud and Jean-Georges Vonderichten, playing for Autism Speaks
Tim Love from Fort Worth - owner/chef of Lonesome Dove Bistro, Texas cuisine expert, not formally trained or mentored, playing for March of Dimes
The format of Top Chef Masters is quite similar to that of regular Top Chef. The 24 chefs are divided into six groups of 4 chefs. Care was taken to make sure that two of the heavy hitters (Hubert Keller, Rick Bayliss, Wiley Dufresne, Jonathan Waxman) did not get into the same group. The once a week episode for the first 6 episodes will feature the competition of one of those groups. The six winners then go into a Champions Round, which mirrors the Final 6 from regular Top Chef with one eliminated each week until a winner is reached.
The tasks should be very familiar to viewers of regular Top Chef. The show starts without any of the "personality development" and gets right to the Quickfire Challenge. A classic Top Chef challenge will be twisted a bit each week, sometimes by changing the setting of where food prep/cooking will occur, and scoring will be by an individual judge or group of judges. The remainder of the episode is the Elimination Challenge, which is like regular elimination challenges except that the master chefs are given less time. These may be judged partly by an outside panel, but the core of the judging will be by the panel of:
Gael Greene - New York City restaurant critic for 40 years, author and founder of City-Meal-on Wheels.
Jay Rayner - London Observer restaurant critic and writer
James Oseland - editor-in-chief of Saveur magazine and culinary expert
Each chef is playing for a charity of their choice plus for the fame inherent in the title Top Chef Master. The winner of each preliminary round goes to the Champions Round while the losers get an unstated amount for theirs. The winner of the Champions Round gets a check to their charity for $100,000.
Episode 1
The Quickfire challenge was to create a yummy dessert for some guests with a special affinity for sweet things. It is typically the most difficult type of dish for any chef in Top Chef. The dishes prepared for Tonight's Quickfire were:
Michael - warm chocolate cake with peanut butter and chocolate candies; ice cream was planned but would not freeze in time and his cake wouldn't bake so he was forced to improvise
Tim - chicken fried strawberries, dipped strawberries, strawberry shake; collectively, Strawberries 3 Ways
Chris - French toast with caramelized bananas, orange sauce and maple syrup fluff
Hubert - chocolate mousse swan, whipped cream mouse, fruit with orange sabayon
4 girl scouts were the judges of desserts. They were not shy about their commentary. On Tim they had diverse comments but they did not like the shake. Their scores (maximum 5 stars) were Michael 2.5 Tim 3.5 Chris 3.5 Hubert 5. All carried those points into the final tabulation, so Hubert had a 1.5 point lead over Tim and Chris.
The elimination challenge 3 courses were prepared in a dorm room at Pomona College with Calphalon brand microwave, hot plate and toaster oven. Chefs had $150 to spend in 45 minutes and then the next day 2 hours to prep and cook. Michael quips "Whoever's room this is, their parents will not be happy." After completing his cooking, he quipped "Project Destroy Dorm Room is finished." Tim had problems with frozen vegetables. There was no refrigeration or freezing, although Hubert did rig up the shower to act like a refrigerator and also oven depending on whether running cold or hot water around the bowl with his mac and cheese. Michael stated for all 4 of them that he had newly developed respect for the regular Top Chef competitors who get these unusual and difficult challenges.
The dishes in the first course were:
Michael -7 crudo w/ cucumber, mint, red chilies
Tim - scallop carpaccio w/ lime and chili and kumquat
Chris - Red Snapper Ceviche w/ citrus juices, avocado and popcorn
Hubert - Scottish Salmon cuit over creamy whole-grained mustard
The second course dishes were:
Michael - cabbage soup w/ smoked bacon, fennel and white beans
Tim - squash and corn pozole with corn (not hominy that was not available)
Chris - Creamy Risotto w/ prosciutto, kale and Parmesan cheese
Hubert - hearty carrot and petite pea soup w/ cinnamon and croutons
The third course dishes were:
Michael - pork a l'Apicius w/ broccolini and mushrooms
Tim - skirt steak and braised kale
Chris - Pan Roasted Pork Chop piperade, crushed potatoes, mache and fennel salad
Hubert - creamy macaroni and cheese with prawns, mushrooms and fresh herbs
Commentary from the judges included:
Michael - excellent soup, pork overcooked
Tim - not enough heat for a dish with the name "chili"; pozole good tailgating food; skirt steak and kale overseasoned
Chris - really good for a faux risotto, flavor profile fabulous although not al dente
Hubert - macaroni and cheese excellent comfort food but cinnamon disliked in soup by 2 male judges
25% of the judging score was the average score for appeared to be 6 to 8 college students who sampled all dishes. Permanent judges Gael Greene(New York City restaurant critic for 40 years), Jay Rayner (food critic for the London Observer) and James Oseland (editor-in-chief of Saveur magazine) each gave a score to the competitors. Here are the results (S for Students, G for Greene, R for Rayner, and O for Oseland):
Michael - S 3.5 G 2.5 R 2.5 O 2.5 total 13.5
Tiim - S 3 G 2.5 R 3 O 2.5 total 14.5
Chris - S 4 G 4 R 4 O 3.5 total 19
Hubert S 4 G 4 R 3.5 O 4 total 20.5
In essence, Tim and Hubert tied for top food in the Elimination Challenge, but Hubert won due to his Quickfire performance. He goes to the Champions Round starting in 6 weeks (Bastille Day July 14 for those that are counting). Hubert won $10,000 for the Make A Wish Foundation, courtesy of Lexus. The others were awarded a minor amount for the Cam Neely Center to Cure Cancer, March of Dimes and Autism Speaks.
I liked Kelly Choi as host. She is not a recognized culinary expert like Padma Lakshmi, but they did not ask Padma to host this. Kelly was firmly in charge on camera and we will see how much culinary expertise she actually has in future weeks.
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Top Chef Masters, prelim round 2
The competing chefs are Graham Elliott (chef/owner of Graham Bowles Elliott in Chicago), Wiley Dufresne (chef/owner of WD-50 in NYC and a leading proponent of molecular gastronomy), Suzanne Tracht (chef/owner of Jar restaurant in Los Angeles) and Elizabeth Faulkner (owner of Citizen Cake and Orson restaurants in San Francisco and an Iron Chef America). They are playing for the charities Sova Food Pantry (Suzanne), Edible Schoolyard (Elizabeth), Autism Speaks (Wiley) and American Heart Association (Graham and my favorite charity). SOVA is Hebrew for eat and be satisfied and the name for this service of Jewish Family Services of Los Angeles. Based on reputation, I expect Wiley Dufresne to be the winner of this group.
The Quickfire is a repeat of Season 2, Episode 13 where the cheftestants were given a roll of quarters and could buy anything available in a bank of food vending machines. Wiley selects 2 ham/cheese sandwiches, potato chips and peanuts, Graham 1 ham/cheese sandwich plus can of Coke and candy bars, Elizabeth beef jerky and orange juice and Dr. Pepper and Suzanne Cheetos, Fritos and Doritos. They must create an amuse bouche.
The created dishes were:
Wiley - grilled cheese sandwich with red onions and Dr. Pepper reduction
Graham - tuna salad, licorice, pickled shallots w/ ginger orange and beef jerky miso powder
Elizabeth - braised beef jerky with orange juice, lemon and horseradish ice cream
Suzanne - fried shallot rings with microgreen salad and aioli with Dr. Pepper
Wiley had a lot of trouble throughout the Quickfire and did not get all his sauce plated in time. The judges were from Top Chef Season 2, winner Ilan Hall, Michael Midgeley, and Betty Fraser. They ate and evaluated each dish on a 5 point scale. Their results were:
Wiley 3.0
Graham 4.5
Elizabeth 3.5
Suzanne 5.0 with the best dish
Next was an Elimination Challenge with 20 points maximum to be earned from the regular judges and the composite of guest judges. The guests were the Executive Producer of LOST, another producer and multiple writers. This challenge was to take ingredients only from a large table of boar, fish, seafood, tropical fruits and very few other things plus cans or jars on a pre-approved list from the Dharma initiative. What is that, you ask (as I did)? The Internet says that "Lost" revealed that "DHARMA" is an acronym for the fictional Department of Heuristics And Research on Material Applications. The Dharma Initiative brought together "scientists and free thinkers" from around the globe at a "large-scale communal research compound" to conduct research in various disciplines, including meteorology, psychology, parapsychology, zoology, electromagnetism, and a sixth discipline that the orientation film begins to identify as "utopian social-" before being cut off.
They each had $200 and 45 mintues to shop in Whole Foods for only those approved items. They had 2.5 hours the next day to cook and plate. The dishes created were:
Wiley - chicken and custard-style egg cooked using some special techniques of an immersion circulator, beets, dried corn, plaintain
Graham - tuna 3 ways (pineapple maki roll with green beans, nicoise, a la plancha w hearts opf palm)
Suzanne - wild boar w/ oyster beer sauce, uni sea urchin risotto, mango corn salad
Elizabeth - beer braised boar loin, poached boar loin, yam papaya pudding
During the service, Wylie mistakenly put who chicken portions on one plate and none of another. This was sorted out but I think he lost minor points as a result. Comments by the judges were:
Wylie's chicken was perfect and well-cooked. There were questions about how he made the eggs like custard. Suzanne had "lots of stuff on the plate" but not too much for the judges. Elizabeth was told that her yams and papaya were too sweet.
The judges (James Oseland O, Jay Rayner J, Gael Greene G, LOST composite L)
plus the LOST bunch voted as follows:
Wiley L 3.5 O 5.0 J 4.0 G 4.5 total 17, combined gives 20
Elizabeth L 3.5 O 3.0 J 3.0 G 3.5 total 13, combined gives 16.5
Graham L 4.5 O 4.0 J 4.0 G 3.5 total 16, combined gives 20.5
Suzanne L 4.5 O 4.5 J 4.0 G 4.5 total 17.5, combined gives 22.5, the clear winner
So, Suzanne won by having the best scores on both the Quickfire and Elimination Challenge. She got a $10,000 check for SOVA Food Pantry while the others got minor amounts for their charities. Suzanne goes to join Hubert keller so far in the Masters round.
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It was another exciting Top Chef Masters show. I find it much more interesting than regular Top Chef and you should expect that master chefs know more and are less nervous about doing well (because they undisputedly already are).
Last night's chefs were:
Wilo Benet - from Puerto Rico and chef/owner of Pikayo and owner of 2 other restaurants there. He is not a household name in the lower 48 states but is revered in Puerto Rico. He is playing for the San Jorge Children's Foundation.
Emily Pawclyn - chef/owner of the famous Mustard's Grill in Napa Valley CA. She is playing for Clinic OK, which provides affordable helath care. She says that most of her workers use it.
Rick Bayliss - owner of Fontera and Topolobambo restaurants in Chicago and TV chef extraordainire. I believe I have seen every episode for his multi-year Mexican cooking series. He is playing for the Frontera Farms Foundation.
Ludovic Lefebvre - chef/owner of Ludobites in Los Angeles. I am not surprised seeing him in action why Ludo did not return to Bastide after it was renovated. He is prickly and difficult to get along with, partly due to unrealistic expectations and high desire to win at all costs. He also disparaged Jay Rayner for being British and obviously unable to properly judge a Frenchman. I found him to be a bit of a jerk on this show. He is playing for C.H.A.S.E. for LIFE.
The Quickfire is 30 minutes to create a meal of one color only. Ludo draws the knife corresponding to Red, Cindy to Yellow, Rick to Green and Wilo to Red. The judges will be a group of 3 style/presentation oriented females - a food stylist, a cookbook author, and a food photographer.
Rick Bayliss states that he is the dean of slow-cooked food, so he expects to be at a disadvantage with 30 minutes to cook.
Ludo does not get tomato on his plate (tough luck) but is allowed to see that a tomatillo sauce that went on several plates be available for all of them. The irony is that one of the judges tells him that it is better without that sauce.
The dishes are:
Ludo - steak tartare, watermelon, red onions, red beet gazpacho, tomatillo sauce
Cindy - yeloow vegetable curry over sweet corn grits and fried corn tortillas
Rick - roasted vegetables cookeed in banana leaves, with mole verde, tomatillo,green chiles and pumpkin seed
Wilo - Smoked Salmon Tartare w/ coconut mousse and tomato sauce
Wilo left a silver ring on the plate when it should have been removed in plating. I believe this cost him only fractions of a point.
The scoring is:
Ludo - 3
Cindy - 3.5
Rick - 4
Wilo - 4.5
The Exlimination Challenge is about the use of different types of offal to make an appetizing street food meal to be served at Universal Studios after 3 hours prep and 1 hour of readiness onsite. The knife draw corresponds to this assignment of the protein:
Wilo- beef hearts
Cindy - tripe
Rick - beef tongue
Ludo - pigs ears
In my opinion, Rick has the easiesst ingredient and Ludo the hardest. The public is invited to a poll on this (great alliteration "which offal is the most awful?") and they find everything but beef tongue to be about the same in difficulty and the beef tongue much easier. The chefs have $300 each and 45 minutes to shop at Whole Foods.
The main dishes will be:
Ludo - Pork Quesadilla (wanting to best Rick Bayliss in his specialty) w/chorizo, pinto bean puree, lime aioli, garlic, and smoked paprika
Wilo - Puerto Rican street vendor "tripleta" of beef, ham and chicken in pita bread, with cheddar, ketchup and mayonnaise
Cindy - menudo, an obvious way of cooking tripe that people like (she says that her staff have it every Sunday) w/ fresh whole tomatillos and cilantro
Rick - Tongue Taco (true to his Mexican skills, which his restaurant staff had urged him to focus on) chorizo, tomatillo and cilantro, w/ guacamole and pickled onions
In the kitchen, Rick helped Cindy on how to work a pressure cooker. The Universal Studios outdoor location was fine. Ludo had trouble making quesadillas fast enough early on, but got it going later. Rick was amazed that so many people came to try their food. I have two words of explanation: FREE FOOD. It brings them in every time and to enhance that it is made by famous chefs.
In the Judges Ask the Chefs part of the competition, James asked Ludo if his court boullion of tomatoes, carrots, onions and leeks was robust enough. Cindy admitted that her menudo just didn't have enough "punch". James told Wilo he may have cut his beef hearts too thin. Ludo responded that pig's ears did not work on a quesadilla.
It was pretty obvious from the judges commentary that Rick would be on top, Wilo close behind and Ludo and Cindy fighting to avoid the bottom spot. The actual scores were:
Ludo Public 3.5 O 4 J 3 G 3 subtotal 13.5, total 16.5
Cindy Public 3 O 2.5 J 3.5 G 3 subtotal 12, total 15.5
Rick Public 4 O 4.5 J 5 G 5 subtotal 18.5, total 22.5
Wilo Public 4 O 4 J 4 G 3 subtotal 15, total 19.5
Rick Bayliss wins the $10,000 for his Frontera Farm Foundation. I find that apporpriate since he had the biggest reputation of these 4 chefs coming into this competition
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