Top Chef Review: Bring on the Heat

This week’s Top Chef starts with a creative Quick Fire Challenge. The chefs are asked to create one dish that puts a spotlight on the chili pepper. The hotter the pepper they use, the more money they take home if they win the challenge. Padma and guest judges Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Feniger decide Paul’s use of the ghost chili (the hottest pepper around) in his coconut soup can’t be beat and he walks away with cool $20,000 and immunity in the Elimination Challenge.

The Elimination Challenge this week is an authentic Texas chili cook-off. The chefs are divided into four teams of three. Each team is responsible for creating a chili dish for 200 guests attending a Texas rodeo. They will all be making their chili at home and can cook all night.

All the teams race to the store to picking up the cooking essentials and it is chaos at the meat counter as everyone tries to get their hands on the premium cuts for chili.

With ingredients in hand, the chefs all scope out the perfect chili-cooking spot in their house. Space is a premium so all kinds of deals are struck including Grayson trying to entice Chris J. for space on a grill in exchange for a sheet pan. Exciting.

At some point late into the night, people start getting loopy (or drunk of Shiner Bock) and jump into the pool, perform weird dances (Chuy, I’m looking at you), and just devolve into school kids. But who can blame them? Doing a chili all-nighter doesn’t seem that exciting but it’s got to be better than staying up to write a paper on the Spanish conquest of the Incan empire (Junior year, it sucked).

After staying up into the wee hours of the night, all our exhausted chefs head to the rodeo grounds to start dishing up their meals to a whole lot of hungry Texans. The rodeo-goers will pick the winning team and the losing team. Then, Padma, Gail, Tom and the guest judges will swoop in to send someone from the losing team home.

Notable Teams and their chili’s:
The Blue Team (Paul, Edward and Heather) – this team decided to smoke a brisket and add a summer medley of pickled vegetables to it. One question, hasn’t Heather pickled something or another in every challenge so far? Are we seeing the emergence of a pickling master?

The Green Team (Chuy, Sarah, Pretty Boy Chris) – this team decides to make a chili con carne with no beans (apparently, beans don’t exist in traditional Texas chili). It was a big hit.

The Black Team (Nyesha, Ritchie, Beverly) – these chefs go off the beaten path and make a chili inspired by mole. This chili has all kinds of flavors including cinnamon and chocolate. It’s definitely a risk, which doesn’t end up paying off.

The judges choose the Green Team as the winner of the challenge and the Black Team is the big loser. They give Nyesha, Ritchie and Beverly one more chance to wow them – each chef is asked to create one new dish using their loser mole chili. Beverly delivers an innovative dish using the sauce from the chili and a seared tuna encrusted with chili spices. Nyesha’s Frito-encrusted shrimp lacks creativity and Ritchie’s Frito-encrusted tenderloin didn’t go far enough. The judges decide to send Ritchie packing.

Ritchie gets one last chance on Bravo’s Last Chance Kitchen as he goes up against Keith (go Keith!) in a final challenge judged by Tom C. The task is to use three ingredients from a table filled with Thanksgiving leftovers and create a winning dish. Keith takes home the prize so he’s up against next week’s Top Chef loser in another round of Last Chance Kitchen.

 

Season 9, Episode 4: Red Hot Chili Cook-Off (originally aired November 23, 2011)

Images courtesy of Bravo TV.