[Ted] 16 elite chefs
from four corners of the country...
North.
[Jill] Good food comes from more than just big cities.
South.
-[man] There is pride on the line. - East.
[woman] I'm an East Coast girl. I got this.
-[Ted] West. -[woman] I'm not afraid of anyone.
This is the most skilled group of chefs that Chopped has ever seen.
[woman] Rising Star Chef of the year.
[man] Three James Beard nominations.
[Hosea] Winner of Top Chef season five.
[Min] Anything that's short of perfection
is just not good enough for me.
[woman] This time, I'm gonna take it all the way.
[Ted] With $50,000 and American pride at stake,
this is the Chopped All-American Showdown.
[woman] This person better be gritty.
[Jill] Northerners are tough. They get through everything.
[man] My southern roots are kicking in, like a crazy person.
[Ted] United in their hunger for victory.
I'm about to spread my wings and fly.
[judge] We're not gonna give away 50 grand,
you got to earn it.
[man] You definitely have to crush it or be crushed.
This is not pretty.
So, what are you making?
I don't know what to do.
Oh, my God.
My hands are shaking.
They should have walked into this kitchen ready to go.
-[judges] Oh, no. -Is he gonna make it?
[man] Let's do it, let's do it.
[man] Somebody's going home, make sure it's not you.
[Andy] This tournament is the best of the best from all over the country,
and I'm here to show that Iowa can bring amazing cuisine.
I'm chef and co-owner of Cobble Hill Restaurant and Caucho
in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
The North is known for meat and potatoes
and I do do that with a lot more elevated technique.
I was nominated for a James Beard award
and my restaurant was nominated one of the best in Iowa.
I'm gonna win this competition
and you'll see me in the finals
for the best chef in the US.
[Omar] I can't wait to show people
that the best chef comes out of the North.
I'm the chef-owner of Saffron De Twah in Detroit, Michigan.
I serve food inspired by the flavors of Morocco and what I grew up eating.
My restaurant was a James Beard semifinalist
for best new restaurant in the country.
Detroit is the most amazing city.
Such a mixing pot of cuisines, people and food.
I definitely want to bring this one back home to Detroit.
[Karyn] I'm the chef-owner of Myriel
in Saint Paul, Minnesota.
My restaurant was just featured as one of the best restaurants
in the country by Esquire magazine.
I represent the landscape of the North in my food
by using highly localized ingredients.
I'm not easily intimidated.
I would love to be the chef representing the North.
[Jill] I wanna to prove that good food comes from more than just big cities.
I am the executive chef and co-owner of Salt, in Lakewood, Ohio.
I've been in the restaurant business for almost 28 years.
I just love the intensity of it.
I was nominated for James Beard award two years in a row,
and listed as one of the top three chefs in Cleveland.
There's a lot to be proud of...
I am here to win and cook my ass off. Period.
Hello, chefs!
-Good Morning. -Hello.
-Hi, Ted. -You are among the very best chefs,
in the Northern United States,
and yet despite all your awards and accolades
you're here to push yourselves to the limit.
Let's go.
-[Karyn] Ready to play and go. -Ready to play.
I've wanted to be a competitor on Chopped for so long,
-and being part of this tournament... -[cheering]
I don't know, I think, my brain might explode.
Appetizer baskets are in front of you.
Please open them up.
-[Jill laughs] -Ooh!
[Ted] And you got kringle.
This Swedish?
-[Ted] Lake perch. -Oh, yeah!
Very nice.
I've had perch on my menu before.
It's readily accessible and the Great Lakes are full of perch.
-[Ted] Corn on the cob. -Sweet corn.
[Karyn] Feels like Minnesota.
My grandma was a corn queen
and corn runs deep in my family.
-Uh. -[Ted] And salted egg yolk paste.
Salted egg yolk paste.
[Ted] Only 20 minutes.
It feels like a really Northern basket.
Clock starts now.
-[Scott] Let's go, chefs. -[Eric] Okay, guys.
[Scott] Let's get it done.
[all clapping]
Judges, each preliminary battle of this All-American Showdown
features elite chefs from the same region.
The winner will come back for the finale.
One of these people is going to be representing the North.
All Beard-nominated chefs as well...
Tremendous amount of skill.
We're expecting world class cooking.
[Eric] I'm just expecting sound technique, right?
These are ingredients that all of these chefs
have definitely worked with before.
So, really I'm just expecting them to just deliver,
really, execution is thus huge.
[Alex] The North doesn't enjoy a really long growing season.
Chefs in the North are used to being resourceful.
I wanna see that connection
and the story the chef has to weave
with these ingredients.
All right.
Northern cuisine, really, is about
using whatever you have at your fingertips,
which is sometimes scarce, because of the seasons.
I'm making corn meal fried lake perch
with a lime egg yolk emulsion
and crunchy corn relish.
I grew up just north of the Twin Cities...
Um, but I spent a lot of my time then,
at my grandparents' small farming town
called Dassel, Minnesota.
I want to win Chopped
to represent the food scene in Minnesota.
The North, North.
-Behind, behind. -[Omar] Heard.
And get to this fish.
A lot of people don't realize it, in the North,
we have the largest community of Arab Americans in the country.
I'm half Egyptian and half Palestinian.
I would describe my food
as a mix of North African flavors.
It's this giant melting pot.
Chef Omar, what are you making, Chef?
[Omar] I'm gonna make a grilled corn salad,
some pan-fried lake perch
and I'm using the salted egg yolk and the frosting
to make my Moroccan-style dressing.
I like it, Chef. Well done.
[Omar] Once I have a nice char on the corn,
I top it with tomatoes, cilantro, parsley
and charred jalapeno.
Question is always, how much heat to keep?
See if the judges like a little bit of heat.
All these ingredients with the exception of the egg yolk,
they're Northern ingredients.
The kringle, particularly from Wisconsin, from Dutch settlers,
that made this beautiful kringle Danish.
[Alex] What I don't love is that kringle.
Brings a lot of sugar, corn has sugar.
And so, you're left with a dessert.
[Jill] The challenge with the kringle is that,
it's this sweet flaky dough thing
that you're trying to add to a savory dish.
-What are you thinking? -[Jill] I'm gonna do a succotash.
But I know the ingredients from the North
like the back of my hand,
I really think that I can represent myself
and those ingredients really well.
Chef Jill, what are you building, Chef?
Um, I may build a little egg yolk paste aioli.
Doing a succotash with the perch.
-I love the idea of a succotash. -I do as well. Yeah.
-[Alex] So American. -[Eric] I do as well, yeah.
The corn, of course, grows throughout the North.
Pickle it, you can vinaigrette with it.
You could just make a roasted corn tray.
[Karyn] Behind.
[Omar and Jill] Heard.
So, I see corn on the cob and I'm actually kind of excited
because corn on the cob is iconic to Iowa cuisine.
I'm making a salted egg yolk and sweet corn puree
with a tarragon spaetzle and a seared lake perch.
Winning this competition would really show people
that Iowa cuisine is on the map
and I'm proud to represent my state.
Chefs, less than 15 minutes left.
Chef Andy, you got time to make that spaetzle, Chef?
[Andy] I'm about ready to go in the water right now.
-Giddy up. -[Andy] Giddy up.
Lake perch, I mean, when you're talking about a freshwater fish, right?
Mild, delicate.
Because it also cooks very quickly.
Like, it can dry out, whether you're frying it,
whether you're sauteing it, but you can't have it in the pan
for more than, I would say, five minutes.
[Karyn] Pan searing the perch is the best way
I know to cook it.
I'm making sure to cook the perch with butter,
because it's a really lean fish
and it needs that fat.
[Omar] Behind, behind.
[Alex] Is Omar frying his fish?
I still hope someone is gonna fry it.
-I feel like a fish fry would be so American. -I hear you.
[Omar] As a Northerner, I'm extremely excited to see corn...
For those that want gluten free,
we use masa harina, instead of flour.
So, to accentuates the corn salad,
I'm using masa harina,
which is corn flour and cornstarch on my fish.
[oil sizzling]
[Jill] I season the fish with salt and pepper
and then, I throw it in a bowl with some corn meal
and I do kind of a hard sear because you want it be crispy.
[Andy] I haven't touched the kringle and time is slipping away.
I know I want to make a kringle crouton
because there's not a lot of texture going on in the dish.
[Scott] Six minutes left on the clock,
Andy has touched neither his kringle nor his perch.
I just... I can't watch Andy.
Like, he makes me nervous.
[Andy] And I haven't touched my fish yet,
and definitely, need to get it going.
Just five minutes on the clock, chefs.
Oh, Andy, you're killing me.
[clock ticking]
Andy has touched neither his kringle nor his perch.
[Andy] Time is slipping away
and I haven't touched my fish yet.
Lake perch cooks relatively quickly,
so I decided just to season the lake perch with salt simply
and then pan on immediately.
And then, I need to cut the kringle,
and get my croutons in some butter.
We don't get a lot of ingredients in a Chopped basket,
like an egg yolk paste, it's... What's in it, Eric?
So, it's soybean, there's egg yolk, there's salt.
It's just really umami bomb.
[Karyn] Salted egg yolk paste is a mystery to me.
I'm adding egg yolk to it to make an emulsion.
That will add fat and richness to the dish.
[Omar] To dress my corn salad,
I'm making a salted egg yolk vinaigrette.
Super salty.
But it needed a component of sweetness.
So, I'm using the icing from the kringle.
[Jill] So, in a bowl, I have the egg yolk paste,
some lemon juice, a little bit of oil,
and realized that the sauce was kind of salty.
So, I decided to use the frosting from the kringle
to break through that saltiness a little bit.
Two-minute warning, chefs!
Behind.
I can hear the time ticking down
and I'm all the way down to the wire.
-[judges] Oh, no. -[Alex] No.
Andy's lost fish right on the floor
and he stepped on it.
Now, he's just frantically cutting the fish up.
-[Ted] 30 seconds, chefs. -[Scott] Andy, you got to get it done, brother.
Only one of you is going to be representing the North in the finale, guys.
[Ted] All right, get those plates polished up, chefs.
Ten, nine,
eight, seven,
six, five,
four, three, two, one.
-[Andy] Got it. -[Ted] Time's up.
-[Alex] Wow! -[Scott] Oh, my God.
That's how we do it in the North.
[Andy] That last minute was so stressful.
It was... it went by so fast
and as soon as the countdown started,
Ted started counting down,
I knew I just had to keep moving,
keep moving, keep moving.
[Omar] That was actually a little more intense than I thought it would be.
But I'm really happy with the dish that I put up.
[Ted] Chefs, you have arrived at the chopping block.
You opened your first basket and found a kringle.
Lake perch. Corn on the cob.
Salted egg yolk paste.
Chef Jill, what do we have?
Today, in front of you,
I have done a corn meal-crusted lake perch
with a corn succotash
and a salted egg yolk and kringle frosting aioli on the bottom. Enjoy.
Chef, so, I think you have a really good cook on the fish.
I like the exterior crust.
I like the succotash,
but that smoked bacon is the boss.
It takes over and there's a lot of it.
Yes, chef. Obviously, you know how to handle perch.
This is... this is the way you should cook it.
Um, but for me, this egg yolk and kringle aioli,
that you have here,
kind of loses itself,
because it kind of bleeds off that bacon fat
and it kind of gets lost.
If this salted egg yolk had been right on that fish,
I would have gotten more from it.
You're a really good cook and you can get a lot done.
So, maybe do a little less
and think a little more strategically.
Next up is Chef Omar.
Please tell us about your starter.
Um, what I did was a fried lake perch and sauteed corn salad.
[Ted] Chef, where are you from and where do you work?
I'm the chef-owner of Saffron De Twah, in Detroit, Michigan.
It's a modern Moroccan bistro.
[Eric] I'll tell you what, chef.
This corn salad right here, man,
this right here is pretty, um, it's special.
I love the fact that you seasoned the tomatoes.
I really dig that. I think that's really smart.
What's the relationship between the salad and the fish in your mind?
Um, so, in Morocco, when we...
when we serve a tagine, for example,
the protein comes by itself,
and then you're served multiple little dishes of salads.
And it's meant to be eaten together.
That may work with a tagine,
but in this case
because of this plate, I'm not getting it all.
Some small choices are doing your dish a disservice.
I agree with Alex. I feel like, you know,
the choice of the plate that we use,
directly affects our way we eat it. Right?
But I think your vinaigrette is spectacular.
It's spectacular. It's like...
This little corn salad
with the tomatoes is...
like, if that's how you cook?
-Just more of that. Just do that. -Thank you.
Chef Andy. Please, tell us about your dish.
For you today, I have a sweet corn in salted egg yolk puree.
A little tarragon spaetzle with charred corn,
pan-seared lake fish and a kringle crumble.
How did that round feel for you?
Looked a little crazy at the end.
Yeah, um, I couldn't believe
I dropped the fish on the floor.
I thought, I don't even know how much time was left,
so I had to pivot really fast
and kind of divvy up the rest of 'em.
Um, I've never seen anybody pivot with fish on the floor
and get it all on the plate.
I mean, really, just impressive.
Thank you, chef.
I think your fish is cooked nicely.
I think there's a good, a good hard sear on one side.
That spaetzle, I think it's very good.
That's an ambitious first round, chef.
Making spaetzle, making the puree.
And I think that puree needs a little more time.
[Eric] I agree. That puree
could have used a little bit more time just to develop some flavors,
but you give such a beautiful herbaceous note to the entire dish
that I really enjoyed.
Tarragon, you talk about thyme,
these are all things
that work very, very well with corn.
Next, Chef Karyn.
This is a corn meal pan-fried lake perch
with a lime egg yolk emulsion and a crunchy corn relish.
Tell you what? Out of all the dishes that I've had,
thus far, this is the best cook of the fish.
Seasoned really beautifully. I love the care that you've taken
with the corn meal.
My hiccup though is this really,
really eggy egg yolk sauce,
that raw egg overpowers the salted egg yolk.
I watched you cook the perch.
You used the right amount of butter,
which is a tremendous amount,
which I think, was the right way to cook this.
This is structurally, the clearest plate up I've tasted.
So, I really love that.
I think your kringle is underrepresented
and a little... it's almost burned.
Because of all those burnt bends that you're getting from the kringle,
it really kind of just disrupts your palate.
[Ted] All right. Chef Karyn, thank you.
-Thanks. -All right. chefs,
we know that you are all chefs who like to win
and who win often,
but only three chefs go to round two.
Thank you.
[Jill] I hope I'm not getting chopped,
but I also agree with everything that the judges said.
I need to prove myself in the second round.
[Andy] The judges said that I tried to pull off a little too much,
but I hope that my ambition
in doing a few different techniques
boded well for me.
[clock ticking]
So, whose dish is on the chopping block?
Chef Karyn, you've been chopped.
Judges.
[Alex] Chef Karyn, the salted egg yolk
ended up being like a raw egg sauce
and we felt that the kringle was really, ultimately burnt.
And so, we had to chop you.
[Karyn] I'm not sure that I agree with the judges' decision.
Tough, you know. I would have loved
to have gone on a little bit longer,
but whoever represents the North,
I'd love to see them to take the win in the finale.
[Ted] Chef Jill, Chef Omar, Chef Andy,
let's see if you can show these entree baskets, what's what.
Open 'em up!
[Omar] Whoa.
[Ted] And the judges will be tasting main dishes made from a deep-dish pizza...
[Omar] Chicago?
[Ted] Goat shoulder.
Oh, boy. [chuckles]
[Ted] Idaho potatoes.
Some potatoes.
[Omar] All right.
-[Ted] And Greek dressing. -All right.
This is gonna be a challenging basket.
You got this, girl.
[Ted] 30 minutes to complete the challenge.
-Little unsure. -Time starts now.
-[judges cheering] -Let's go get them, chefs, come on.
-All right. -Beautiful.
Judges, perhaps no other food stirs up as much all-American debate as pizza.
Not everybody likes Chicago's famous deep-dish style.
It's a classic pizza.
Any way you talk about...
Normally, when we talk about Chicago,
that's the... probably the first thing I think of.
Yeah, I mean, New Yorkers would call this a tart.
[all laugh]
-[Andy] Behind. -[Jill] So, I see the Chicago-style pizza.
When I'm in Chicago...
I love it, it's the only place that does it right.
They have this super deep dish,
really nice crispy crust. The cheese is on the bottom.
The sauce is on top.
And I automatically think, barbecue sauce.
So, I'm making a deep-dish-barbecued goat
with a Greek dressing,
potato salad and green beans.
So, this goat, obviously... Particularly, in Michigan,
in parts of Detroit,
there are lot of halal butcheries.
So, this goat kind of represents that shoulder.
If you don't have time to moist roast it or braise it,
you have to break it down and either cook it in sections or grind it completely.
[Omar] I love working with goat.
But normally, I would put it in a tagine and braise it,
low and slow, for hours and hours.
We just don't have that time.
I know, I have to grind it.
I'm making ground goat meatballs with a pizza sauce
and vinegar and raisin potatoes.
[Alex] Omar has made a panade
with the brioche bread,
the milk and the Greek dressing
as the binder for this meatball mix, and I really like that.
[Omar] I seasoned my meatballs with cloves, cardamom, all spice and cumin,
because they're super warm and they lend themselves really well to gamey meats.
Gotta be careful not to overwork this grind.
[Andy] $50,000 will be a very life changing amount of money for me.
I'm very much a family guy.
My wife and I run our restaurants together.
And when we're not at the restaurants,
we're hanging out with our kids.
I would love to win this, show my kids that daddy is a rock star.
I'm making a goat shoulder schnitzel
with poached potatoes,
pizza romesco sauce
and a Greek salad orange vinaigrette.
I'm not sure the best course of action for this goat shoulder
-is to pound it out like that. I am just... -Yeah.
I feel like that's still gonna be really tough.
[Eric] There's so much connective tissue,
when you pound it,
it still gonna remain there, right?
[Andy] My plan was to get my potatoes cooking early,
because they take time to cook
and I don't want them to be undercooked.
Chefs, 15 minutes left.
Northern chefs in this main course round,
I feel like 'cause they had accolades and awards
and they are super superior cooking talents,
they should have walked into this kitchen ready to go.
I'm the chef of the North to beat
because I am going to bring my A-game.
And I've been nominated for a James Beard award two times in a row.
It would really be wonderful to bring a win home to Cleveland.
Ten minutes to go, chefs.
Omar took his potatoes out of the water
and they're not cooked.
[Ted] Oh, boy.
[Omar] It's time to pivot, I need to figure this out.
I need to get these Potatoes cooked.
I run the potatoes over to the deep fryer.
[Andy] So, I see deep dish pizza.
And I see the tomato and the bread on the pizza
and immediately my mind goes to a Spanish romesco sauce.
[Alex] I don't know what...
Andy has added a lot of water to his sauce.
[Eric] I did see that. Yeah.
And a Romesco sauce to me is always,
sort of chunky and thick and textured.
[Andy] Since the goat cutlet is pounded so thin,
it should cook very quickly.
Jill's making barbecue sauce.
She's marinating her goat.
She's got green beans and she's making a potato salad.
She wants to make us a plate like we're sitting at a barbecue.
[Jill] So, I strained my potatoes.
And I grabbed some mayonnaise and mustard
to add to the Greek dressing.
Because I think the Greek dressing
is just a little bit too much vinegar.
So, I wanted to balance it out a little bit.
[Ted] Five minutes left on that clock.
Behind, hot. Heard?
[Eric] Omar, how you doing? How are you feeling?
[Omar] Uh-oh. We're behind.
As time is running out,
I'm really worried about getting these potatoes cooked through in time.
I'm gonna need to leave my potatoes in the fryer
till the very last second.
To go with my meatballs. I'm making a pizza sauce.
So, I take the sauce from the deep dish pizza
and put it into a blender...
Mmm, pizza sauce.
...with some chicken broth and fresh tomatoes.
[Ted] One minute to go, chefs.
[Andy] I grab some zucchini and I mandled it super thin.
Because I want a fresh component to this dish.
And I wanted to dress that with the Greek dressing and orange zest.
[Ted] 30 seconds, folks.
Let's go, chefs, get it all on the plate.
Get it all on the plate, please.
[Ted] Ten, nine, eight, seven,
six, five, four, three, two, one.
-Time's up. -[Eric] Good job, chefs.
-[all applauding] -Wow.
[Jill] The goat threw me... especially being the shoulder,
which is something that's normally braised,
but northerners are tough. We get through everything.
[Omar] I'm thinking my potatoes might not be cooked,
but it was important to just get something on the plate,
in front of the judges and hope for the best.
Chefs, in the Entree round, we challenged you to make main dishes
using deep dish pizza,
goat shoulder,
Idaho potatoes and Greek dressing.
Chef Omar, what do we have?
We have ground goat's meatballs
in a pizza sauce with vinegar and raisin potatoes.
This right here when it, like, landed,
smelled amazing.
You get the cumin, you get the clove,
you get the coriander.
I get North Africa, I get the North America.
I get you in this bowl.
It's seasoned really well.
It's just the technical stuff that just, like,
it clipped you, man.
It's the potato, when you boil it,
and then you take that hot boiling potato,
and then you fry it,
it's waterlogged and it's still under.
[Scott] Chef, I gotta be honest with you, man.
Your potatoes are really undercooked,
which quite frankly is...
is nothing short of unacceptable,
when cooking potatoes.
Honestly all this stuff they said is true,
but there's a lot of really good cooking in here.
The goat is so tender and delicious
and the spices are delicious.
And that to my mind was the hardest thing.
Thank you.
Next up, Chef Andy.
Chefs, what I have for you here
is a goat schnitzel.
It's inspired from the fried pork tenderloins.
that hail from my glorious state.
With poached potatoes,
pizza romesco sauce,
and then, the oil from the Greek dressing,
I made an orange lemon vinaigrette.
I think the frisee was smart
'cause it's bitter, bitter, bitter cutting.
I say it's delicious. I really like it.
But these potatoes are not cooked enough.
Um, I have to agree with Chef Alex.
But the schnitzel is delicious.
It's well-seasoned. It tastes really, really good.
I saw you pounding it out. If you go in that route,
protect it, where it is not as like,
ripped, or torn or hole-y.
I just wish I'd gotten more goat
than the Schnitzel itself.
I agree with you. I think that the schnitzel needed a little bit more love.
There's some pieces in here that I couldn't... I couldn't even chew.
The idea of this dish is solid.
The execution of this dish is far from solid.
All right. Finally, Chef Jill.
Hello. In front of you, you have,
a Chicago pizza barbecue-glazed goat
with potato salad and green beans.
I don't know if there is a problem
with the potato cooker in the kitchen,
but everybody has undercooked potatoes.
That is wildly disappointing
that all three of you,
undercooked your potatoes, chefs.
And also the goat itself was really unevenly cooked.
Some of them are medium rare,
some of them are medium,
some of them are a little more than that.
But my favorite thing on the plate are the beans.
They're delicious.
I mean, the butter, the vinaigrette, the onions,
the char, all that stuff, it's wonderful.
I agree that... the goat,
I just wish there was a lot more love shown to that.
But use of the deep dish pizza and the barbecue sauce,
I thought that was really, really well executed.
And kind of helps bring everything together.
I think that this is, presentation-wise,
a plate that makes me think of America.
And that's what this tournament is all about.
Just two chefs from this group
get to compete in the dessert round
for a slot in this tournament's finale.
Thank you, chefs.
[Jill] I don't really know who's gonna get chopped
because we are all in the same boat
as far as the undercooked potatoes were concerned,
but I feel like I represented the North
and America, you know, with what I did.
[sighs] Honestly, I think all three of us
are on the chopping block.
We all had some good critiques.
And we all had raw potatoes. [chuckles softly]
So, really at the end of the day,
I think it's up to the judges on execution.
Whose dish is on the chopping block?
Chef Andy, you have been chopped.
Judges.
Chefs, let's be honest, you all had issues with your potatoes.
But Chef Andy, the Schnitzel, the pound on that goat
was just way too aggressive.
And so, we have to chop you.
Appreciate it, thank you.
Good luck, guys. Represent the North.
I am feeling just disappointed, you know,
a Chopped win would have been great,
but my kids will be super proud of me.
And I think they'll be happy to see me when I get back.
I hope you guys know some desserts.
-We'll see. [chuckles] -[Eric] What's easier than a dessert?
-Hopefully there's no potatoes in the desserts. -[Omar laughs]
Chef Omar, chef Jill, is there a Northern rivalry here?
Looks like it.
Howdy, neighbor?
There's just one round left
between you and the $50,000 finale.
[music intensifies, fades]
[Ted] Open 'em up.
-Oh! -Oh, no.
[Ted] And you are looking at a root beer float.
Root beer float.
Got some frozen...
-[Ted] Frozen cherries. -Berries, cherries?
-[Ted] Pita Chips. -Pita Chips.
-[Ted] And Buckeyes. -[Omar] Buckeyes.
A Buckeye is basically just two ingredients.
Peanut butter covered in chocolate, that's it.
I mean Buckeyes... [chuckles]
It's like Ohio's national fruit.
[Ted] 30 minutes.
This is going to be an interesting one
Clock starts now.
-[all exclaiming] -[Eric] Go, guys. Come on.
All right!
Basically, what we have, we have,
Cleveland against Detroit here in the Chopped kitchen.
Boom. You know, I think this is really neck and neck right now.
Dessert basket is loaded with great flavors.
And I'm looking to see these chefs take risks.
This is to represent a really iconic part of the country.
The North.
Mmm.
Feels so great to make it to this dessert round.
I can see the finish line and I'm only one cook away
from representing the north in the finale.
[Eric] Chef Omar, what are you working on?
I'm making a pudding called the Mahalabia,
that comes from Egypt.
It's Buckeye and tahini pudding.
And then, a root beer and cherry gastrique.
Tahini and chocolate play so well together,
and it has a really nutty flavor.
So, the goal is to accentuate the peanut butter and the buckeye.
Being an Ohio native, I certainly love Buckeyes.
It's a ball of peanut butter
dipped most of the way into chocolate,
so that really resembles
the seed from the state tree of Ohio.
I may or may not have just inhaled several of those Buckeyes.
That peanut butter is just,
it's just one of my favorite things
I get a little giddy when I start talking about peanut butter.
[Jill] What are you whipping up over there, man?
-[Omar] Cherry root beer gastrique. -Sweet.
[Jill] Being one chef away from representing the North
is such an incredible feeling, just to get to this point.
I've been honing my craft for a long time.
And I came here to win.
[Omar] What are you making?
I might do a, just like, a layered dessert.
So, I am making a peanut butter and jelly parfait.
I'm doing a root beer and cherry jelly,
and a Buckeye custard.
For my custard,
I take the peanut butter out of the Buckeyes
and put it into a pan.
The ice cream is from the root beer float.
[Ted] Chefs, less than 15 minutes to go.
The North's connection to the root beer float,
stems from 1893 in Chicago...
was the first soda fountain.
[Alex] You know, it is so American to me.
It's just traditionally root beer,
with scoops of vanilla ice cream dropped in there.
I love the froth.
[Omar] I'm using the root beer and the cherries to make a gastrique.
I'm hoping that gastrique will add
a tartness and brightness and freshness
to counteract the rich pudding.
Oh, my God.
That is phenomenal.
Winning this competition, it will open so many doors
for my staff, my team, my community, my city.
And I'm not gonna let them down.
Behind.
[Jill] Winning this competition would mean a lot of things.
It would validate, you know, who I am as a chef.
It would really be wonderful
to bring a win home to Cleveland.
And to be able to say that I'm a Chopped Champ.
The plan with the pita chips is,
to have them as a crunchy element.
And so, I take the pita chips with a little bit of olive oil,
brown sugar and cinnamon.
I toss them in the bowl real quick,
onto a sheet tray and into the oven.
Five minutes left on that clock.
[Jill sighs wearily]
So, I go and check my cherry root beer sauce,
and the glass chiller isn't cooling it down
fast enough for my liking.
So, Jill has her cherries and her root beer float mix,
but I think it's just soup.
[Eric] Yeah, there's no way that's gonna thicken up.
[Alex] I would just throw some strawberry jam.
Three and a half minutes left, chefs.
[Jill] I hope this thickens in time because otherwise,
there's definitely a possibility, I may be chopped.
She's not... there's... there's three minutes left and she...
[Eric] I just don't know if she has enough time.
[Alex] So, Jill has her cherries and her root beer float mix
in, on an ice bath,
but I think it's just soup.
-Yeah. -Yeah, there is no way, that is gonna thicken up.
[Jill] My cherry jam is looking thin.
I'm having the same problem with the custard,
so I use the ice bath
and I cool it down as fast as possible.
So, I have a little bit more of a structure to it.
How are you doing, Jill?
[Jill] I'm doing good. How are you?
[Omar] Doing great.
Orange is the number one export of Morocco.
I'm adding citrus to the pita chips
because it needs a punch of freshness
and vibrancy and the oils from the peels
really help cut through,
again, the richness of the peanut butter.
[Ted] One minute left!
Time is going real fast at this point.
I'm just starting to get really anxious,
to get food on the plate.
Is that a $50,000 dessert, chefs?
You're literally down to your last 20 seconds, chefs. This is it.
Make it nice, guys. Come on!
All right, chefs.
Final seconds of the final round.
Ten, nine, eight, seven,
six, five, four, three...
-Finish strong. -[Ted] Two, one.
Time's up.
-[Eric] Good job, guys. -[all applauding]
Oh, my God! I'm so glad this is over.
[chuckling] This was stressful.
It was more about getting everything chilled
and just wasn't as cold as I wanted it to be.
But at this moment I really want to win.
[Omar] This is a dessert that I grew up eating.
I've made it numerous times, so extremely confident.
I hope this dessert will take me into the finale.
Chef Jill, Chef Omar, you opened your desert baskets
to find a root beer float, frozen cherries,
pita chips and Buckeyes.
Chef Omar, what do we have?
Judges, I made for you,
a chocolate peanut butter Mahalabia
with a pita chip gremolata
and a root beer cherry gastrique.
This is a very traditional Egyptian dessert
and my mom and grandmother used to make it for me all the time,
and I absolutely love it.
I love the tahini, I love the play.
I love how you immediately connected it
with something personal.
I loved this gastrique.
I thought it really tasted purely
of cherries and root beer.
Yeah, the story was great.
I love the intention behind the dish.
I like this gremolata.
It adds texture and it is really, really tasty.
It's not overly sweet.
But the scale of the dish is just way off for me.
There is a lot of pudding versus a little bit of that crumble.
This is really thick, like that's really thick.
There's just too much cornstarch inside that.
You just didn't have that beautiful texture
that a pudding should have.
-[Ted] Okay, Chef Omar. Thank you. -Thank you.
Finally, Chef Jill.
I made you a peanut butter and jelly parfait.
A tart cherry and root beer jam.
Peanut Butter custard.
So, I think the cherries themselves in the root beer,
that jelly, it's delicious.
Your flavors are on point.
But I feel like the biggest complaint that I have with this
is the textures themselves.
The custard that you have here,
it's not cold enough. It hasn't set properly.
It doesn't have that, you know, perfect custard,
you put it on your tongue and it just coats your tongue.
The flavors of this dessert are really clear and delicious.
But I feel like we got the same dessert from the both of you.
Fundamentally, we got a jam, we got a pudding.
I don't know if I think this says,
"I want to win 50 grand,
and crush everybody else in the country."
I promise you no matter who you choose,
both of us are capable of doing better and we will do that.
Absolutely.
Okay. As always, all three courses count
as the judges decide who will advance to the finale.
Thank you, chefs.
Nice one, Jill.
[Jill] To not push it to the next level,
you know, that's where we were both lacking,
and, you know, I think that we can both do better.
-We will do better. -[Jill] We will do better.
-Good luck, my friend. -Good luck.
You got this.
I think we have two horses in the Northern race.
Neck and neck.
[Alex] In the first round,
Omar really brought the corn and the egg paste
and the kringle together in a light way.
But I think he just needed to jam his all dish together in a bowl.
He really did bring amazing flavor
to that little corn salad
that he had with the baby tomatoes inside of it.
[Eric] Chef Jill, I mean, really smart plates
to reinforce that corn flavor in her Perch.
The cook on the fish, she handled it beautifully.
But it really had unrendered bacon
which wasn't really cooked out.
[Alex] I thought that Jill's main course embodied the North.
I thought it was a picnic plate after a long winter.
I think if Jill had cooked her goat more effectively,
um, she kind of would have smoked Omar in that round.
[Eric] But I thought the use of the deep dish
was probably the best to make that barbecue sauce
with the the marinara that was a little bit on the...
on the pizza itself, delicious.
[Alex] But Omar really got the grind on the meat,
which I think was the key to that goat shoulder.
But the goat that Chef Omar made was probably
the best application of that goat.
I mean, in the basket through all the chefs.
Those potatoes were just such a disappointment for both chefs.
But I think Omar undercooked his potatoes severely
in that main course round.
Jill presented her dishes more concisely,
as more cohesive thoughts.
But Omar had bursts of brilliance,
-mixed with technical errors. -Sure.
Which one do you pick?
[Omar] I honestly feel that both of us are neck and neck.
It's anybody's ball game right now.
But I know that my flavors were solid
and I'm very proud of that fact.
[Jill] Being in this competition has meant the world to me.
I can feel the money in my hands.
I would love to touch it.
So, let's see what happens.
So, whose dish is on the chopping block?
Chef Jill, you have been chopped.
Judges.
Chef Jill, first of all, we loved having you here.
In your appetizer round, Chef, we really liked the idea
in your succotash with the perch.
Unfortunately, there was just too much bacon
and it really overpowered the rest of your dish.
And then, finally your dessert round,
there just wasn't the right temperature on the custard itself.
And so, we had to chop you.
I understand. Thank you guys so much.
It was so much fun.
It's such an honor to be here.
I really appreciate it.
-[Alex] It was an honor to have you. -[Jill] Thank you.
-Thank you. Good job. -[all applauding]
[Jill] I'm disappointed.
I could have risen to the challenge,
but wasn't in the cards for me this time.
And that means, Chef Omar Anani
you are the Chopped champion.
And you're moving on to the $50,000 finale
where you'll face three other winners
from across the country.
Congratulations on another huge achievement, Chef.
[all exclaiming]
-Yes! -[Ted] Well done.
Let's go!
I can't wait to do this thing again.
Get that dessert book out there, Chef.
-[Omar] All right. For sure. -[all chuckling]
Yes, definitively.
I believe the North has the best food in the country.
And I'm ready to show that in the finale.
[man] This tournament is the best of the best.
We came from all over but we want the same thing.
Money, lots and lots of money.
[GZ] We know that these chefs can bring it.
[man] I wouldn't bet against me.
He is really rattled.
This is burned.
[man] Now, I'm really feeling scared.
This is like a slap in the face.
[Jill] I think my brain might explode.
Gotta recover here.
You shouldn't be running around like a chicken with the head cut off.
This is it.
[man] I'm seeing my chances of winning this
slipping through my fingers.
Everybody breathe with me.