[Ted] Get ready for another sizzling battle
in the Chopped kitchen.
We're making burgers.
-Woo! -Oh, my gosh.
[Ted] In this special event...
Is that real?
[Ted] we're making burgers worth 10,000 bucks.
This is so nerve-racking.
I think I'm a little behind.
Trying to get my buns toasted.
Trying to keep up with this clock right now.
Everyone is scrambling.
[Ted] Let's get this burger war underway.
Whoa.
-What are you doing? -[Pat] Woo!
This is one of the most intense Chopped kitchens
I've ever seen.
It is wild.
[Michael] Burgers are my passion.
I've spent every waking moment
thinking about burgers.
Sorry, I lost my train thought, I was...
I was just thinking about burgers.
I'm the chef and owner of Trill Burgers
out of Houston, Texas.
The key to a perfect burger is balance of sweet,
sour, bitter, savory, and saltiness in there.
Mix this up.
Trill Burgers was named Best Burger in America
by Good Morning America,
and since then, it's just been wildfire.
Trill is truly ill.
Winning Chopped would be thrill.
[Melanie] No one in the history of the world
can make a bun like I do.
My burger is unique every time you have it.
I'm co-owner and executive butcher
at Babe's Meat & Counter in Miami, Florida.
My biggest asset is definitely
my knowledge of meat and how to use it.
So all of my burgers
start with Wagyu chuck and prime chuck.
Any butchering that I'm doing,
all that delicious steak trim is going into that burger.
I've been voted the best burger in Miami,
but I am here to have the best burger on Chopped.
[Pat] When someone takes a bite out of my burger,
I want them to get every layer of flavor,
umami, salt, fat, acid.
I want it to be the perfect bite.
My name's Pat McHenry, I'm the head chef
at Lucky's Last Chance in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
We're putting peanut butter and jelly on burgers,
we're putting a burger on a donut, because why not?
Lucky's Last Chance has won the Philadelphia Burger Brawl
three times now.
And we've also been on Good Morning America
where we won Best Burger in Philly.
If a list comes out for best burgers in Philly,
I know I'm gonna be on it.
Being first chopped is not an option.
[LaMara] A burger is just whatever you want it to be.
[laughs]
Hi, I'm LaMara Davidson.
I am the chef/owner of the Cornbread and Kimchi.
I'm based out of Atlanta, Georgia.
I am half Korean and half African-American.
So there's a burger that I love to make,
and I call it a Bibimburger.
I use all the things that would be in a bibimbap,
the traditional Korean rice bowl.
I've been working in professional kitchens
for over 20 years now.
I have sold thousands
and thousands of burgers.
I'm going to do whatever it takes to win.
Hello, chefs.
-[Melanie] Hi, Ted. -Hey, Ted.
[Ted] We carefully selected you for this competition
because you're all burger connoisseurs.
-Are you ready to represent? -This is what I do.
I'm ready to grind, let's do this.
Happy to hear it, because in every round,
we want you to make burgers worth 10,000 bucks.
All right. The appetizer basket
will get this burger war started.
Open them up.
-What? -Oh, yeah.
What's on these pickles?
[Ted] And you must use cheesesteak-stuffed pickles.
I live in Philly and I've never seen
this kind of cheesesteak before.
Salsa verde?
[Ted] Salsa verde.
Love this.
[Ted] Thick-cut bacon.
What's up?
Okay. Some Wagyu.
[Ted] And Wagyu beef cheek.
There's some good and some not so good.
The 20-min appetizer round...
starts now.
-[Justin] Let's go! -[Ted] Let's go, chefs!
Geoffrey, you are joined by two special guest judges,
celebrated restaurateurs,
Chef Tiffany Derry and Chef Justin Sutherland.
Welcome back to you both.
Always great to be in the Chopped kitchen.
-Great to have you. -[Tiffany] Absolutely.
Thank you. Thanks for having us.
[Ted] All right, judges. We've asked them
to make a burger in every round.
What do you want in an appetizer burger?
[Justin] Small.
We're starting a meal this way,
it shouldn't be too heavy.
And I mean, for me, that patty needs to be juicy.
And when it comes to having a juicy burger,
you want that ratio of meat to fat.
Do you want 80:20? Do you want 70:30?
It's what keeps it juicy.
But there's also different kinds of cuts,
so some people like brisket, top round, chuck.
And I would say also, you need 10 times more salt
than you think to get that deep taste.
That's all I look for, it's that beef, fat,
salt, then I'm happy.
[Pat] I love burgers so much because it's a whole meal
that you can hold with your hands.
And if you have grease running down your elbows
at the end of it, all the better.
I'm making a Wagyu slider
with a salsa verde cream sauce
and a cheesesteak pickle relish.
So for my burger patty, this cheek is very lean,
so I only need to add some fat to that.
So this thick cut bacon is perfect for that.
[Geoffrey] Wagyu is a cow raised
in a prefecture of Wagyu,
it's raised on very fatty things.
It's almost 60% fat.
[Tiffany] But the other thing is that you have cheek.
[Geoffrey] It's cheek, which is very different. Yeah.
So the cheek is very lean,
-so it needs some fat. -[Justin] It needs some fat.
I'm putting the thick-cut bacon
through the grinder with the beef cheek
because I want that fat and that flavor.
So I'm making beef cheek and bacon sliders
with a salsa verde aioli.
I need to start building burgers.
After culinary school,
I worked through hotels
from the Ritz-Carlton to the Gaylord Texan.
While I was at the Gaylord, I was running a sports bar
that we pumped out more burgers
than anybody in Texas, so I became the burger queen.
[Michael] So my parents were immigrants from Vietnam.
So growing up, there was two huge identities in my life.
Having a burger in my hand
was a little piece of Americana,
and it's just been sentimental to me ever since.
For this dish, I'm gonna be making
a Southwestern-inspired slider
with a salsa verde apple chutney.
To make my chutney, I take Granny Smith green apples,
I added the salsa verde,
some lemon juice, and cornstarch slurry.
I love Wagyu beef cheek.
So Wagyu beef cheek is the inside cheek of the cow,
so it has a lot of connective tissue
that can be very tough, so I know I need to trim it.
As a butcher, it's very important to me
that I get these patties done properly.
I need the seasonings to be perfect.
Melanie, what are you working on there?
I'm gonna make a beef cheek
and bacon merguez burger.
-I love... -Wow.
using beef cheek in my merguez.
[Justin] If she puts the classic merguez seasoning
within this beef burger, I think it's gonna be fantastic.
[Melanie] I spent a few years in France.
One of my favorite things was merguez sausage.
All right. We get paprika.
Merguez seasoning has lots of paprika
and garlic, a little bit of allspice.
Ten minutes to go, chefs.
[upbeat music playing]
I think one of the keys, seeing all the fat,
is gonna be someone bringing pickled onions
or pickled jalapeno, something to bring some...
-Balance. -Some balance.
[sighs] All right. Let's tackle this thing.
I decided to use the cheesesteak pickle
in a relish for the bottom of this burger.
In you go.
I add the cheesesteak pickle with some Dijon mustard
and some champagne vinegar.
[Geoffrey] Cheesesteak-stuffed pickle.
It's a pickle stuffed with shaved rib eye
-with some cheese sauce. -You can deconstruct it,
you've got extra meat to put on there
if you wanna put extra rib eye in your patty,
you've got a pickle you can slice up,
do anything with, make a relish.
For me, a good burger has some kind of a sauce,
and I prefer an aioli.
So I mix my salsa verde and some Japanese mayo.
[Michael] To make my patties,
I'm including steak from the pickle cheesesteak
because the meat in the cheesesteak
is already cooked, I'm hoping that I'll reduce
the cook time on my burgers.
And I'm parcooking the bacon,
so that we don't have raw bacon in the patty.
I grind the beef cheeks with the bacon
and the cheesesteak,
and I'm gonna form them into patties.
Right out of high school,
I decided to go to culinary school
and never looked back,
and I devoted myself to burgers.
And the first restaurant I've ever opened
was at 22 years old and it was a burger restaurant.
I wanna win Chopped to show the world
that I'm the best in the game
when it comes to making burgers.
I wanna win Chopped because I wanna prove
that I'm not just a butcher,
that I can cook,
that I can bring it like the rest of them.
To make my radicchio slaw,
I'm gonna add some of the salsa verde
for a little bit of heat.
All right, chefs. Five minutes left.
[tense music playing]
[Justin] Melanie has not started cooking any meat.
She hasn't done anything
with her cheesesteak-stuffed pickles.
I mean, those are basket ingredients
that need to get on this plate.
And I don't want you just to slice up the pickle
-and put it on the plate. -[Justin] Right.
Like, there needs to be more.
The time is going by so quickly.
I need to get these burgers cooking.
Otherwise, these judges are gonna get raw meat on a bun.
And I'm really worried
about getting the rest of my stuff together.
It's very important to me that I get this correct.
This is my job.
[tense music playing]
[Justin] Melanie has not started cooking any meat.
She hasn't done anything
with her cheesesteak-stuffed pickles.
I mean, those are basket ingredients
that need to get on this plate.
Melanie? How are you looking?
Ooh, I don't know.
I think I'm a little behind.
My plan was to do some deep-fried pickle chips,
but that's not gonna happen.
I just need to get these pickles on the burger.
I cut myself.
Medic. Oh, Lord. Melanie's cut herself.
-Oh, no. -[Tiffany] It's three minutes left.
I don't think there's blood. Can I go back?
-She was already behind. -[Geoffrey groans]
-You got it, Melanie. -You got this, Melanie.
Hold it together, you got it.
Behind.
[Pat] I love salsa verde.
It's got a little bit of heat,
a little bit of acidity, and it's very well-seasoned.
To make my cream sauce, I get that salsa verde
into a hot pan and add some heavy cream
to add some richness.
I decided on sweet Hawaiian slider buns,
and I like sweet and sour,
so I'm gonna use just the pickle
from the stuffed pickle, slice it up and let's go.
Oh, my gosh.
[Michael] For my buns, I want something pillow-y soft,
so I'm going with the potato slider buns.
Michael, how are you doing over there?
I'm trying to keep up with this clock right now.
[tense music playing]
[Melanie] Oh, my gosh.
There's the blood.
[Tiffany] You got it, Melanie. Let's go.
Melanie is a trouper right now. She cut her hand...
-Come on, Melanie, keep it up. -[Justin] but she is getting everything on that plate.
We love to see it.
[Ted] Order up, chefs.
Seconds left on that clock.
Ten, nine,
eight, seven, six,
-five, four... -Five seconds, guys.
[Ted] three, two, one.
-[Justin] Woo! -[Ted] Hands up!
Oh, my gosh.
-[Geoffrey] Wow. -Yeah.
-[Michael] Good job, good job. -Ooh.
So, this was intense.
But I feel confident because I grind meat every day.
I know what makes a good burger.
[Michael] That 20 minutes
really felt like it was two minutes.
But the thing is, I'm very confident
that I can win this burger competition
because I make the best burgers.
[laughs]
[tense music playing]
Chefs, you have arrived at the chopping block.
In the first round of our burger battle,
you opened your appetizer basket
and found cheesesteak-stuffed pickles, salsa verde,
thick-cut bacon, and Wagyu beef cheek.
Chef Michael, please tell us about your burger.
So my slider is a Southwestern slider
with salsa verde apple chutney.
The patty's made with beef cheeks, bacon,
and a little bit of cheesesteak meat,
and then we got sliced pickles with mayo.
So Michael, what is it you love about burgers?
[Michael] It's a piece of Americana for me.
I'm a first-generation Vietnamese-American,
and, you know, living at home, it was, uh, very Vietnamese,
but when I was able to hop on my bike
and ride out to the closest burger chain,
it was like my gateway to Americana.
Love it.
[Tiffany] Michael, I thought the burger was really nice.
The flavor is delicious.
It feels very Americana as you say.
I love the edges of the bread that got toasted,
almost a little too much.
-It was perfect though... -Thank you.
...because you want that little crunch to come through.
Got it.
Michael, I really, really enjoyed this burger.
Um, I thought grinding that, uh, cheesesteak meat
in with the beef, uh, was very, very smart.
Thank you.
And then parcooking that bacon
so you can still get a little bit of pink
in your burger without having raw bacon,
-uh, that was a pro move. -Thank you.
But I just think the ratio of mayo
to the rest of the condiments was a little much.
The apple pickle chutney is really good.
Oh, thank you.
Probably because of that salsa verde in there.
-Yeah. Yup. -That helps anything.
However, I think that
you want the cheese everywhere.
I just got two bites of cheese.
-Of course. -Thank you, Chef Michael.
Next up, Chef LaMara.
Okay. So I did a beef cheek and bacon slider,
and a salsa verde aioli.
What is your connection to our burger theme?
When I was young,
we grew up next to an A&W Root Beer,
so I grew up eating burgers,
and then I ran this bar in Brooklyn
doing sliders and wings,
and then ran, uh, the Cowboys' official sports bar in Texas
and I sold thousands and thousands...
-Wow. -and thousands of burgers.
You know your way around a burger.
Yeah. [laughs]
[Justin] The flavor of your burger meat was nice.
I thought it was smart to grind that bacon in there.
I did find a few pieces of, like, some tough fat in there.
So maybe trim a little bit of that off.
But I love Hawaiian rolls, I think they're delicious.
That sweetness adds, you know, a lot of flavor
to any slider or sandwich that they're on.
You got this.
But it did kind of get the bun to meat ratio
a little bit off.
There's a lot of bun for a very small meat.
The flavors here are delicious
when you have them together,
but unfortunately, I'm fighting hard
-to put 'em together. -Yeah.
I used a fork and a knife, and I would never do that.
I'mma pick it up. I'm not Geoffrey over here, right?
I just wanna make sure that you get that flavor.
I think that... Well, I love them salsa verde, mayo and all that,
I think in this instance, it needed way more of that.
And I think that when you grind bacon,
it's not like it's gonna cook uniformly.
So now you're having raw bacon
in the inside and cooked bacon in the outside. It's odd.
Thank you, Chef LaMara.
Next up, Chef Pat.
Judges, today, I made for you
a Wagyu cheek and bacon fat slider
with a verde cream sauce
and a cheesesteak-stuffed pickle relish.
What does the relish consist of?
It's the stuffed pickle, I just chopped it up,
and then added champagne vinegar,
and some Dijon mustard, too.
Oddly, your biggest success on this was that relish.
It's almost like a grilled cheese sandwich
with relish aioli.
And I love a sesame seed bun,
so I'm glad you went that route.
I think that you've spent a lot of time
on the relish, cheese, very little time on the meat.
It's wildly unseasoned.
I was a little worried about getting too much salt
on the bun with the stuffed pickle
just 'cause it was really heavy in salt.
Outside from the salt,
it just needed more beef, right?
-Yeah. Yeah. -[Tiffany] But it looks great.
You definitely wanna bite into it.
It's appetizing.
-Chef Pat, thank you. -Thank you.
Finally, Chef Melanie.
Today, I made a rustic merguez burger
with radicchio slaw.
Put a little bit of that salsa verde in there,
Brie cheese on French baguette.
Well, I wanna congratulate you
on being the first person I've ever see
finished plating with one hand behind their back.
[laughter]
Pickles are called one-hand chopped pickles.
I'm gonna do whatever it takes to get it done.
So I like the look of it. I like the composition.
Almost a kebab on a crusty bread.
It's so different than a regular burger,
but unfortunately, it's not cooked through.
I agree, but I really like the flavor.
The spice level in there is really nice
and I really like the radicchio part of it.
I like the bitterness.
What else did you put in the radicchio?
-The green verde salsa. -[Geoffrey] Yeah.
It adds a lot of, like, mouth feel.
It's really good.
I did enjoy the heat of the merguez
that you mixed in there. I think that flavor was nice.
I think just a little melt on that cheese
would've been fantastic.
Your radicchio salad was great,
but the burger, just needed it cooked through a little bit more.
Chef Melanie, thank you.
Unfortunately, our next task is the first elimination.
Thank you, chefs.
The time really got me.
But I know my meats
and I think I still have some really good ideas
that I can bring to the table.
[LaMara] I'm a little disappointed
that I did not show my cooking.
All of us had challenges with our beef.
All of us did, except Mike.
It's fair game at this point.
So whose dish is on the chopping block?
[tense music playing]
So whose dish is on the chopping block?
Chef Melanie, you've been chopped.
-Judges? -Chef Melanie,
the issue we had lied within the cook of the burger.
The Wagyu itself was undercooked,
and so we had to chop you.
I understand. Good luck, everybody.
I didn't get the execution right,
but they did like my idea.
And just showing up here
with these other fabulous chefs,
I feel like a winner anyway.
Chef Michael, Chef LaMara, Chef Pat,
you've made it to round two,
brand-new start, brand-new basket.
Open it up.
Oh, triple-layered cheese.
[Ted] And we've given you a cheese cake.
Some pearl red onions.
[Ted] Pearl onions.
Crunchy garlic.
Oh, I love this.
[Ted] Crunchy garlic with chili oil.
Love that.
Right. Let me get this outta here.
[Ted] And a leg of lamb.
[grunts]
So this leg of lamb is stressing me out.
The fact that I have to butcher it down,
I'm like, "Oh, my gosh, how much time?" [chuckles]
You'll be making main-course burgers.
And this 30-minute round...
-starts now. -Woo!
Go.
-All right. -Let's go.
What a gift this basket is.
This is a gift, another gift.
You have this chili garlic, you have lamb.
-[Tiffany] And pearl onions. -[Justin] Oh.
And all those beautiful cheeses.
The lamb is an absolute gift.
But at the same time,
not only do they have to grind it,
they have to do some butchering.
And if they don't have those skills to get in there
and get that done fast,
that could really hurt them on the clock.
[Geoffrey] And you have to understand
that lamb is a bit leaner than beef,
so maybe grab some sausage.
[Michael] This lamb is definitely daunting,
but the judges seem to really like my appetizer burger
so I'm feeling really confident.
I'm making a quadruple cheese fondue lamb burger
and caramelized pearl onions and chili oil.
Leg of lamb doesn't have a lot of fat.
So I try to incorporate some more fat
with a stick of butter.
Oh, my gosh.
So I do bold Korean flavors in most of my cuisine,
but I didn't have that at all in the first round.
So I'm gonna create a Korean-inspired
bulgogi lamb burger with a quick cucumber kimchi
and sesame green beans.
I need the butcher back.
I'm a little nervous because this leg of lamb,
there's so much connective tissue,
just to break it down takes time.
So, I need to deal with it right away.
[Geoffrey] Here's what's shocking,
not one person has gone and gotten rosemary
or anything that's close to lamb,
like rosemary or thyme.
I mean, I like it though.
-I mean, we're not gonna get the lamb burger... -[Geoffrey] I guess.
...that we thought we were gonna get.
[Pat] As the competition stands right now,
I definitely think Michael did the best
in the appetizer round,
and I think LaMara and I were really right on par.
I definitely think I'm gonna have to step up
this round to make myself stand out.
I'm making a lamb cheeseburger
with crunchy garlic, chorizo ragu,
and chopped onions.
The biggest critique I got from the appetizer
was the lack of seasoning in my patty.
So this round, I need to really bring out
that lamb flavor.
And to make my ragu, I mix together ketchup,
wholegrain mustard, soy sauce,
and I add in the crunchy garlic in chili oil
to add texture and heat to the sauce.
I spent 10 years working in corporate accounting,
but always had a passion for cooking,
so I quit my job and walked into my favorite restaurant.
And I've worked my way up
to running the kitchen as the head chef.
Winning Chopped would make me believe
that it was all worth it.
[Justin] I mean, crunchy garlic in chili oil,
I mean, that is the condiment of the moment.
-I mean, it's a umami bomb. -[Tiffany] Okay. Yeah.
You've got the spices, the chili,
you've got that crispy garlic.
You can just use the oil.
Oh, that's hot.
Okay, chefs, you've got 20 minutes left.
[tense music playing]
So the cheese cake really is just
three different cheeses.
They're all cow's milk.
All of them are very delicious and can go great
with the lamb as long as you don't put too much.
I feel confident. I know what to do.
To make the fondue, I slice the three cheeses
as thin as I can.
I added some cream
and I added parmesan to add a little kick.
Being an entrepreneur in the restaurant industry
is very important to me.
I would love to win Chopped to show kids
in my Vietnamese immigrant community that they can pursue their dreams
and be at the top as well.
Ten minutes to go, chefs.
[rock music playing]
The problem with the pearl onions
is that they're a lot of work.
-Yes. -But they're delicious.
-They're delicious -They are delicious.
[Justin] You're gonna have to process 'em in some capacity,
pickle them, blanch 'em, shock 'em.
[LaMara] For my quick cucumber kimchi,
I'm slicing up my cucumbers and the pearl onion.
Throw it in with gochujang and some white vinegar.
So for me these last five years,
I beat breast cancer.
I was furloughed from a job that I loved.
I got divorced.
And now, I have my first recipe
in Food & Wine magazine.
And I'm here to win that $10,000
and to prove that I am the real Chopped champion
when it comes to burgers.
[rock music playing]
[Pat] As I'm cutting in to my buns, I cut my thumb.
Cut.
[Tiffany] We got a cut right now.
[Justin] Pat just cut himself but he left his burgers
-on the grill. -[Geoffrey] Yup.
[Justin] They were already thin to start with.
If those don't get flipped soon,
they're gonna shrink up to hockey pucks.
This is my worst-case scenario,
I'm starting to panic.
-[Justin] He's back. -[Tiffany] There you go.
Let's get those burgers flipped there, Pat.
All right, chefs, five minutes left.
[tense music playing]
[Michael] To top off my burger,
I'm caramelizing the pearl onions with the chili oil.
And I know I need a sauce component to my burger,
so I'm gonna need Japanese mayo.
And I see LaMara already has some.
Can I get some of the mayo?
You can't take mine from my station.
-[Michael] Okay. -[LaMara] Sorry.
I know you're my competition.
I can't give you my ingredients.
[Justin] Right now, Michael is everybody's biggest competition.
-[Geoffrey] Yeah, exactly. -Absolutely.
So, I mean, if the front runner is trying to borrow something from me,
"No, not, bud, you play your game."
[laughs]
Is that real? Damn.
This went to zero to one hundred real fast.
LaMara is getting serious.
LaMara, how are you feeling, chef?
I feel like I need to hurry up.
Just keep your head in the game. You got this.
[LaMara] To make my aioli,
I add the crunchy garlic in chili oil
with the Japanese mayo and a little bit of scallion.
So from the cheese cake, I'm gonna use La Noix cheese
on the patties which are already in the oven.
-[Geoffrey] One minute! -One minute!
[tense music playing]
Let's scrape down my bun here.
Pat, how are you doing post-cut?
I'm behind, but I'm trying to catch up here.
At this point, I haven't done anything with the onions.
I'm not gonna have time to caramelize them
as I had originally planned.
I just need to get them on the burger.
All right. This is it, chefs.
Ten, nine, eight, seven, six,
five, four, three, two, one.
Time's up. Please step back.
[cheers and applause]
[LaMara] That was better than the first round
because I feel like I at least cooked my style of food.
I put my flavors to the plate.
We'll see what happens.
[Pat] It is incredibly hard to make a burger
in the Chopped kitchen.
It was to the point of just get everything on the plate
and hope the flavors come through enough.
[tense music playing]
Chefs, in round two, we asked you to build
a main-course burger
using a cheese cake, pearl onions,
crunchy garlic with chili oil,
and a leg of lamb.
-Chef Pat. -Today I made for you
a leg of lamb cheeseburger
with chorizo ragu and chopped pearl onions.
[Tiffany] The flavor is so delicious.
It feels like a barbecue burger.
A little sweet, a little tangy.
I must say the chili crunch
adds and brings something
to the burger itself, some flavor.
[Geoffrey] So I think you had a good idea.
I like a barbecue sauce. I think it really
is a great way to enhance lamb.
And I like the chorizo.
I don't know where the pearl onions are.
-Are they chopped up? -They're just...
Yeah, they're diced and on top of the sauce.
Okay.
This desperately needs vinegar.
Like a pickle, like something.
Yeah.
[Justin] I know that the injury
caused you have to leave your burger patties on
longer than you expected, but just that the time
caused them to be to dry out.
And that cheese is phenomenal
and that nuttiness would quite pair
very, very well with the lamb.
I would just probably like to see a little bit more.
[Ted] Thank you, Chef Pat.
Next up, Chef LaMara,
please tell us about your burger.
So I did a bulgogi lamb burger
with a quick cucumber kimchi.
I'm half Korean.
And this round, I actually brought
some of the flavors that I actually cook with.
[Justin] I love that you showed yourself
with this burger, for sure,
like, I know who you are as a chef.
I know the flavors that you celebrate
and there are so many things that are...
That are good about this burger.
I think the cook on mine is great.
Those kimchi flavors are definitely coming out.
The cheese is nicely melted.
The flavor that you impart in there was really nice.
Thank you, Chef.
[Tiffany] LaMara, I think this is a delicious burger.
It has lots of flavor.
I taste the lamb.
I love the spice level that's here.
I think that the pearl onions were used very well here,
making sure that it had some pickle,
and lend itself well to the burger.
-Like, just edit yourself. -Yeah.
And make sure that the basics are there,
toasting the bun,
no, I don't need these green beans,
no, I don't need the spinach.
You had the time to get everything
intentional on a plate.
I have cucumbers on one side of my burger.
I don't have cucumbers on the other side,
so I'm physically moving it to get a bite of that.
Well, I like the spice obviously.
-Sniffling. -[laughter]
-[clears throat] -[Tiffany] Oof.
[Geoffrey] That chili garlic sauce,
I thought was really good on the bun.
And I commend you on the burger ratio to bread.
And the bulgogi seasoning and the cucumbers
are really good but,
have you worked with lamb before?
-Not much. -So this is it...
Well, it's cooked well, it's very dry.
[LaMara] Mmm-hmm.
[Ted] Thank you, Chef LaMara.
Next up, Chef Michael.
What we have here is a quadruple-cheese
fondue lamb burger.
There's also caramelized pearl onions
sauteed in the crispy garlic oil.
[Geoffrey] It's really tasty.
I like the onion relish.
I like the idea of the burger.
And it had a nice burger bun ratio.
I liked how you constructed it.
It looks good.
You got a little oozing action going,
but because of the overpowering cheese,
it didn't taste like I wanted it to taste.
Got it.
My favorite part on this was the...
Was the chili crunch with that onion marmalade.
That's delicious.
You could bottle that, sell it.
You shoulda put three times as much of that on there
and about half the amount of cheese.
Got it.
-Chef Michael, thank you. -Thank you.
[Ted] Thank you, chefs.
[Michael] I think LaMara is definitely gaining some ground on me,
but I'm really confident I can win.
I just gotta stay focused and, uh, get my next plate up.
I feel it's anybody's game. We all made mistakes,
but I showed my flavors this round.
[Pat] The judges weren't thrilled
with any of our patties.
So it could be any of the three of us
on the chopping block.
After the second round, comes the second elimination.
So whose dish is on the chopping block?
[tense music playing]
So whose dish is on the chopping block?
Chef Pat, you've been chopped.
Judges?
[Justin] Chef Pat, the lamb patty was overcooked.
And then the pearl onions, which was a basket ingredient
just kind of seemed like an afterthought,
so we had to chop you.
Um, totally fair. I understand.
Good luck to you both.
The hardest part about this moment
is not leaving being named Chopped Champion.
I'll take this opportunity and use it as fuel
for the fire to get even better next time.
-I'm grabbing the mayo first. -[laughter]
Well, you can have it this time.
[tense music playing]
Chef LaMara, Chef Michael,
you've made it to the Chopped dessert round
your chance to show us your sweet side in burger form.
You on board with that?
-Yes. -100%.
Excellent. Third basket.
Get into it.
All right. What do we got here?
Your desserts must include French fry cookies.
Those are cookies?
Cherries.
[Ted] Cherries.
-What is this? -Oh.
[Ted] Honey butter.
I don't know what's happening here.
[Ted] And chocolate rice cereal.
I think I can put something amazing together.
Thirty minutes.
Clock starts now.
-All right. -All right. Let's go.
Dessert burgers.
I'm gonna say that I think
this is the toughest basket of this competition.
No protein, but in your mind
-you gotta make a burger, like what? -[Tiffany] Right? Yes.
I mean we're taking the idea
of a burger and really just seeing how creative
-they can get for dessert. -[Tiffany] Yeah.
[Ted] I would take that chocolate rice cereal
and form it into cakes.
-[Justin] Yeah. -[Tiffany] Mmm-hmm.
-And shape like a hamburger patty. -[Justin] Looks like a burger.
[LaMara] This dessert round,
I'm more nervous than I've been the whole day.
I mean, $10,000 is on the line.
It's a lot.
But the chocolate rice cereal, I can use this
for the patty because of the color.
I'm making a chocolate almond slider
with fresh cherries
and chocolate-dipped French fries.
Melts, chocolate melts.
Anything that has a pit or a seed, do it first.
Get it out of the way.
Cherries are a little tart.
I think they're great to make it
look like sliced tomatoes on a burger.
Chef Michael is a tough competitor.
So my strategy is to stay focused on what it is that I'm doing.
Chef Michael, what are you making?
I'm making a fried pate a choux
chocolate peanut butter burger.
I will say that combining
that chocolate rice cereal with peanut butter is a...
-Is a terrific combination. -[Tiffany] Great idea.
[Michael] I'm thinking I could use pate a choux
as my buns for the burger.
So I start by adding water,
milk, and butter to the stove.
And then I take the cherries,
I remove the pit, slice them,
and then I'm gonna just coat the cherries
with some melted chocolate
to add some acidity to the dish.
LaMara is a very competitive person,
but I'm here to prove
that there's something special about me and burgers,
so I'm trying to take this one home.
All right, coming up on 14 minutes.
[tense music playing]
[LaMara] I need to form my chocolate almond slider.
So I grab the mascarpone, the honey butter,
a little cream, some confectioners' sugar,
and I start to fold in my crunchy ingredients,
the nuts, the dates,
and the chocolate rice cereal.
[Geoffrey] The honey, butter is a beautiful mixture
of honey butter, vanilla, sugar.
-It's really fantastic. -[Tiffany] Mmm-hmm.
[Justin] So it looks like LaMara took that
puff pastry and cut circles out.
So it looks like that's what
she's gonna use as her bun vessel.
[Geoffrey] Perhaps she fries her rolls
and slathers it with honey butter,
-rolls it in sugar. -Mmm-hmm.
[Tiffany] I want to walk away with the $10,000
for my own business, Cornbread and Kimchi.
The intensity in the kitchen is pretty wild.
Nobody wants to go home
without that money at this point.
[Michael] To make the patty, I am using peanut butter
with the French fry cookie crumbles,
lay it out on the sheet tray,
and I'm adding the chocolate rice cereal,
you add some texture.
And now it's time to start frying my pate a choux.
Michael, what are you doing?
I'm frying some pate a choux dough.
As I'm frying my dough,
I realize it's not puffing up.
I'm starting to freak out a little bit.
I'm trying to figure out what's going on.
How did you make that?
I made it with some flour, butter,
milk, moved it to the mixer.
I did not move it to the mixer. [laughs]
He forgot to go into the mixer with the eggs.
Oh.
Oh, boy. He's in trouble now.
[Michael] I'm feeling extremely nervous now.
At this point, I'm not sure
I'm gonna have a dessert on the plate at all.
Oh, my God.
[tense music playing]
[Justin] Michael went straight to the fryer with no eggs
-in his pate a choux dough. -[Geoffrey] I know.
And realized it with five minutes left
on the clock and now he's going back to redo it.
[Michael] I'm feeling extremely nervous now.
At this point, I'm not sure
I'm gonna have a dessert on the plate at all.
[tense music playing]
All right, chefs, five minutes left.
[Michael] I'm really running out of time right now.
I run my dough back to the fryer
and try to get frying.
He's got four-minutes-and-a-half.
This is gonna take the majority
of the rest of his time.
[Michael] As I'm frying my dough this time,
it looks like it's finally puffing up,
but it's gonna come down to the wire.
Having made it this far, all the way to third round,
there's no option but to win.
I'm gonna use the French fry cookies
and dip them in chocolate
because burger and fries work together.
Okay. Two-and-a-half minutes, chefs.
[Tiffany] Let's go, y'all.
[Geoffrey] You've got this.
Make sure it's all on the plate.
[Michael] I pulled my pate a choux buns
out of the fryer.
They're not as crispy as I like,
so I cut out the centers
and try to only use the edges.
One minute to go, chefs.
You can do it! Get everything on the plate!
Doesn't count if it's not on the plate.
Oh, my God.
He can't find something he's looking for.
[Michael] I'm trying to get everything plated
and I can't find my cherries.
[Ted] All right, chefs,
final seconds of the final round.
But Michael can't find what he's looking for.
-[Ted] Ten... -[Tiffany] Go for it.
-[Ted] nine... -[Justin] Make it happen.
-[Ted] eight, seven, six... -[Tiffany] The cherries?
-Where are the cherries? Okay. -[Ted] five, four...
-He almost gave up, y'all. -[Ted] three, two, one.
Time's up. Please step aside.
[LaMara] We did it.
[cheers and applause]
That was great.
Good job.
To win this final round, I had to bring
what I always bring when I cook,
and it's my heart.
And to be at the end with Chef Michael,
obviously I wanna beat him, you know,
but it was stiff competition.
I wanna win this so bad.
It'll mean so much to me.
It justified the last 14 years of my life
that, uh, I'm not just good at doing this,
I'm the best at it.
[dramatic music playing]
Chef LaMara and Chef Michael.
Let's see what happened when we took
our burger theme to the dessert round.
In the basket, the French fry cookies,
cherries, honey butter, and chocolate rice cereal.
Chef LaMara, what have you made?
So I did a chocolate almond cherry burger
sandwiched between puff pastry and I have
some cookie fries that are chocolate-dipped.
[Geoffrey] What is the burger part?
[LaMara] So I put chopped dates,
pecans, almonds,
extract, the honey butter, and mascarpone.
[Geoffrey] I get all the almond,
I get the honey, I get the chocolate crispy rice.
And I love the presentation. I think it's really whimsical.
And you've got the puff pastry cooked,
which is a rarity here.
And you've got the proportion right.
So that's good.
LaMara, I think your dish looks great.
We asked you for a dessert burger and you gave us that.
Was there anything you did to the actual cherries?
No, because I felt like that was the only thing.
They're not even that sweet. They're a little bit tart.
So I kind of just left that to give it some balance.
Had you done something to the cherries,
um, then I would've enjoyed it more.
-Mmm-hmm. -But I see the purpose
of the cherries and the, like, tomato kind of look.
-Yeah. -[Justin] Yeah.
I think, my only two issues were the cherries
and the fry cookies weren't manipulated,
but I love the creativity.
The plate was beautiful
and I think it's cool that you tried
to replicate the burger, what we've been doing all day.
-Thank you, chef. -[Ted] All right.
Chef LaMara, thank you.
Finally, Chef Michael.
[Michael] What I have before you is a pate a choux
peanut butter chocolate crisp burger.
The peanut butter mixture made with the French fries,
I grinded those down.
I added the honey butter into that as well.
And then on top of that, I tried to chill
some chocolate Rice Krispies into that.
[Tiffany] I like that there's chocolate.
I like the idea of peanut butter.
I like the idea of the French fry cookies in there.
But the real issue for me is,
the pate a choux is very undone.
Like it is raw.
[Geoffrey] I was so excited when you made pate a choux.
-Yeah. -But it does take
a quite a bit of time
because you need to cool the mixture off,
get the eggs in and then it's traditionally baked.
So I like it but I can't get past the dough.
When I got a bite of the peanut butter
with the cherry and the edge of the pate a choux,
that was nice and crispy and cooked.
Uh, the flavor was... The flavor was there.
[Ted] Chef Michael, thank you.
Thank you.
Burgers, burgers, burgers.
You took on the challenge and never let go.
Nicely done.
Now, the judges have a difficult choice to make.
Thank you, chefs.
Judges, we were looking for burger perfection.
Did the chefs deliver?
[Geoffrey] I think in the first course,
Chef Michael did a very, very good slider.
Beautifully-cooked, beautifully-seasoned,
and he just made this really good sauce.
You know, Michael did a delicious flavorful burger,
but I thought it had too much mayo.
-Yeah. -I will say that LaMara
did have some good flavors
with that salsa verde aioli that she put together.
She ground up the burger,
but she put bacon, you know, raw bacon.
The outside might taste kind of cooked, but inside...
-[Tiffany] Yeah. -[Justin] It was chewy.
Chewy, raw bacon.
So entree round.
I enjoyed LaMara's burger.
I thought the pickles were excellent.
[Geoffrey] Mmm-hmm. They were.
[Tiffany] I thought that sauce was so delicious.
Definitely LaMara had a burger
that was cooked properly but it was very dry.
-Yeah. -For me, the best thing
on Michael's burger was those caramelized onions
with the chili crisp.
If he were to put three times as much of that on there
and half the amount of cheese,
it would've been a much more successful burger.
All right. Our chefs are waiting.
Do you know who's won it?
We know who won.
[tense music playing]
[Michael] The dessert round kind of got away from me,
but I truly stayed
in the spirit of passion for burgers.
I highlighted it in all three rounds,
I hope it shines through.
The first round, I thought I was going home,
but I am proud that I made it
all the way through and I showed who I was.
I want the title.
I want to be able to say I am a Chopped Champion.
So, whose dish is on the chopping block?
[tense music playing]
[Ted] Chef LaMara, you've been chopped. Judges?
Chef LaMara, we loved having you here,
but first course the fault really laid
in grinding Wagyu beef with raw bacon.
The second course, the lamb was dry.
And third round,
the French fry cookies and the cherries
weren't really transformed, and so, we had to chop you.
I understand.
Thank you so much for this opportunity.
I appreciate all the feedback today
and I will grow from it.
-[Ted] Very much so. -[LaMara] Thank you so much.
-[Ted] Good luck to you, Chef. -[LaMara] Thank you.
It would've been better if I walked away
knowing I had $10,000 in my bank account coming.
But I feel like I showed up
and I was myself,
and the world is gonna be able
to see that, so I am proud of it.
And that means Chef Michael Pham,
you are the Chopped Champion
for beating everybody in this burger battle.
You have won $10,000.
Congratulations, Chef. Well done.
Nicely done.
It's something so simple as a burger,
but a burger really meant that I was a, uh, an American.
-Thank you so much. -Nice to meet you.
-Appreciate you. -You're very welcome.
-Congratulations, Chef. -Thank you so much.
I believe this win proves
I'm one of the best burger chefs in the country.