[Ted] The cleavers are hung by the chimney with care.
-I'm here to jingle my way all the way to a win! -Ho, ho, ho!
These competitors are Chopped tournament winners.
[Eric] Chefs know their way around the kitchen.
[Maneet] This will be the first time that one of them
actually loses in the Chopped kitchen.
Whoever thought of this is really naughty.
I'm making a sardine candy cane, mac and cheese!
In some crazy world, it actually works.
-[Christina] Good job, chefs. -Giddy-up, chefs!
[Kaleena] Why do I do this to myself?
Stress and chaos?
Oh my god, I'm, like, going crazy.
[Kaleena] Seems like the holidays to me.
With $10,000 up for grabs, this is, uh, anybody's game.
-[Ted] There's nothing about this that's at all disturbing. -[uncomfortable groan]
All your flavors are just banging.
-[Annisha] I'm bringing it home for the holidays! -No, no! No!
Ho-ho-hope I win!
Let's go, guys!
These chefs are hustling!
Ho, ho, ho, chefs!
I'm here to jingle my way all the way to a win! [laughs]
Because I'm the Grill Masters Champion!
So of course I'm gonna smoke the competition.
Being a Grill Master and a barbecue guy,
I cook with a lot of spices.
I am a comfort food person.
I'm the Grand Champion to beat 'cause I have experience,
I cook every single day,
I'm still doing what I love to do.
Bring on that fast hit, bring on that clock,
bring on the competition.
I've conquered some of the hardest baskets,
and these chefs don't have a chance.
-What is this? -[laughing]
You originally saw me on Alton Brown's Maniacal Baskets Tournament.
Last time, the baskets were maniacal,
but this time, I know I can handle anything.
I'm first generation Asian-American.
I'm always the one cooking on the holidays.
It's a lot of Caribbean background.
Macaroni, rice and beans,
ham, chicken, turkey.
'Tis the season for me to win.
I'm ready to slay this competition.
I am the Chopped: Casino Royale Grand Champion.
[all] Yes! Six!
[Kaleena] I associate holidays with comfort food.
It's like, just, kinda bringing that nostalgia.
Feel like a crazy person
to be spending the holidays in the Chopped kitchen.
But stress and chaos?
Definitely seems like the holidays to me.
The Chopped kitchen looks a little different than last time,
but I'm ready to take it on.
[Annisha] I'm a Grand Chopped Champion,
because I'm fearless in the kitchen.
♪ Whoa whoa Get up out my way ♪
I'm the Grand Champion of Playing with Fire , a grill tournament.
I'm Mexican and Venezuelan,
so I always try to incorporate
Latin flavors, Mexican flavors.
I'm definitely ready for this battle of the Champions.
I have everything that I need to win again.
I'm bringing it home for the holidays!
[Scott] Wow.
-[Ted] It's a wonderland! -[Eric] This is fantastic.
[Maneet] Nothing says that it's the holidays like
Chopped Grand Champions competing against each other!
It's a holiday dinner, right?
[Kaleena] There's definitely a Christmas-y theme.
I'm getting really excited.
-Hello, Grand Champions! -Happy holidays to you!
The cleavers are hung by the chimney with care,
for this Chopped holiday extravaganza.
You are all tournament winners,
which means you're Grand Champions,
and part of our Chopped family.
In the spirit of the holidays,
whoever wins here will get $10,000
donated to the charity of your choice.
-Nice, thank you. -[Kaleena] Nice.
-So what do you say? -Ho-ho-hope I win!
-[Ted] Oh... -[laughing]
All right, appetizer baskets are ready!
Let's go!
-[all groaning] -[chuckling]
-Who's on the naughty list today? -[Boots] Wow.
[Ted] It's sardine candy canes!
Oh, sardine?
[Kaleena] I thought it was, like, regular candy cane.
[Ted] You also have holiday pasta.
Wow.
[Boots] I see the pasta, and I'm instantly thinking,
mac and cheese, comfort food.
-[Ted] Citron... -Wow.
-[Ted] And a sushi menorah. -Whoa! Okay.
A generous assortment of sushi.
Wow.
[exhaling]
Whoever thought of this is really naughty.
Twenty minutes to start things off with a bang!
-Clock starts now! -Let's go, let's go, let's go!
[Scott] Whoo!
[Christina] Behind...
-Judges, happy holidays! -[all] Happy holidays!
[Ted] Well, all of these competitors are Chopped tournament winners,
so these people are extremely talented and skilled.
Even though it's the holidays,
I will not be taking it easy on these Champions.
I'm the Grill Master, so you know I got a grill.
Sushi menorah, I'm thinking I'm gonna use the salmon.
[Scott] Check Boots, immediately went and got that grill,
and Boots won the indoor grill competition.
I was one of the judges.
[Boots] I'm making a winter seafood mac and cheese.
So every holiday, my family makes mac and cheese.
It represents who I am.
I love the holidays.
It's my favorite time of year.
I've already started watching
all the Christmas movies too, on TV! [laughs]
Don't tell anybody.
[Kaleena] As a Grand Champion,
I think my biggest strengths today will be,
that I'm a quick thinker.
But this basket seems like a holiday pot luck gone wrong.
Oh, my god. What am I doing?
Chef Kaleena, what are you making?
TBD, but I think what we're going for is,
-kind of, like, a soup? -[laughs]
When I think of the holidays, especially being from Seattle,
I think about cold weather.
So I'm gonna make sardine candy cane curry soup.
I'm using sausage in my curry, to add some heartiness.
And then I break up the sardine candy canes,
and throw it into coconut milk.
[Maneet] Using the sardine candy canes,
that'll give her the sweetness,
a little bit of the funkiness.
[Annisha] During the holiday, you have a lot of leftovers,
so my mom always tries to, like,
make fun things for us,
and one of them is rolled tacos,
with, like, the mashed potato or the turkey.
So for my dish, I'm making taquito pasta.
I'm gonna use the holiday pasta like a filling.
When done, my pasta is cooked,
I put it on a skillet with chipotle.
And I add some of the citrus zest.
[Eric] Citron, it's a citrus,
it peaks during the winter and fall times.
Very, very pungent, that acid that it brings.
But it also is really interesting that you can
actually eat the skin itself, too,
so if you boil it, you can candy it,
so you can actually use the entire ingredient.
[Annisha] Next, I roll the tortillas,
with the filling, and then I fry them.
I do think that the challenge of the basket
-is going to be the sushi menorah. -Yeah.
[Maneet] Only because there are so many different components.
I think you're absolutely right, chef.
Because even breaking down the sushi,
for whatever end goal that you wanna do, it's gonna take time.
[Scott] There are so many different directions these chefs
can go in with these ingredients.
Holiday pasta, these have fun little holiday-themed shapes,
and I can definitely work with this.
For my dish,
I'm making creamy imitation crab holiday pasta.
My inspiration for this dish,
is the macaroni au gratin that we make in Haiti.
While my pasta's cooking,
I start making my cream sauce.
I'm going to use the sardine candy cane,
the citron, and the imitation crab,
and get that cooking.
I'm competing for American Cancer Society.
In 2018, I lost my aunt to colon cancer,
so I would like to give back to this charity.
[Boots] I am competing for the Boys & Girls Club of Harlem.
I live in Harlem. I work at Harlem.
If I can give back to my community,
then I'm gonna do everything I can to do that.
Next, I get started on my mornay.
So I go grab some heavy cream,
some cheddar cheese, some gruyère cheese, and some parm.
I add some nutmeg,
and then I crush the sardine candy cane,
and add that to the mornay.
Candy canes have a taste of, you know, it's sweet,
but also has that fishy, umami taste to it.
And I want to add bacon
to get more smokiness to my dish.
[Ted] Chefs Boots, what are you building, sir?
I, I got it, man! I'm making a sardine
candy cane mac and cheese,
with some, uh, grilled salmon!
Did he say a sardine candy cane
-mac and cheese? -[Boots] Let's go! Let's go, guys!
Giddy up, chef!
[chuckles] Giddy up!
This is a tough guy...
[Kaleena] I'm using the juice from the citrons,
to add some acidity to the curry.
It's actually quite pulpy,
-and really hard to get any juice out of. -[Kaleena groans]
[Kaleena] So I'm hoping the lemongrass will accentuate
the flavor of the citron.
I'm seasoning the curry with fish sauce,
and a little bit of green curry paste.
[Annisha] Food that remind me of the holidays are very special,
because I come from two different cultures
and they cook completely different things for the holidays.
My dad is Venezuelan, my mom is Mexican.
It's a mix of everything.
I know that I need a sauce for my taquito.
I'm gonna use the sardine candy canes
to make, like, uh, umami-flavor, like, salsa.
And then I decided to make two sauces.
For this next salsa,
I'm gonna do a poblano sauce,
and I think I'm gonna thick it up
with the rice from the sushi menorah.
[Kaleena] Behind, behind! Coming down, coming down! Coming down, coming down!
I grab capers, and I throw them into the fryer,
just to give that crunch element.
Since winning Chopped, I had my daughter.
I was five months pregnant when I did the show.
And I decided to become a culinary instructor.
And the best part of the change in career,
being able to spend time with my daughter.
Getting holidays off.
Five minutes to go, chefs!
Boots is still not even finished with his mac and cheese yet.
[Boots] I look at the clock, and I realize
that my pasta is not boiling fast enough.
If my pasta is undercooked,
then I'm gonna get cut in the first round.
Come on, come on...
[Christina] Behind...
I go check on my pasta, and it's not cooking fast enough.
So I crank up the heat.
Boots is a little bit behind.
He's not assembling yet.
[Boots] This is for charity, but I do want to win.
I'm a competitor, at the end of the day.
Well, you know, if my pasta's undercooked,
then I'm gonna get cut in the first round.
[Eric] There's six minutes on the clock,
and Boots is still not even finished
with his mac and cheese yet.
This does sound like the holidays, right?
There's chaos going on in the house...
[Eric] I mean, these are Grand Champions.
They have, went through the gauntlet
of beating so many other
great competitors that have walked into this kitchen.
The fact that they're all going against each other,
I mean, the stakes are super, super high.
[Boots] Let's go, guys!
[Boots] At this point, my sauce is tightening up.
I check on my pasta, it's ready al dente.
So I'm a little relieved.
[Kaleena] Behind, behind! Coming down, coming down! Coming down, coming down!
There is this crazy frenzy in this kitchen.
Behind. Coming down. Coming down, hot.
[Annisha] This is the time where
I don't know if I'm doing everything correctly,
or if I'm missing something.
[Maneet] Kaleena is making the soup bowls,
she's taken some of the sushi,
and she's put it at the base of the bowl.
And then she's going to put a hot broth over it,
-which I think is such a great idea. -[Scott] Yeah.
[Kaleena] I want it to be raw at this point,
so that when I pour the broth over it,
it cooks it a little bit, but it doesn't overcook it.
[Eric and Ted] Let's go, chefs!
-Come on, Grand Champs! -Let's get it all done!
I grab a little bit of the pasta water,
and I just mix everything together.
[Maneet] Let's go, let's go, let's go!
[Eric] Let's knock this out, baby!
Let's knock it out! Let's go!
[Ted] One minute, chefs!
So time has gone, once again.
I add some cotija,
and I put some citron zest.
Let's get it done, let's get it done!
[Christina] I finish garnishing my plate
by adding chili garlic oil.
Microplaning some of the sardine candy cane,
and also, I grate a little bit more
of the citron onto the pasta.
Somehow, we find ourselves
at the end of the round here, chefs!
Ten. Nine.
Eight. Seven.
Six. Five.
Four. Three.
Two. One!
-Time's up! -[Eric] Great job, chefs!
Good job!
Rock out, rock out.
Good job, chefs. Good job, chefs.
[Boots exhales] After that round,
I feel as though the cobwebs are shaken off,
so, now I'm feeling good.
[Annisha] We all cook so different,
so I'm very intrigued to see what's gonna happen.
Chopped Grand Champions!
You have arrived at the chopping block.
For the first course, we asked you
to make appetizers with sardine candy canes,
holiday pasta,
citron,
and a sushi menorah.
-Chef Kaleena? -I have made a sardine
candy cane curry-inspired soup.
Kaleena, when you think of the holidays,
it is chilly outside, a bowl of soup,
I think it's a great idea.
This green curry that you've made as a base,
is so flavorful.
The idea of using the sushi menorah,
just the tuna and the salmon from it,
and just putting it at the base?
Great idea.
I'm really not getting the citron at all.
But overall, I think, a great start.
Thank you. Thanks, chef.
Chef Kaleena, I think this is a really wonderful
interpretation of, uh,
what you should do with this basket.
I'm gonna have to disagree with chef Maneet.
I think using the lemongrass
is a really nice way to accentuate the citron.
-It's just absolutely delicious. -Thanks, chef.
I love the flavors you developed.
That green curry approach is really smart.
And Maneet's right. A little bit of lime juice,
a little bit of that microplaned citron in there
would kind of recreate those perfumes,
-that you're looking for. -Heard.
[Scott] And also, there was just too much pasta,
not enough of that beautiful broth that you created.
Thanks, chef. Thank you.
From chef Kaleena to chef Christina.
I made creamy crab holiday pasta.
My parents are from Haiti,
so this reminded me of the macaroni au gratin
that we make over there.
Chef Christina, I love the use
of the sardine candy canes in the cream sauce.
It gives almost, like, a sweetness to it,
that was a really, really smart play.
Taking that imitation crab out of the sushi menorah.
Unfortunately though, for me,
it's the citron that is completely lost.
[Scott] Yeah, I agree. That citron.
I mean, treat it like a pasta mornay, right?
You cut that citron up,
and put it right in the pasta when you're cooking it.
[Maneet] My favorite bite was when I got the capers.
Because it had that bright pop of saltiness,
which added so much to the entire dish.
I love the idea of a pasta,
and I do think that this needed a little bit more time.
-Thank you. -Thank you, chef Christina.
Next up, chef Boots.
I made a seafood mac and cheese
winter pasta for you guys.
Well, chef, I gotta tell you. I think the flavor you developed is great.
The sauce itself is, uh, really interesting.
The one thing that's a little bit of a misstep for me
is the actual salmon.
-It's really overcooked. -Yeah. Yeah.
[Scott] But overall, I think it's a really good version
-of a mac and cheese. -Thanks.
I actually don't need the lardons.
The smoke is interesting, though, right?
-Like, that little backdrop... -[Eric] It gives you a little linger of smoke.
-It does, yeah. -I mean, I got "tastes like bacon"
across my chest, so I have to, like,
-stay true to form, bro. -[Eric laughs]
[chuckling] Tastes like bacon.
Well, you definitely got that.
-So yeah, thank you. -Mm-hmm. Thanks.
The flavors that you've created over even the sauce, it's delicious.
There is comfort in each and every bite.
To put the sardine candy cane in the sauce,
so you get a little bit of the sweetness,
you get that funkiness also,
and with the nutmeg, the dill?
In some crazy world,
-it actually works. -[chuckles] It works!
Thank you, chef Boots. Finally, chef Annisha.
I made a taquito pasta.
Chef, how is your dish holiday-inspired?
After the 27 of December,
my mom puts the mashed potato in tacos.
'Cause we are just tired of the holiday food.
-[all chuckling] -[Ted] Yes!
What you've given us is not only different flavors,
but textures.
And that makes it really addictive.
The sardine candy cane in the salsa verde?
-Genius. -Thank you.
[Maneet] I would have probably liked
the taquitos to be fried a little bit more,
because you put the sauce on it,
-so a little bit of it got soggy. -Thank you.
Chef, you took something from your childhood,
and it's perfect for the Chopped setting.
I might agree with chef,
the crispiness in some parts of my taquito
is a little bit soft, but,
I don't care. It's so good.
This is awesome.
-Thank you so much! -Great flavors. Beautiful balance.
The salsas that you made in addition to the crema,
even the little zest of citron
on top of the crema.
You know what you're doing.
Thank you. Appreciate it.
[Ted] All right!
Only three Grand Champions
will get to cook holiday entrées.
[Kaleena] Kinda crazy.
I mean, my heart's, like, still kind of, like, beating.
I wanna say I think I'm safe,
but to be honest, you never know.
I could be on the chopping block. I overcooked my salmon,
so, I could also be on there,
but all my flavors, my rubs were right,
I mean, I think I might have a chance.
So, whose dish is on the chopping block?
Chef Christina,
you've been chopped. Judges?
Christina, it was amazing
to see you back in the kitchen.
But in the appetizer round,
the holiday pasta was under seasoned.
And the citron was lost in the dish.
And so, we had to chop you.
Thank you. It was an honor to be here.
-[Ted] Thank you, chef. -Bye.
[Christina] Unfortunately, this time around,
it was not my time to shine.
And it's okay. My daughter will watch this
and see, never give up.
Chef Kaleena, chef Boots, chef Annisha.
Once again, don't expect
sugar plum simplicity from these baskets.
[Boots] All right. Ready?
-[Kaleena exhales] -Check out what's inside!
-[all laugh] -[Scott] Oh, wow.
Oh my gosh.
[Ted] And what, to your wondering eyes, should appear,
-but a Santa Claus meatloaf? -[Boots laughing]
[Boots laughing] Ho-ho!
This is gonna be fun, guys!
[Ted] There's also sword lettuce.
[Kaleena] Really nice green.
[Ted] Camel rib-eye roast.
What?
What is this drink?
[Ted] And a mistletoe martini.
[Scott] A mistletoe martini?
[chuckling] Do we have to kiss?
-That's how you win. -[laughs]
You have just half an hour to work.
Clock starts now!
-[judges] Let's go, chefs! -[judges clapping]
-Ho, ho, ho! -[Eric] Let's go!
I'm heading into the entrée round
with Boots and Annisha.
Annisha plays the game well.
Boots seems very experienced.
And to be honest,
I feel like I need to watch out for both of them.
Pot pie is the first thing that runs through my head,
because, again, being from Seattle,
we want something warm,
and comforting, around the holidays.
So, I'm making a camel
and Santa Claus meatloaf pot pie,
topped with a sword lettuce drop biscuit.
I'm adding the sword lettuce to my biscuits,
to act as a fresh herb.
So Kaleena is doing biscuits,
cooking against a guy who just opened a biscuit.
[Eric chuckles] That's true.
-She's got a little chutzpah, I like that. -[Eric] I like it.
While the biscuits are baking,
I get started on the base of my pot pie.
This is so weird.
I'm using the raw ground beef
from the Santa Claus meatloaf in my pot pie filling.
So, judges, what is the lump of coal
-ingredient in this basket? -[judges chuckling]
Yeah, Ted, I definitely think it's that camel ribeye roast.
[Maneet] Naturally-speaking, camels are very lean.
[Scott] This needs to be broken down.
Sliced super-thin, pounded out,
chopped up, something like that.
[Boots] I actually didn't know you could eat camel.
But, protein's a protein in my book,
so I'm going to pound it to tenderize it a little bit.
I'm making a grilled camel ribeye,
with a mistletoe martini barbecue sauce.
A Santa Claus mashed potato croquette,
and a sword lettuce chimichurri.
[Eric] So this, uh, mistletoe martini.
Interesting. So, when I think of martini,
classically, you got gin,
you got a little bit of dry vermouth,
but this one, obviously, is going on a holiday spin.
We have vodka, we have elderflower liquor,
we have cranberry juice.
So it's giving you a nice kind of floral note
but it's super sweet.
[Boots] Mistletoe martini, it's sweet
so I'm gonna use that as a sweet element
in my barbecue sauce.
I go grab some ketchup, molasses, apple cider vinegar,
and some Worcestershire to make a Memphis barbecue sauce.
So next, I get started on my potato croquette,
and I take the mashed potatoes
from the Santa Claus meatloaf.
[Ted] The Santa Claus meatloaf,
it's cooked mashed potatoes on top of raw ground beef,
eyes made from olives, lips from red pepper.
They can choose the mashed potatoes.
They can use a little bit of that ketchup if they like.
[Scott] Make some kind of a bolognaise...
-...make some kind of a meat ragu. -[Eric] Yeah.
[Boots] I run to the deep fryer and I drop it in.
I look over. Kaleena's making a biscuit.
I'm like, you know, I'm the biscuit guy.
I was saving biscuits for my dessert [laughing] round.
[Annisha] What I'm trying to accomplish in this dish is just bringing
all these different cultures together
and then just make it feel like home.
I'm making camel-beef meatballs
with garlic mashed potatoes and salsa borracha.
To make my meatballs, I'm adding my camel,
my Santa Claus meatloaf,
and I'm putting it all in the processor.
I'm adding some onion and apple.
The charity that I'm competing for is Justice for Migrant Women.
There's nothing better than using your own talent
to be able to help other people.
[Kaleena] I'm sautéing the camel
with the ground beef from the meatloaf.
I'm hoping some of the fat from the ground beef
will help balance out how lean the camel meat is.
I grab the little sprig of rosemary from the martini.
I use some diced onion, some carrot, some fennel.
-Behind, behind. Coming through. -[Boots] I'm behind.
This kind of frenzy that we see in the Chopped kitchen
is no different from the frenzy that we feel during the holidays.
Chef Kaleena is moving. I mean, capital M.
The Chopped kitchen brings a certain kind of chaos
[chuckling] I guess that you can't find somewhere else.
[Boots] So, the sword lettuce is pretty bitter
so I want to make the chimichurri with this.
I grab shallots, some parsley,
some cilantro, and some garlic.
[Annisha] In salsa borrachas you usually roast the ingredients.
In this case, I'm roasting the tomatoes.
I'm gonna use the sword lettuce part for my salsa
so I'm gonna grill it.
And then I'm adding in the mistletoe martini.
Salsa borracha basically means, like, drunken salsa.
So you're, like, giving alcohol to a salsa.
And then I see that my meatballs are ready,
and I'm gonna throw them in the deep fryer.
[Kaleena] The pot pie filling is coming along
so I add a little bit of cold butter and some flour
to kind of make a roux.
And I'm adding some mushrooms
just because I feel like it's a classic pot pie ingredient.
I check on my biscuits in the oven
and I can see that they need a little more time.
-[Maneet] So, Kaleena was making biscuits. -[Scott] Right.
They're still not cooked.
Two minute warning, Chefs.
All four ingredients, Chefs.
Do not forget to look at the basket.
Last thing that I have to do is put all these ingredients to plate.
Come on. Bring it home for the holidays.
Don't ruin the holidays the way Scott always does.
[Scott and Maneet laugh]
[Boots] First, I place my croquette on the plate.
I smash it. I fan out my caramel on top.
Then I add my chimichurri.
-[Maneet] Come on, Chefs! -[Scott] Let's go, Chefs! [claps]
-[Eric] Come on now. [claps] -[Maneet] We got it, we got it!
30 seconds, Chefs. 30 seconds.
I check my biscuits again and luckily they look perfect.
[Ted] We find ourselves at the end of the round now, Chefs.
Ten, nine, eight, seven, six,
five, four, three, two, one.
-Time's up. -[Scott] Good job.
-Good job. Good job. -[Ted] Please step back.
[Annisha] I feel like always the second round is the most complicated one
because, like, you're a step ahead
but you're also a step behind [chuckling] on winning.
That round, actually, I'm not gonna lie, it felt good.
First round was my warm-up round.
This was like, "Let's get in it. Let's play the game."
[clock ticking]
[Ted] Returning grand champions
on a quest to make memorable holiday entrées.
Your ingredients were a Santa Claus meatloaf,
sword lettuce,
a camel ribeye roast,
and a mistletoe martini.
Chef Annisha, please tell us about your entrée.
[Annisha] I made camel-beef meatballs.
I also made the garlic mashed potatoes and salsa borracha.
That salsa borracha that you created
is just delicious.
I love the depth of flavor.
I like what you did with the camel roast in particular
by adding it to the Santa Claus meatloaf.
I think that texture of the meatball
you could have manipulated a little bit.
It's a little bit dense.
Chef Scott hit on the head with the first sentence.
Depth of flavor.
Give me salt, give me acid, give me char,
and you have it there perfectly.
I think maybe creating the... with the panache,
probably starting off with the apple first,
blending that through,
because I get a little bit of chunks in there.
Maybe an opportunity to put some of the mashed potatoes
-inside the meatball as well. -Oh, the mashed potato. Yeah.
You know what I mean? But, again, really, really strong flavors, Chef.
Thank you.
Annisha, what a creative use of the mistletoe martini.
The sweetness doesn't overpower
because you balanced it off very well
with the char and the acid.
The meatballs.
You should have gotten the meat grinder
instead of the food processor because you made a paste.
And that's why the texture of the meatball is being affected.
[Ted] Thank you, Chef Annisha.
Next up, Chef Boots.
So I made, like, a Memphis-style rub
on the camel ribeye.
I made a mistletoe martini barbecue sauce,
and then a Santa Claus potato croquette.
Then I used the sword lettuce to make a nice little chimichurri.
[Maneet] Boots, I've got to say,
you utilization of the sword lettuce
as a part of the chimichurri I think it's genius.
That almost peppery bitterness that you get from the sword lettuce,
I think that should be a standard recipe.
The potato croquette's great.
Chef Boots, my favorite part is the Santa Claus
-potato croquette... [laughs] -[laughs]
That should call it in.
I think so far the best use of the mashed potatoes.
It's really, really ingenious to just take that, throw it in the fryer.
Unfortunately, the camel is overcooked.
Fortunately though, the seasoning is spot on.
-Where it gets me though is it's overly sweet. -Copy that.
-I agree that this is really sweet. -[chuckles]
Thank you, Chef Boots.
Finally, Chef Kaleena.
What I've made for you
is a camel and Santa Claus meatloaf pot pie
with a sword lettuce drop biscuit.
This biscuit is amazing.
And the fact that you put the sword lettuce in it is amazing
because it does give it a little bit of that pepperiness.
The few pieces of camel that I've eaten are very well cooked,
and even the slight sweetness of the mistletoe martini, that works.
I am craving for a little bit of acidity in it.
It's good. It's a good biscuit. It's a little sweet.
This whole dish reads a little bit sweet for me.
If you added a little bit of acidity to this,
even a little bit of vinegar on the finish,
-I think that could have helped. -Heard, Chef. Thank you.
I totally agree. This biscuit is just, sorry, Boots.
-This biscuit's it. It's delicious. -[laughs]
I think what this stew needs is salt.
-It does read sweet but I don't mind it as much. -Thank you.
We're so happy that you made it home to Chopped for the holidays.
Still, one of you soon will have to leave us. Thank you, Chefs.
[Kaleena] Based on the judge's feedback,
I think it'll probably come down to me or Boots.
You just never know.
[Boots] They said that mine just was too sweet.
And so I think I went too hard on the Memphis barbecue.
Think it, kind of, like, backfired on me a little bit.
[clock ticking]
Three brilliant grand champs bringing the holiday cheer.
We're sorry that only two of you can continue.
So, whose dish is on the chopping block?
Chef Boots, you've been Chopped.
-Judges? -[Eric] Chef Boots,
this entrée round, that croquette was to die for.
Unfortunately though, that camel was just overcooked
and the mistletoe martini barbecue sauce is just way too sweet.
So unfortunately this is why we have to chop you.
Nice seeing you guys. All righty.
Ho, ho, ho!
Didn't go the way I wanted it to go,
but, you know, it feels good to be back here.
And, like I said, we're doing this all for charity.
The judges are gonna get a coal biscuit. [laughs]
Chef Annisha, Chef Kaleena,
we hope you have a holly jolly good time with these.
Open 'em up.
What is it? [laughs]
You've got frozen fruitcake salad.
This looks like my aunt's dessert in Christmas.
-[Ted] There's also pomegranates... -Pomegranate.
...gingerbread cookie dough...
Hey, look, at least they give you
[laughing] baking instructions.
...and a mini
-booze bottle tree. -Ohh.
Interesting. It's very interesting.
The 30 minute third round...
...starts now.
-[judges applaud] -[Eric] Go, Chefs.
Yay! Go, Chefs!
-Whoo-hoo! -Make it sweet.
[Scott] This is it, Chefs. This is it.
Judges, this of course is a holiday competition,
it's for charity,
and these two chefs are showing such intensity.
It's absolutely amazing to see the pride that they have
in what they do.
Behind, behind, behind, behind.
I'm Mexican and Venezuelan,
so I always try to incorporate Latin flavors,
Mexican flavors.
For my dish I'm making calabaza en tacha
and a gin-pomegranate topping.
Calabaza means squash.
This is definitely a traditional holiday dish,
especially because you eat it during the winter.
So, what I'm making right now to put the the squash in is the tacha.
That is spice, syrup.
I'm using star anise, juniper berries, and all spice.
I'm also using the whiskey from the mini Christmas tree.
[Eric] So this mini booze bottle tree,
it has Irish cream, it has gin,
and it has a honey whiskey situation going on.
[Kaleena] I'm going up against Annisha and I find it so interesting
because we both have
completely different cooking styles.
She has a really cool Latin flair to her cooking.
She's a tough competitor
but I'm a tough competitor too.
[Maneet] They are so focused, both of them, our grand champs.
This will be the first time that one of them actually loses...
-...in the Chopped kitchen. -Yeah, it's pretty nuts, isn't it?
[Kaleena] So, I'm making a fruitcake
and gingerbread doughnut
with a pomegranate and lemon curd.
I definitely want to bring up the acid on this dish.
That was a critique I got from the last two rounds.
So I'm adding lemon juice to the pomegranate juice.
Then I temper the citrus and pomegranate juice into the eggs
and slowly start cooking it until it thickens.
I take the gingerbread cookie dough. I slice it thinly.
I'm trying to bake it off to grind it up
and eventually use it as something that I toss these doughnuts in.
The charity I'm competing for
is the National Alliance on Mental Illness.
It's super important for me to spread awareness
about mental illness
because it's something that's affected my life
not only with myself but with other close people around me.
[Annisha] I'm taking my squash,
adding the tacha syrup to it,
and then I remember that my mom always eats this with milk.
So I'm like, "Okay, I'm gonna make a crème anglaise."
And so I'm melting all the cake,
and I'm gonna thicken it up with some eggs.
So the flavor of this cookie dough
has very, very strong ginger flavor.
I'm gonna use it to make a crumble.
[Maneet] I think the riddle of the basket
-is going to be the frozen fruitcake salad. -Yeah.
[Maneet] It isn't a salad even though it's got a leaf of lettuce in it.
It is a frozen dessert and it's a very retro dessert.
It tastes fresh.
I mean, there's a great banana flavor,
a great strawberry flavor.
Chef Kaleena just took all the fruit that was melted down
and put it inside her dough.
So she'll have, like, a panettone flavor almost. Love it.
[Annisha] I'm seeing the clock
and I know that my cookie is not 100% done.
So I'm gonna just, like, throw it on the chiller
so I can get some texture off of it,
like, dropping the temperature really fast.
[Kaleena] I'm just hoping that I can get these doughnuts fried in time.
[Scott] She's just getting to the point now
where she's whisking that dough.
At this point, it's critical
that the doughnuts are perfectly fried.
[Eric] I don't think she can leave that station anymore, to be honest.
-She's been running back and forth to the pantry. -[Scott] I agree with that...
-...for sure. -She needs to stay stationary...
-[Maneet] Yeah. -...and get this done.
-Let's get that stuff in the fryer, Chef. Let's go. -I know.
[clock ticking]
Let's get that stuff in the fryer, Chef.
-[Scott] Let's go. -I know.
Ohh.
Do we have, like, scoops?
The pressure in this kitchen is at an all-time high.
-Thank you. -Frantic energy is killing me right now.
-Behind you. I'm going to the fryer, okay? -Okay.
[Kaleena] Finally, I get my doughnuts into the deep fryer.
Now I'm thinking that I'm gonna mix
some toasted cashews onto my gingerbread crumble.
Now that my cookie crumble is cold,
I'm breaking it into little pieces and adding my chopped nuts.
My pomegranate topping needs still acidity
so I'm shredding green apple.
[Kaleena] I pull the doughnuts out of the fryer,
they look soft, nice and brown,
and toss them in the gingerbread, cinnamon, and the sugar.
Two minute warning, Chefs.
[Annisha] Both me and Chef Kaleena,
we are playing with so many things at the same time.
I'm very nervous because I'm not plating yet.
[groans]
[Kaleena] I take the pomegranate seeds
and flambé them
with a little bit of the honey whiskey.
And then I finish it with a little bit of lemon juice
just, again, to really add to that acidity.
[Ted] One minute to go, Chefs.
The only thing that I have to do now is plating.
Great round, Chefs. Don't stop now.
[Ted] All right, Chefs,
final seconds of the final round here.
-Come on! Let's go, let's go! -Let's go, let's go.
[Ted] Ten, nine, eight, seven, six,
five, four, three, two, one.
-Time's up! -[Maneet] Yes!
[judges clap]
-Good job. -Whoa, Chef.
-This looks fancy. -Oh, that looks dope.
[Annisha] Like, the entire three rounds were, like, super difficult.
I mean, I did the best that I could with the things that I know,
with the flavors that they kind of, like, remind me of the holiday.
[Kaleena] I haven't lost yet in this kitchen.
I don't intend to now so I put everything I had into this.
[Ted] Chef Annisha, Chef Kaleena,
the judges are expecting grand champion-caliber
holiday desserts.
The mandatory ingredients, a frozen fruitcake salad,
pomegranates,
gingerbread cookie dough,
and a mini booze bottle tree.
Okay, Chef Kaleena, what do we have?
I have a fruitcake and gingerbread doughnut
with a pomegranate and lemon curd.
Chef, this is spectacular.
-Thank you. -[Scott] I love the flavors of those warm spices.
The frozen fruitcake salad
on the interior of that doughnut
works [chuckling] really well.
The bracing acidity of that curd that you made is just perfect,
and all your flavors are just banging.
-Thank you, Chef. -[Scott] The textures are on point.
The move to take the gingerbread dough, bake it,
but then use it as a powdered sugar
for the doughnut is just, like,
all levels of genius.
I love the pomegranates.
That's probably my favorite part.
You elevated it in a way that gives acidity,
that gives a little bit of warmth
-from the alcohol that you use as well. -Thank you.
Kaleena, the lemon curd is delicious.
But I do have a but over here.
It is the proportion of the lemon curd
to the doughnut.
Once I have this doughnut with the lemon curd,
the rest of it I will not be able to finish
because it will be clawing right over here.
Understood. Thank you, Chef.
Next up, Chef Annisha.
I made calabaza en tacha.
It's a traditional Mexican dish for the holidays.
[Eric] The cashews. Well played.
It adds such an earthiness and mellows everything down.
You get all of that with frozen fruitcake salad.
Granny Smith apples. Bravo, Chef. Well done.
-Really good. -Thank you, Chef. Appreciate it.
What I love about this is the contrast of flavor,
the fact that the calabaza is fairly neutral.
It's not sweet.
You drag it through the sweetness of the gingerbread
with the toughness of the pomegranate
and and then crunch of the cashew.
It works very well together.
The gingerbread cookie dough,
I wish you had cooked it a little longer
because right now there's a little bit of rawness in it
which, by the addition of the anglaise, has become muddy.
-Uh-huh. -[Maneet] Yeah.
Yeah, Chef, this is great. Uh, um, everything they said, same thing.
Even the gingerbread cookie, I feel like that texture or contrast
would have been really nice
if it were a little more crunchy on the top of it.
[Ted] Okay. Thank you, Chefs.
Judges, considering the chaos in those baskets,
-were you surprised by the dishes that you got? -[Maneet] Very surprised.
The first course we got taquitos from Annisha
with ingredients that we would never think to put
-into taquitos. -[Eric] Yeah.
The use of the candy cane sardines
and that salsa verde,
the textures from the crema,
the crunchiness from the taquito itself.
It was a flawless dish, in my opinion.
I thought that needed to be deep fried a little bit more...
-...because the crunchiness was missing. -That's true.
[Maneet] Kaleena made this absolutely delicious
green curry soup.
She took the sardine candy canes...
-...and put it along with the coconut in the sauce. -Yeah.
Yeah, that was really good flavor development.
I loved the broth that she created.
Had that little lemongrass that mimicked the citron...
-...that was inside the soup as well. -[Eric] Mmm-hmm.
There was great depth of flavor
but it just needed that little pop of acidity.
Even in the entrée course,
Annisha went ahead and made some meatballs.
Served it on this roasted garlic mashed potatoes,
and then did a borracha sauce
-which had this wonderful caramelly flavor. -[Eric] Yeah.
I don't think that her meatballs were executed properly.
It just read a little bit too dry.
-Kaleena gave us -Yeah.
that biscuit that she made with the sword lettuce.
Memorable bite.
[Eric] The outside texture was beautiful.
It had that amazing crust to it.
One of the challenges in Kaleena's stew
was that it just needed, again, more acidity.
Yeah, I think the sweetness of the stew is a bit much.
So, who's it gonna be?
It's a tough decision but we know.
I was beyond thrilled to get some good marks for my dessert.
I think Chef Kaleena start, like, increasing her level
and she show off for the final round.
But I feel like there's good chances for me to take it home.
So, whose dish is on the chopping block?
Chef Kaleena, you've been Chopped.
-Judges? -[Scott] Chef,
you're a phenomenal, phenomenal cook.
In your appetizer round you developed a really good flavor
when you created that green curry.
It just needed a little bit more acidity.
In your main course, that stew that you made,
it had really good flavor.
It just needed, again,
a little bit more acidity to it.
And so we had to chop you.
-[Eric] Good job. -[judges clap]
I tried really hard
but Annisha's a great competitor.
And you know what? She deserved it.
And that means, Chef Annisha Garcia,
you are once again the Chopped champion,
and your hard work has earned a $10,000 donation to a cause close to your heart.
Congratulations.
-Yes, Annisha. -Whoo!
-[Kaleena] Good job! -Thank you. Thank you so much.
-Thank you so much. -Really good job.
-Thank you so much.
It was amazing seeing you.
Really excited that I just won $10,000
that is gonna be donated for Justice for Migrant Women,
an association that I'm very, very, very happy
to be able to help.
-Thank you, Chef. -Thank you so much.
A just incredible experience overall.