[Ted] Let's do this thing.
We're excited over here.
Whoa!
[woman] Right from the jump, I already know it's gonna be tough.
Whoo!
[man 1] I think I've bit off more than I can chew.
I've never experienced that before.
You delivered something better than I find in most restaurants.
Greasy fried bread. Greasy, greasy fried bread.
I'm gonna rock out with my wok out.
That sounds delightful!
I just thought of something genius!
[man 2] The beast doesn't stop.
He's not getting it
-on the plate. -[Marc] He's not paying any attention to it.
I think people look at me they're like, "Oh, she's like,
this cute, bubbly girl."
But in reality, I could throw down in the kitchen like hardcore.
I am the chef owner of Mango Tao
in Boston, Massachusetts.
My style of cooking is Southeast Asian,
specifically Filipino-American.
It's just like in your face type of flavors.
[laughing]
This is my time to shine.
Let's go!
I'm here to prove age is nothing but a number when it comes to cooking.
I'm currently 22 years old.
I got my first executive chef position when I was only 18.
I'm the chef and owner of Rated Test Kitchen.
I'm known around St. Louis for being an innovative chef
for my flavors, my fusion, and my creativity.
All right, this is gonna reduce. Let's go over to the blender.
I may be young, but I'm not one to mess with.
I came here to win.
[John] I'm the owner of The Beastro catering company in Clifton, New Jersey.
My style of cooking is unpretentious style street food.
I've got a beast-sized family.
They exactly motivate me every single day,
from the second I wake up to the second I go to sleep.
Every bit of this is for them.
I'm the chef to beat 'cause there's no holds barred with me.
The beast doesn't stop.
[woman] I got into cooking from my grandmothers.
They live in East Texas, between Dallas and the Louisiana border.
My food is Texas steakhouse meets NOLA.
Rustic, straightforward, and pretty bold.
I've been in a prep kitchen since I was 16 years old.
Pressure is one of my best friends.
I was an EMT and firefighter.
Which I think has helped prepare me for the pressure that is to come.
-[both] Hey, chefs. -[chuckles]
[Jordan] Seeing the judges for the first time, it's intimidating.
I'm one of those people that's like, "Wow, what'd you get yourself into?"
It's just, "Oh, God. Here we go."
Hello, chefs.
-Hi! -Good morning, Ted.
You look like you're here to cook some incredible food. Am I right?
-Absolutely correct. -So stoked.
-Taking it home. -There are three rounds.
Mandatory mystery ingredients for each course.
If your dish doesn't cut it,
you will be chopped.
-Won't be happening for me. -Mmm-mmm.
Well, let's see if you like what's in these.
Open up your appetizer baskets.
[laughs]
Oh, man.
And you'll be working with jalapeno popper egg rolls.
All right.
[Ted] Cone cabbage.
That is the pointiest cabbage I've ever seen.
[Ted] Canned spiced ham.
Every Filipino's dream.
[Ted] And cava.
I wanna drink some right now. [laughs]
That ain't too bad. [exclaims]
All right, let's make an appetizer.
Twenty minutes to leave that all-important first impression.
Clock starts now.
-Let's go, chefs! All right. -All right! [indistinct]
Tiffani and Marc, you are joined by a Chopped champion,
Chef Joe Sasto.
-Welcome, Joe. -Hey, everybody.
-[Tiffani] Joe's here! -The pleasure is all mine.
[Tiffani] I think this is a great basket.
I think everything's pretty straight up.
Cone cabbage, cava, canned spiced ham.
It's the jalapeno popper egg roll.
It's gonna be a little tricky.
[Joe] They're already something pre-made,
so they're gonna be very hard to manipulate.
-Okay. -You have not a lot of cream cheese,
not a lot of jalapeno, and something already pre-fried.
And then canned spiced ham, very popular in Hawaii, I think.
When it is fried, when it is glazed, pretty spectacular.
Canned spiced ham is very much a Filipino staple.
I think I'm gonna make a hash out of it.
Who doesn't like potatoes?
Ashley, you've got a lot of veggies going there. What are you making us?
-I'm doing a hash. -A hash.
Nice.
I'm Filipino, so this is pretty up my alley.
Filipino food is so special.
It's a really great representation of our people.
We're really warm, welcoming.
By competing, I want to spread our culture.
With the cone cabbage, just another kind of cabbage.
The textures are different sometimes.
[Tiffani] It's a little softer.
I particularly love cone cabbage because
-it has less of a stem, less of a core. -[Tiffani] Mmm-hmm.
-[Joe] It's more delicate, so it'll cook really quickly. -[Tiffani] Softer. Quicker.
Feeling pretty confident with this basket.
I'm starting to think to myself,
"What goes better than a spiced ham than pineapple?"
-[Joe] Chef John. -How we doing?
What's your plan?
[John] I've got a Hawaiian-style crostini that's coming up.
-Canned spiced ham's best friend is pineapple. -[Marc] Oh.
We're about to have our worlds rocked, my friends.
[John] I wanted to take the jalapeno off from the jalapeno popper.
I put the jalapeno inside the spiced ham mixture
to get a little bit more heat inside of it.
Then I grabbed the ricotta cheese
to make a little bit more of a sauce out of it.
-Heyo. -Whoo!
Popping bottles already today.
[Joe] We're also getting treated today to some cava,
sparkling wine from Spain.
It's a little sweet, it's a little sparkling.
I think it lends itself perfectly to the rest of the ingredients in the basket.
Whether you're cooking it down in your cabbage,
-you're making a glaze with it. -[Tiffani] Mmm-hmm.
Chef Jordan, what do you got going?
We're going in a Asian direction.
Just kind of spoke to me that way
with the canned spiced ham and the cabbage over here, so...
[Joe] All right, all right.
[Jordan] I'm making a spiced wonton crisp
stuffed with spiced canned ham and jalapeno,
topped with a cabbage slaw and a cava-soy drizzle.
Are you filling those wonton skins with something?
Yeah, try to season 'em up, crisp 'em back up again,
and then see if I can turn it into something that's not a jalapeno popper.
-[Marc] Okay. -[Tiffani] I'm very excited to see this wonton wrapper
-repurposed and becoming something else. -[Marc] Yeah.
Might be a really good move.
The canned ham itself is going to be incredibly salty,
so I don't season it. And I don't wanna add
anything to it other than the jalapenos.
Try to bring a little bit of heat to this dish.
Chef Juwan, what's popping over there?
You got some poppers working?
-We have some poppers. -What are you making with them?
I am going to use the shell and make a tostada.
Tostada. That sounds like it pairs with the jalapeno nicely.
It does. It does.
And I'm gonna make a slaw, make a Champagne vinaigrette,
put that on top, I think it'll be killer.
-Sounds great. We're excited over here. -You better hurry up.
[Juwan] I'm gonna deep fry this egg roll shell.
And I know that this will give me the crispy texture
that I need for the base of this tostada.
I'm taking the canned spiced ham and sauteing it
to get a little bit of color and caramelization on there.
And then I throw in some spices that I know are traditional Mexican flavors.
Ancho chili powder will add a little bit of smoky depth.
I'm not just competing for me.
I'm competing for children that look like me
from the neighborhood that I grew up in.
Coming down, chefs. Coming down, right behind, right behind.
I grew up in a underprivileged neighborhood in St. Louis, Missouri.
Most people don't even make it past the age of 18
when you're a Black male in the community that I was raised in.
And I've done that, and I wanna inspire other young adults.
Chefs, coming down, coming down.
Chefs, 10 minutes left.
[Ashley] There's jalapeno in the poppers,
so I decided to do a jalapeno jelly.
I add rice wine vinegar and honey.
The cava will add a nice little pop, nice little acidity.
And then I'm adding red bell pepper just for contrast and color.
Ashley's got half the vegetables from the pantry.
They have to be very smart about the ingredients
that they pull from the pantry.
And if they pull too many things,
they're gonna lose those basket ingredients.
[John] I make slaw with the cabbage, arugula.
In the cava champagne, a little bit of garlic, chili, and oil to add
the nice light, creamy texture with a touch of spice right on top.
Adds a fresh bite to the entire spiced ham dish.
[Jordan] I have the cava on the stove in a saucepan.
And to that I add mirin for a little bit of sweetness and soy sauce for salinity.
I added Dijon mustard into it to bring that vinegar.
The same spices that are on the wonton crisp,
I use to season the cabbage slaw as well.
I figured out this is kind of what I wanted to do
somewhere around the end of high school.
However, I was told no
when it came time for culinary school.
It's incredibly expensive.
So I went to school for EMS and firefighting.
Did that for a couple of years before I found a chef
that would take me on and teach me how to work on the line.
I'd like to win that 10 grand to help further my education and my career.
So the cone cabbage, I decide to slice it super thin
because I now wanna add a slaw.
I add the radicchio, because I now want a little pop of color in the slaw.
I got a slight cut on my hand.
-I look down, and I start bleeding. -[woman] Stop.
It's just right here.
Juwan cuts himself, and I'm like, "whoa."
-Yeah. -[Ashley] That's gonna totally cut into his cooking time.
I have so many components going on,
and this is literally the worst time for me to cut myself.
[Tiffani] Juwan has cut himself.
This is not the time in the round you wanna cut yourself.
Well, about five minutes left.
[Juwan] I see people start plating.
I don't know if I'm gonna finish.
I'm fighting for so much, and I can't let this little cut deter me.
Okay, am I good? Okay, thank you.
Luckily, it was just a grazing.
I get back to my slaw, and I'm trying to make up for lost time at this point.
I know that I need the vinaigrette to be light.
So I decided to do the cava with a little bit olive oil,
a squeeze of lemon juice, a pinch of salt and some orange juice.
Right behind you, please.
So next, I wanted to add some color,
some elements of freshness,
and bring a little bit of lightness to the heavy hash.
So, I grabbed radicchio and frisee.
And I quickly tossed it in olive oil and salt and pepper.
I grabbed the bread for the crostini.
Get that little, browned up a little bit.
Give it a nice crunch.
Chefs, two minutes, two minutes!
All four ingredients on the plate.
So, I turn around to give the spiced ham a flip.
Oh.
And I realize that it has gone a little further than I would like it to.
All right, let's get it.
The little bit of char may save me from it being too mushy.
We'll see.
John has one toast, but it's still in the pan. I hope it doesn't burn.
-And he's not getting it on the plate. -[Marc] He's not paying
any attention to it.
Let's go! Everything on the plate, all four ingredients.
Chef Jordan is re-stuffing those spring rolls.
I love it. Here we go.
-Ooh. -Here we go. Here we go.
-Here we go. -[Marc] He's still got his toast in the pan.
-Like, he's gotta finish it later. -In that smoking pan!
Whoo! Come on, guys.
Final touches.
[Ted] That clock means business, chefs.
Ten, nine, eight, seven,
six, five, four,
three, two, one.
-Time's up. Step back. -[Joe] Boom.
-Bam. -Oh, a little agave drizzle in the end.
-[Joe] Who did that? -[Tiffani] John. Chilling.
[Jordan] Whoo!
Beautiful job, guys. Beautiful job.
I've never experienced that before.
All three of the chefs are phenomenal.
I think we all have a chance at this.
My neighbor, Chef Jordan, she's a killer chef.
Definitely think that she put something killer on her plate.
The intensity in this kitchen is something else.
Twenty minutes goes real fast,
but I'm super, super forward with everything in the basket.
I didn't hide it, other pantry ingredients.
And so there is chance that I will live to see the next round.
Chefs, you have arrived at the chopping block.
We got things started with a basket of jalapeno popper egg rolls,
cone cabbage, canned spiced ham, and cava.
Let's start with you, Chef Ashley.
So, I made a spiced ham hash
with a radicchio and frisee salad,
a jalapeno popper jelly, and a little bit of crema.
I'm Filipino-American, first generation.
So, we always have canned spiced ham in our pantry.
I would make this for breakfast for my brothers and sisters.
Chef Ashley, in this dish, I feel like is you.
It's bright, it has tons of personality.
Yeah, I like this hash.
-The seasoning is great. -Thank you.
-And where's the cava? -In the jalapeno jelly.
I think that was very creative and might be my favorite part of the whole dish,
because it really provides this wonderful sweetness.
You balance it out with the rice wine vinegar,
giving it a nice pop of acid.
-Yeah. -And then you've fried the wonton skins
and put 'em on top for some texture, which is a good idea.
But I do feel like the cabbage is a little underrepresented here.
The cabbage is, um, sauteed with the hash.
It probably melted.
What would you do with $10,000?
I would put it towards my business, Mango Tao.
In Boston, there's not really a lot of Filipino presence.
So, I want to put our culture more out there
and be more recognized.
-Very cool. -Yeah.
Next up, Chef John.
Today I have for you a Hawaiian-style crostini.
Chef, I think this is a very creative take on the basket ingredients.
Toasting the bread lightly in butter
was a really nice addition, a smart use of the pantry.
[Marc] We were really worried.
We didn't know if it was gonna go into flames.
But it's great, yeah.
And you let this cabbage shine,
working in that cava in your vinaigrette.
You get that nice bit of acid, that nice little pop.
You paired the canned spiced ham with the pineapple,
I think was very smart cooking.
They go together intrinsically.
I do wish, however, there was like a little more caramelization.
I do agree with Joe. I think, you know,
you really needed to get some texture here.
-This ham, it's all mushy. -Okay.
What's the cream in here? What did you put in there?
So, there's the cream cheese from the filling,
from the jalapeno popper.
I think, you know, pulling the jalapeno
out of the jalapeno popper egg rolls,
-really smart. Let that heat shine. -Thank you.
So, what would you do with the $10,000?
$10,000 going to my wedding next year.
-[Tiffani] Congratulation. -Thank you, chef.
My lady and I have been together about six years now.
It's a blended family. My two girls, her two boys...
-Hmm. -...coming together.
You know, we're a big, geeky, comicy,
-theatrical food family. -[scattered laughter]
Awesome.
Chef Jordan, what have you made?
A spiced wonton crisp
stuffed with the pan fried jalapeno and canned spiced ham
with a cabbage slaw on top
and a cava-soy drizzle to cover the whole thing.
It's a risk to take these wrappers of the jalapeno popper egg rolls
and crisp them up again.
I think it's great.
Using the cabbage on top as the slaw,
it works and the flavors are really good.
The cava in the glaze, I think is really, really smart.
And the canned spiced ham,
we have really great caramelization on this.
Yes, but mine is so crispy that a lot of these are burnt.
Yes, absolutely. They did get away from me for a little bit.
I think some pieces may have gone a little far,
but I'd rather it be more caramelized than soft and mushy.
-Heard. -I think, however, it's missing something.
This is one of those cases where you needed something else from the pantry.
Whether it be mustard to add some creaminess,
or cheese to add some gooeyness.
Heard, chef.
Chef Juwan, tell us what you made.
I have prepared for you a tostada
with a cone cabbage slaw
and a cava vinaigrette.
The shell, for me, unfortunately, did not work.
-Okay. -I mean, you can't cut it. It's really, really toothsome.
-Yeah. -But I think you cooked the spiced ham the best.
-Thank you. -[Marc] I mean, I've got crispiness.
I like that you've got some spice.
-You put some raw jalapeno in here as well, right? -I did, yeah.
So, that was a great balance.
Mirroring that ingredient that was in the jalapeno popper egg roll,
very, very smart.
Visually, it's really pretty to have that,
you know, the jalapeno popper egg roll opened up.
And, you know, kind of re-stuff it in this way that it becomes crostini.
I think your use of the cava was really nice...
-Thank you. -...in your vinaigrette, added the sweetness,
it added that bitterness. It kind of tied everything together in that.
Where I think maybe you misstepped is that cabbage.
Cone cabbage is beautiful,
-and you went shopping for radicchio and frisee. -Yeah.
-Don't match a hearty green with a hearty green... -Heard.
...when one of 'em is the basket ingredient,
cause then it totally gets lost.
Definitely. Definitely. Thank you, I appreciate that.
Chef Juwan, thank you.
First round down. Thank you, chefs.
[Jordan] The judges said I was missing something,
uh, creamy, cheesy, gooey, something to fill that egg roll.
So, I'm a little worried. Everybody has some flaws in their dish,
but hopefully mine weren't fatal.
[Juwan] I think what's making me the most nervous from the judges' feedback
is definitely the preparation for the outer shell of the egg roll.
So, I should have peeled 'em back and kind of made it a flatter layer.
The entree round is next for three chefs.
So, whose dish is on the chopping block?
Chef Jordan, you've been chopped. Judges?
Chef Jordan, we really loved your creative approach
to that jalapeno popper egg roll,
and using it and transforming that wrapper as a shell.
However, you burned your canned spiced ham,
and that cava-soy glaze was just unbalanced.
And so, we had to chop you.
Understood. Thank you, chefs.
Yeah, I agree with the judges' decision.
It wasn't my day, but there's a lot of chefs
that would never put themselves in this position.
And what I was able to prove about myself is
that I'm just not scared to get up here and do it.
All right, you live to cook another round.
Just make sure you highlight those basket ingredients, all right?
-Thank you. -Yes.
Chef Juwan, Chef Ashley, Chef John,
let's see what this basket has in store.
And open 'em up!
-[laughs] -[Ashley] Whoa.
[Ted] And what's that? Spray cheese.
Oh, my God. Spray cheese?
-[Ted] Venison porterhouse. -Yes.
[Ashley] So, venison is deer meat.
Porterhouse is the cut of the tenderloin.
-[Ted] Celtuce. -All righty.
[Ted] And bread with a butter candle.
It's just actual butter?
All right.
Thirty minutes to cook.
-Clock starts now! -Here we go. Make it happen!
[Marc] Very exciting, very exciting.
So how about that venison porterhouse?
It's venison, which has to be cooked like rare,
not really past rare.
And also, it needs to be super high heat.
[Joe] Venison can be a little gamey on its own.
Also, venison doesn't have much fat.
-[Tiffani] Fat. -So luckily, they have a whole piece of bread
with a bunch of butter in the middle of it.
[Joe] So, this bread with the butter candle
is a trend that you see all over social media.
[Tiffani] The candle is all butter with a wick running through it.
I'm going up against John and Ashley.
I'm super intimidated by these two.
I'm gonna really have to step up my game
and go all out to impress these judges.
My family migrated to St. Louis from Mississippi.
I wanna make a Southern dish because it's comfort food,
like my grandmother used to make in the kitchen.
Chef Juwan, what's the plan?
I'm gonna use that spray cheese,
some of the butter from the candle,
get a nice polenta going, super creamy.
-[Tiffani] Love that -And then seared venison.
And I'm gonna make a sauce.
-Okay. -That goes on top with some sauteed, um...
-Celtuce? -Celtuce. There you go.
I do think that celtuce is one of those ingredients
that's not readily known.
Think of it almost as like a mix of romaine and asparagus.
-It cooks very quickly. You could serve it raw. -[Marc] Oh.
You could even use the tender greens at the top or the entire stem.
[Juwan] I take the celtuce leaves and saute them with some bell pepper.
Since I'm doing a Southern dish,
it kind of replaces the collards.
I've never cooked with venison before,
but I know it's super lean and it's a game meat.
I'm deciding to leave it whole.
I'm adding the butter from the bread and butter candle,
garlic, rosemary and thyme.
And basting the venison in the skillet.
Ashley has some rice noodles that she's put in her boiling water.
It looks like we're gonna get like a noodle stir fry.
[Ashley] The celtuce tastes like chayote.
And we have this Filipino dish called chicken tinola
that we put chayote in the soup.
I'm gonna do a venison noodle soup
with blistered tomatoes,
and a ginger, butter, scallion sauce.
I'm cooking the celtuce down
with smashed ginger,
chicken stock, bay leaf, and fish sauce.
This is gonne be the broth for my noodle soup.
Ashley has left her butter candle burning.
-And that is smart? -[Tiffani] Yes.
Because what it does is loosen up a good amount of butter around it,
so you can drizzle it on something.
I just thought of something genius!
There's a lot of Chinese influence in Filipino cuisine,
so I'm using a traditional Chinese method
to make this ginger, butter, scallion sauce.
I'm getting that butter piping hot
and pouring it over my ginger and my scallion to par-cook it.
-[John] You good? -Yeah. How you doing over there?
[John] I'm chilling right now.
The judges really liked Ashley's dish
for being nice and vibrant and bright.
So, full beast mode heading into entree round.
I've cooked with venison before.
The gaminess of the meat and then having the cheese,
I think to myself, darker flavors, nuttier flavors.
So I'm making a Latin-inspired venison stew, with ancho chili spiced croutons
I'm gonna take the butter from the bread and butter candle.
And I'm adding a little bit of chicken stock, garlic and then ancho chili powder
and a little bit of guajillo chilies to put a little spice to it.
[Juwan] As I'm getting a good sear on this venison,
I realize that it's still raw on the inside, so I put it in the oven to finish cooking.
Judges, they now have spray cheese in this round.
How can they use this to make high style entrees?
It has the essence of cheese.
You can work it into a sauce with some cream,
but I think the leaning on the pantry
is gonna be the key to unlocking that ingredient
[Juwan] I'm mixing in some fresh cheddar in the polenta.
I know this is my only way to hide this spray cheese.
Chef Ashley, you're gonna rock out with your wok out?
I'm gonna rock out with my wok out. [chuckles]
When I think of venison, I think it's similar to beef.
So there's a Chinese method that I use called velveting.
Basically, you put soy sauce and whatever seasoning you want to the meat,
and then you add cornstarch.
But the velveting part comes in when you take it in the piping hot wok
and you add oil and you just stir it.
Keeps the meat super tender.
[John] I'm tasting my stew.
I can already tell there's a lot of flavor going on.
I'm adding lime and cilantro to add the acid
and a little bit of herbaceousness.
Then adding that spray cheese to emulsify
and make it a little bit more of a cheesy dish.
I definitely want to add a texture to the dish,
and I break down the bread into cubes, get that fried off.
Greasy fried bread. Greasy, greasy fried bread. Behind.
I pulled the venison out of the oven and I realize it's still raw.
This is bad.
So Juwan has not broken the porterhouse down.
He's cooking all four porterhouses on the bone.
He needs to get the porterhouses out of the pan so they can rest.
[Juwan] I just take the meat off the bone
because I know it's gonna cook a lot faster this way.
This venison is giving me a real headache.
I still haven't used the spray cheese, and I got to put it somewhere.
-We're woking and rolling. -Woking and rolling.
[Ashley] I'm tossing this in with the venison
and hoping this will play to my velveting method.
One minute left on the clock, chefs.
[John] I'm adding the celtuce to my stew towards the end
to just keep a little bit more of that freshness.
-Time, please? -[Ted] 30 seconds.
-[Tiffani] Come on. -[Joe] 30 seconds.
-[Marc] Oh, boy. -[Joe] Ooh-hoo.
All four ingredients, Chef. Please make sure you're tasting.
[Ted] Chefs, get those plates tidied up and ready in
ten, nine, eight,
seven, six, five,
four, three, two, one. Time's up!
Jeez Louise. Oh, my gosh.
I look down at my dish and I feel amazing.
I'm still concerned about the venison, though.
After all these techniques from cooking the venison, I think it's overcooked.
Chefs, for your second round in the Chopped kitchen,
you got a basket of spray cheese, venison porterhouse,
celtuce, and bread with a butter candle.
Chef Juwan, please tell us about your entree.
Chefs, so in front of you is a Southern venison and polenta and sauteed celtuce.
-What makes it Southern? -I used a lot of flavors
that my grandmother traditionally uses in the kitchen.
What part of the south is your family from?
But we are traditionally from Mississippi.
I started cooking at six underneath my grandmother.
My grandma was, like, the main person in the family that cooked
and she worked her butt off to get where
she was able to raise four women by herself...
-Wow. -...um, and so she's my inspiration.
I'm actually writing a book about her now.
-It's a novel and cookbook called Grandma's Hand. -[Marc] That's really great.
Chef Juwan, uh, I think looking at this dish right away,
it's composed, it's beautiful.
Grabbing that polenta to elevate that spray cheese,
I think, was a very smart move.
The sauce that you created with the bits of the butter,
-really nice sauce work. I mean, it's delicious. -[Juwan] Thank you.
The polenta with the sauce
reminds me of, like, that shrimp and grits
Creole kind of sauce that you get down in the south.
I mean, I totally hear your soul cooking to me...
-Thank you. -...with that part of the plate.
Joe nailed it. Gameplay, A plus.
The celtuce sauce is really smart,
but major mistake on the... on the venison. It needs to be, like, rare.
I have to agree with them. I was disappointed in the... in the porterhouse.
The flavors are good, it's seasoned. You've got a good sear on it.
You just didn't have to put it in the oven.
Next we go to Chef John. Please tell us about your dish.
Today I've made for you a Latin-inspired venison stew
with seasoned breadcrumb and a little bit of the fresh celtuce as well.
Chef John, I think this eats as almost like this curry bowl
-where you have this thick, rich sauce... -Yeah.
...down at the bottom.
The croutons you made from the bread butter candle added excellent texture.
And, of course, the celtuce, it definitely gave you that nice
fresh note that you wanted on top.
-What's that heat? -There's arbol chili powder
and then guajillo chilies that were, um, stewed inside the stew.
Yeah, I just... I'm feeling that the chilies needed to definitely be developed more.
I agree. But I will say, I think that the spray cheese
is giving the texture of the stew nice thickness to it.
The viscosity kind of works, but venison braised is tough because it's so lean.
You have to have fat and connected tissue to break down.
-But it's got some nice flavors. -Thank you.
Finally, Chef Ashley.
So what we have here is we have venison noodle soup
with some blistered tomatoes, some ginger scallion sauce.
I have to say, I think you did some good stuff here.
The flavors are good.
I got some nice, you know, rare pieces of venison.
And the velveting of the venison is interesting.
But the cheese flavor gets lost.
For me, the fact that it's rare venison coated in a spray cheese...
-[chuckles] -...is just not doing it for me.
It gives it this really gamey flavor.
Taking the butter candle out of that bread
and using it in your ginger sauce,
I thought, was a really good idea
-and use of adding another layer of fat. -Mmm-hmm.
And you're the only one that really showcased
the celtuce in a beautiful light.
It's crispy, it's crunchy, it's bright, and it has great flavor here in your dish.
Chef Ashley, thank you.
[Ashley] The one thing I worry about is how I used the cheese.
I am super nervous.
Definitely the technique on the venison.
My approach to it was not proper technique
and it showed, and the judges were able to pick that up instantly.
I'm feeling concerned.
So whose dish is on the chopping block?
Chef John, you've been chopped.
Judges.
Chef John, we understood where you were going with this.
You know, using the chilies made a lot of sense,
and I think it would have been successful
with a little bit different execution of technique and time.
Your choice to braise a venison just left it really dry and overcooked.
And so we had to chop you.
-Appreciate this so much, guys. -Awesome.
-Thank you, guys. Appreciate it. -Thank you.
-Cheers. Thank you. -Be well.
[John] I know where I was right and where I was wrong.
But at the end of the day, I'm absolutely proud of what I've been doing.
Zero regrets on this.
[Juwan] I'm super excited that I made it to the next round,
but I'm extremely nervous as well as going up against Ashley.
She has really shown her skill set the last two rounds.
[Ashley] Competition's pretty tight
because the feedback is very equal.
I need to finish strong.
Chef Ashley, Chef Juwan,
you both look refreshed and ready.
Let's do this thing.
Open them up.
[chuckles]
And the basket gods never cease to shock and amaze.
-Flowers? -[Ted] It's a flower pot dessert.
Is it flowers or a cake on the inside? I can't tell.
[Ted] You also have satsuma.
[Ashley] Satsuma is a beautiful ingredient.
It's like a more delicate version of the Western orange.
-[Ted] Potato chips... -Potato chips?
Not so bad.
...and a licorice root.
I've never seen this before.
30 minutes to whip up stellar desserts.
-Clock starts now. -[Joe] Oh, yeah.
-Make it three, chefs, let's go. -Let's go, chefs. Let's go!
[Tiffani] Come on.
[Ashley] Regular sugar. [chuckles]
-Chef, I have sugar if you need it. -Oh, okay. Thank you.
[Marc] So, um, Ashley and Juwan, what do you guys think?
Is Ashley a little bit ahead?
[Tiffani] I think they're fairly neck and neck.
Ashley's first round was... went pretty successful.
I think Juwan was a little more successful in the second round.
Flavors were great.
[Joe] You know, I think one of the gifts
in this basket are the potato chips,
because I love a salty component in my dessert.
And that could be used as a crust, a crumble.
I started in desserts at a young age.
I had a cousin that actually had a bakery
and he kind of showed me the ropes.
And I was only 18 when I became the executive pastry chef
at a local restaurant.
Juwan, what are you making us?
I am going a savory, sweet route.
So I have a sesame crumble that I use the potato chips in.
Add some saucy notes in it with a little bit of black salt.
And then I'm gonna make a sorbet with the roses,
the little flowers that are on top of the pot.
And I'm going to make a curd with our fresh fruit.
-Okay. Good going. -[Ted] Oh!
Making a curd, uh, that's lot of work right there.
[Tiffani] Yeah. Got a lot of work to do.
[Joe] Flower pot desert.
[Tiffani] So much to work with there.
There's a lot to work with and I love seeing a chef taking off all the flowers.
The top of the flower pot is a crushed cookie,
below that, it's like a whipped cream...
-It's a no-bake layered cake. -Mmm-hmm.
[Juwan] I'm one chef away from winning.
I really wanted $10,000. Money to expand my business,
to create more opportunities for people that look like me in the community I grew up in.
Satsuma's very, very sweet in the tangerine orange family.
[Marc] My daughter, when she was younger,
she used to call it the juicy orange.
Aw, that's so cute.
She'd get up in the morning, "Daddy, can you make me a juicy orange?"
And that meant to supreme them.
That's so cute.
Ashley, what are you making us?
I'm gonna make a riff on a Filipino dessert called mango icebox cake.
But instead of mango, I'm gonna use the oranges.
So is that satsuma icebox cake?
-[Joe] That sounds delightful. -That sounds delightful!
-Which is no bake. -I love this idea.
It's so inspired and it's... it's... I don't know why we've never seen this before.
[Ashley] My icebox cake, it's going to be layered.
First, I get started on the satsuma creme.
This is gonna be the base for the icebox cake.
I'm adding whipping cream, a little bit of granulated sugar,
some vanilla extract, condensed milk.
And I want to get this cream super stiff,
so when I add the satsuma juice
it will just make it that perfect consistency.
Well, I'm competing for obviously bragging rights,
but that money would really be so huge for my business.
I have more freedom to be more creative and do more events.
It would just help me out with, like, not worrying about money.
You have less than 15 minutes, chefs.
[Juwan] I really want to go all out with this,
and I gotta show some more technique.
So I decided to throw a curd together.
I've done the curd in the past,
and it's really a technique balance,
because if you over scramble the eggs, you're gonna get scrambled egg.
And if you under scramble it, you're gonna get a sauce.
I put on a double boiler. I throw some egg yolks in there,
a little bit of sugar, some vanilla bean,
some satsuma zest and a little bit of the licorice root.
If I can pull this off, it really shows the judges
that I'm not afraid to take any risks.
Next I get started on my graham cracker crumble.
[Joe] So you see Ashley over here.
She did exactly what we were talking about,
putting her potato chips with the graham crackers to make some sort of crust,
-which I imagine will be for her icebox cake. -[Tiffani] Yeah.
It's gonna be the salty, crunchy layer to my icebox cake.
[Tiffani] Uh, for me,
I think the only thing that's challenging is the licorice root
and just being able to pull out as much licorice flavor as you'll need.
-There's no sweetness in the licorice root. -No.
-[Tiffani] Woody, aniseed-y. -It's very woody. It's a piece of wood really.
-Yeah, but it's aniseed. Yeah, definitely. -[Tiffani] Okay.
Uh, you know, Ashley just took a micro planer
and planed some out to taste it right away.
That's a great way to get the flavor out of that.
I'm taking the licorice root and infusing it with the sugar water.
I'm hoping that this licorice root will like, melt into the flower candy.
I got a lot of stuff going on right now,
and I'm quite overwhelmed and stressed at this point.
I think I bit off more than I can chew.
I know that Juwan was going back and forth
and stirring his curd on the back burner there,
and the edges of the eggs are starting to scramble.
Chefs, you've got five minutes left.
[Juwan] So I'm realizing my curd is not turning out right.
It's not setting up. It's quite loose.
It's more of a sauce.
I really need this curd to bring the dish together.
Otherwise I just have a bunch of random elements that's not a composed dish.
I've been under pressure before,
but $10,000 are at stake right now.
So I gotta bring this dish together.
Chefs, three and a half minutes on the clock.
The clock is ticking and the curd is out the window.
It's almost more of a zabaione.
So I decided to turn it into a zabaione.
A zabaione is a traditional Italian sauce.
I add a little bit of orange liqueur
and pop it into the blast chiller to see if it'll thicken up any more.
I wanted to plate my dessert
on a like a clear dish of some sort.
Ashley seems to be building her dessert right now
and it looks... It's very, very dainty...
-It's pretty -...a nice size.
[Joe] Very pretty.
[Ted] One minute left on the clock, chefs.
[Ashley] I'm adding a layer of the cream, the supremes and the potato chip crumble.
It's coming together really nicely.
[Juwan] So when I go back to check on the zabaione
it's the perfect consistency, and it's exactly what I need.
Come on, Juwan.
[Ted] Final seconds of the final round, chefs.
Ten, nine, eight,
seven, six, five,
four, three, two, one.
-one. -[Tiffani] That's it. That's it.
-Time's up. -[Tiffani] That's it.
[Joe] Whoo!
Yes. It's... It's colorful.
It's like super tart, sweet. [chuckles]
All of the things that I am.
Me and Ashley cooked very similarly.
We were both vibrant chefs in our food, and it translates.
So hopefully she didn't out-vibrantize me.
Chefs, in that dessert duel
you had to work with a flower pot dessert,
satsuma, potato chips and licorice root.
Chef Ashley, what do we have?
So what we have is a satsuma icebox cake with grated licorice root on top.
This is a play on a Filipino dessert called mango icebox cake.
Chef Ashley, you delivered something better than I find in most restaurants.
-It's delicious. -Aw.
-Thank you. -[Joe] I love that
cream that you made with the satsuma juice.
And that flower pot whip, it's so light and airy.
Thank you.
The use of the flowers is really pretty,
and I'm glad that you leaned into that.
The satsumas are just so perfect on top.
It's playful and it's sweet, and it's lovely.
Thank you, Chef.
I think the potato chips, the saltiness that's coming through
in the crumble that you made on the bottom
just takes away some of the sweetness
-which is good because it is pretty sweet. -Yep.
Um, the one thing that I feel is a little underrepresented
-is maybe the licorice. It's... it... -[Ashley] Yeah.
It was hard to grab that and
-sort of wrestle the flavor out of it. -Yeah.
Okay, Chef Ashley, thank you.
Finally, Chef Juwan.
Chefs, today I prepared for you a deconstructed parfait.
There is a satsuma zabaione infused with licorice root,
a potato chip crumble and flower pot sorbet.
It's kind of like a choose your own adventure.
-And I love going on adventures. -Yeah.
[Joe] And every bite is different.
I do get hints of licorice here and there because you used it in so many layers.
What I do wish there was more of
was maybe some freshness.
There's a lot of salt from your crumble,
and there's a lot of sugar from that sorbet and that zabaione.
I agree. The zabaione doesn't have enough flavor of the satsuma.
You know, like a lemon curd is 'cause lemon is so strong.
Satsuma is a little bit more delicate as a citrus.
I don't feel like it comes through enough.
So really incredible thought. I think it's wildly creative.
And the texture of that sorbet... bananas good.
Thank you.
All right. Please give the judges a few minutes. Thank you, Chefs.
I mean, I would just say in the appetizer round,
I thought Ashley probably made the best dish.
[Tiffani] The canned spiced ham with the potatoes,
I thought was like the base of a really nice hash.
[Joe] That jalapeno jelly that she made was very creative.
But she really didn't showcase the, uh, cabbage at all.
[Tiffani] And Juwan's cone cabbage got lost in, like, the shuffle
with radicchio and frisee.
But he definitely treated the canned spiced ham the best.
-That's true. -He added all the spices to it.
He got beautiful color and caramelization on it.
[Tiffani] I agree. But I just thought that tostada didn't eat well.
It was like fighting with something.
-Just couldn't get through it. -Yeah.
I will say this, Juwan redeemed himself in the second round
using the polenta as a vehicle for the spray cheese.
And also the bread and butter candle,
I just thought that was really, really smart.
The star of that show was the celtuce,
bread, brown butter sauce...
-[Joe] I'm still thinking about it. -...That was spectacular.
[Joe] But the cook on the venison porterhouse
was far from rare, medium rare.
Well to well done, which is not how you make a venison porterhouse.
Yeah, Ashley, at least she cooked her venison chop rare.
[Joe] But the spray cheese gave us really gamey flavor.
However, the one thing I'm still thinking about from Ashley's dish is the celtuce.
We got these beautiful, crisp pieces of celtuce that no one else had.
That's true.
[Ted] This sounds really close.
It definitely is. But we know who the winner should be.
All right, let's bring them in.
[Ashley] I feel like I definitely crushed this round.
I want to win because I want to prove to myself
you don't have to be this angry chef to be like a star or talented.
So, and just being me throughout this whole journey.
[Juwan] I'm so close to winning this.
I really need the money because I really want to put it into my business
and help that grow and grow the impact
that we're trying to do in St. Louis.
So whose dish is on the chopping block?
Chef Juwan, you've been chopped. Judges.
-Chef Juwan, you put a great effort in today. -[Juwan] Thank you.
[Marc] Unfortunately, in the appetizer round we felt that,
you know, the cabbage wasn't very well represented.
Your wonton wrapper from your jalapeno popper egg roll
was a little too tough.
The main course, I thought you did a really great job.
Unfortunately, you overcooked the venison chop and so we had to chop you.
Thank you, Chef.
-Me too. -[Juwan] Thank you so much, guys.
I definitely agree with the judges' decision.
I think Ashley was super deserving of the win.
I learned a lot being here today.
And I know I'm on the right track.
And that means, Chef Ashley Lujares, you are the Chopped champion.
As the last chefs standing, you've scored $10,000.
Not a bad day at the office. Congratulations.
-Yeah, Ashley! -Well done.
-[Tiffani] Whoo! -Thank you so much, guys.
Yay!
I just came here, and I said,
"I just got to be true to myself."
And every time I listen to my heart, good things happen.
So, I can't wait to tell my family.
It's like the first thing I'm gonna do.
Winning tastes so sweet.