[Ted] Open it up, carefully.
Whoa!
I've never seen a basket full of things that can kill you.
[woman] I am terrified. I'm scared.
Every ingredient can kill you, including the vegetable.
Death is not an option.
[man 1] I'm just dripping sweat.
[man 2] Come on, seal up!
[woman] I can't stop workin'.
Oh!
Nervous?
Maybe a little.
[woman] Exotic ingredients excite me.
Ostrich, emu, moose, kangaroo, crocodile.
There's nothing scary about a couple legs.
I am a wild foraging traveling chef
based out of Long Beach, California.
I grew up foraging in Sweden, lived off the land.
And that's always just stayed with me my entire life.
I didn't choose the chef life, the chef life chose me.
[man] Dangerous food is kind of scary for people,
but I like to make it comfortable.
I'm the executive chef at King Neptune in North Carolina.
I cook a lot of traditional Cuban recipes
with a Southern twist.
Working with wild game,
I know the steps that you have to take for preparation
to make sure it's something delicious.
Here we go.
I'm a huge competitor,
so I'm hoping everyone's at their A game.
Bam.
I wanna win by beating the best.
[woman] I love cooking with rabbit.
I'm open to whatever is being thrown at me.
I kind of hope it's crocodile legs.
I am the private chef and owner
of Game Girl Gourmet in Galveston, Texas.
My clients really like this dish.
I specialize in providing
wild game based cuisine for private ranches.
These other chefs should watch out for me
because not only do I cook wild game,
I also hunt and catch it.
So delicious.
I'm the Swiss Army knife of chefs.
[man] I'm a risk-taker in the kitchen,
but that's also my way of life.
I'm the executive chef and owner of Kitchen Pirates in Newburgh, New York.
Now we're getting some color.
I really enjoy French technique
with a little Japanese influence.
I've been training with unique exotic meats for 10 years plus.
Everything from rattlesnake, alligator, kangaroo,
bison, elk, you name it, I've cooked it.
These other chefs need to watch out.
I definitely throw my blood, sweat and tears
into anything I do, 150%.
Hello, chefs.
-Hola, Ted. -Hi, Ted.
You are here for a special deadly baskets battle.
What do we mean by that?
We'll see. Nervous?
-Not at all, Ted. -Um, no, maybe a little.
There are three rounds.
Mandatory mystery ingredients for each course.
If your dish doesn't cut it, you will be chopped.
-Not today. -Not today, not today.
The first deadly basket is before you.
Open it up!
-[man laughs] -What in the world?
-Rattlesnake. -[Ted] Rattlesnake.
Yeah, this is my jam, rattlesnake.
Rattlesnake texture is the closest to like a frog,
but people say it tastes like chicken.
What is this, some duck head?
[Ted] Duck head soup.
Love me some duck.
-Oh, gosh. -[Ted] Mangoes.
Fun and tropical.
-Bagels. -[Ted] And bagels.
Twenty minutes.
Clock starts now.
-[man] All right! -[woman] Whoo, go chefs!
Go, go, go!
Maneet, Geoffrey, you are joined on the panel
by a great friend of Chopped and all-star chef, Jet Tila.
-How you doing, brother? -Dude, it is awesome to be here.
Judges, is there a fate worse
than deadly baskets in the Chopped kitchen?
Is this the hardest theme imaginable?
Oh, for sure. I've never seen a basket full of things that can kill you.
And then, one of my biggest fears in life is snakes.
[rattling]
[Geoffrey] There's no fat in a rattlesnake.
You treat it like alligator, octopus.
You either cook it fast or cook it slow.
So for me, I'd fry this. Almost like calamari.
[Nick] The best way to cook rattlesnake would be probably to fry it
'cause it can be very tough and chewy.
My grandma, growing up,
always made cod fritters for me.
It's something that I absolutely think is delicious.
Nick, do you have a plan?
I am going to be cooking and embodying my grandmother.
I'm gonna be making a Cuban-style fritter with a mango slaw.
Have you made it before?
It's something my grandma makes.
And so I really wanna represent her,
and try to do my best to honor her here.
I've made her recipe a million times at work,
and I know what I'm doing.
[Mike] Behind, behind.
I have not worked with rattlesnake a lot, I can tell you that.
The most dangerous part of this basket is definitely the rattlesnake.
It's got no flavor, so it needs the help of the duck,
which has a big, bold flavor, to even exist.
-Charlie, do you have a plan? -[Charlie] Yes.
I'm trying to make, uh, kind of like a plum sauce,
uh, Japanese style spring roll.
For my sauce, I don't have plums,
so I'm using my mango and broth from the duck head soup.
It's doing that, that's doing that,
that's gonna get filtered, I need to season that.
Bagels do not seem dangerous to me.
But I'm like, "Okay, some kind of crumble."
Bagels, like avocados, cause some of the most common kitchen injuries.
Something like 2,000 Americans a year
are sent to the emergency room with bagel-related trauma.
Wow.
[Holly] I like rattlesnake. It's good. It's similar to alligator.
I love cooking alligator.
I'm gonna treat it similarly
with salt, pepper, and a little bit of five-spice.
I am making a bagel crostini
with rattlesnake-mango pico de gallo.
I started hunting pretty early on,
so it's always been a really important part of my life.
Taking your animal through the whole process
from death, through butchery, to the plate,
there's something really special about that for me.
[Mike] The rattlesnake is the star of the show.
And I truly enjoy dumplings,
so my thought process is,
"Why not try something different
but most people are very comfortable with?"
I'm going to make Japanese-inspired rattlesnake dumplings.
I'm taking my rattlesnake and my duck head stew to make a broth.
You know, caramelize it just a tad.
Soy sauce, mirin, rice vin, chicken stock,
and make this beautiful,
dangerous-tasting broth.
Chefs, 15 minutes left.
The duck head soup...
I think that it's this symbolism of, like, the guillotine.
That duck is muerto.
[Geoffrey] It's from Shanghai, and it's actually very good.
It's just basically the duck head stewed with some
Chinese five-spice, some garlic, lemongrass.
And it has a lot of umami.
Just drain it, make a sauce out of it.
[Nick] Duck head soup is something I've never had before.
So, all I see are these two duck heads staring back at me.
But my fritters are definitely gonna need something to be dipped in.
So, I'm thinking a duck head aioli.
That umami flavor is just on point.
Next, I add the rattlesnake to a bowl with buttermilk,
flour, cayenne pepper, cumin.
I add my egg. Toasted bagel crumbs.
It's gonna be the little bit of texture
that I'm looking for in this fritter.
I got some onions, I got some wontons, I got some frisee.
I cook a lot outdoors, like farm pop-ups
that have no electricity.
And I specialize in butchering, and meats,
and wild foraging, and seafood, and fish.
I'm suited for this type of, like, dangerous Chopped battle,
because that's the life I live.
Five minutes on the clock, chefs.
Heard.
[Holly] I take the rattlesnake out of the oven,
and I cut the meat off the bone,
and then I give it a quick pan fry.
[sizzling]
[Holly] As I'm making the pico de gallo...
-[Charlie] Can I get some of that cilantro? -Yes.
...I set my tasting spoon back down in the bowl.
I can't contaminate the food for the judges.
If I don't make another pico de gallo, I'm going to be chopped.
Okay. Come on, come on, come on, let's go!
[sighs]
[Mike] We're behind, guys.
Come on, chefs, you got this!
[Holly] I'm running out of time, and I need to
make another pico de gallo.
So, I'm hastily rechopping things,
-and that throws me off a little bit. -[Mike] Behind, behind.
[Holly] But I'm just like, "It doesn't matter. I have to keep going."
Behind, behind, behind.
[Mike] I grab mirin, soy sauce and ginger.
I've filled a lot of dumplings in my career,
but for some reason in the Chopped kitchen, it's very hard.
Looking at a clock and trying to fill my dumplings,
like, I don't have enough time.
Come on, seal up!
[Nick] Going to the fryer.
Oh, my God. Everyone's behind here.
It's five minutes and I see Nick just beginning frying.
This is where it really gets nitty-gritty.
[Charlie] The time is going by so fast.
I am terrified, I'm scared,
but I can't stop workin'.
I finally get my spring rolls rolled less than five minutes to go.
I gotta get them in the oil.
It's a dangerous basket. How does mango come across as being dangerous?
The skin of a mango has a compound
which is the same as poison ivy.
-I love mango. Oh... -Yeah, you can pickle it.
You can make sauces out of it. A slaw. Mango slaw.
[Nick] I got four minutes. Let's do this, baby.
I am stoked to have a mango.
I wanna do a slaw. And I think it's gonna be
a great pairing with the fritter.
So, I add onion and some cilantro,
mirin, fresh citrus.
[sighs]
Two minutes on the clock, chefs.
[Holly] Having to remake my pico set me back.
But my plan for the duck head soup is to make a sauce.
I'm gonna take the broth, add some soy sauce,
then a little bit of sugar.
Chefs, one minute left.
[Charlie] One minute, heard.
I am happy with that. I'm happy with that.
Thirty seconds.
Oh, Charlie Ray.
-What is going on? -[Maneet] You got this!
-Come on, come on, come on! -[Jet] Are you going to make it?
Chefs, your first plates must be ready to serve in 10, nine,
-eight, seven... -[Maneet] Come on!
...six, five, four, three, two, one.
-All right, wow. Wow! -[Ted] Time's up! Step away.
[Mike] It was a little content.
I like my flavors. I like where I went.
We pray that they like it.
[Holly] I accidentally double-dipped my tasting spoon
into my first batch of pico.
So then it kind of had me scrambling.
But the flavors are gonna be there.
[exhales heavily] Ooh.
Chefs, you have arrived at the chopping block.
You faced that first dangerous basket head on
and made appetizers from rattlesnake,
duck head soup, mangoes, and bagels.
Chef Nick, what did you make?
I come from a Cuban background,
and my grandma makes cod fritters all the time for me.
It's probably one of my favorite thing she makes.
So, I prepared for you today
a rattlesnake fritter over a mango-napa slaw
and a duck head soup aioli.
Nick, Grandma would be proud of you.
I can't believe that I'm eating rattlesnake
and I'm actually enjoying it.
The mangos over here, beautiful, beautiful give.
But one of the most important things about a slaw
is the knife cuts.
There needed to be a consistency in the way you were cutting it.
You got a lot of flavor into this fritter.
I personally needed more of that aioli
'cause the problem with this fritter,
it's dry, bro.
If you just put a pot full of aioli here,
that would have really allowed me to
navigate and get the duck.
-Yes, chef. -But a very nice, very nice fritter indeed.
-Thank you. -Chef Nick, thank you.
Next up, Chef Holly.
So, I have made for you today
a bagel crostini with rattlesnake-mango pico de gallo.
[Ted] Why are you competing here, chef?
[Holly] So, I'm a private wild game chef.
Growing up hunting with my dad,
um, he really instilled in me the importance of using
every part of an animal.
So I practice whole animal butchery.
What's the largest animal you've dressed?
I butchered an entire bison in my downtown Galveston apartment.
-[both] In your apartment? -[laughs]
-How did you get it into your... -[Geoffrey] Don't ask that.
-Oh, no, I don't wanna know, do I? -She has a guy.
Holly, doing a bruschetta is, it's a great idea.
You want that crunch, followed by a little bit of that freshness.
But some of the bagel has become completely soggy.
[Jet] I needed more rattlesnake in here.
It's a little light.
But you know what this eats like?
It's like I took a piece of delicious crusty bread
and ran it in nice, warm soup.
-Scarpetta. -There it is. Yeah, exactly.
[Geoffrey] It's fresh just with the cilantro and the mango.
I think it's great. But knife skills?
Just gotta be really careful because of the size of the onion.
-Thank you. -[Ted] Chef Holly, thank you.
Next up, Chef Charlie.
Today we have a duck head and rattlesnake spring roll
with a mango and duck reduction.
Cilantro-frisee slaw,
and a bagel crumble.
[Jet] I have to say the spring roll is constructed well.
It's a really tight roll. It's really symmetrical.
-[laughs] Coming from you, I really appreciate that. -[Jet] There you go, yeah.
-I'm really afraid of snakes. -[laughs]
[Maneet] And it actually is really delicious.
The way you took the mango, you made the sauce,
is really, really inviting.
But you've put so much sauce that it is, it's overwhelming.
But I love the mango.
I'm tasting snake.
It is a very, very good management of the four ingredients.
But I don't think it's fried enough.
I think you got it when the oil wasn't hot enough.
And it sort of got greasy, soggy.
I appreciate it. Thank you.
[Ted] Finally, Chef Mike.
Today I have a Japanese-inspired
rattlesnake dumpling and a fresee-mango slaw.
[Ted] Are you familiar with rattlesnake?
I grew up in Cave Creek, Arizona, which is cowboy town.
And all you'd hear is... [imitates a rattlesnake]
So, we set traps around the back of restaurant.
We caught five or six in a day.
We've done everything from filling it in a dumpling,
frying it like a piece of chicken.
You know, you name it, I'm doing it.
This dumpling is everything to me.
It's got a good mouth feel.
It's not over-ground, it's not under-ground.
Overall, the dumpling is successful.
And I can tell you have very, very good knife skills.
-Thank you. -[Jet] The issue for me is
there's so much acid in here, brother,
that it eats like a vinaigrette.
[Maneet] In a 20-minute round, I always am very impressed
if somebody can pull off a dumpling.
So mad respect for you for doing that.
The filling is delicious.
Just lovely, lovely skills over here.
Thank you.
I really love the softness inside of the dumpling.
And it's a first course all the way.
Thank you, chef.
Chef Mike, thank you.
[Mike] I'm feeling really good, really confident.
I don't feel I'm getting chopped.
I think my knife skills were on point.
I think Holly would maybe be on the chopping block
only because of knife skills.
[Holly] They had a lot to say about my knife skills.
But I'm feeling really good because I felt like
the feedback they gave me was really constructive.
And it really could be anybody.
So, whose dish is on the chopping block?
-Chef Holly, you've been chopped. Judges? -Oh.
Holly, we thought that the idea of bruschetta was a great one.
But the haphazard cutting of the mango and the onion
took away from the beautiful flavors that you had created.
We also thought that the rattlesnake
needed more flavor, and so we had to chop you.
Thank you guys so much.
It was such a great learning experience.
-Thank you. You taught us a lot. -Thank you.
[Holly crying] I feel a little disappointed.
I think what got in my way today was the time crunch.
[crying] But I'm honestly just so grateful to,
like, have had the experience.
Chef Charlie, Chef Nick, Chef Mike,
you have made it to the entree round.
Don't forget that there are more deadly ingredients inside these.
Open 'em up!
-[Mike chuckles excitedly] Oh, yeah. Nice. -Yeah!
[Ted] All right, you are looking at a whole skinned alligator.
Still got its paws. Like, what?
[Ted] Star fruit.
[mumbles indistinctly]
[Ted] Cassava.
Okay, a little candy action.
[Ted] And shark teeth candy.
[Mike] I'm feeling good. Gator's looking good.
I'm very excited about that.
Thirty minutes to make main dishes.
Clock starts now.
-All right! -Yay, let's go, chefs!
Judges, whole skinned alligator.
We have never seen this before.
That thing is scary.
What would you do?
It's super dry. I would actually buttermilk it in a brine.
Oh, it is bone dry.
I might poach it in butter, but really, I would not do that.
[Mike] A whole skinned alligator, I'm just so happy to see it
'cause it's comfortable for me.
My dish is pan-seared alligator,
cassava puree, and a beautiful little vegetable medley.
I lost my parents when I was 12 years old.
My brother, who's a chef, took over raising me.
I started in the kitchen very young. I fit perfectly.
It kind of gave me a sense of home.
-You cannot have cassava raw. -[Geoffrey] Yeah.
It's so interesting that the leaves of the cassava
and the roots, they contain cyanide.
You need to cook it.
And when you cook it, you kind of remove the cyanide.
-[Jet] Yeah. -[Maneet] You can deep fry it.
You can make a mash out of it.
There is a lot that can be done.
Every ingredient can kill you, including a vegetable.
-But as you know, death is not an option. -[Jet laughs]
What y'all thinking, guys?
-Y'all doing all right? -A little nervous, a little scared.
Cassava is a very Cuban thing.
You can go anywhere in Little Havana
and find deep-fried yucca fries.
And it's something my grandma does.
So, I'm making a cumin-dusted alligator steak
with cassava fries and an arugula-apple salad.
I season my alligator with a dry rub of cumin, coriander.
And I think it's gonna do lovely on that grill.
Down the line.
[Charlie] I have not worked with alligator,
but I'm gonna approach the gator
in a very similar way that I would crocodile.
When I was living in Australia,
I worked with these Aboriginal chefs.
And the way I learned crocodile,
is to take the fillets off and fry them.
I'm making a fried gator with this cassava puree.
So once I break down my alligator,
I do a dry brine with some garlic chili oil.
Let's try that.
And then I taste the shark teeth candy.
They are just like this sweet little candy.
I add agave and chili flakes,
and then I toss in some shark teeth.
-Chefs, you have 19 minutes to get it done. -Heard.
[man] Ooh.
[Jet] The shark teeth candy is a gift here, right?
Because you can powderize it, use it as sugar.
[Mike] If I had to pick between shark teeth candy
and real shark, I'd pick real shark.
We're gonna make a little marinade for the gator.
I'm using sriracha, garlic powder,
Dijon mustard, and my shark teeth candy.
Once the cassava is cooked down,
I pop it into the blender.
All right, let's puree this.
Add a little miso paste and,
psh, psh, puree it up.
The gator that I've created has a lot of spiciness.
So I'm using the star fruit to make a beautiful little vegetable medley
with mushroom. I grab some garlic.
[Mike] And then bonnet pepper for that smokiness.
[Charlie] Oh!
[Nick] I see the star fruit
and my brain instantly goes to some sort of vinaigrette.
So, I have in the pot star fruit,
raisins, mustard, the apple cider vinegar,
and as the sweetness factor, shark teeth candy.
[Jet] Chefs, less than 10 minutes.
[sighs] Right behind you, chef.
[Geoffrey] What's really interesting is star fruit,
which is a beautiful fruit
in Malaysia and southeast China.
But it too, is toxic to anyone who has kidney problems.
-Yes. -Whoa.
[Charlie] The flavors of star fruit are almost like more bitter lemon.
I'm gonna use my star fruit to make vinaigrette
for cilantro, mint and lime slaw.
[Mike] Once my alligator has a really nice sear on it,
I'm dropping in the oven just to finish it.
After puréeing the cassava,
I've noticed that it's not the consistency that I want.
So, I'm gonna try and get two textures out of these.
So, I decide to also make a fried cassava crumble.
[Nick] How much longer you got in the fryer?
-I'll go check on it. -[Nick] Thanks.
[Nick] These fries have to get fried, or else my dish is ruined.
I need a crunchy element, and I'm starting to sweat.
-There's some fry drama, team. -Fry drama.
[Charlie] I'm ready to get out of the fryer.
-You're out? All right. -[Charlie] Yeah.
Came to finish in the oven.
Five minutes on the clock, chefs, here we go.
Right behind you, chef.
I was a bit dangerous as a child.
I got expelled from high school.
And my mom was furious.
So, she made me get a job.
It was my first taste of a kitchen,
and then from then on, it was a full on addiction.
[Charlie] Once my cassava is done boiling,
I get it into the blender.
And as I start blending,
I see that it's getting gluey fast.
That breaks down these intense starches.
So, I go and I grab the sesame oil
to kind of play off those Asian flavors that I have.
[Nick] Right behind you.
Two minutes on the clock, chefs.
[Mike] Behind, behind, behind.
-Mike is doing a lot of running. -[Jet] Yeah.
One more time, chef, behind you.
I'm gonna use my star fruit to make a sweet chili sauce.
I think it's gonna complement the gator very well.
Winning for me would just
[blows raspberry] put the icing on the cake.
My brother did a cooking competition, um, did not win.
So, for me,
I'm here to try and win to just rub it in his face.
[Ted] Thirty seconds.
Come on, if it's not on the plate, we can't taste it.
All ingredients, chefs, everything in the basket on the plate, everything.
Come on, come on, come on, chefs, let's go.
Ten, nine, eight...
-[Maneet] All four ingredients. -[Ted] ...seven, six,
five, four, three, two, one.
-Time's up! -[Maneet] Whoo!
-[Jet] Yeah. -You guys did it.
[Nick] Whoo!
-Good job, bud. -[Mike chuckles]
... job.
I feel good.
I'm feeling very confident about my gator and the marinade that's on it.
Hopefully, this is a winner.
[Nick] I look over at Mike's dish
and his gator looks beautiful.
I'm just hoping that cassava is gummy.
I saw him put it in a blender,
and I know what happens when you do that.
Chefs, we gave you another tough basket.
Whole skinned alligator,
cassava, starfruit and shark teeth candy.
Chef Mike, please tell us about your dish.
Decided to make a pan-seared alligator.
I took the cassava, did it two-ways.
I fried it up, but I also like it puréed.
[Ted] What would you do with $10,000?
I'd like to open a small boutique restaurant,
French technique with Japanese influence.
Mike, you have a great handle on flavors.
What you've created on this plate is amazing.
The star fruit, love the sauce.
That sweetness along with the spiciness works beautifully.
Thank you.
Mike, there's a lot of great cooking here.
It's really complex flavors.
Parts of the alligator are really exceptional,
like the small tail.
Eats sort of like smoked eel.
Other parts are as tough as a wood.
[Jet] It's a tough piece of meat,
and then when you put it on the grill,
it dries it out further.
I'm chewing rubber bands,
and the cassava is kind of lost on me here.
Frying was good, uh, the purée, that's gummy.
[Ted] Okay.
Next up, chef Nick.
Today I've prepared for you a grilled gator
and yucca fries is what my grandma would call 'em.
And then you have an arugula and apple salad
that's tossed in a star fruit and shark tooth vinaigrette.
What's in the salad that's burning my mouth?
Um, there's a little bit of chili in there.
The salad, it's supposed to be a vinegar relief
from this dense carb
and this grilled, spicy bite of protein.
Just be careful with your ingredient.
-But the flavor's there. -Thank you.
Grandma would be really, really happy
with these yucca cassava fries.
And the flavors are amazing.
But with salad, there is a missed opportunity.
Instead of going and grating apples in it,
you could have celebrated the star fruit
and the beautiful juiciness that it has.
The cassava fries are the best thing on this plate.
The crispy on the outside, the pillowiness on the inside.
I mean, fantastic.
But the alligator to me is actually very polarizing.
On one perfect little nugget, it was tender and delicious.
But there was only, like, an ounce of it
because the exterior was super tough.
Yes, chef.
What is your motivation for being here, chef?
My family migrated to this country from Cuba with nothing,
and I wanna show them that
they made the right decision coming here
and I wanna make them proud.
[Ted] Chef Nick, thank you.
Finally, chef Charlie.
Here we have fried alligator fillets
with chili agave shark tooth candy drizzle
and a cassava sesame oil purée with a star fruit slaw.
So, the alligator definitely eats dry.
But I think you treated it well.
And I love the cassava, by the way.
And I know I'm gonna get dinged for it,
but you know, I spent a lot of time in Hawaii,
and I love poi.
It had that perfect poi consistency.
I was worried about that.
I was like, hopefully they get it.
[Geoffrey] You get it.
I didn't get it. It looks like glue to me.
[Maneet] Agreed.
And with the alligator,
you really need to cut the alligator into smaller pieces
and then deep fry it in and out.
I think that would've been even more successful,
But I think overall flavors are absolutely incredible.
Thank you.
How did you get into the culinary world, chef?
I was originally born in Sweden.
And I'm a half Black American, half Swedish.
We'd spent summers fishing for salmon,
living off of what we fished and what we forged.
So, I grew up with a really close tie to nature,
and I really like to bring those flavors forward.
Now the judges need to determine
the two chef lineup for dessert.
Thank you, chefs.
[Mike] That round was a little bit tough,
but myself and two other chefs kind of had the same flaws.
I think it's gonna be hard on the judges,
but I think I'll come out on top.
[Nick] I think I crushed it
minus the cook on the gator.
You know, everyone though, kind of fell short on that.
But you know, who knows, its Chopped.
It could be me. [chuckles nervously]
So, whose dish is on the chopping block?
Chef Mike.
-You've been chopped. Judges? -Okay.
[Jet] Chef Mike.
Unfortunately, the cassava purée was really gummy.
And although everybody struggled with the alligator,
yours was particularly dry.
And for those reasons, we had to chop you.
-Thanks, guys. -[Maneet] We appreciate you.
-Thank you so much, guys. -Good job, brother.
Good luck, be well.
-Thank you for being here, sir. -[Mike] Thank you, guys.
It's definitely humbled me in this Chopped kitchen.
All three judges are big idols of mine.
So, everything that they have said,
I'm gonna definitely take into accountability
and really up my craft.
Chef Nick, chef Charlie, dessert baskets.
Open it up carefully.
Whoa.
[Ted] Look out. It's scorpion lollipops.
It might be a little stinging.
[Ted] You also have black plums.
Plum.
I'm about it.
-Hot dog. -[Ted] Hot dogs.
I, uh, didn't know hot dogs were deadly.
Um, lemon drop?
[Ted] And a death in the afternoon cocktail.
[Charlie] All right, all right. I'm excited.
I have ideas.
Once again, 30 minutes to work.
Clock starts now.
[Maneet] Yay, go, guys!
-Let's go, come on, last round. -Go, go, go.
[Jet] Dessert round, guys, you can do this.
[Ted] Judges, I'm being deadly serious here.
The poison in a scorpion stinger is not harmful
once the animal has perished.
Nothing to worry about.
So, you're saying wholly edible.
You don't have to use the--
You can chip away the outside.
[Nick] That works.
[Maneet] I think the tougher ingredient
is the death in the afternoon cocktail.
It is absinthe with champagne.
Now, absinthe's a dangerous ingredient
because too much leads to a lot of hallucinations.
But to me, I think the bigger problem
is the very predominant anise flavor.
So, they have to really complement those flavors.
[Nick] I taste my cocktail
and I'm hit in the face with absinthe.
My first thought is I can make an ice cream.
Black plums, uh, something I don't eat too often,
but I know stone fruits make delicious cobblers.
Growing up in North Carolina,
pretty much after any barbecue,
you always finish with a cobbler.
I'm making a stewed plum cobbler
with death in the afternoon ice cream.
For my ice cream,
I know I need to cook off this absinthe flavor.
Add in heavy cream and eggs.
[Charlie] I don't have a lot of experience
when it comes to, like, pastries and dessert.
The dessert round can be the deadliest round for me.
So, I'm, I'm nervous.
But I make a really good meringue.
So, I'm making a scorpion lollipop meringue
with a plum pistachio crumble.
Hot dogs are dangerously terrifying,
because they're in a dessert basket.
But I'm thinking, like, let's use this salty hot dogs as the caramel.
I get the sugar on the stove,
throw in some of that cocktail,
grab some butter and some heavy cream.
And then I add the hot dog.
Twenty minutes left on the clock, chefs.
-[Charlie] Twenty minutes, heard. -[Nick] Yes, chef.
Hot dogs are one of the biggest choking hazards in the country.
-[Geoffrey] Mmm-hmm. -[Ted] For children, specifically.
I always get freaked out when I see, like,
a, uh, a hot dog in dessert.
It's an automatic roadblock for me.
[Nick] Charlie, what's up with these ingredients?
You think they're, uh, deadly enough?
Uh, they will be. To you.
-Ooh, baby, here we go. -[Charlie laughs]
[Nick] These plums, they're sour.
And nobody wants a bitter plum.
So, I have to get them stewed
because I'm not gonna have time to bake a cobbler.
I combine more of my scorpion candy,
orange juice, star anise and brown sugar.
[Maneet] Okay, 11 minutes, let's go.
[Charlie] I'm gonna use my scorpion lollipop to make a meringue,
because I can see clearly that it is pure sugar.
I put the scorpion lollipops, my egg whites and my sugar on a double boiler.
I'm constantly whisking while also tempting it
to make sure it comes up to the right temperature.
[Nick] I'm making a hot dog and brown butter crumble.
Once the butter is browned, I dice up my hot dogs
and kind of toss them in
to add a little bit of saltiness to it and smokiness.
-[Ted] Five minutes to get it done, chefs. -[Nick] Whoa!
-[Jet] Whoo! Come on, chefs. -[Maneet] Come on.
[Maneet] The ice cream looks good.
[Nick] I'm taking out my ice cream and it is beautiful.
It's silky, it's smooth.
It's gonna be velvety.
Why is it coming out slowly?
Something's wrong.
But there is barely any coming out.
I have two basket ingredients in this ice cream.
If I don't get it on a plate, I'm getting chopped.
[Maneet] I don't think that Nick has enough ice cream
and it has two basket ingredients.
Death in the afternoon cocktail
and the scorpio lollipop.
[Nick] I see that I have a little bit left
in that lid where you pour it in,
it kinda froze in there,
so I try to push it in there,
let it turn for a little bit longer,
and I get, like, maybe one more scoop out of it.
[Jet] Two minutes.
All right, I'm ready, baby.
Even like the harmless plums, right?
How can this be, uh, deadly?
The seeds have a chemical, which is like cyanide.
-[Jet and Geoffrey] Mmm. -And that can lead to death.
[Charlie] My dish so far lacks a little bit of texture.
So, I am making a pistachio and black plum crumble
with toast Japanese breadcrumbs.
Add crushed pistachios,
and then I add reduced down cocktail and the chopped plums.
One minute to go, chefs.
[Jet] Come on, chefs, you got this.
Let's go, let's go, let's go!
[Nick] I know how to build a cobbler.
So, I start with my stewed plums.
After that, I put my hot dog crumble,
and then I wanna wait till the very last second
to put my ice cream on top,
because I don't want it to melt.
[Charlie] All right.
I'm finishing my meringue by giving it a torch.
You've gotta give her props for that.
I love that.
[Charlie] It's toasted, it's got marshmallow ...,
it's got smokiness in there,
which will probably complement the hot dog caramel.
-[Jet] Just seconds, it's coming down to seconds. -He is waiting.
[Ted] Thirsty seconds, chefs.
[Geoffrey] Yeah, come on, Nick, don't mess around.
[Nick] I'm sweating here,
but there's just enough ice cream to make every plate.
$10,000 on the line.
[Ted] Final seconds of the final round, chefs.
-Ten, nine... -[Jet] Come on, chefs.
-[Ted] ...eight, seven, six... -[Jet] You got this.
-[Geoffrey] Oh, come on, come on, come on. -[Ted] ...five, four...
-Come on, chefs, you got this. -[Ted] ...three, two, one.
-Time's up! -[Jet] All right.
I'm just dripping sweat, but I'm feeling great.
Pretty confident.
[Charlie] It is deadly delicious.
It's deadly sweet, but that acidity cuts through.
And I think it's got good texture,
and I can guarantee you nobody's ever had this before.
[Ted] Chef Charlie and chef Nick,
you opened the third deadly basket
to find a death in the afternoon cocktail,
black plums, hot dogs, and scorpion lollipops.
Chef Nick, please tell us about your dessert.
Today, I've prepared for you a stewed plum cobbler,
with a hot dog brown butter crumble,
and then on top you have a death in the afternoon ice cream.
[Geoffrey] I love cobbler.
The ice cream is exceptional.
Very, very, very beautiful mouthfeel.
[Maneet] I agree.
That ice cream is luscious
and I do get that faint note of absinthe in it.
Overall, kudos that you pulled it off.
Thank you, chef.
The plums are very sour.
Because I think you, you accentuated the sour by orange juice,
but you didn't ground them with sugar.
[Geoffrey] Yeah.
The plums, I was expecting more buttery, caramelized deep stew.
But as a diner, I am loving this dessert.
[Ted] Thank you, chef Nick.
Moving on to you, chef Charlie,
please tell us about your dessert.
Here we have a raw-sliced black plum
with a hot dog, salted caramel on top,
with a scorpion lollipop meringue.
Charlie, the first thing is that this is a beautiful presentation.
Thank you.
[Maneet] Scorpio lollipops and made a beautiful meringue,
what a great idea.
To me, what I'm struggling with more
is that they are different components,
as opposed to a focal point of a desert.
If you were gonna go the raw tart thing,
then I would've flipped it on edge
and done, like, maybe a carpaccio of plums,
and then maybe top it with the meringue.
But I wanted more work out of, like, cohesive dessert.
[Jet] I do get smokiness,
a hot dog taste, and I get, like, this umami back from it.
Um, there's a lot of discipline here
that just shows good cookery.
-Both of you, great job. -Mmm-hmm.
Thank you, chefs.
This was fantastic day,
and we gave 'em some really deadly ingredients.
These were some of the toughest baskets
that I have ever seen in the Chopped kitchen,
and that's saying a lot.
In the first round,
Charlie, on one hand,
made these spring rolls for us with rattlesnake in it.
She started off so strong.
-Really did. -So strong.
[Geoffrey] Other than the fact that Charlie misstepped
by not frying the spring roll in a little hotter fat,
it got soggy.
I think that Nick, you know,
he really went at it, this beautiful Cuban fritter.
And he used the bagel inside,
which is really smart with a snake.
[Jet] I liked Nick's fritter,
but I personally needed more of that aioli.
[Geoffrey] For the main course,
Nick was a butcher expert at how to take down alligator.
-He did a really nice rub... -[Jet] Yeah.
...and probably one or two of the best thing I had all day
was the cassava fries.
[Maneet] You knew he was cooking from his heart,
and that was delicious.
But again, he cooked the star fruit.
There wasn't any slices in the salad,
which could have been such a great place for star fruit.
On the other hand, we had Charlie,
who decided to take an entire alligator ...
and deep fry it with cassava, which was too gummy.
But the crust was amazing.
It was just-- It was like a buffalo chicken wing.
Have you settled on a winner?
Yep. We're in agreement.
[Ted] All right, let's go.
[Nick] I think I got this in the bag.
I feel really good.
All the way from my appetizers to my dessert,
I came back each round strong
and showed them who I was on the plate.
[Charlie] Starting out with rattlesnake,
going into alligator and ending with scorpions,
it's been a wild day.
I feel pretty confident, but it's anyone's game.
So, whose dish is on the chopping block?
Chef Charlie, you've been chopped. Judges?
Chef Charlie, in the first course,
we thought that the spring roll got soggy.
The second course felt that
even though the cassava was really delicious,
it was just off putting to us a bit.
And for those reasons, we had to chop you.
-Thank you. -[Geoffrey] We had a great time.
-[Charlie] Congratulations. -[Nick] Good job.
-[Ted] Thank you. -[Geoffrey] Good luck, Chef.
[Charlie] It sucks losing,
but I love being part of this competition.
Just showing young female chefs like that,
that they can do so much
being part of wild foods, big game and traveling.
And that means, chef Nick Chavez,
you are the Chopped champion.
We gave you deadly baskets, you gave us killer dishes.
The prize is $10,000. Congratulations, sir.
-[Geoffrey] Whoo! -[Jet] Yeah!
-[Geoffrey] Good job. -[Maneet] Good job.
-[Jet] Really good job. -Really, thank you.
You did a great job, man.
-[Nick] Thank you, chefs. -[Jet] You did it.
This win means a lot to me. I feel great.
-Thank you so much. -Very well done, congrats.
[Nick] I just channeled my Cuban roots,
and I think I crushed it.
Being a Chopped champion
is like nothing I've ever felt before.