Hit the gas, Chefs.
[Charles] There is nothing that could take me down.
My food is like a punch in the mouth.
[Jhonny] All right.
I have endurance, stamina.
I can do this for hours.
[Mykie] Insanity of a kitche
is like where I'm thriving the most.
-You're feeling confident. -Yeah, I'm feeling confident.
I absolutely think the other chefs should be worried.
[intense music playing]
He looks very panicked,
not an emotion you wanna feel in a situation like this.
Not the time for panic guys, focus.
You made a pretty big mistake. It's something that I know
you don't even wanna eat. [laughs]
[Jhonny] I wanna win this competition so bad.
-[Ted] Five. -I can just taste it.
-[Ted] Four. -How are you feeling?
-[Ted] Three. -Super solid, man.
-Solid? -[Ted] Two, one.
Oh, boy.
There is nothing that could take me down.
I am absolutely coming here
to destroy everybody else.
I'm 27 years old.
And in the last five years,
I've worked my way through Paris, Norway,
Southeast Asia, Cambodia, Singapore, China.
So there is no ingredient
that I'm not going to know how to handle.
I bring a caliber of cooking
It's simple, it's refined, it's elegant.
And I bring a heavyweight title
to this fight.
[upbeat music playing]
Everybody describes me as loud
and slightly abrasive.
When cooks are complaining to me,
I can go "Aw."
People look at me and they see the tattoos,
and they see the pierced nose,
and my food kind of represents me in that same way,
which is like a punch in the mouth.
My biggest competition is myself.
I have a tattoo right here on my hand that says,
"Every single day." That's just a little reminder,
every day do better than yesterday.
I'm definitely not a bragge or a boaster,
but I got this.
This is totally in the bag.
[laughs]
[upbeat music playing]
I'm ready. Let's have some fun.
[singer] ♪ Oh-la-la yeah, yeah♪
All right.
I'm Puerto Rican and Cuban.
I grew up eating a lot of those
home-cooked soulful meals, and it's just everything
that's in my head all the time.
Food your abuela would make,
just kicked up a notch.
When it's time to grind, I will show up.
Every day, it's just like I'm happy, I'm excited,
I'm juiced, and I'm like, "What's happening?"
I have two small kids and we play all day
and then I work all night.
So I have endurance, stamina
energy. I can do this for hours.
[laughs]
So keep your head on a swive because I'm coming for you.
[singer] ♪ Oh-la-la♪
[upbeat music playing]
Oh, my God, when I, like, try food and it's good,
I'm like, "Hmm," you know, right?
[singer] ♪ Are you ready?♪
♪ One, two, three, go!♪
I'm an executive chef in Washington, DC.
Working out in the kitchen.
Food I like to cook is fun and whimsical.
I'm a colorful person
so my food is gonna be colorful.
I'm the next Chopped Champio
because I'm gonna pour my heart and soul
into every single plate.
Insanity of a kitchen is lik
where I'm thriving the most
and so I love it like insanity is where I live.
[singer] ♪ One, two, three, go!♪
[Kaitlyn] Super, super nervous.
Hello, Chefs.
[All] Hello, Ted.
Are you ready to crush your competition?
-You know it. -Ready to rock and roll.
-[Kaitlyn] Readier than ever. -There are three rounds.
Mandatory mystery ingredients for each course,
if your dish doesn't cut it,
you will be Chopped.
Not today, Ted.
All righty. Your first Chopped Basket
is locked and loaded.
[rock music playing]
[Ted] Open it up.
I have no idea what this is.
I don't even know what this is. [laughs]
But I'm excited to try it.
It looks like a soup.
[Ted] We are eager to see you
make appetizers from changua
Pheasant sausage.
-[Ted] Pheasant sausage. -Okay.
Ate a lot of pheasant sausage when I was growing up.
We got some fun interesting things here
-for sure. -[Ted] Pea tendrils.
I love me some pea greens.
Mac and cheese.
I think I've messed with this before.
[Ted] And mac and cheese powder.
All right.
This is the super-fast 20-minute round.
-Clock starts now. -[Jhonny] Right behind you.
-[Ted] There we go. -[Brooke] Yeah. All right.
[Ted] Let's go. Let's see it.
[Brooke] Good luck.
[Mykie] How are you feeling?
[Jhonny] God, this is really intense.
-[Mykie] Yup. -Marc, you are joined by two
special guests judges,
Chef Brooke Williamson
and Chef Justin Sutherland.
Both of them trendsetting restaurateurs.
-Welcome. -Great to be here, Ted.
So excited to be here, thank you.
I'm loving this basket. I think it's extremely diverse.
Everything from the mac and cheese powder
to soups from Colombia, so it's gonna be interesting
to see what these chefs do with that.
Totally.
Judges, milk and egg soup
is not something you see every day
unless you're in Bogota.
Changua is a Colombian breakfast specialty,
thought by many to be a hangover cure.
Marc, you should try this.
What are you trying to say, Ted?
-[laughs] -[Marc] You know,
if you think about it, you've got this powdered cheese.
And what else do you need for mac and cheese?
The milk if you strained it out,
you could make a really simple mac and cheese here.
[Justin] You could actually take that changua,
add the cheese powder, and make a beautiful
like nacho cheese sauce.
A cheese sauce seems like a very obvious way to go.
[funky music playing]
The changua... it's essentially like a milk
and egg soup with herbs.
I definitely wanna drain it and use the liquid
with the mac and cheese powder,
making like cheese sauce here.
I make pheasant nachos,
with the pea tendril salad.
I think it can be risky to do nachos in 20 minutes
because nachos have so many different components.
Right behind.
But my biggest strength in the kitchen
is my speed.
It's definitely gonna be hard to beat me.
I move quick and I put a lot of love in my food.
I've had the ability to wor
in some of the best restaurants in the world
from Scandinavia to France
to Southeast Asia.
As soon as I taste the changua,
I realized that it makes sense to me
to do pheasant sausage pad thai
with a changua broth,
something that ties into my travels.
Charles, you're feeling confident.
Yeah, I'm feeling confident. I like pheasant.
Pheasant is a large portion of poultry that exists
in the United Kingdom.
I had a lot of pheasant when I was growing up in London.
Who doesn't like any type of sausage really?
Where you get that nice crispy sort of edges on there.
Pheasant sausage is delicious.
It's a poultry sausage.
It's great. It's great.
Overall, this is absolutely a tough basket.
But sausage is a familiar ingredient.
So I'm gonna cook it and deglaze it with beer.
I'm making a pheasant sausag
with a pea tendril slaw.
I taste the changua.
I decide I'm gonna remove the eggs from it
and use them for an aioli.
Kaitlyn, what do you got? How are you feeling there?
Making a little bit of a cheese aioli here.
[Marc] Oh.
[Kaitlyn] My personality is big
and my food kind of represents me in that same way.
All right.
[Jhonny] Coming down.
-How about you, Jhonny? -I have never worked
with pheasant sausage but I've had worked
with pheasant before.
Pheasant sausage tastes
like a cross between chicke and pork.
Almost tastes like a chicken hotdog.
I know that I wanna get it seared with mustard.
Mustard is tart and spicy.
What do I use to cut this?
Agave.
I love pea tendrils.
They taste very earthy,
so I know they'll go really well on the salsa verde.
So I'm making a caramelized mustard pheasant sausage
with a pea-tendriled salsa verde.
Less than 10 minutes to go, chefs.
I like pheasant because it's definitely got
a little bit of like gaminess,
like earthiness to it,
which I think elevates the flavor of it.
Winning this competition would mean so much to me,
because I'm a trans-male chef.
Being able to be visible for the trans community,
and to be able to show all the young trans-humans
that maybe you can be different
and still do anything you want
and be whoever you want.
-Hey, Charles? -Yes.
-How are you feeling, bud? -I'm feeling delightful.
How are you feeling?
I'm feeling wonderful.
For the pad thai, I'm going to take the eggs
from the changua as a scrambled egg component
And then I'm adding in the changua broth
and the chicken stock.
At the age of 27, I wanted to open up my own restaurant
I was successful in doing that.
And my plan is to open up six more concepts
in the next three years.
The judges are gonna be impressed by me
because I bring a caliber of cooking,
and I bring a level of determination, and focus
and I absolutely think the other chefs should be worried.
[Jhonny] I have never seen changua before,
but I see the cherry tomatoes,
and I confit them in fresh olive oil.
They couldn't give us peeled garlic?
I've been a chef for 12 years,
started washing dishes, self-taught.
I have a four-year-old and an eight-month-old.
And to win this for my kids would be amazing.
It would show my children that
with integrity and hard work
you can achieve whatever you put your mind to.
Hit the gas, chefs.
Less than five minutes on that clock.
I get my nachos down
and I realize I don't have enough chips.
I'm right behind.
I can't call them nachos
and not have enough chips.
Looks like Mykie does not feel like he has enough chips.
I don't want like a stingy portion of nachos.
I want a lot of them.
[Brooke] He looks very panicked.
It's not an emotion you wanna feel
in a situation like this.
[intense music playing]
Okay.
I'm making nachos.
I might need to fry some more of these.
I don't have enough chips for four plates.
I have to get more chips made right now, and fast.
Mykie, how's the fryer treating you?
-Are you gonna win? -I hope so, let's go.
Chefs, gotta call the two-minute warning.
[intense music playing]
I'm folding in some of the mac and cheese powde
into pea tendrils, just using it as an emulsifier,
using it as another layer of texture.
I'm feeling good.
He's cooking those pea tendrils
which is an interesting move to me
and they wilt very quickly.
I don't know necessarily that I would cook them.
No, I wouldn't cook them.
[Kaitlyn] Pea tendrils, they would go perfectly in a slaw,
and I'm using the herbs from the changua,
and fresh apples, and sliced napa cabbage.
The inspiration is a deconstructed bratwurst
it's sausage, it's cheese, and it's cabbage.
For the pea tendrils,
I'm leaving them fresh. I'm gonna mix them in
with herbs from the changua,
lime juice, and some salt.
Chefs, one minute on the clock.
[Jhonny] I'm feeling a little stressed.
I have to figure out what I'm going to do with this
mac and cheese powder.
I decide to mix it with changua milk
to make a cheese sauce,
and I add it to my salsa verde.
[Ted] All right, chefs, round one
drawing quickly to a close.
Not the time for panic guys.
Focus, focus.
[Ted] Ten, nine, eight,
seven, six, five,
four, three,
two, one.
-Time's up. -[Brooke] Time's up.
-Good job, Chefs. -[applause]
[laughter]
[Charles] I just went super well.
Crushed it.
So proud of this dish.
[intense music playing]
[Jhonny] Twenty minutes went fast, very fast.
It was very intense. But I got everything in there,
and I think the flavors are bold,
and they're gonna really enjoy it.
[intense music playing]
Chefs, you were given changua,
pheasant sausage, pea tendrils,
and mac and cheese powder.
Chef Charles, please tell us about your dish.
I made for you guys today,
a pheasant sausage pad thai
with a changua broth,
some fresh herbs.
[Ted] "Herbs."
[Charles] Fresh herbs.
Or "erbs", depending on where you're from.
There are some tomatoes in there too.
-Tomatoes? -Yes, sir.
What inspired this direction for you, chef?
I have traveled around the world.
I've learned in some of the best kitchens.
And so I kind of just wanted to bring some of that
globally-inspired flavor to my dish today.
So you have worked at Atelier Crenn,
at the French Laundry. You're only 27.
How did that happen?
I worked 365 days a year,
15 hours a day every day.
Wow.
The last thing that my brain would have thought of
for cheese powder,
would be pad thai.
And I see the cheese powder
but it doesn't taste like it.
Which I'm happy about.
This is a good dish.
The level of heat is really nice.
I love the herbs.
I feel like you could've used more of the pea tendrils in here.
-Okay. -They're cooked down too much
and they sort of wilted to the point
where they're kind of unrecognizable.
From a flavor standpoint, I mean, it's phenomenal.
You know, like the fresh tomatoes or "tomatoes" in there,
those are great just for a little pop of freshness.
Yeah, a phenomenal bowl of food.
[Ted] Thank you, Chef Charles.
Next up, Chef Mykie.
We have a pheasant sausage, nachos,
mac and cheese powder,
and the cheese sauce with changua.
And then I did an herb and pea tendril salad on top.
[Ted] What would it mean for you to win this competition?
It's a really incredible experience to be here
and be a representative of like the trans community.
We are told that we can't do certain things,
we can't be certain people,
and I'm here to prove of all that wrong.
Now what you're even just talking about is so important
and I applaud that.
Thank you.
[Brooke] Nachos were really smart direction to go.
The cheese sauce made total sense.
Your tortilla chips are beautifully light and crispy,
and the pheasant sausage has a beautiful
caramelization on it.
However, the cheese sauce
feels a little bit muted to me.
Not quite getting enough salt and flavor
-out of that sauce. -Okay.
It would be nice if it had a little heat,
a little punch, a little something
that keep you coming back for that nacho cheese sauce.
And I do wish the pheasant sausage maybe would have been
chopped up a little bit smaller,
or evenly presented. I had two chips with a...
With very beautifully cooked pheasant sausage,
but then the rest was missing it.
Nachos, that just doesn't seem like a dish that seems
that complicated,
but it's a pretty intricate dish.
I think the flavors were there.
I think it was inventive. It was interesting.
Thank you, Chef Mykie.
Next up, Chef Kaitlyn.
[Kaitlyn] I made pheasant sausage
with a cheese aioli and a pea tendril slaw.
The inspiration is a deconstructed bratwurst.
Is this an appetizer?
I thought so.
My mind's not wrapping around an appetizer,
but I can taste all the components.
The slaw is fresh and the aioli which you made
it's got this bright orange sort of road cone look to it.
Which is... You can't get away from, but it's good.
I think you used the word deconstructed.
And that's how this plate feels to me.
There are so many elements on this plate
that are actually very delicious.
Your sausage, it's nicely cooked
and your slaw is very tasty
But to me, they feel like separate dishes
that didn't quite come together.
Yeah. Just having trouble figuring out
what the dish was supposed to be.
But all of those components I think are delicious.
That slaw, I mean, I love the acidity
that kind of bursts in there, the freshness.
That slaw is absolutely delicious.
And it really counterparts well
with kind of the spiciness of that sausage.
I thought your aioli is beautiful.
And what would winning Chopped mean to you, chef?
Winning would mean that I'm prepared to move on
to the next step of my career.
I've always been in a sous-chef role
and so, you know, it would help me to feel like
I'm absolutely ready to move up
in the chain of command.
Are you ready to open your own place?
Not immediately, but it is definitely the next...
In the next few years, yeah, absolutely.
[Ted] Okay.
-Good luck to you. -Thank you.
Finally, Chef Jhonny.
I made you a mustard-coated pheasant sausage
with pea tendril
and cheese powder salsa verde.
What did you do with the sausage?
So I pan-seared it. I added some mustard,
a little bit of agave for sweetness.
I gotta say you've really taken an ingredient
and you brought it to another level.
The agave, the sweetness, the crispness on that,
-I'm very much enjoying it. -Thank you, Chef.
[Marc] But it really needed more pea tendril.
It needed some acidity.
It needed a nice fresh salad.
You probably put all your pea tendrils
into the salsa verde, was that the situation?
No. I had...I had extra.
We were just running out of time.
We gave you a whole 20 minutes.
-[Jhonny] I know. -What's going on?
It went so fast.
The pea tendril sauce,
it's got so much flavor.
But the dish feels slightly sweet.
Had you used those pea tendrils
to bring some acidity, some lemon juice,
something that sort of differentiated
the pea tendrils from the sauce
would have been nice. But the texture
of the outside of that sausage is really killer.
-Awesome. Thank you. -Chef Jhonny, thank you.
[Jhonny] Thank you.
I do wish I had a chance to, like,
chop up that sausage but, took a risk.
So I deserve to move to the next round.
I think that you'll see me go through
into the entree round and win this competition.
The judges felt like my dish wasn't cohesive.
So I'm definitely feeling nervous,
but it's definitely out of my hands now.
All I can do is cross my fingers.
[intense music playing]
[Ted] One chef's dish is under this cloche.
If it's yours, this competition will soon be a memory.
[intense music playing]
[Ted] Chef Mykie, you've been Chopped.
Judges?
Chef Mykie, I think we all applaud your ambition
for this dish.
Unfortunately, the knife-work on that sausage
made it difficult to eat in every bite.
And your cheese sauce was sort of lacking
and timid in flavor.
We had to chop you.
Thank y'all for having me.
This is incredible opportunity.
Tough competition today.
Yeah, a lot of amazing chefs in this room.
I think I was trying to be a little bit
too ambitious. But I think...
-[Ted] Good luck to you, Chef. -Thank you.
The fact that I'm able to represent for my community
is really what's important to me.
My parting words are just be kind to others,
love each other, and eat some good food.
[chuckles]
Chef Charles, Chef Jhonny, Chef Kaitlyn,
can you make an entree that shows
just how good you really are?
-You know it. -Absolutely.
Open them up!
Literally no idea what this is.
What the hell is that?
[Ted] And we see smorgastart
Goodness, gracious me.
I'm looking at this monstrosity
and I just see a bunch of shrimp and raw vegetable
and I have no idea what to expect.
Onion chips.
[Ted] Crispy onion chips.
We got fresh corn.
[Ted] Corn on the cob.
-All right. -[Ted] And bergamot liqueur
Thirty minutes to work.
Oh, man.
Clock starts now.
-Let's go. Here we go. -Let's go.
Good luck, guys.
[Justin] Coming down.
This smorgastarta is really quite a sight,
but it does beg the question,
what exactly am I looking at?
Oh.
[Marc] Smorgas actually in Swedish means sandwich.
So it's like basically it's a bunch
of little sandwiches in there.
-[Brooke] Giant tea sandwich -That's a giant tea sandwich.
[Justin] It's a sandwich buffet.
[Ted] It's got a lot of delicious smoked salmon,
delicious shrimp.
I will say for the shrimp,
that would be the easiest component.
You could literally just scoop those shrimp off
and use them.
The smorgastarta, I see that it's sandwiches,
and all I'm gonna be using is the shrimp and the dill.
Corn on the cob is somethin that's absolutely familiar to me.
I know that I'm gonna make corn pudding with shrimp
and green chili sauce,
blended up with the onion chips.
It's a really simple recipe
but it always knocks people out of their seats,
like a punch in the mouth.
[rock music playing]
These dehydrated onion chips
literally taste like onion.
Those are the most flavorful onion chips I've ever tried.
You could use those onion chips to form a coating
to put on the shrimp.
[Jhonny] This is definitely gonna be a breading
for the shrimp.
I'm making crispy onion shrimp
with sweet coconut sauce.
With the corn, I'm going to make a succotas
using jalapeno peppers, red bell pepper,
and a bunch of fresh herbs.
After that appetizer around...
Right behind, coming down.
I feel the energy, the intensity.
Kaitlyn and Charles put together
a very nice appetizer.
Now it's time to really, really show these judges
what I can do.
[Charles] This is a really tough basket.
I generally don't work with any of those ingredients.
Oh, it's sweet.
I need to come up with a plan.
Oh, my goodness.
And my mind just jumps straight into Mediterranean.
[rock music playing]
[Charles] For my entree, I'm going to make
a Mediterranean couscous with green curry-corn puree
and a pancetta and bergamot liqueur sauce.
I think the appetizer round went very well for me.
Based on the judges' comments,
I'm sitting in the top position.
-Twenty-two minutes. -[Ted] Twenty-two minutes.
[Brooke] Bergamot is a citrus.
It's that sort of citrus note that you find
in Earl Grey tea. In a liqueur,
it seems to be balanced out by a lot of sugar.
[Justin] It's also really thick.
Like it's almost like a...
It has a syrup component to it,
so it could make a nice glaze.
[Kaitlyn] Bergamot, it's got a lot of citrus.
So I'm starting to think that I can use it
in a spicy green chili sauce.
I go for jalapeno, poblano, and onions.
And then I throw the bergamot in.
I am a sous-chef, but my goal is definitely
to own my own restaurant.
So I want the $10,000 pretty bad.
I'd definitely put it in a nest egg.
[Jhonny] I want to give the judges a taste
of my Afro-Caribbean cuisine
So I'm making a sweet coconut sauce
with curry powder, cayenne pepper,
and a little bit of lime juice.
I decide to make pickled red onions.
So I pickle it in agave and white wine vinegar.
And then I'm using the bergamot liqueur
to deglaze my succotash.
I was born in New York, Spanish Harlem.
And the love of food starte at an early age for me.
So preserving the integrity of Afro-Latino food
is really important to me.
It'll show my children where they come from
and their histories.
[Ted] Ten minutes on the clock, chefs.
I'm really curious to see what they have going on in there.
So I'm gonna head in the kitchen.
It could be a little dangerous in there.
I've spent some time in kitchens. Kaitlyn.
-Mmm-hmm. Yeah. -How are we doing?
It's super nerve-wracking right now.
I'll leave you alone then. Good luck.
-Thank you. -How are we doing, Jhonny?
-Great. How are you doing? -I am wonderful.
What did you think of that smorgastarta
when you saw that monstrosity?
The smorgastarta was wild, but I already had an idea
as soon as I saw the shrimp.
Keep working too. Don't look at me and stop.
-Time is still running. -[Jhonny] Yeah, touche.
-[Justin] Chef Charles. -What is going on?
-How are you, brother? -I'm so good. How are you?
Is there any of these two chefs over here
you have your eye on?
-Are you... -No.
-[chuckles] He said no. -No.
[Justin] Do you think you're the frontrunner over here?
[Charles] I got a good shot at winning.
All right. I'll let you keep cooking, brother.
-Good luck. -I appreciate it. Thank you.
For my bergamot and pancetta sauce,
I'm adding the poblano in.
Then I take the shrimp and I chop them up
and add them into my sauce.
I'm very confident with what I'm doing.
I know it's on point.
I'm gonna make some yummy food.
I can see the $10,000 and I think that
I'm in a really good place to come and get it.
Five minutes to get it done, chefs.
Chef Charles, do you have a final dish in mind?
Do you know how you're gonna plate it and everything?
Yeah? I got a wink too.
-He did? -Did you see that?
I told you, Charles is confident over there.
Very confident.
[Kaitlyn] Charles definitel has an air of confidence
but I'm excited to compete with good competition.
And I think I'm the one going to get that $10,000.
I do work with shrimp a lot
When I see that it's already cooked,
I season it with lemon.
I'm gonna use that dill
and just get some olive oil
and salt and pepper in there.
[rock music playing]
[Jhonny] I mix the onion chi with panko rice flour
and hot sauce as the dry mix for my crispy shrimp.
Down behind.
Since they're already cooked
I don't wanna overcook these shrimp.
The shrimp only need 20 to 30 seconds to fry.
How long would it be safe
to fry a breaded shrimp that's been cooked already?
[Justin] I don't think it can go in there
for more than a minute to 90 seconds.
But the question is, can you get the coating crispy enough?
Can you get the crispiness?
[rock music playing]
One minute left on the clock, chefs.
[intense music playing]
I gotta get everything perfect.
So for the finishing touch,
I decide to crush some of the onion chips
and put it on top for texture.
[Charles] I want to add some freshness to my dish.
So I'm gonna take some cherry tomatoes
in this smorgastarta, some basil, some parsley.
I'm gonna fold all that through
with a little bit of rice wine vinegar.
I'm draping that over the to of the couscous.
Charles has not touched his onion chips yet.
-Oh, no. -[Charles] I know I need
to incorporate the onion chips.
And so I'm just gonna crush them up
and pop them over the dish.
Chefs, all four basket ingredients
must be front and center.
-Ten, nine... -[Justin] Less than 10
-to wipe and garnish, guys. -eight, seven,
six, five, four, three,
two, one. Time's up!
-[applause] -[Brooke] Good job.
-[Justin] Woo. -Woo.
-Nice. -[exhales] Good work, guys.
-[Kaitlyn] Yeah. -Yeah. Crushed that.
I think it turned out really well.
It's just about managing your time effectively.
Very confident that I'll be taking $10,000 home today.
[intense music playing]
[Jhonny] I didn't get the shrimp as crispy
as I wanted them to, but... I'm super proud of this dish
I think that this dish will take me
to the next round for sure.
[intense music playing]
Chefs, we asked you to make entrees with smorgastarta,
crispy onion chips, corn on the cob,
and bergamot liqueur.
So, Kaitlyn, please tell us about your dish.
I have prepared for you a corn pudding
with a green chili sauce and poached shrimp.
And the bergamot liqueur?
In the green chili sauce.
This is a gorgeous bowl of food.
And the fact that you added that bergamot liqueur
to the green chili sauce, I feel like
it was really smart 'cause you masked
the sweetness with the spice
and it feels very balanced.
-Really beautiful flavors. -Thank you.
[Justin] Chef Kaitlyn, I love the green chili sauce
My only critique would be, I don't think it needed
those onion chips on top. They got a little bit soggy.
But this is a very well thought out
-and beautiful dish. -Great. Thank you so much.
[Marc] You obviously know how to cook,
but it just didn't read as a main course.
The only texture on that plate were the shrimp
which were put cold on top of warm pudding.
And that's where I'm having a hard time with this.
Got it.
[Ted] Thank you, Chef Kaitlyn. Next up is Chef Jhonny.
I prepared for you a crispy fried shrimp
with Southern succotash and a sweet coconut sauce.
There's also quick pickled red onions on there
like a salsa criolla.
The shrimp, you coated them in the onion?
Yeah. So I blended the onion chip
and I mixed it with rice flour and panko,
and then dropped them in the fryer.
So, Jhonny, you took... Already cooked shrimp
and you put the breading on them
and you fried them for about 25 seconds.
I think that 30 seconds
is enough to cook the breading
without overcooking the shrimp.
I agree. It was definitely enough
to warm up the shrimp.
My issue is that once you put them
into this sort of brothy stew,
the breading just fell off.
But the succotash is absolutely
like out-of-this-world delicious.
Thank you.
[Brooke] And your coconut curry brot
is the highlight of this whole dish for me.
[Jhonny] Awesome. Thank you
The broth is absolutely delicious.
And your succotash, I think was beautiful.
The shrimp, like Brooke said, when it...
when it gets down into that coconut broth,
it does get a little soggy and then starts to fall off.
I mean, it comes down to plating.
You didn't plate it right
because if you had piled your succotash in the middle,
placed your shrimp on top of that,
put this beautiful sauce around it,
it would have kept the shrimp crispy.
But my hat's off to you.
You weaved really good flavors into this dish.
Awesome.
Chef, tell us where you work.
I am the chef owner of my own little pop-up
in Seattle, Washington.
It's called Lenox Afro Latin Soul.
I'm Puerto Rican and Cuban by descent
and we focus on those classic home-cooked meals
that you would get from your abuela.
Winning this competition would mean a lot to me.
$10,000 would go a long way.
I dream of opening up a food truck
and being able to share my food with
as much of the community that I can.
Good for you.
[Ted] Thank you, Chef Jhonny.
Finally, Chef Charles.
I made for you my take on a Mediterranean bowl.
We have green curry corn puree on the bottom.
We have a bergamot pancetta sauce
and then some fresh herbs over couscous,
and a little cotija cheese over the top.
[Marc] You got a lot done here.
Did you have a sous-chef with you over there?
Wow.
[Brooke] I'm blown away by how much flavor
you got onto one plate.
This is a flavor bomb.
However, texture of the shrimp
is a little bit rubbery because you cooked it
with the pancetta and I think it overcooked the shrimp.
But all in all,
I'm getting a lot of balanced flavors.
That pancetta along with the poblanos,
I thought was fantastic.
Really works well with that couscous.
But some of my herbs were just kind of weirdly picked.
I'm getting a lot of long stems and stuff,
some bunches.
[Marc] I'm gonna agree with them.
The herbs are a little overwhelming.
And I'm wondering why you put the chips on top of the dish.
[Charles] I just knew that I needed to incorporate it.
And so I've added it as a textural component
-over the top. -I do think you made
a pretty big mistake with this onion chip.
You have to use the ingredient,
and just dropping it on the end of the plate
like that, to me is a bit of a defense.
It's super soggy.
It's something that I know you don't even wanna eat.
-[laughs] -Right.
Okay. I hope you have enough energy left
to make dessert if you make it to the final round.
[Charles] Those onion chips man, that was tricky.
But out of the three of us, I'd say that Kaitlyn
would get Chopped just for maybe a lack
of textural component standpoint.
Marc said my dish was lacking texture,
but I absolutely feel like it's a toss-up
and it's anyone's game.
I think we've all done a really solid job thus far
[intense music playing]
[Ted] Whose dish is on the chopping block?
[intense music playing]
[Ted] Chef Charles, you've been Chopped. Judges?
Chef Charles, what you did with the pancetta
and the poblano, that was absolutely delicious.
For us, it just came down to a few misses.
The overabundance of poorly picked herbs
just was a little off-putting.
Those crispy onion chips, they got a little soggy.
And lastly, it's the shrimp.
It just got a little bit rubbery.
And so we had to chop you.
Appreciate that. Thank you.
-[Marc] Thank you. -Thank you.
I thought the onion chips would be a nice garnish.
But, uh, you know, that was tricky.
But I gave it my best shot
and I'll keep pushing forward every day.
Chef Kaitlyn, Chef Jhonny.
If smorgastarta and mac and cheese powder
couldn't stop you, can anything?
Nothing's gonna stop me.
-You're going down. -Oh, boy.
[Jhonny] Kaitlyn and I are neck-and-neck.
But I'm ready to bring my full force.
The final baskets are often the hardest.
Let's see what you think.
Competing against Jhonny, I know it's gonna be tough
but I'm going to pull out all the stops.
But it all comes down to this dessert round here.
Open them up.
-Oh. -Pig's feet?
Almost like pig tail or something.
[Ted] We're about to find out if delicious desserts
can come together from pig tails.
Cherries.
[Ted] Maraschino cherries.
What's this? Long pepper.
I don't know what that is.
[Ted] Long peppers.
Yeah. Throw me for a loop on that one.
I have never seen that.
And pistachio cream.
[Ted] And pistachio cream.
We'll make it work.
This is my time to shine.
Half an hour to go, go, go.
Clock starts now.
[intense music playing]
Judges, it's time to pig out on pig tail desserts.
-How excited are you? -I'm pretty excited.
I love pig tails and I think I'm really excited to see
what these chefs do with that.
You could pull that meat off.
You could candy it, even glaze it,
and some of that maraschino cherry.
-Yeah. Brilliant. -That's not a bad idea.
Not a bad idea.
[Kaitlyn] I'm excited about the pig tails.
My plan is to render out the fat
and add the cherries in.
The dish I'm gonna make is chocolate cake
with pig's tail,
and confit maraschino cherries.
Cake is gonna work really well with this.
I'm feeling the pressure,
for any mistake I make, I can get Chopped.
Guys, that pistachio cream is absolutely delicious.
You make a quick little anglaise,
throw that in there, pop it in the ice cream machine.
That's good. That's really good.
[Marc] That maraschino cherries there,
you can put a little of those in there.
Pistachio paste is what most people use
to make pistachio ice cream.
It's just blended pistachios with sugar.
My kids love ice cream.
So, I'm making cherry and pistachio ice cream
with crispy pig tails.
I wanna win this competition so bad,
I can just taste it.
I'm feeling super confident and it would just be so grea
to be able to bring home the gold for the family.
Twenty minutes remaining on the clock, chefs.
[Brooke] Chef Kaitlyn, what are you making?
How long is that gonna take to bake?
[Kaitlyn] I spread it super thin.
If you're gonna bake something,
-it better be very thin... -Yeah.
and cook quickly.
[Kaitlyn] I get my cake in the oven.
And then I taste the long pepper
and it just tastes like black pepper.
And I know that they'll go nicely
into standard whipped cream.
There's 15 minutes left and I'm starting
to feel the pressure. But I'm laser-focused.
I'm gonna use everything I've got.
Jhonny, how are you feeling?
Busy, busy, always working.
You're making us an ice cream?
Ice cream with some crispy pig tails.
[Marc] Okay. Good.
Just make ice cream and not butter.
Pig tails is tricky because there's not a lot of meat.
It's a lot of bone.
So I know that I want to get that cartilage off,
slice it up real thin, and get it into the fryer
to get them nice and crispy to use them
as a topping for my ice cream.
All right, chefs, 10 minutes left on the clock.
So the long pepper,
it's got a little bit of numbing feeling,
sort of like Sichuan. It's a little floral.
They carry some heat though for sure.
[Jhonny] The long pepper, it's spicy
And I instantly think spice mixture
with cinnamon, star anise, and allspice...
to give the pig tails just a little bit
more of a kick and a punch.
Kaitlyn, she's baking cakes without breaking a sweat.
And I'm just over here just bullets...
-Behind... -Draining.
-Coming down. -She's a tough competitor.
Kaitlyn, how are you feeling? The cake's getting ready?
-Super solid, man. -Solid?
-Solid. -That's some confidence.
[Kaitlyn] I'm definitely feeling confident.
That $10,000 is at the end of this round.
And I know with only two of us,
it could be mine.
I'm making a lime and pistachio cream.
I taste the pistachio cream and I know it needs
a lot of acid to balance out all that sweetness.
So I get the pistachio crea into a bowl,
I zest my limes into that bowl,
and I squeeze the juice from those limes
right in with it.
All right, chefs, less than five minutes left
on that clock.
I go to take my ice cream out of the ice cream machine, and...
Well, that's not good.
It's butter. I overchurned i
[Marc] Guys, I'm watching Jhonny's ice cream
coming out the machine. I think he did exactly
-what I asked him not to do. -Oh, did he overchurn it?
-He made butter. -Oh, he overchurned it?
That is actually an exceptionally
-bad case of overchurning. -That's not recoverable.
Panic is setting in.
I have two basket ingredient in this ice cream.
I need to figure this out.
[grumbling]
I feel like the wheels are coming off the bus here.
How do I save this?
Ay yai yai.
My ice cream is overchurned
It's like butter.
I look at the clock and I realize that
I don't have enough time to make more.
[Marc] He's taking the ice cream and he's trying
to whisk in milk into it to soften it.
-Might be unrecoverable. -How are you feeling, Jhonny?
I hit some snags, but we're gonna go.
You're gonna get there? Okay.
[Ted] One minute left on the clock, chefs.
It's getting to the last seconds,
I'm honestly feeling like I gotta speed it up
because I might not get everything on.
Thirty seconds left.
Close it in and bring it home, guys.
[Jhonny] My ice cream is melting hard
My heart sinks.
Chefs, final seconds of the final round.
-Ten, nine... -Ten seconds, guys.
eight, seven, six,
-five, four... -Oh, boy.
three, two, one.
-Time's up! -[applause]
[Brooke] Good job, guys.
A little disappointed.
Nobody likes melted ice cream, so...
[Marc laughs]
[Kaitlyn] I'm really excited.
It came together nicely for me.
Just might be a $10,000 dessert.
Chef Kaitlyn, Chef Jhonny,
your last task here was to make desserts
with pig tails, maraschino cherries,
long pepper, and pistachio cream.
Chef Jhonny, tell us about your dish.
I prepared a cherry ice cream
with crispy pig tails
and pistachio cherry coulis on the bottom.
So you were struggling with the ice cream over there.
What did you do to recover from that?
I just hit it with a little bit of milk just to thin it out.
And it's definitely disappointing
when you have an idea and it doesn't work.
It's disappointing for us too.
This is a big mistake.
There's very little way
to recover overchurned ice cream.
With that said, the flavor of it is great.
And I'm really impressed with the crunch
on those pig tails.
They're something that I find myself going back
-into the bowl for. -Thank you.
[Marc] The pig tails are fantastic
If I can get past the milk solids,
-the flavor is really good. -Thank you.
It was a solid recovery for what could have been
an absolute disaster.
In my mind, I thought maybe you could've just
turned it into a milkshake,
garnish it with all these, given us a straw,
little crispy pig tails, but again, awesome recovery.
-Thank you. -[Ted] Thank you, Chef Jhonny.
Finally, Chef Kaitlyn.
I made for you guys a chocolate cake
with long pepper whipped cream,
confit cherries with the pig's tail,
and a lime and pistachio cream.
I'm really impressed with the texture
and the consistency of this cake.
It's very delicious.
I love the texture of your pig tail.
It feels like candied pork which is slightly savory
but also really tasty.
The flavor is delicious.
It's a nice balance of sweet and savory.
Thank you.
I love incorporating those pig tails with the cherries.
About the cherries, cutting them up
or tearing them up a little bit
just so they weren't just giant balls...
-[Kaitlyn] Totally. -of cherry.
When I ate a whole cherry, it was like,
"Whoa, it's got that bacon flavor, fat."
And I'm going, oh, it was kind of...
a little overwhelming.
But I think all in all pretty good.
Thank you.
Okay. From two chefs, one champion.
We'll call you back when the judges decide.
Judges, the chefs started their day
with milk and egg soup and mac and cheese powder.
Let's break down those appetizers.
The star of both Kaitlyn and Jhonny's plates
was that pheasant sausage.
Jhonny's version is one of my favorite bites
of the day. That sausage,
the crisp on the outside of it.
But I felt Jhonny really sort of didn't get
those beautiful pea shoots
because it really needed more of a salad.
I don't think that outweighed
how disconnected Kaitlyn's appetizer course was.
Her salad was delicious and acidic with the apple.
But we still don't know what's going on
on the other side with those little pepperonis
of pheasant sausage on that aioli,
which all the components tasted good,
but wasn't a dish.
And then if we go on to the main course,
Kaitlyn's dish, she called it a pudding.
It did not work for me.
The flavors in it worked.
I love the heat in that green sauce.
But, I mean, having pudding just didn't serve me
-as an entree. -It, again,
sort of felt a little bit disconnected
like her first course.
[Marc] He made a succotash with that corn sauce
and the crispy shrimp on top
That was a spectacular dish
This was hands down Jhonny's round.
I'm personally heartbroken by Jhonny's ice cream.
[Marc] Overturning that ice cream
-was a big mistake. -[Brooke] Yeah.
Does that outweigh what he did really well
in the first two rounds though?
We're gonna have to decide.
[intense music playing]
[Jhonny] All the emotions are coming at me right now.
My heart beating out of my chest.
It feels crazy.
I've handled the basket ingredients well
and I'm the one going to get that $10,000.
Whose dish is on the chopping block?
Chef Kaitlyn, you've been Chopped.
Judges?
[Marc] Kaitlyn, let's start with the appetizer.
We just didn't feel like the dish came together
as a cohesive appetizer.
On the main course, just didn't read as a...
as a main course. It was two puddings,
a pudding with another sauce.
Your dessert, the mistake there
was obviously way too many
whole maraschino cherries on that plate.
And so we had to chop you.
-It's all right. Thank you. -[Marc] Thank you so much.
You did a great job today.
-Thank you. -Thank you, Chef.
Good luck to you.
[Kaitlyn] I'm feeling pretty proud of myself.
I just am gonna focus on my long-term goals
of owning a restaurant.
And that means, Chef Jhonny Reyes,
-you are the Chopped Champion. -[Jhonny] Thank you.
You're going home with $10,000.
Congratulations, Chef.
[applause]
I am over-the-moon excited.
Thank you guys so much for having me.
I can't wait for my son to see me on TV.
To share this one with my kids is gonna be crazy.
Woo!