[Amanda] Salty, sweet, melty, gooey, sharp, acidic
The theme for your battle is cheese.
[Geoffrey] All right!
Come on, let's make it cheesy!
We're just trying to pair cheese and crab.
-Having a great time. -Wow!
I'm feeling pretty good.
-I feel like I'm cheesening it up over here. -[judges] Mmm...
And right now, it's complete cheesy chaos.
This is insane.
[Amanda] Are you gonna get to the plate?
[Geoffrey] Almost no chance.
It's like slim to none.
And slim just left town.
[intense music playing]
Any dish that you put cheese on is just instantly elevated.
My style is unique.
I like to mix Italian and Vietnamese flavors.
My dad is from Vietnam and my mom is Italian,
so I just cook from the hear
This is tortellini. [speaking in foreign language]
It means belly button.
Cheese is definitely milk plus magic.
Gooey, fatty, salty, sweet.
More cheese isn't going to hurt it.
I'm going to win because I am the best.
[Patrick] We make pizza at De La Nonna
and the most important ingredient is the cheese.
I absolutely love cheese.
Parmigiano-Reggiano, the triple cream d'Affinois
very salty, very gooey.
Triple cream brie.
I am extremely competitive.
I worked at some very high-end restaurants,
three Michelin stars,
so I know I have what it tak to work under pressure.
I am in this competition to win.
[Jasmine] When you taste my food,
you'll know I didn't come to play.
I'm the chef and owner of the Urban Burger Bar
and Urban Oyster in Baltimor Maryland.
[laughs]
There is nothing I can't do with cheese.
I incorporate cheese in just about every dish
that I make at both of my restaurants.
I didn't become a successfu business owner by giving up easily.
I have one thing on my mind and that's to win.
[Anthony] I'm the chef to beat
because I'm going to bring big,
bold, ooey-gooey cheese flavor to every dish
I'm the chef/owner at Another Food Truck in Charlotte, North Carolina
One of my most popular dishe is our Hot Chicken Smash,
Nashville Hot Fried Chicken
American cheese, some fontina.
Cheese is the most important part.
Got to have the cheese.
Food trucks are super competitive.
You got to bring your A-gam and stand out.
I'm gonna come in, dominate and be myself no matter what
Hi, chefs. How's it going?
-[Jess] Hi, Ted. How are you? -Good. Good.
We're gonna give you different cheeses in every basket,
and we want you to make sure that cheese
is prominently represented in all of your dishes.
Cheesy-peasy?
-Love cheese. -Absolutely love it.
Appetizer baskets...
[Jess exhales sharply]
...open them up.
[laughs]
-Okay. -Ooh...
Nuh-uh!
What in the world.
[Ted] And there you go, it's cheese sushi.
I had never heard of cheese sushi, never.
[Jasmine laughs]
[Ted] Spinach.
Okay, I can, I can work with this.
I know what to do with the spinach.
Oh, this is heavy.
[Ted] King crab legs.
Some asiago cheese.
Oh, my goodness.
Twenty-minute first round begins...
now.
All right!
Let's make it cheesy.
All right. I need some hot sauce.
Judges, cheese was invented as long ago as 8000 BC.
That was when Geoffrey opened his first restaurant.
-Yeah. -[all laughing]
What is it that we love so much about cheese?
[Geoffrey] Yeah, like there's over 2,000 cheeses.
I love it. We all love it.
As chefs, it's like a dream ingredient.
-[Millie] Cheese is so versatile... -[Amanda] Yeah.
...because, you know, you have what desserts makes cheesy.
-[Geoffrey] Yes. -Right.
Then you have cheese that's used in savory dishes.
What I love about cheese is the sharpness, the saltiness.
Just something that warms my soul.
It's a little bit of a trick, right?
Because you can't just melt every cheese.
You can't just grate every cheese.
You know, you have to have a lot of knowledge about
how to serve cheese, especially something like asiago.
[Geoffrey] Yeah, of course.
It's really salty.
It has a tiny bit of almost pepperiness,
and I just feel like it should be used as seasoning,
not as something really melted all over it.
[Anthony] I'm thinking of so just because my dad would make soup,
and that was like something that I love.
He didn't do it much, but when he did, it was a big deal.
Hey, Anthony, what do you have conjured up?
All right, so I'm doing like a Southern potato style soup...
Oh!
[Anthony] ...and a little bit of crab and pancetta on top.
That's not a bad idea.
So I got some cream, some potatoes back there.
Pancetta rendering a little bit.
That made my mouth water, a crabby, cheesy chowder.
I love that idea.
[Anthony] I'm using the cheese sushi and asiago cheese
in the base of my soup, to give it more body and texture.
Fontina will add a creamy, rich flavor to the soup.
My food is definitely Southern fusion
and it's heavily influenced by my North Carolina roots.
Me and my wife got married a year ago
and now we're expecting our first baby in a couple of weeks.
I want to win this for my soon-to-be-born son.
I just want him to look at me like a superhero.
I think that cheese and fish gets a bad rap.
I know it's a no-no, but in Sicily,
when they do their linguine with clams,
-they put cheese on it. -They do.
-Yeah. -It's fine.
And they don't put a lot, but they just put a touch in it.
It really is miraculous.
So they've got to find that balance.
[Jasmine] I'm from Baltimore
I've been cooking and eating crabs for as long as I remember.
But I want to make sure that I am presenting the cheese,
you know, as the star of the show.
I'm making a king crab and asiago tartine.
-[Geoffrey] Jasmine! -Yes, sir.
[Geoffrey] So, how are you making cheese the star here?
Uh, so I'm making an asiago cheese sauce...
[Geoffrey] Mmm.
...and still trying to figure my way out with this cheese sushi.
-[Jasmine laughs] -Wow. Well, that's fantastic.
It's really important winning Chopped
because Baltimore is just one of those small cities
and we're up-and-coming in the culinary world,
and I carry my city on my back wherever I go,
and I just want to make my city proud.
So cheese sushi, it's salmon, wrapped with rice
and it has like this melted cheese on top.
I think someone made sushi, had stuff left over,
and they just decided to put cheese on it.
Talk about what's in your fridge.
Wow!
[Jess] So I'm seeing this cheese sushi and the crab leg,
and the first thing that comes to mind is a crab salad.
I'm making a king crab sala crostini with spinach
and asiago pesto.
For my crab salad, I scraped the cheese from the cheese sushi.
I'm thinking that it's got that, like,
crispy edge of the grill cheese flavor.
Chefs, you all right over there?
We're just trying to pair cheese and crab.
Having a great time.
[Patrick] Cheese is absolutely the ultimate comfort food.
And having worked in all these very high-end
Michelin restaurants, I know I have the technical skills to win.
Patrick, what do you have conjured up?
[Patrick] So I'm gonna do a little crab cake
with a cheese spinach sauce
Brilliant.
[Patrick Costa] So for my crab cake,
I remove as much salmon
as I can from the cheese sushi,
crack open the crab legs.
-I'm using asiago and I'm using brie. -Perfect.
[Geoffrey] Patrick grabbed the brie.
That's great. I love brie.
[Amanda] He put it inside of a crab cake.
-It's a very good idea. -It's like butter.
-[Geoffrey] It's a very good idea. -[Amanda] Mmm.
There we go.
This particular first course has king crab like to the best.
-Delicious. -So, it's like the black truffle of the sea.
[Anthony] I'm using the king crab leg
as a topping for my soup.
I think that the other chef may underestimate me
because I own a food truck, but I just let them think
whatever they want to do, I know what I can do.
[Jess] So for my asiago spinach pesto,
I'm taking the asiago and I cut it up into chunks
and put it into a pot with some cream.
It's a very special competition
'cause we have added
all these different cheeses to the pantry.
-[Geoffrey] I know. -[Amanda] They're usually there.
So they have the option to add in many different kinds of cheese.
[Jess] I don't want to use any of the cheese
that they offered us in the pantry.
This is about cheese, but it's also about the basket.
And I know that it can get a little carried away
if I started to add too many things.
These crab legs are so delicious
that I don't want to over-manipulate the crab meat.
The sweetness of the crab and then the saltiness of the cheese
will go hand-in-hand.
I'm making a little sauce with my spinach here.
I want to make a little spinach sauce for the crab cake.
I need to boost it up.
So the crab cake has a lot of spicy flavors.
The cilantro herb brightened the dish up.
But I'm very nervous that I'm not even going to have
the crab cakes in the pan.
Chefs, we have less than five minutes!
Come on, get it!
[Patrick] I'm starting to sweat a little bit at this point.
[Amanda] Remember, he also put brie to bind his crab cakes.
[Geoffrey] I would throw those in the oven.
So, weird, cold pieces of brie with crab...
-No. -Not going to taste good.
[Patrick] I need the brie to melt,
'cause this is a cheese competition,
and if that cheese doesn't shine,
I know I'm going to be Chopped the first round.
[intense music playing]
[Amanda] 3:13.
Three minutes, okay?
That means you should be plating in one minute.
[Patrick] I need to heat these crab cakes up
all the way to melt the brie inside.
So I throw them in the oven to help
cook from both directions.
Coming down.
This is insane.
I'm using the salmon from the cheese sushi roll to compliment the crab.
And I'm using the baguette as the base of my tartine.
Two minutes, chefs!
Crab cakes, I hope it's cooked through
'cause I want to bite that crab.
I love crab cake.
It's one of my favorite things of all time.
I grab sourdough 'cause I knew if I can get those,
like, big nice cuts out of the center of it, for the crostini.
I'm garnishing my crostinis with basil and then...
[producer speaking]
Oh, I didn't even notice.
-I'm sorry. -[producer] All right. Medic!
...I noticed that I cut myself and now I'm freaking out.
One minute, 15 seconds left, and Jess just cut herself.
-[Geoffrey]That never happens. -[Amanda] You guys, this never happens at this hour.
[Geoffrey] Never happens. Always happens at the first minute,
-not the last minute. -[Amanda] Oh my God.
-One minute left! -One minute!
[Geoffrey] One minute, guys.
Jess, are you okay over there?
Finish up. Forty seconds.
Ten seconds a plate.
You got to get it on the plate.
[Jasmine] Almost at the finish line.
-We got it. -[Geoffrey] I love Patrick.
Patrick's green puree looks delicious.
-[Millie] It's gorgeous. Yeah. -[Geoffrey] I love that.
Let's go.
Let's go get that soup delicious. Delicious.
[Amanda] Make it great.
Make it cheesy.
Make it fast, chefs. Got to get this done.
Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five,
four, three, two, one.
-Time's up! -[Amanda] Oh, my God.
-[Geoffrey] Way to go! -[Millie] Wow.
How are you? You good?
-Yeah, I'm good. -Amazing.
-[Millie] Good? -Didn't even notice.
You got it.
[Jess] I'm worried about that crab cake that Patrick made.
That looks beautiful.
Definitely tough competition
I'm feeling great.
Uh, I'm super happy with how this came out.
This competition is really about
making cheese the star of the dish.
But I see a couple of dishes that look like
they were just sort of phoned in.
"Hello? I have cheese.
I'm just going to grate it.
Goodbye."
Chefs, you've arrived at the Chopping Block: Cheese Fest Underway.
Basket one contained cheese sushi, spinach,
king crab legs, and asiago cheese.
Chef Anthony, what have you made?
So, judges, today I made for you a potato and seafood soup,
topped with pancetta, spinach, and Alaskan king crab.
Where do you work, Anthony?
I own a food truck.
It's called Another Food Truck in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Winning Chopped will mean everything to me.
Like, I just want the world to see that food truck community
definitely should be taken serious.
Well, this has, um...
ooh, kick.
However, it's good.
It's... it's yummy.
You know, the crab, it's in there.
Sometimes, it gets a little covered with cheese,
but the smart thing here is the spinach
sort of like brings the cheese together.
It really works. Really well done.
[Amanda] I think you incorporated the cheese well.
I would say, for me, I just want to see one may be beautiful
butter-poached piece of crab on top.
That crab is like...
[vocalizes]
It's like gold.
And it's just a little bit lost in here.
And, you know, I just want, like,
a little bread, like, sop it up a little bit.
But it's very flavorful,
and even though it has cheese and cream, that doesn't feel like heavy.
Chef Jess, what have you made?
Today, I made for you a king crab salad crostini
with a spinach and asiago puree.
And there's a little bit of green apple and basil in there as well.
I think that the cheese incorporation in the pesto
that you made, that spinach pesto, it's very smart.
-Thank you. -And the apple is vibrant.
It really gives the brightness that you need.
It's absolutely delicious.
Thank you.
Bread toasted perfectly,
just a perfect texture and balance,
and it absorbs all that flavor.
As far as the cheese challenge goes,
I think it needed more good flavors,
but too much restraint.
Like, if you're going to go for it, go for it.
Got it.
So how did you get started with cooking?
My dad got me into cooking.
We would watch Emeril together.
We would watch this show together.
And he kind of, like, started my passion.
On my dad's side, they're Vietnamese.
My mom's side is Jewish and Italian,
so I feel very lucky that I've gotten, like, a wide variety of cultures.
Chef Jess, thank you.
Next up, Chef Patrick.
Tell us about your plate.
I made a spicy king crab cake with brie, asiago, lemon,
and then a spinach cilantro puree on the bottom.
What are you currently doing now?
Where are you working?
I just opened my first restaurant
a couple of months ago in LA called De La Nonna.
It's coastal Italian food,
and it's named after my grandmother.
What would you do if you were to win $10,000?
A brand-new...
brand-new restaurant has a lot of costs.
So I think having that in the bank
would be just a nice cushion for...
for myself and my partners.
Let's talk about how beautiful it is.
Like, this sauce, the bright green, it just pops.
I like the fact that you did use the salmon from the cheese roll,
so it's like more of a seafood cake.
The brie, the creaminess of it and the spice,
I think, is very well-balanced.
So delicious.
I agree. Presentation is spectacular.
Beautiful.
-Did you put bread in this? -There's some breadcrumb.
I also took that salmon out of the sushi, folded that as well.
The problem is the bread just sucks up all the flavor and it doesn't read crab.
[Amanda] I agree with Geoffrey.
It feels like a bread...
cake, but I liked that you grabbed the brie for the crab cake,
although I do think I was more focused on the brie
than the asiago at that point.
Sure. Yeah.
Thank you, Chef Patrick.
Chef Jasmine, tell us about your dish.
What I made today is a king crab and asiago tartine.
What would winning mean to you?
Winning would mean a lot, um, to me.
-I have an oyster restaurant called the Urban Oyster. -Oh.
We work with a few of the culinary high schools in Baltimore.
So to be an inspiration to them as a female and an African-American chef,
um, I know they would feel hopeful
to be able to be in the same place one day.
Good for you.
It's hard to have teenagers in your kitchen.
Absolutely.
[laughs]
I like the dish.
I like the bacon.
It makes it.
I almost think that this needs more sauce, like cheesier.
It's sort of a little too restrained.
I agree with Geoffrey.
I love that you brought bacon into this.
And this is going to sound like a little decadent,
but I almost want you to have poured the bacon fat all over it.
You know what I mean?
'Cause it kind of all falls apart
and you don't get that perfect bite,
you know, that perfect bite where you get everything in your mouth.
It's visually appealing.
It looks absolutely beautiful on a black plate.
And the cheese did shine through, which is the star ingredient.
Separately, of course, absolutely delicious,
but together, it just wasn't...
it wasn't really hitting for me.
Thank you.
Okay.
The first elimination is coming up soon.
I do feel like I'm on the Chopping Block.
You know, between myself and Jasmine,
it's a 50-50 chance at this point.
[Jasmine] The judges thought that the taste and the flavor was there,
but the cohesiveness of my dish was a little lacking.
If the judges give me another opportunity, I can definitely bring it.
[intense music playing]
Whose dish is on the Chopping Block?
[intense music playing]
[intense music fades]
Chef Jasmine, you've been Chopped.
Judges.
Chef Jasmine, you did make cheese the star of this dish,
however it wasn't a cohesive dish.
If you actually combined all the ingredients, you know,
you folded the crab and the spinach
into that delicious cheese sauce,
it would have given this the absolute perfect bite.
And so we had to chop you.
Thank you, chef.
This didn't go the way I want it.
But, you know, it was an amazing experience.
This just pushes me to...
to challenge myself even more.
Chef Jess, Chef Anthony, Chef Patrick,
let's turn the page to basket two.
[tense music playing]
Get in there!
[chuckles]
Oh, my goodness.
[chuckles]
Uh...
And that cheese theme is coming through loud and clear here.
You've been given a pizza burrito.
[Anthony] Oh, okay.
Yes. Perfect.
Everyone's favorite meal.
[Ted] Beech mushrooms. Rose veal chops.
Okay.
[Ted] And Taleggio.
Taleggio.
Taleggio is a very funky semi-soft cheese.
It's pungent. It's old.
[intense music playing]
Thirty minutes to excel in the Entree Round,
clock starts now.
[cheering]
...cheesy burrito!
[indistinct chatter]
Judges, should a pizza and a burrito
even be allowed to comingle as one thing?
I mean, is that even legal?
-It's illegal in some states, actually. -Yeah.
Sound like some late-night drunken college student moment.
I'm just going to throw some stuff together
and make it happen.
[Amanda] It's just a pizza with penne pasta,
with marinara sauce, and mozzarella cheese.
-All rolled up... -Just rolled up.
...to look like a burrito.
So many possibilities.
First off, I see these rose vealchops
and I think I'm going to do saltimbocca.
I want people to have that experience
of eating in, like, a nice Italian restaurant.
So, like, that's...
that's where I'm trying to transport people with this dish.
For my entree, I'm making rose veal saltimbocca with Taleggio fonduta.
That Taleggio cheese is like five-star cheese.
-Love it. -It's delicious.
[Geoffrey] It's Northern Italy, Lombardy region, cow's milk.
So rich, creamy, dreamy.
[Patrick] I make my three-step process flour, eggs, breadcrumb.
And I want to get it in as soon as possible.
[Amanda] We have this rose veal chops.
Ooh-la-la!
Milk-fed, grass-fed, really high quality.
[Geoffrey] Rose 'cause of its color.
It's natural, it's pasture-raised, so it eats outside.
[Millie] Okay.
[Geoffrey] So it gets this gorgeous color of what it eats.
Pound it and make a Milanese out of this is a great idea.
[Amanda] That is exactly what I thought when I saw this basket.
Chefs, less than 20 minutes to go here.
[Anthony] As soon as I see the veal, I notice it's a little thick
So the first thing I do is begin to pound it out.
I'm making veal schnitzel and mac and cheese
with the beech mushroom succotash.
[Ted] There are a lot of similarities between
what Anthony and Patrick are doing.
They both have sort of breaded the veal.
[Geoffrey] I think that Anthony and Patrick's dish,
while they look similar, is going to be very different.
They do two different types of cuisine,
like Anthony is a Southern chef,
Patrick is more Italian-based,
so we know that they're going to taste totally different.
Mac and cheese is one of my signature dishes,
so I'm going to use the Taleggio to make it.
I'm thinking I can use the pasta from the pizza burrito
to thicken up my sauce.
Coming around.
I'm using Havarti, Taleggio, fontina,
and smoked Gouda in my mac and cheese,
to make sure the judges get that cheese flavor that they're looking for.
[Jess] The inspiration for this dish definitely comes
from Northern Italy, but I'm a little bit concern working with veal
because I've never done it before.
The best I can do is just try and treat it like I would any cut of beef.
So that's the game plan.
I'm making a stuffed veal ch
with beech mushroom peperona and a Taleggio cream sauce.
Now I get started on my peperonata.
I'm taking a skillet and I add onions, eggplant.
I'm adding my beech mushroom into my peperonata
with all of those other vegetables.
Oh, my God.
This thing weighs a ton.
And then I'm gonna try and u the center of the pizza burrito
and try and crisp it up in a pan
and then add it to my peperonata
as like a crunchy element.
If I win the $10,000, I would love to take my dad on a trip to Vietnam.
He hasn't been back since he immigrated here as a child,
and I think it would just be a really great experience
[Patrick] I'm celebrating the cheese two ways.
I got the Taleggio stuffed inside this pounded veal.
And then I'm also making a Taleggio fonduta.
So this is a very rich cheese sauce
with garlic, with white wine.
Less than ten minutes on the clock, chefs!
Whoo! Ten minutes!
So for my stuffed veal,
I sear it in the skillet and then I throw it in the oven
just to finish cooking.
Then I'm moving on to my bee mushroom crumble
that gives this dish, like, a little crunch.
Fine.
Well, beech mushrooms are whitehunch smudgy,
which probably doesn't help anybody, really.
[Geoffrey] And they're not from the beach.
They're not from the beach.
They're just these beautiful, really soft, velvety mushrooms
that grow in these clusters.
They are really beautiful.
Really high-end ingredients.
-It's like an LA mushroom. -Yeah.
To add some brightness to a heavy dish,
I'm making mushroom succotash.
I'm cutting up the mushrooms slicing up some tomatoes,
and sauteing them up togethe
Less than five minutes ago, chefs!
Oh, this is a travesty.
Chef Patrick just unrolled his pizza burrito,
and it's just funny to see it that way.
It's massive.
The look on his face, just shaking his head, like, "I don't know
what you guys over here are doing."
[Patrick] I have no idea how to wrap my mind around
this pizza burrito thing.
I think, the pasta is already made.
I can just do a little tomato sauce.
I can whip it up, put it on top.
[Ted] I can't believe Patrick is serving the pasta.
-Me either. -No!
[Ted] An Italian chef is taking pasta somebody else cooked
and stuffed inside a burrito.
Let's hope that our culinary team cooked it al dente.
[laughter]
[Jess] So for my Taleggio cream sauce,
I take the Taleggio
and I cook it down in some cream
and I add a little bit of veal demi-glace
just to, you know, tie the flavor of the veal back into it.
[Anthony] I'm deep-frying the schnitzel
so they can develop a nice crunch
and hold on to the cheese sauce.
Anthony, how are you feeling?
I'm feeling pretty good.
I feel like I'm cheesening it up over here.
Right now, it's complete cheesy chaos.
-[Geoffrey] Cheesy chaos. -[Amanda] It is intense.
One minute, chefs!
[Geoffrey] One minute, you gotta plate, bro.
Gotta plate.
Let's go.
Make sure you've used all the ingredients in the basket
or that will take you down.
[Millie] Oh, my goodness. All right.
Get it on the plate!
[Anthony] Ain't a good one to work out.
Let's go, let's go, let's go!
Sign the painting.
[Millie] Make it cheesy.
[Ted] Ten, nine, eight, seven,
six, five, four, three, two, one.
Time's up!
[Amanda] Good job!
Aah...
-Ooh! -Wow.
This is the biggest mess I've ever had.
-That is beautiful. -That is a beast.
[Anthony whistles]
I'm impressed with myself, honestly.
I can't believe that I made this happen in 30 minutes.
[triumphant music playing]
That was a whirlwind.
Pretty confident. Pretty confident.
Got most worried about the texture of the pasta.
Hopefully, the judges can see past that and just taste the food.
[dramatic music playing]
Chefs, in the Entree Round,
we asked you to make cheesy main dishes
with a pizza burrito, beech mushrooms,
rose veal chops, and Taleggio.
Chef Patrick, tell us all about it.
So, I made a rose veal saltimbocca
with a Taleggio fonduta, and a baked ziti.
I was very psyched to see saltimbocca
and I'm very excited to eat it 'cause it's delicious.
But this, I wish you didn't put this on the plate, quite frankly.
I want to be honest with you.
It's not baked ziti. It's so overcooked.
Baked ziti is... is crispy and it's dry.
So, I wish you had skipped it.
[Millie] Cheese sauce is good.
We're not going to keep talking about
-the overcooked noodles, because what happens... -Yeah.
[Millie] ...when you take noodles and then you cook them again
-[Millie] ...it turns into a mush. -Absolutely.
But I love the crispiness on the meat.
As far as the cheese challenge goes,
I think, you know, you gave us a delicious fonduta.
There's cheese inside of the veal as well.
I think, you hit that in the places you should have.
Yeah. Thank you.
Next up is Chef Jess.
I have made for you a stuffed veal chop
with a beech mushroom peperonata
and a Taleggio cream sauce.
Why don't you start?
-Okay. -You want to start?
-You're ready. -[clears throat]
I'm just gonna have to keep it real with you.
This is not good.
I wanted to like it because it looks so beautiful.
But just the meat is overcooked.
But when I'm trying to chew it, it's like rubber.
Pepper, I mean, I got these big, crispy pieces of pepper.
The eggplant was smaller, so it's mushy with the pasta.
-Okay. -The same mistake as we just saw.
The pasta is just mushy.
I mean, and that's just a no.
And veal is like one of those dishes
that needs to be really, like, cooked to perfectly medium rare.
Chef, my veal is cooked well.
It really is.
So, it's really nicely done.
I thought the presentation was... was great.
A big, bold stuffed veal chop,
really brave to do that in 30 minutes.
You gave us cheese in two places, right,
-inside of the veal and in a sauce, correct? -Mmm-hmm.
So, I think, you know, cheese challenge-wise, you're 100% there.
Mmm-hmm.
[Ted] Thank you, Chef Jess.
Finally, Chef Anthony.
So, in front of you guys,
I have a schnitzel mac and cheese
with a beech mushroom succotash on top.
I'm just going to tell you this,
for composition-wise, when you put pasta in a bowl,
then you put a slab of meat on top of it
that was supposed to cut, it's impossible.
You've got to get a plate.
Did you put salt in the water when you, um, made this pasta?
Yes.
Probably could've put a little more, but I put it in there.
The pasta did need a little bit of salt,
but you have enough salt in the schnitzel.
So when you eat it together, it's seasoned well.
So, that saved you.
[Amanda] The mushrooms are great.
The tomato is really necessary here.
Very necessary.
[Anthony] Oh.
So, in the mac and cheese is pepperoni pizza.
-[Anthony] Mmm. -[Amanda] Taleggio.
Havarti. Yep.
-[Amanda] Smoked Gouda. -Yeah.
-Anything else? -And I put fontina.
-For the amount of flavors... -Yeah.
...you would think that would be,
bam, punch in the face,
but it's not what you describe it as.
And it...
I think it could use another cheese,
like a cheddar or like something sharper.
It's not cheesy enough.
Okay.
Chef Anthony, thank you.
Thank you.
With appetizers and entrees done,
there is one course to go, dessert.
[Patrick] I felt a little more confident
before I heard the judges' take,
really messed up by cooking the pasta twice.
I think, this was a tough round for all of us
Patrick and I both made a mistake of serving, like the pasta.
So, I think it's a toss-up between him and I.
[tense music playing]
Whose dish is on the Chopping Block?
[intense music playing]
[Ted] Chef Jess, you've been Chopped.
Judges.
Chef Jess, this is a tough one.
You and Chef Patrick made the same mistake
by serving us back that ziti pasta,
which was completely overcooked,
but your veal had issues.
You know, for Millie, it was overcooked.
For me, it was just right.
It was inconsistent.
So, we had to chop you.
-[Ted] Thank you, Chef. -Thank you.
Good luck, guys.
I feel bummed.
I can walk away with my head held high.
You know, everyone cracks a little bit under pressure,
and today I just wasn't good enough.
And that's okay.
Chef Anthony, Chef Patrick, the last chefs standing.
Time to tackle these final baskets.
Dig in for your dessert ingredients.
-Phew! -Ooh!
[Ted] Your sweet dishes must include...
An entire cake.
Dessert's done.
[Ted] ...cheese cracker crunch cake.
Grapes.
Sour cherry spread.
Yes, sir.
Sour cherry spread.
[Ted] And honey goat Gouda.
I think, I can actually do something with this.
-Yeah? -[chuckles]
[Ted] Thirty minutes.
Clock starts now!
-[Geoffrey] All right! -[Amanda] Let's go!
Let's make it cheesy.
All right!
All right, judges.
Cheese in a dessert course.
What are you expecting? What do you want?
I love a good cheesecake.
[Geoffrey] I do, too.
And it is the first thing I think of when I think of cheesy desserts, right?
-[Millie] Mmm-hmm. -[Geoffrey] Yes.
I wouldn't mind some type of dessert fondue.
-Ooh! -[Ted] Ooh!
Oh, that's a really good idea.
You could toast that cake and make, like, little...
like a little dip for it.
[Anthony] I got your measuring cup.
Well, let me know if you need it.
Ugh, measuring cups.
[Anthony] I'm making corn cakes,
because cornbread
is a big part of cooking in the South.
And I remember growing up, my grandma would tell me,
you put all that sugar in there,
it might as well be a cake.
So, I'm like, this is the day that I could make it a cake.
I'm making a honey-Gouda corn cake
with the cheese cracker mascarpone
and a golden raisin-grape chutney.
I want to win Chopped for my family.
I'm definitely bringing this win home for my wife,
my soon-to-be-born son, and the whole North Carolina
I'm a country boy at heart and I'm gonna stay that way.
[Amanda] Chef Anthony just feels like, you know,
because he's running a food truck,
maybe he doesn't fit in with the other chefs,
but really, that's not true, whatsoever.
Everything Anthony has made today is full of flavor.
[Patrick] Now you're making it happen.
[Anthony] Trying to.
[Patrick] I love that.
-Coming through. -[Geoffrey] Patrick just opened a restaurant in LA,
one of the most fantastic restaurant towns in the country.
My expectations are very high.
He has a Michelin-star experience.
I expect stunning food.
I've used Gouda before.
I've never used honey goat Gouda.
I taste it, very floral-ness of honey.
Not necessarily sweet.
I know Gouda has a great melting point,
and that's immediately when it pops into my head.
Okay, do a little panna cotta.
For dessert, I'm making a Gouda panna cotta
with a port-cherry gastriqu and sliced grapes.
Chef Patrick is making a panna cotta.
That's bold.
It's extremely bold.
-It usually has to set overnight. -[Geoffrey] Good luck.
[laughs]
[Patrick] So, I want to mel the Gouda down
into my cream
before I set it so I have all those honey notes.
We're gonna start with cherry gastrique on the stove,
hit it with the port wine,
and then you have this reall nice, rich wine flavor
with some very sweet and a little bit of tart cherry.
It works out really, really well.
That tastes kind of good, bro.
To go with my cake, I'm making a mascarpone whip.
I'm adding in the grapes jus to add a little bit more aci
and a little bit of fruity flavor
to an otherwise very rich mascarpone.
I think the panna cotta is a very good idea
to bring cheese to dessert.
It's just time-wise,
it's like you're trying to bend reality.
-[Amanda] Mmm-hmm. -[Patrick] I need to set this immediately.
The agar-agar is going to help things set
a little bit quicker than gelatin does.
You know, for anything like that to work,
you'd really have to get it mixed up
and in the freezer really early in the round.
-[Millie] Yeah. -And it's rather late in the round.
[Patrick] I don't know if it's going to set in time.
If it doesn't, I don't have a backup plan.
I'm just going to say that 12 minutes...
Coming down. Coming down.
[Geoffrey] ...there's almost no chance.
It's like slim to none, and slim just left town.
Ugh!
[Patrick] All right.
Chef Patrick is making a panna cotta.
That's bold.
-[Amanda] That usually has to set overnight. -[Geoffrey] Good luck.
I absolutely need this panna cotta to set
for the rest of the dish to work.
[Anthony] I'm using the sour cherry spread
to make a golden raisin chutney.
It's very tart and pungent,
and that's exactly what I wanted to break up all the creaminess in a dish.
[Amanda] Where do you put this cheese cracker crunch cake?
This is a cake celebrating a very famous cheddar-oriented cracker.
[Amanda] My dad loved those.
[Patrick] I want to make sure I'm incorporating texture,
because I have just a very pudding-like dessert.
So, I think I'm gonna fry up this cake.
My cakes are fully baked.
I'm just a little worried they're not going to come out of the pan.
Anthony, are you having a hard time getting them cakes out of that tin?
[Anthony] Uh...
Not anymore.
Ooh! You called it right there.
-Oh, I'm sorry. -[Patrick] You're good.
Let's see the panna cotta.
You guys realize there's two minutes and 15 seconds left, right?
We do.
[Amanda] This is your final cheese round.
-Is it cheesy? -[Millie] Is it good?
[Amanda] Is cheese the star?
It's definitely cheesy.
One minute left, chefs.
[dramatic music playing]
[Millie] Come on, friends. Y'all can do it.
Who's walking away with the ten racks?
[Ted] The big cheese.
All right, chefs, final seconds of the final round.
Ten, nine, eight, seven, six,
five, four, three, two, one.
-Time's up! -[Amanda] Well done!
-Whoo! -Ooh!
[applause]
-Man. -Well done.
Best of luck to you, bro.
[Patrick] Ooh!
[Anthony] I'm feeling great
I'm super happy with how this came out.
I definitely think it can be a $10,000, sir.
We're going to have to see, my guy, Patrick over there is killing it as well.
[Patrick] I feel good about this one.
The only thing I'm worried about is if my panna cotta got set.
Other than that, I'm very confident with what I put up today.
[dramatic music playing]
Chef Anthony and Chef Patrick, for the Dessert Round,
your mandatory ingredients were a cheese cracker crunch cake,
grapes, sour cherry spread, and honey goat Gouda.
Chef Patrick, what'd you make?
So, I made for you today a Gouda panna cotta with a crispy cracker cake,
glazed with a sour cherry port gastrique.
Okay. There's the eternal question.
Whenever someone attempts a panna cotta, did it get set?
It did set up, which I think was the biggest challenge.
Texturally, it's not panna cotta,
but it is...it is... It can pass for one.
I agree.
It's more of a mousse, um, or a pudding,
but I actually think it's quite tasty.
I liked it.
I thought it was very delicious.
It had crunchy, it had texture,
and I was kind of looking at the grapes on the sides,
'Cause I thought it was kind of an afterthought.
But when you eat it all together, it was absolutely delicious.
I liked it.
All right.
-Thank you, Chef Patrick. -Thank you very much.
Finally, Chef Anthony, please tell us about your plate.
I have a honey Gouda corn cake
with a little bit of cheese cracker mascarpone
and some golden raisin and grape chutney.
I like the idea of this a lot.
My problem with this is, like, I love the taste of the bites I get,
but then I start crunching cornmeal
and the cornmeal isn't cooked or... Are you getting that?
-Mmm, yeah. -[Amanda] Yeah.
I mean, the... the cake,
when you're not eating the big pieces of cornmeal, is really good.
The jam that you made goes really well with the cake and the cream.
You know, this reminds me of when you go to, like diners,
like in New York City,
when you get like the corn muffin,
they put it on top of the griddle.
-In the morning. -That's...that's what it's giving me.
Overall, I think, we all agree it does need more sugar,
'cause it's not giving dessert,
but it brought back a memory,
and I think that's what I appreciate.
All right.
Three mystery baskets conquered.
Well done.
We will name a champion shortly.
Thank you, chefs.
Judges, we gave them mountains of cheese
and we wanted cheese celebrated in every round.
Did you get that?
I think, we got a lot of cheese celebration today, don't you?
[Geoffrey] Patrick went for it in the first course,
where he had this cheese in crab cake
and made a spectacularly beautiful sauce.
Unfortunately, it was a little lumpy lump,
not in a good way.
-The crab got buried. -Got buried.
It's too much breading, too much breadcrumb.
Oh, my gosh, Anthony, that delicious,
-I call it hand-warming soup. -[Amanda] Yes.
[Millie] Anything that you want to have, like, on a cold day.
I know, it was just so delicious and flavorful.
The only thing I didn't like is that the crab got lost in his.
And so, in a way, Patrick and Anthony
both sort of lost on the crab,
but did elevate the cheese,
which is what we asked them to do.
What really threw them, unfortunately,
was in Entree Round,
Patrick made a saltimbocca and that was good,
but he served us reheated pasta
that he scraped off of pizza.
Oh, God!
And I think Anthony wasn't much better,
quite frankly, simply because of his presentation.
Right.
I think, overall, Chef Anthony wanted to celebrate his Southern roots.
[Amanda] Yeah.
[Millie] Even though the bowl wasn't the best vehicle for that dish.
Good flavor in the veal,
not so good flavor in the cavatappi and the mac cheese.
But at least he didn't cook the leftover pasta.
[Millie] No.
Five cheeses inside of that mac and cheese
and it still needed flavor, which was so odd.
[Geoffrey] Yet.
Well, who has won it then?
I think we've chosen, Ted.
[intense music playing]
Oh! I want to win so bad.
Busted my tail off, made it three rounds.
I'm at the finish line.
I want it really, really bad.
I didn't come all the way here to lose.
I like you a lot, Patrick, but you got to go down today, man.
So, whose dish is on the Chopping Block?
[intense music playing]
[intense music fades]
Patrick, you've been Chopped.
Judges.
Patrick, your first course was just a thing of beauty.
The way you used cheese,
uh, your thought process, making a crab cake, it was delicious.
Crab cake was a bit tough,
so that brought you down on the first course.
Second course, a really delicious veal saltimbocca.
However, the pasta, man. Wow.
Big mistake putting precooked pasta reheated on the plate.
So, for those reasons, we had to chop you.
Thank you very much. Appreciate it.
Thank you so much, man.
Chef, you're welcome.
You know, obviously very disappointed
in the result at the moment.
I definitely wanted to walk away with the victory today.
Just bummed. Bummed out.
And that means, Chef Anthony Denning,
you are the Chopped Champi,
also known as the Big Cheese,
and you take home our $10,000 prize.
-Congratulations. -[Amanda] Whoo!
-Congratulations! -Thank y'all. Thank you all very much.
[applause]
I can't wait to get back and tell my wife.
Oh, my God! I'm super excited.
Like, I'm the most excited I've ever been in my life.
It's huge. It's a, it's a very big deal