[all exclaiming]
[Guy] Tonight, our remaining four chefs
will have to tackle the wicked Triple G List Games.
You gotta use all these ingredients
to fight for a spot in next week's finale.
This tournament is getting harder and harder.
These chefs are crushing it.
Yeah!
[Guy] And the all-star that proves that they can do it all...
Not his first rodeo.
Somebody's goin' home. It's not gonna be me.
...will reap the rewards, up to $75,000 in prize money,
and will be crowned the champion.
I want the tile. I want the money.
[Guy] Part 4 of our 5-week All-Star Grocery Games...
-[Antonia] That's amazing. -Look at that.
Oh, I'm into that all day.
...starts now.
Let's welcome back our four returning all-star chefs.
The Flavortown Four.
Hi.
So, last week, I went up against
one of my very best chef friends, Shota.
[Guy] Congratulations...
the Goat.
Congratulations, Chef.
That was a little too close.
There we go.
There they are.
You have gone and tackled and hit every game
that I can think of.
You done the Limited Ingredients.
You've done Budget battles.
You've done Game of Chance.
So I thought, "You know what? I gotta make a mental list
of the games you haven't played yet."
And then it hit me. I'm like, "Lists!
Hunter, that's it. They're gonna play a list game."
So, tonight, I'm not only giving you the dish.
I'm giving you the list.
Best dish will win 10,000 bucks
and two of you are gonna go on to the finale next week.
But the other chefs will go into a second round of competition tonight.
And that will be sudden death.
Okay. [sighs]
For your first dish,
I want you to make the judges a comfort classic.
You know, that satisfying dish
that just puts a smile on everybody's face.
And to get you started,
I thought I would help you out
just 'cause I'm the giver.
Hunter and I, I told Hunter, "Hunter,
go around the store and make a great list for the chefs."
So, Hunter, you got that list? Come on in, bud.
I've got a great list. Chefs, how are ya?
-[Guy] All right. -Oh, you're gonna love it.
It's got some colors in there. I added some shapes.
Some numbers. It's, uh... It's awesome.
-An art project. -Yeah.
Colors, shapes, numbers.
[Hunter] You said, "Be kind of creative."
-So, you know, I went all out. -I love this. Okay.
Here's the list. Let me...
First, we have "something purple."
Boom. Colors.
"Boneless pork loin."
-Shapes. -Is that a shape?
Boneless?
"Something vegetarian in a can."
And here's something that you think you deserve.
-I do. Yes. -'Cause you came up with the list.
"A frozen treat."
All right, go ahead and give 'em the list.
-Here you are. -Thank you.
-Here you go. -Thank you.
Your creative list.
You've gotta use all these ingredients
'cause this is Grocery List.
However, you can shop for anything else you want.
See, I thought I was being nice.
I mean, kind of vague. It gives them options to choose from.
If you were nice, you would've given them
three things.
You said four, though.
[Guy] These are the-- These two are the...
-Well, this-- Huh? -I was gonna pick two things.
I was gonna pick two things.
No, but one thing--
Excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse me.
Excuse me. Excuse me, Mr. Jump-the-Gun.
What did I miss?
I didn't say "go."
-Aah! -[Guy laughing]
That was awesome.
This tournament is getting harder and harder
every single week.
The grocery list, I mean, this is gonna be a challenge
because you have all your parameters set out for you.
Where's the boneless pork loin? This guy?
Once Guy said "comfort classic,"
I had schnitzel in mind.
But I wanna make this more my style.
-Hi. -Do you know where I can find some Chinese five-spice?
Chinese five-spice would be in aisle 5.
[Mei] Chinese five-spice as well as shio koji.
I'm thinking purple potato salad
'cause that is a perfect side with a schnitzel.
I need a sweetener for the potato salad.
So for my frozen treat,
I picked honeycomb ice cream.
My canned vegetable is hatch chilis for my potato salad.
If I win this, I'm going into the finale.
It's so close, yet that prize is so far away.
Week 4, four challengers left.
Mei Lin, TOC champion.
Stephanie Izard, undefeated Iron Chef.
Nate Appleman. Won the Beard Award,
Food and Wine ambassador chef.
And I have no clue what I'm gonna do.
I see prosciutto and I think saltimbocca.
Classic, classic Italian food.
Sage.
Really representative of where my wife and her family comes from.
And me, living in Rome,
it's something you see all the time.
Now I need something purple
and I love Japanese sweet potatoes,
especially the purple ones.
Check that off my list.
And I grab some of Guy's finest barbecue sauce.
Coffee.
We're gonna do a red-eye gravy,
a classic pairing with pork.
I grab coffee ice cream for my sweet frozen treat.
I have canned golden syrup for my vegetarian canned good.
Here it is.
And I grab some whiskey.
Last week, I won Champagne Brunch.
I won $10,000.
And I'm gonna win 10,000 more this week.
[Stephanie] I see this list
and my mind goes directly to what I wanna do.
I am making a piccata-inspired pork.
Hi.
That just seems so comforting to me.
I love lime Popsicles, so my mind goes to,
"Why not take lime Popsicles and turn them into a sauce?"
Having a piccata-inspired sauce reminds me
of something that my mom would've made for dinner.
Then it comes to the canned ingredient
and I think canned butter. It exists.
So I can use it in this challenge.
And then something purple,
radicchio char would be so good.
Getting a chance to be in the finale-finale,
this is not the time to be having things go SWAK.
What are ya thinkin', Chef?
-Double-decker taco. -There you go!
-That's comfort. -Let's go.
That's comfort.
I look around, and I think the other chefs
are probably gonna make a schnitzel
or a cutlet.
So I'm gonna go the opposite direction.
Crispy taco shells.
[Guy] Crispy taco shells. Yeah. Right here.
And you have purple.
Come on!
-Let's go. -Come on!
My vegetarian item in a can, I'm gonna grab black beans.
I grab my frozen treat, which is frozen plantains.
Plantains are a staple for us.
Normally, I would make fresh plantains.
I've never had frozen, but I'm goin' with it.
My fellow competitors are tough.
But I want the title. I want the money.
I want the bragging rights and that big trophy.
So here to discuss tonight's dishes
are three acclaimed chefs
who know their way around comfort cuisine.
First, we have James Beard Award winner
and legendary New York chef,
the one and only Arthur Fonzarelli,
-known as Rocco DiSpirito! -'Ey!
And now a restaurateur who's picture is in the dictionary
under "suave..."
-[chuckles] -[Antonia] Wow.
...the one and only Scott Conant.
And SoCal restaurateur
who can cook any comfort food in any cuisine,
especially when it's in neon,
Antonia Lofaso.
Looks like we're down to four chefs
from a very tough crew of eight.
[Scott] Antonia, you have real investment.
You have been here for every single one of these competitions.
You know, I have to say that every single one of them
has impressed me to execute at such a high level
-so quickly. -Yeah.
Purple, pork loin, something vegetarian in a can.
Yup. Hatch chilis.
Frozen treat.
So, for my comfort classic, I'm making my take
on a schnitzel with potato salad.
This one's actually one of the first things
that I learned how to make professionally
when I started working for Wolfgang Puck at Spago.
Schnitzel is a Austrian fried piece of cutlet
that has been breaded in bread crumbs.
I get my panko into the food processor
and get that finely ground.
And I start getting that meat pounded out perfectly.
Schnitzel is a great comfort classic for sure.
-[Antonia] I think so too. -Schnitzel is checking all the boxes.
[Mei] I'm gonna put shio koji as well as salt and pepper.
Grab some soy sauce and I also add that to the marinade.
When the pork's finished marinating,
I add some corn starch to the pork loin
and get dredging.
This is definitely the round with the most pressure
because it's either you win and make it to the finale
or you have the potential to go home.
And I don't wanna go home.
These chefs are crushing it.
We're gonna see how the competition goes.
If it's close, it might just be two in the bottom.
If it's not close, it might be three in the bottom.
This entire tournament so far
has been all of the best games of Grocery Games, right.
And I have to say
this is the most random list I've ever seen
in my entire life.
How about this? Stephanie Izard is back to her station.
What are you making?
A piccata, but using the frozen treat
for my lemon butter sauce.
There's pasta there, too, she has.
[Antonia] Little pasta. I love a pork piccata.
I'm gonna make some Italian for you guys.
Oh, my God. You guys are all...
-We're all Italian. -We're all Italian.
Great. Well, not well played, but.
What makes my dish a little bit different
than a classic piccata
is adding in my own flair.
Fish sauce is gonna be great with the brown butter and pork.
I'm putting it in the flour, putting it in the egg
and then into my panko bread crumbs.
Okay.
Nate Appleman food-processing his boneless pork loin.
[Nate] The other chefs are probably gonna make a cutlet
of some sort.
So I'm gonna go the opposite direction.
I'm gonna make a double-decker pork taco.
This chorizo's gonna give my pork great flavor
and fattiness.
Taco seasoning is amazing.
It's a time-saver.
We love tacos at home.
We have double-decker tacos
probably every week.
Okay.
Just cook please.
Plantains are a staple for us.
I'm gonna get my frozen plantains in the fryer
until they're warmed through.
I plan on serving these as a little sweet treat on the side.
So it looks like everybody made some form of pork schnitzel
except for Nate Appleman, who made tacos.
Oh, no. The saltimbocca I guess is not a schnitzel.
But it is sort of a cutlet style.
Very smart to pound this pork,
giving it a chance to be tender.
[Jonathon] Comfort classic, for me,
has gotta be pork saltimbocca,
red-eye gravy.
Add a sweet potato,
and you got a combination of me and my wife.
I lived in Rome for a while and this was like a classic.
Pressing pieces of sage
into the pounded pork loin...
I love that so much.
-That's saltimbocca. -That makes me so happy-- I know.
But it just makes me so happy.
Sometimes people skip that.
[Jonathon] Gotta be careful not to overlap the prosciutto
'cause I really want this pork loin to shine.
Now that my pork is wrapped and ready,
I check on my purple potato.
I'm slicing them into 1-inch discs,
seasoning them with salt
and putting them in a pan with butter
with a lid on top.
It's a real murderers' row here.
Four chefs left. As excited as I am
to be included with these other three phenomenal chefs,
I'm not gonna be happy until it's just me
holding that trophy at the end.
Yeah.
[Rocco] 10 minutes. 10 minutes left.
[Antonia] A lot of purple potatoes.
I feel like it's gonna be a purple potato battle.
What's making my purple potato salad really unique
is the sauce.
I get my chili crisps as well as my canned hatch chilis
into a blender because I need that little kick
that's gonna spice up my purple potato salad.
Get that blended up and stir in some Kewpie mayo.
I get that into a bowl
and then I add my honeycomb ice cream.
And that's gonna add that tiny bit of sweetness
that the purple potatoes are gonna have.
-[Antonia] Yeah, that's amazing. -Look at that.
Oh, I'm into that all day.
Pretty good.
Just watching all of the pork come out of the fryer,
on Stephanie's station,
beautifully pounded and golden brown.
Then you got Mei Lin's just went in.
Oh, you have-- You have treats, too.
[mumbling] I have treats, too.
Oh, I have had a Popsicle for a long time, either.
-They're delicious. -What's the idea on the menu?
Uh, like a pork piccata,
using the frozen treat for a brown butter
frozen treat sauce.
To make the Popsicle sauce,
first, I'm gonna start browning some butter.
I'm using canned butter for my butter sauce.
A canned butter.
-Canned butter. Very smart move. -[Antonia] I like that.
-That's smart game play. -[Stephanie] Thank you.
Then I take a couple of the Popsicles and melt them down
to get the sticks out,
uh, and add 'em into the brown butter.
Then, lastly, adding in a little bit of fish sauce
for that saltiness.
I love grilling radicchio char,
so it's gonna take that bitterness
and then add this sort of smoky char to it.
Next, I'm gonna work on some pickles.
I love pickles.
I think, every dish, I always have some pickles.
So I take out rice wine vinegar,
which is the easiest way to pickle.
I grab some shallots I'm gonna slice thin,
some Fresnos that are sliced thin.
And then to add a little extra layer of flavor,
I grabbed a little jar of anchovies.
It's gonna get this sort of spicy funky pickle going on.
-How you doing, Goat? -I think I'm good.
Got to use Popsicles.
Ernie a big Popsicle fan?
Yes.
Ernie is six and a half years old.
He's amazing. The best thing that ever happened to me.
So I'm excited for him to see me just push myself
and be the best that I can.
He'll kind of sometimes skip dinner
and just go right to dessert.
And just go right to his Popsicle.
Yeah.
[Guy] How we doin', Chef?
What have you seasoned this with?
Taco seasoning.
Really good.
[Nate] Next, I'm gonna work on my bean puree.
I add some salsa verde.
I add chipotle and adobo.
I'm gonna puree the beans so they stay a little chunky.
It's good.
So we got this cane syrup.
I have canned golden syrup for my vegetarian canned good
for my red-eye gravy.
It's that beautiful amber.
I add to a pan some of that golden syrup,
cold brew coffee, whiskey.
I let that reduce.
I wanna make sure this ice cream didn't spoil.
Make sure that that is good for me, Chef, please.
We have a very prestigious panel of judges here.
Ice cream's gonna be fine.
Ice cream-- Okay.
What? I just gotta-- Quality control.
[Jonathon] It's time to start whisking in the ice cream.
This is a very delicate part of the sauce.
At no point in time can my sauce
ever be hotter than 155 degrees.
Otherwise, the eggs will cook.
We'll have scrambled eggs, sugar and fat on the side
looking at a bunch of coffee and it'll be disgusting,
and I'll be going home.
[Guy] Five minutes! Five to go!
[Mei] I get that purple potato salad on the plate first.
I get my seasoned schnitzel on the plate after that.
And it's perfect.
Ooh, love it so much.
[Rocco] It's so naughty.
[Stephanie] To finish my dish,
I'm gonna add a little bit of angel hair pasta.
The pasta should be able to just soak up
a lot of this piccata-inspired sort of butter sauce.
That works great.
Then put a piece of my pork that's all ready to go.
And then taking my sauce straight out of the blender
and just pouring it on.
I decided to take some of the pickles,
the radicchio, some blood oranges,
capers, and kind of mix it all together
and make this just tasty garnish salad
over the top of the whole dish.
Two minutes! Two to go, chefs!
[Nate] Now it's time to fill my tacos.
I smear my bean on the soft tortilla
and I get it into the taco stand.
I add in my pork and chorizo mixture
into the purple and corn taco shells.
I top with cheese.
And then I start adding all my vegetables,
the jalapeno, the onions, tomato, lettuce.
I want these tacos to be overflowing.
-[Guy] Monsters. -Let it rain, Chef.
In my paper boat, I put down the bean puree
and I top it with plantains.
Forty-five seconds, chefs.
We have 45 to go.
It's beautiful.
I start plating with the sweet potatoes first.
A little bit of that brown butter.
Then I pull my pork out of the grill.
I'm runnin' out of time and I gotta finish this plate.
Time to put the pork down
and the red-eye gravy over top.
[Guy] Five, four, three, two, one.
-And that's all she wrote. -We just sit here and eat these chefs' food.
-This is great. -Nice job, everybody!
Great job, chefs.
[Antonia] Excellent.
[sighs loudly]
All right, chefs, the judges are gonna be checkin' that list,
and I hope they're nice.
Let's take it to 'em. Right this way.
Judges, here we are, part 4,
and it's all about the List Game.
Our chefs had to make a comfort classic
using only the items on this fantastic list
that my 26-year-old son made.
"Something purple, boneless pork loin,
something vegetarian in a can,
a frozen treat."
Awesome.
Anyhow, first up, Chef Mei.
What do you have for us, Chef?
Judges, in front of you,
you have my ode to a schnitzel.
It's actually one of the first things I learned how to make.
My former Chef, Wolfgang Puck,
this is my take.
Koji-marinated pork loin,
um...
Sorry.
Here you go. You just dropped your Wolfgang Puck.
-I just wanted to-- yeah. -[all laughing]
I got it.
That was a good one. That was a good one.
[Mei] The purple potato salad
is made with canned hatch chilis.
And the sweet treat, just the honeycomb ice cream.
Wow.
Chef Mei Lin,
I too worked for Wolfgang Puck for many, many years.
-[Rocco] Uh-oh. Pick it up. Right here. -And I too have made...
...the schnitzel for 110 years.
I love your twist on it
because there's all these beautiful warming spices.
You've got that luscious juicy pork loin in the center.
There's something incredibly craveable about this
that I can't help myself
and I wanna go back for another bite.
That is the definition of comfort,
as far as I'm concerned.
Thank you.
I love that you had the purple potatoes
and covered in something super-delicious.
And it's just crazy to me that you used ice cream.
Very smart. I never would have thought of that.
The hatch chili is a great, great idea.
My only issue is that it feels like everything is seasoned
except the actual pork itself,
way underneath all the crispy coating,
uh, and loving that you put on the outside of it.
All right, up next, the Goat, Chef Stephanie.
What do you have for us?
Hi, chefs. So I have a little bit of a shout-out to piccata,
but more so in my style of cooking.
For the purple, we have some radicchio.
That's in a little salad with some capers.
I made a quick pickle with shallots, Fresnos and anchovies.
And then the sauce is made with our frozen treat,
which is these lime Popsicles.
And the canned item was butter.
I think that your shop was unbelievably smart
that when it comes to comfort food
that you went in the direction of a pork piccata.
The pork is perfectly cooked, perfectly seasoned.
I love that you actually went for it with that piccata sauce
and did like a little bit of drizzle
so it kind of got a little soft on one side.
But I do think that it needed to be tossed a little bit more
because it kind of came together.
[Scott] And, also, this little...
all this mishegoss you have on top of it, right,
-the capers and the shallots-- -"Mishegoss."
...I mean, all this stuff is just absolutely spectacular.
Great cooking. Just great cooking.
Last time in this tournament,
I said you're like a great artist.
You're-- Who knows what's going on in your brain?
And then 30 seconds before the time's up,
you put together this incredibly beautiful dish.
You've done it again.
And the Popsicle canned butter,
very smart move.
But my big complaint here is the pasta isn't seasoned.
Thank you.
All right, thank you. Up next, Chef Nate.
I made double-decker tacos.
So on the outside, it's a soft taco.
Inside is a purple hard crispy taco.
The canned item was the vegetarian beans that I grabbed.
The pork loin is the meat for the taco.
And fried plantains with queso fresco.
What night do you do this?
Because I'm comin' over with my family
if that-- if that's cool.
The cheese, the seasoning, the avocado,
you're addicted to the next bite.
This is phenomenal. The flavors of the pork,
what you did with all of those spices,
phenomenal.
And I know that the crispy corn taco
is your purple ingredient,
but the crispy corn shell
actually got a little bit soft.
So everything, texture-wise in the taco,
reads a little mushy.
This is, you know, outrageously delicious,
like everything you've made in this tournament so far.
-The plantains itself were frozen? -Frozen, yeah.
They're delicious. Amazing.
Wow. Just incredible.
Thank you, Chef.
Up next, Chef Jonathon.
What do ya got for us, bud?
It's a single-side saltimbocca,
red-eye gravy and sweet potatoes.
And then the sauce is based on, uh, coffee ice cream,
coffee, whiskey,
butter, and then a little bit more
of that golden syrup for the red-eye.
Saltimbocca, one of the greatest dishes ever invented, right?
Prosciutto, sage, veal, pork. You nailed that.
You got those warm homey flavors,
reminiscent of Italian cooking. You nailed those.
Such an interesting flavor profile
with the usage of the coffee ice cream
inside the sauce itself.
But, somehow, you got it to work.
That sweetness in the coffee
doesn't necessarily attribute itself
to a saltimbocca, traditionally, clearly.
But I really like the additional sweetness
of the sweet potato as well.
I just wish that there was something a little extra
on top of that potato.
They tend to be very starchy
and very, very dense.
And so if they're not really like overly marinated
or overly sauced,
they can get a little dry in the center.
And that's where we're at.
All right.
Oh, you're fantastic four.
I love watching you cook.
We're gonna let the judges deliberate.
We're gonna send you back to the stations.
We'll call you when we have a decision.
-Thank you. -[Nate] Thank you, chefs.
Thank you, chefs. Great job.
Four comfort classics. But now you're in the uncomfortable position
of sending two chefs into the checkout round.
How do you feel about yourselves now?
It's so hard to say
because there's so much good cooking that happens here.
[Rocco] So, for me, Stephanie and Mei Lin are in the top two.
It's hard to say. You know what I mean?
Because I also loved that-- that, uh, piccata.
[exhales] Oh, God.
[Guy] Chefs, first, we're gonna talk about the one chef
that is gonna win $10,000 for best dish
and move on to the final week.
The chef with the best dish and $10,000 goes to...
the champ!
Chef Mei Lin, see ya next week.
10,000 bucks. Congratulations.
Guaranteed spot in the finals.
All three of you had situations with your dishes.
Two people are supposed to be moving on.
And two people are supposed to be going head-to-head.
And we couldn't make a decision who was gonna be safe tonight,
so all three of you will be in the final competition tonight
of sudden death.
Final sudden death round happens right now.
Thank you. Chefs, to your carts.
Let's go.
You've all been cooking your butts off and I know you're tired.
I wanna make this last game tonight
on the easier side of things.
I want you to make the judges the all-American food duo,
which is what?
Burger and fries.
I just wanna make it straightforward.
Matter of fact, I made it so easy,
I'm gonna give you a basic list of ingredients, okay?
Hunter.
-Thank you, son. -Your welcome, Father.
-Here ya go. -Make it quick. Perfect.
-Just what I asked for. -Yeah. Uh-huh.
Okay, basic list of ingredients.
It's good. It's good.
"Ground meat, buns, potatoes."
So, let me get...
I think that there's something, um,
you unintentionally left unsaid.
And maybe they should, um, understand.
I, uh, underestimated what you meant
when you put the list together.
-Thank you. Okay. -Why don't you go ahead and pass those out?
-Fine, then. -Chefs, uh, Hunter has done a great job for ya.
-There you go. -He's got a fantastic list
because, this week,
it's all about the list games.
"Ground meat, buns and potatoes"
for burgers and fries,
and, unfortunately, this is the un-ingredients list.
-Unfortunately. -These are all the items you're not allowed to use
to make your burger and fries.
However...
you're allowed to shop for anything in the store you want
and you've got 30 minutes to make that all-American duo
of burgers and fries.
Well, there weren't supposed to be three of you.
There's only supposed to be two of you.
And only one person's gonna go home.
Right.
You can't get Nate. You just can't get him.
Aah!
This is the un-ingredient challenge.
So you can't use buns,
potatoes or ground beef.
First thing I would do is grind meat.
There's no question about that.
I can't get ground meat. Whatever.
I'm gonna grind my own.
I saw a beautiful huge brisket
that has the perfect fat to flesh ratio
that you need for burger blood.
Who's got the bread?
I see the classic Latin-American market bolillo.
You'll see it in like torta milanese
and different sandwiches.
This'll be perfect for my un-bun.
I think some precooked polenta
floured and fried
would be a great way to go
to make something that's fry-esque.
[Jonathon] I love instant polenta.
So polenta fries will be a natural side for me.
[whispers] Polenta fries.
It's a cheeseburger. I need cheese.
American, cheddar, Munster.
There's bacon. That's a must-have.
And I'm gonna dress this burger all the way.
Lettuce, tomato, onion, pickle.
This is the last cook before the finals.
This is it.
Somebody's goin' home. It's not gonna be me.
I can make a burger and fries, but I can't use ground meat.
So I grab the pant-based meat in the freezer
because that's what I make at home.
My wife was kosher for over 35 years
and could not eat beef and cheese together.
So I started makin' her a plant-based burger
with lots of cheese and onions and condiments.
So, in honor of that, I'm grabbing sharp cheddar
and gouda.
Next, as a replacement for my bun,
I'm grabbing English muffins.
It's got the nooks and crannies.
Instead of potatoes, I'm gonna make fried zucchini.
I came here to show everybody how much I love my family.
And everything I do, I do it for them.
So, knowing that one of us is going home,
I am bringing everything I can.
[Stephanie] Without a bun,
the best burger that you can do is a patty melt.
A patty melt is like a burger on bread.
And then my mind goes so quickly
to using extra-firm tofu to go inside of my patty melt.
I need cheese to go in the patty melt.
And I get kewpie mayo
because if I'm gonna have a patty melt sandwich,
it's gotta be like ooey-gooey sauce going everywhere.
And then I grab all the Asian ingredients, my own flair.
The sort of ingredients that I like to cook with.
I'm gonna grab kimchi
'cause I wanna do brown butter kimchi.
And some green beans that are turned into fries.
Oh, God. I gotta clean them.
I definitely wanna move on to the finale.
So I'm just gonna cook something for me.
Something that looks delicious that I wanna eat
that this would be my snack when this is all done.
The stakes are so high right now, right.
-This dish, essentially, is gonna decide... -[Rocco] Yeah.
-They're fired up. -...who is going to be in the finale.
I do not envy the positions these chefs are in.
The chefs are really starting to feel the pressure.
Making a burger is the ultimate test of your culinary chops.
But making a burger without the classic ingredients,
the bun, the potatoes for fries, the ground meat,
really, really difficult.
[Guy] 25 minutes!
What's the game plan, Chef?
A tofu patty melt.
-Ooh, I like that. -With brown butter kimchi,
American cheese, with tempura green beans.
Great call.
[Stephanie] Taking the idea of a patty melt,
you definitely need to marinate the extra-firm tofu.
So then I'm gonna add a marinade.
Soy sauce, sesame and sambal.
I kind of feel like I might go home because I chose tofu,
but I'm just kind of cooking for myself at this point.
Then I grab a kimchi and put it in brown butter,
which is one of my favorite things to do with kimchi.
It takes a little of the harshness out,
but it adds this layer of earthiness
putting the brown butter into it.
This is the second week in a row
that I'm on the bottom
and I have to fight my way back into the competition.
And this time, the stakes are really high
because it's to get into the finals.
Are we gonna have a tofu burger?
Stop it!
Stephanie is actually choosing to make a tofu burger.
I love that.
Never mind.
I wonder why Nate has frozen beef or some sort.
[Nate] I wanna make a plant-based burger
on an English muffin.
And first thing I feel like I need to do
is thaw this plant-based meat.
So I throw it in the microwave.
Instead of fries, I'm gonna use zucchini.
[Guy] What are we on, Chef?
Zucchini fries.
-Zucchini fries? -Ribbons.
-Like planks. -Yeah.
Okay. Great.
Once I season my zucchini with salt
to pull out the liquid,
I get some corn starch and seasoning on the zucchini
and then I dump 'em in the fryer.
Okay.
[Rocco] It looks like Chef picked plant-based patties.
That flavor profile is pretty close to a beef burger.
You could make that really good.
-[Scott] But they can grind their own beef. -[Antonia] Yeah.
-That does take a lot of time. -[Rocco] Yeah.
But in a burger competition,
that's probably where you wanna put most of your time.
[Antonia] In the meat.
Twenty minutes. Twenty to go.
[Jonathon] Now, I love a veggie burger,
but that a veggie burger
and you call it a veggie burger.
Or you call that a tofu burger.
But burgers are made of beef.
[Guy] Come on, baby. You got enough life in ya.
-Did you... -I just need four burger patties.
Did you go big brisket on me here, buddy?
I did, baby.
I see you've made a burger grind before.
I have, a little bit.
I find that 80/20 fat ratio. We're good.
It's not his first rodeo.
It's not my first fingertip I've lost in a meat grinder.
I have tried millions, and I literally mean millions
of burger patties.
But there was a point when we were opening Kindling
where I was trying 15 blends at one time.
But it's that attention to detail
that gets us chefs prepared
to make a great burger over and over.
And that's when it's gonna help me win this challenge.
Real pillowed in the middle,
so that way, when I smash 'em,
their edges get nice and crispy.
[Guy] 15 minutes, chefs. 15 to go.
Halfway!
[Stephanie] I'm definitely feeling the pressure
putting this burger together.
I've got American cheese on one side.
I've got gouda on the other.
I've got red onions that have been caramelized on one side.
I've got brown butter kimchi on the other.
And I'm gonna put the tofu burger in the middle
'cause I want both sides to get all that color.
What this sandwich needs is a special sauce
to make it super-delicious.
So I've got kewpie mayonnaise.
I'm just taking the ingredients
that I already used in the marinade of the tofu.
Next are my green beans.
Tempura batter, I'm just being really simple
with ingredients I have on the station,
just enough to lightly coat the green beans.
Then I'm gonna throw them into the fryer.
[Guy] 10 minutes, chefs! 10 to go!
I get my meat. I season it.
I start makin' my burger patties.
I get the oil in the pan and I get my patties down.
I'm in trouble. It breaks apart.
As I saw him trying to form the patties,
they started to kind of crumble and fall apart.
So it is kind of a tricky product to work with.
Yeah, the only downfall is that if it's not already formed into patties,
you can't use a frozen block.
You gotta defrost it slowly. Yeah. Ooh.
[Nate] Because one of the patties broke apart,
I decided to put the cheese over the patty
to form like a basket.
And, hopefully, it encases it.
How we doin', Chef Nate?
Sweatin'.
Turnin' and burnin' today, buddy.
This is for everything, Guy.
My family and I do a lot of outreach for our community,
and anything I win is going straight to that.
One of us is going home.
I'm gonna do everything I can
to make sure that that's not me.
So, we're gonna have to go with that one.
So I have steak weights ready
and I have my cast iron skillets on hot.
We want these skillets to sear the outside of that meat,
sealing in all the delicious beefy flavor
and making 'em crispy.
That's what we want.
That's looking good.
I add the cheese as my burgers are cooking
with time to take care of this bun.
I cut the edges off the bolillo
and I slice down the center.
You gotta shred the iceberg lettuce.
It is perfect to absorb the beef fat
and the flavor of your ketchup, mustard and mayo.
So I slice up red onion,
tomatoes...
Splash of vinegar.
It's pickles or nothing.
I don't know if we can be friends
if you don't like pickles. I'm just sorry.
Our friendship won't go anywhere.
I have my patties made,
so now it's time to crisp up that bacon.
Get these in the oven.
I'm starting my polenta fries.
You gotta cut 'em thick enough that they don't dissolve,
but thin enough that they get crispy on the outside.
And then season some flour and toss the polenta fries.
And then drop them in the deep fryer.
[Guy] Chefs, we got 5 minutes you need to be plated.
[Stephanie] I take the green beans out.
I take the sandwich out of the oven.
It's got everything on there.
The tofu's pretty much warmed through.
The cheese is all melty.
I just need to add my umami mayo
and my pickled jalapenos.
Put the sandwich together really carefully.
Wow, that's a big tofu burger.
There's no reason you can't have
all this ooey-gooey deliciousness
if you're a vegetarian.
I take the green beans out
and then I'm gonna top them with some special sauce.
Well, I wanna flavor the zucchini ribbons.
I'll pull them out, drain the oil,
season 'em with salt and ranch powder.
We're looking good.
First thing on the plate is my perfectly-toasted English muffin.
I load it with mayo, mustard and ketchup.
I add pickles.
And then I pull the burgers out of the oven.
It looks delicious.
Put 'em right on top of the English muffin.
Look at the cheese pull on Nate's station.
-Look at that. -[Rocco] Oh. Oh, my.
[Nate] Then right next to my burger,
I put my fried zucchini.
It's juicy.
The judges are definitely gonna need gloves
with this burger.
One minute! One to go.
[Jonathon] I take the buns out of the oven.
I start with my mayo, mustard and ketchup.
Just... [making squishing sounds]
Underneath the burger patty,
requisite is finely-shredded iceberg lettuce.
I put the seasoned tomato, sliced onions,
sliced pickle, then the bacon goes on top.
[Guy] There you go. That looks very burger-esque, Chef.
[Jonathon] I like when the meat and the condiments
are all sort of peeking out of the bag.
Gotta get those fries.
I add my polenta fries to my french fry basket.
Oh! Almost better than potatoes!
[Guy] Five, four, three, two, one.
That's it!
-[Rocco] Great job, chefs. -[Scott] Great job, chefs. Great job.
-Very nice. Very nice. -Very nice, guys.
[Rocco] Very nice.
[Guy] Chefs, I gotta tell you,
those are some unbelievable un-ingredient burgers.
Let's take it to the judges. Right this way!
Judges, this is it.
The chefs had to make a burger and fries
without the key burger and fry ingredients.
"No ground beef, no buns, no potatoes."
And they said, "No problem."
First up, Chef Jonathon. What do ya got for us?
So, when I think of a burger,
a burger is beef.
And given the choice of the un-ingredients,
I had to grind my own beef.
So I did a double-coarse grind on brisket.
I have ketchup, mustard, mayo on the bun,
which is a bolillo bun.
And then I also have, uh, crispy bacon on top
with aged cheddar.
And on the side, we have polenta fries.
This is week 4.
You guys have been cooking for a long time.
You've been giving it your all every round.
It's not easy. But it's nice to see you've pushed through
and create amazing food every single time.
I love that you found a white bread sandwich roll.
Very close to a bun. Very smart.
Ground meat. I thought,
"God, I hope someone grinds their own meat.
'Cause that would be, you know,
just the way to kill the competition."
Ten minutes of time out of thirty minutes paid off.
The meat tastes amazing.
I think you hit all the markers
The cheese is a little strong for me.
I would've gone with an American cheese,
I think would've been a better choice.
You know, I'm just of the mind,
this is how you want it to taste.
Perfect ratio of fat inside the burger.
Perfect ratio of bread to burger also.
It's not gonna get any better than what you did.
[Antonia] I really enjoyed this,
specifically the crispy edges of the burger
that just start to get aggressive
on the plancha there.
But then the inside is soft,
luscious and like a nice medium.
I like the idea of the polenta fry.
I think it's actually the closest to an actual potato fry,
especially in structure.
These are a little under-seasoned.
A little more seasoning and a lot of that sauce
to make these fries like perfect.
Okay, up next, Chef Nate. What do you have for us, bud?
Well, first of all, I'm a pleaser, okay?
-And-- -[Guy] Did it-- Hang on a sec.
Did it come with gloves?
-Yes. -It came with gloves.
We actually eat it with gloves.
Feel free to-- you know--
We glove up and we get in there.
Okay, so, this is a plant-based burger
on an English muffin with zucchini fries
with ranch powder.
[Scott] This is great.
I mean, I think the flavors that you imparted
inside this plant-based burger
are what the differentiator is.
Next to the bun,
the English muffin is probably the greatest burger topping
and burger bottom.
This one was cooked great. It was nice and soft.
And I always say that the plant-based mixtures out there
are so incredibly sophisticated
that they're a one-to-one analogue for beef.
So, grinding your meat is a great choice.
But a really smart choice
is using plant-based burger meat,
which is what you did.
But it was very crumbly
and it felt like a sloppy joe to me.
What I'm actually most excited about
is that when you kind of saw that struggle,
you made like this cheese helmet
to like hold it all together.
But I think there's a little too much meat.
But Munster cheese, so flavorful.
Zucchini fries, you know,
we've all seen 'em in Italian restaurants.
You wanna dip 'em in some ranch.
I love that you took it another way
where we're seeing the skin right there,
fried, just battered seconds, and ranch powder.
So good!
All right, not to be outdone, the Goat.
What do you got for us, Chef Stephanie?
All right, so this is a shout-out to a patty melt.
If you come to my diner Little Goat in Chicago,
you'll get a patty melt. It's messy.
We don't give gloves. We want it to get all over your face.
And we think it's really funny and fun.
I used tofu. I'm not a plant-based meat person.
And I do eat a lot of tofu, as opposed to beef.
I don't eat that much beef at home.
So I just wanted to use a tofu burger.
It's marinated in soy, sesame,
brown butter kimchi, special sauce.
You got some caramelized onions.
Gouda and American cheese for that nice cheese-pull.
On the side, there's, um, green bean fries
and then a little bit of the special sauce.
I thought the tofu was an extremely courageous choice.
You could've ground your own meat,
but you chose tofu.
Tofu needs a lot of love.
But, boy, did you love this tofu up.
It tastes amazing because you marinated it,
you seasoned it, you brown-buttered it.
You did a million things to it
to make it taste incredibly delicious.
This is phenomenal.
Like, so, so, so good.
The way that you treated the string beans,
which I think are the perfect combination of fry, if you will,
to your burger, really well done.
[Scott] The string beans, the chili crunch,
the mayonnaise. Just when you take it to a point
you can't go anymore,
you keep going, and then some.
And it works for you. There's so many layers.
Do you know how Coco Chanel used to say,
"Take one thing off before you leave the house"?
I would've taken the kimchi off in this case.
I think, without the kimchi,
this would've read more like a burger
and less like a really creative attempt at a burger.
[Guy] Great.
Unfortunately, one of you will be checking out,
but the other two will move on to the final week.
It all got put on the plate.
Great job. Appreciate it.
We'll call you back in just a bit.
-Thank you, chefs. -Thanks, everybody.
Anyone's un-ingredient burger a little underwhelming?
I like that tofu patty melt
actually better than the burger.
And I can't believe I just said that out loud.
There was so much on Stephanie's plate.
And that normally would lend me
to be like, "That's my least favorite."
Nate, I think created a fantastic burger.
And I liked his game play.
[Rocco] Jonathon delivered an incredible burger.
[Scott] I'll be honest with you.
I don't know where to go.
Judges, thank you. Chefs, a lot of debate.
It's been one of the most difficult things to watch
because they have such respect and regard for you.
Unfortunately, the chef that will be checking out
in the fourth round of the Triple G Guy's Grocery Games Gauntlet
will be...
Stephanie.
First, you won $15,000.
But I'm gonna tell you, my friend,
one, it's not the last we're gonna see of you.
Two, you've rocked it
and you got all the way to the 5-yard line.
-It's been a pleasure having you, Chef. -Yeah. Thank you.
[Nate] I did not see that comin'.
But I could not be more proud.
I'm going home with $15,000,
and I'm gonna make a difference with that.
[Guy] Thank you, Chef. We'll see you soon.
[all applauding]
We have saved the toughest games for last.
The finals. This is it.
Only one of us is walking home with $35,000
and that huge trophy.
I need to figure out how to make
something out of nothing real quick.
[Antonia] They're literally two cooks away from $35,000.
It's like they can taste it.