It's Grocery Games gone wild.
We've got some of the best camp cooks and Wilderness Chefs
in the country coming to Flavortown Market.
They'll hunt our aisles for everything they're gonna need
to prepare out-of-bounds dishes
featuring all kinds of wild game.
Oh, that's good.
But the question is, can they survive our wild game?
Oh!
All right, Dad, I'm ready to go to the wilderness to meet these chefs.
No, Hunter, no.
The Wilderness Chefs are coming to us.
Oh.
Uh, okay, I guess I'll go step in aisle four then.
-I mean-- -Um...
It's Wilderness Chefs right now on Guy's Grocery Games.
Hunter, Hunter, aisle four is that way, that way.
I knew he needed a compass.
So, let's meet our Wilderness Chefs.
Now, first up, we have Gerry Haynes,
the Canadian camp cook who specializes in creating five-star meals
in the middle of nowhere.
Hey, where are you at, Guy?
Hi, everybody. My name is Gerry,
from St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada.
Some of the camps that I have worked in are really isolated.
I met Guy in a camp three-and-a-half years ago.
I have seen the show many times.
This is very unfamiliar territory for me.
I fear Flavortown over a charging moose.
[chuckles]
There you are, wild man.
How are you, man?
-Welcome to the indoors. -Thank you.
[Guy] Next, we got Karla Miller,
the Utah-based adventurer who loves to cook with her husband and son.
[Karla] In the camps, it's very much a family ordeal.
Really good, hearty comfort food.
Asian dinners and Mediterranean dinners and Mexican dinners.
My mom is always right there, cooking right alongside.
-Hi. -Where's your mom? Your mom didn't come?
She needs to be here. She misses you.
I cannot believe you didn't bring your mom.
She sends her love.
I met Guy several years ago.
The day that he was coming into camp,
we were all incredibly nervous.
And now, he's a great friend.
She has the coolest mom ever.
And finally, Art Ferraro, the Colorado chef
who prepares hearty meals of wild game at the ranch
when he's not cooking home-made pasta at his Italian restaurant.
Well, at the camp, I try to cook versatile meals.
My restaurant, we specialize in Northern Italian food.
I was introduced to Chef Fieri at our camp.
There he was with his blonde hair, and his sunglasses,
shorts, flip flops.
We just kinda hit it off.
Looking good. Didn't even see you in camo, buddy.
You're gonna need those skills later.
Well, what a pleasure. What a pleasure.
I know all of you. I know you love the outdoors
because where I first met you was outdoors.
Well, actually, it was indoors, but in the outdoor world.
And I can't tell you how excited I am to see you indoors in Flavortown Market.
-Live action. -Yes.
-Thank you. -[Guy] There we go.
Now, Gerry and I were talking about it.
I think we were in Newfoundland.
We had to get there by helicopter.
We were living on a little pond.
Limited resources.
Only got food once a week.
And you made some of the best food I ever had.
Thank you.
Karla, I show up to your place.
Yours wasn't quite as rustic, but the menu was diverse.
And matter of fact, I told you one night that I wanted to cook Chinese,
you sourced the ingredients. We had a great cook.
Your mom was there. Mom's the best sous chef in the world.
And a baby boy. Just baby boy.
So this, again, what an experience.
And then, my buddy Art.
I mean, you're a pro. You own a restaurant.
The only guy that takes his vacation
to go work at a mountain lodge,
which is a mountain lodge of mountain lodges, may I say.
And I meet this guy, and we cooked it up one night.
And it's still one of my favorite meals that I've had
when I'm out and out in the wilderness.
So, you're incredible cooks.
You can rustle up amazing meals in the back country
regardless of the ingredients that you have.
You make something out of nothing.
But when you make something, it's outstanding.
So I wanna see what you can whip up here in Flavortown.
There's only, let's see, maybe 100,000 ingredients.
Uh, it might be enough of a pantry for you.
We have two wild culinary games that you're gonna play,
and this is going to test your survival skills.
The chef with the highest combined score at the end of both rounds
will get a chance to shop in Flavortown Market
for up to $20,000.
So, first challenge, I want you to make the judges a fireside favorite.
I'm talking about the kind of meal
that you come down from a long day of hiking,
and you get back.
You look at that camp chef and you go,
"Oh, I am so hungry. What are we eating?"
And you serve it up to 'em, and they're like,
"This is it. It was so worth it."
-We good? -There's gotta be more.
-What? -[Karla] There's gotta be more.
There's gotta be more.
-[Guy] There's gotta be more? -[chuckling] It's too easy.
Karla, you know what? Just the fact that you asked for more...
-[chuckles] -...that's fine, Karla. There will be more.
So, to help you in this process,
my son has a selection of wild game meat for ya.
We have a two-for-one special.
Each game meat is going to be paired with a special ingredient
that would be associated with, let's say, outdoor experiences.
Wild boar with a granola bar.
Bananas and bison.
Venison and trail mix.
You could shop for anything else you want,
but you must use that specific protein that you asked for
and the specific ingredient that goes with it
because you're playing Butcher Counter Special.
Now, to get things going,
I don't want you plowing through here with your carts,
and breaking brush and scaring things off
and getting the wind wrong.
So I'm gonna let you... Hunter, what do you got, buddy?
-What's up? -[Guy] Look at you in that blue apron.
We have three cards here, three tickets.
But whoever pulls the number one, goes first,
number two goes second and number three goes last.
Thirty minutes to make a fireside favorite
using your Butcher Counter Special.
-Command your station, son. -Okay.
-See you guys over there. -Chefs, grab one of these numbers.
I'm not telling you that they're in a specific order.
It's not... This isn't just like three, two, one, go.
There could be any...
You wanna grab it?
I'm getting attacked!
Oh, Gerry, you get one!
Who has one? Who's got one?
Okay. What are you having?
Uh, the bison rib-eye.
Bison rib-eye and bananas.
-There you go. Enjoy. -[Gerry] I don't often cook with bison.
But I know how to cook steaks.
Bananas don't usually go with bison.
-[Hunter] Yeah. -Venison, please.
-Oh, and trail mix? -[Hunter] Here you go.
-Amazing. Thank you. -[Hunter] Yes, enjoy. Good luck.
[Karla] I'm so excited to get the venison because it's very versatile,
and I have trail mix as my weird ingredient.
This is something I can work with.
[Art] I get to the counter, and all that was left was the wild boar tenderloin
and the granola bar.
Hey, good luck. Have some fun.
[Art] Granola bar was a new thing.
That's usually something that lives in the bottom of my backpack.
They have no idea
what they're getting themselves into right now.
Art, what'd you get, buddy?
I've got some wild boar tenderloin.
With the wild boar, it's just like any domestic hog or anything.
Maybe a little bit less fat, but definitely sweet and tender.
So, for my fireside favorite,
I decided to make a wild boar tenderloin
wrapped in bacon, with rosemary.
I also own a restaurant that's based around Northern Italian food,
so I'm thinking I'm gonna make some pasta
in a Marsala wine sauce.
Chardonnay.
Fresh rosemary?
Right here.
The granola is tough.
So I'm thinking I'm gonna make
wilted dandelion vegetable with granola.
I figured the sweet and crunchy would work with the bitter greens.
Let me think, let me think. Let me think here.
To me, a fireside favorite is hearty, but simple to eat.
Sitting around the fire with friends.
The first thing that comes to my mind is tacos.
I am making venison tacos
with sauteed onions and peppers,
with Spanish rice and beans on the side.
What did you get, sister?
Little bit of trail mix mixed in there somehow.
-A trail mix mixed in there? -[Karla] Yes.
-Very nice. -Somehow I'm gonna incorporate that.
To be here today competing in Flavortown,
compared to planning and driving 45 minutes to a grocery store
makes this feel a little bit easier
than camp cooking, that's for sure.
I usually can't go grocery shopping where I'm cooking, too,
so it's great to have this amount of resources.
I'm gonna make a spin on Budapest goulash with the bison rib-eye.
But I have no idea what I was gonna do with the bananas.
Cream.
Goulash is usually meat of some type with potato,
tomatoes, tomato sauce.
Caraway.
Caraway is one of the main spices.
Hey, Guy, caraway seed.
-[Guy] Don't get caraway on me. -No caraway.
-Caraway seeds. -Thank you, buddy. That will do.
-There you go, bud. Anything else? -[Gerry] No. That's it.
What'd you get, bananas and bison?
[Gerry] Bananas and bison, yep.
Oh, the old banana and bison combo.
So here to judge our Wilderness Chefs are three culinary powerhouses
that I'm really just wild about.
James Beard Award winner for Best Chef,
the bearded baller, Chef Jonathon Sawyer.
Hey, hey.
Acclaimed fine-dining chef and fierce competitor herself,
the one and only Chef Nyesha Arrington.
And the legendary Iron Chef
behind the Latin-inspired culinary empire,
the one and only Big Kahuna, Chef Jose Garces.
I'm a big fan.
And these chefs right here, um, they're a little shaky to competition.
They're not used to this
'cause they usually have a good, full day
from when we leave at, you know, 5:00 in the morning,
4:00 in the morning,
to when we get back into a camp, 6:00 at night.
But they're moving right along,
and I think you're gonna have some great dishes.
I get my venison, and I have trail mix as my weird ingredient.
I love cooking with venison.
It's incredibly flavorful.
There's hardly any fat in it.
And the first thing I do is get my venison seasoned
and get it right on the grill.
[Guy speaking]
[Karla] Yes. Venison tenderloin.
The goal is just to get this, to mark it off,
-and then to let it rest. -Yes, exactly.
-Because overcooked venison is not-- -[Karla] The worst.
-[Guy] Yeah. -[Karla] Absolutely.
[Guy] All right.
Twenty-two minutes!
[Karla] How do people do this?
I can't even believe where the time's gone.
My mind isn't even working like it normally works.
[Jonathon] I think all three of our chefs here
are comfortable around the game meats and around the fire.
I don't know how comfortable they are
with a time constraint like this.
[Jose] Cooking on an open fire in a beautiful place
with plenty of time is a lot different
than being here in Flavortown.
This is insane.
[Guy] Twenty-one minutes.
[Jonathon] I think all three of our chefs here
are comfortable around the game meats and around a fire.
[Karla] I had to incorporate venison tenderloin and trail mix.
To be here today, competing in Flavortown, very nerve-wracking.
It's wild. It is wild.
[Nyesha] Karla knows her venison.
It's smart to make sure you stick to a protein you're comfortable with.
-No need to make something for the first time ever, yeah. -Toast.
[Guy] So, I mean, cooking it medium rare is really the key.
-Right. -Um, you overcook it, there's not a lot of fat
in this animal.
So it has a tendency to dry out really fast.
-[Karla] Right. -Plus, you lose a ton of the flavor.
-[Gerry] Art's got the wild boar and granola. -[Karla] Yum.
-[Guy] Art, how are we looking, bud? -Looking great.
-Man, look at all this wonderful stuff. -[Guy] Look at that, huh?
All right. So what's your gameplan here?
So I've got some, uh, wild boar tenderloin.
I'm gonna roll it in this bacon.
Grill it off to a nice medium rare.
And I'm gonna do a little Marsala wild mushroom pasta on the side.
I like this.
[Art] With the wild boar, figured I would just treat it like a pork tenderloin.
Make sure the rosemary was next to it on the grill
so it incorporated that nice, forestry and smoky flavor to it.
[Jonathon] I think that combination of bacon with wild game cuts both ways.
You know, while you are yielding some more smoke and some more fat,
you run the risk of overpowering any subtlety of the boar.
It's a balancing act.
I wanted to make a wild mushroom Marsala sauce.
In all of my time, I've had the luxury of being fortunate enough
to pretty much cook the whole alphabet.
With alligator, lot of ox, stag, guinea hens,
pheasants, ducks.
It's all quite pleasurable to cook.
Any time I see mushrooms, and I see thyme and rosemary, garlic and red wine,
I think we're going in the right direction.
[Guy] What's on the menu, Ger?
[Gerry] I've got bison rib-eye with bananas.
I'm gonna make Budapest goulash.
-Budapest goulash? -[Gerry] Yeah.
I would wanna eat that at a fireside
after a long day in the North Pole or Newfoundland.
I don't know what I'm gonna do with the bananas, but...
Goulash is a Hungarian, Eastern European stew,
typically based on some peppers, protein of choice.
[Guy] We've got in here,
we've got the onions, peppers, mushrooms.
[Gerry speaking]
Caraway seeds.
-Potatoes are going to go in after. -Got it.
I added cheddar and mozzarella.
-[Guy] It's all gonna be served as one? -[Gerry] Yes.
One big bowl of delicious.
-Probably, yeah. -[Guy] Okay.
I'm from Canada, and I'm very used to the cold.
How do I feel about the cold?
I hate it. [chuckles]
If I happen to win today,
which I hope I will,
I'm planning to take a trip with my girlfriend, Wanda,
and we'll be somewhere nice and hot.
[Guy] Fifteen minutes! Fifteen left!
[Jose] Karla's speaking my language.
I love a good taco. I love rice and beans to go with it.
I think the hand-held nature of the tacos, too,
yields itself to a fireside.
Karla just did a pro move with the black beans. A little shortcut.
And she added a little salsa in there.
-Kind of a... -Got the chilis,
got the garlic, onion, all in there. Smart.
[Karla] So, I have the trail mix staring at me, that I still haven't touched.
I know I need to use it,
so I quickly pick out all of the nuts, blend them up.
Toss half of the processed nuts into the beans.
And the other half, I begin to toast.
I know it's gonna kinda add that little bit of char,
little bit of smoky flavor,
which is gonna add big time into this fireside favorite dish.
Lastly, I get started on my onions and peppers.
To win $20,000 would be unbelievable.
Our family is growing now,
and our dream is to kinda move out farther into the country
to show our kiddos how to be more connected to their food.
While my wild boar was cooking,
I pulled it off the grill, set it in the oven.
Granola bar was a new thing.
I figured the sweet and the crunchy
would go well with the bitter greens.
Now, it was time to start cooking the pasta.
[Jonathon] Pasta's definitely a safe space for Art, right?
His restaurant specializes in home-made pasta.
That's why I think he grabbed that fettuccine off the shelf...
-[Nyesha] Smart. -...going right into his own wheelhouse.
I came here to prove a point to myself that I was good enough to compete,
but also to give my family a really nice vacation, which they deserve.
I'm gonna take them to Italy.
Go see my home country, where my grandparents came from.
[Gerry speaking]
[Guy] Well, I typically tell people, when it's something funky,
you better either make the greatest side in the world or it'll work against ya.
-Okay? -[Gerry] Okay, I'm gonna put the bananas in here.
[Nyesha] Grilled bananas happening here.
I added the balsamic to the banana to neutralize the sweetness.
[Jonathon] So, the bananas are in the goulash.
I like this. I like where this is going.
[Nyesha] Inventive.
[Gerry] Once the potatoes are finished and the bananas,
I mix them into the goulash, and then it's baked in the oven.
[Jonathon] So, it looks like Gerry's got that goulash going.
Gerry has embraced the fireside theme.
Garlic bread usually goes very well with goulash.
Then I make garlic butter with salt, pepper, Worcestershire sauce
and unsalted butter.
And then I brush it on the toasted garlic bread.
[Guy] Four minutes!
[Karla] So, I'm ready to plate my taco.
The first thing I do is grab my tortillas.
I started slicing my venison.
The venison looks beautiful. The color is there.
Oh, that's good.
[Karla] After I've put the venison in the tortillas,
I top it with my sauteed peppers and onions.
And then I add over top my spicy slaw.
I then grab my toasted nuts and sprinkle those all over the top.
And on the side, I spoon some of my Spanish rice and Spanish beans.
[Gerry] I take the goulash out of the oven.
I garnished the goulash with parsley.
I plate the garlic bread on the side, and I'm all finished.
There you go, bud. That's what goes with a little goulash.
One minute! One to go!
[Art] When I took the boar out of the oven,
I wished it would have been
a little bit more char grilled.
So I chopped some of it up and set it on the plate.
I put down the granola, dandelion vegetable that I had prepared.
And then I dumped a little bit of mushrooms on the plate.
I put down the pasta,
topped it off with a little bit of the Marsala mushroom sauce.
[Guy] Five, four, three, two, one.
That's it.
-[Jonathon] Yeah! -[Nyesha] Whoo!
Whoo!
Right on.
Art, Karla, Gerry, you've got game.
Let's see what the judges think. Follow me right this way.
All right, judges, this is game one of our Wilderness Chefs.
Chefs had to race to the butcher counter to select their protein
and a whammy combo to use in their fireside favorites.
First up, Chef Art.
Wild boar and tenderloin with a granola bar.
And I know that you're known for this dish.
World famous. Made by me.
So it's a wild pork, boar tenderloin
accompanied with some forest mushrooms in there
with a little Marsala sauce over the pasta.
For the bitterness, I used dandelion greens.
And then I used the granola bars
to offset the little bit of the greens.
Okay, so you had no idea what you'd do.
Exactly.
Wow, Chef Art.
Great use of wild boar, great cook on it.
It's nice and tender.
I like it more on the mid rare to medium side, so I think...
I think you nailed that.
I love the choices that you made here.
The dandelion greens with the granola, they taste great.
For sure. For me, it's seasoned to perfection.
I can tell you've cooked pasta before.
This is, most certainly, uh, above average level of pasta.
I wonder if it's almost too fancy,
and not enough fireside for my liking.
[Nyesha] Everything is great individually,
but would have been maybe even more excellent bound together.
Thank you.
All right, up next, Chef Karla.
Hi, Chefs. For today, I prepared for you
a grilled venison taco, sauteed onions and peppers.
And then topped with a cabbage slaw.
My crazy ingredient was trail mix,
so I picked the nuts out of that,
dusted that over the tacos.
And then mixed that into the beans as well.
And then you have a side of Spanish beans and rice.
Chef Karla, as someone who has built a few thousand tacos in my career,
your construction on this taco, very nicely done.
The grill flavor on the venison is perfect.
It's cooked perfectly.
Visually, it looks great.
And the fireside theme, I'm getting that from the char on the tortillas,
the char on the fajita.
I really appreciate the freshness that's coming off of this
beautifully, thinly shaved, um, cabbage here.
You had me on the edge of my seat,
watching you pick through that trail mix to find the peanut.
It was one of my favorite parts of this taco.
And it played well with the richness of the venison.
Thank you, Chef.
What a great fireside plate.
Thank you.
Where I think maybe I didn't like the plate as much
is the rice and beans.
Both are personalized, but your plate might have been stronger
if it was just these two tacos.
Because it is just our fireside favorites,
it doesn't necessarily need to be a whole meal.
And I could eat, like, six of these tacos.
All right, last but not least, the man from the north.
Ger, where you been, North Pole?
North Pole, Northwest Territories.
You come down here in a dog sled, or what'd you--
-Uh, no. Uh, husky. -[Guy] Snow shoe?
-Husky? -[Gerry] Husky, yeah.
Got it, got it. All right, bud, what'd you make us?
[Gerry] Today, I made a Budapest goulash
with garlic bread, Newfoundland style.
Seared bison rib-eye.
Bananas were done on the grill.
Charred with balsamic, and the bread, of course.
Kudos to you on the beautiful creativity
that you used to present your dish
in a cast iron, already, it's giving me that sort of campfire-esque vibe.
I do love a stewed dish, and the potatoes are cooked really nicely.
Thank you.
I do like the grilled banana in there.
It adds, like, a pleasant sweetness,
but maybe some things are just a little underdone.
Every bite of bison that I had was not braised cooked through,
but was perfectly cooked though.
Thank you.
Where I think you could have improved this dish a little bit
is the banana's a tough draw.
Maybe if you had sort of pureed it into that tomato sauce
and then sort of baked it in here,
you might have achieved, like, a stickier, tackier,
more campfire goulash, uh, sort of resemblance.
-But 30 minutes is 30 minutes. -Yes, sir.
And I think you did an amazing job.
Thank you.
Hey, Chefs, I'll tell you something. This is no easy game here.
But you did great, so job well done.
Gonna leave the judges to deliberate,
we're gonna send you back to the kitchens,
we'll call you back when we have a decision.
-Thank you. -Thank you.
Whose fireside favorite was lit and whose left you in the cold?
Gerry, Karla, Art,
let's take a look at the scores.
We'll start with Ger.
Out of 20 points in gameplay, 14 out of 20 in gameplay.
That's how did you use the ingredients.
Sixteen out of 20 in your taste. Great.
And seven out of ten for your plating
for a score of 37.
-Good score. -Thank you.
[Guy] Karla.
Fourteen out of 20 in gameplay.
Seventeen out of 20 in taste.
Eight out of ten for plating, for a 39.
-Nicely done. -Thank you.
[Guy] And Art.
Sixteen out of 20 in gameplay.
Eighteen out of 20 in taste.
Seven for plating.
For a 41.
Congratulations. Nice job.
And, Gerry, I'll just tell you this,
when I was at that camp hanging out in that plywood bunker that I had,
and I wasn't allowed to go out that day,
I sat in the kitchen with you, and you just cooked and talked and entertained,
and I'll tell you something, that meant so much to me
'cause I was away from my family,
it was cold, it was miserable, and you know what?
You didn't send me back to my bunk,
and I'm not gonna send you home.
-Woo-hoo! -[Guy] All three of you are going to the next round.
-Okay? Come on. -[Gerry] Thank you.
Yeah!
But I will tell you this, this next one's not gonna be easier than the first one.
So I want you to dig deep, learn from all those things
the judges told you, all right?
Great. Chefs, back to your carts. Good luck.
Chefs, this is the final round of the Wilderness Chefs.
Now, Chef Art, you are in the lead.
-Congratulations. -Thank you.
But a high scoring final dish could put...
Well, it could put any chef on a course for a big-time win.
So for this challenge, I want you to make the judges
an elevated backcountry dinner.
Elevated. Higher-end.
Backcountry. Something that we would eat at a camp.
Dinner. Use wild proteins to make a meal worthy of an upscale restaurant.
Before we do that,
I wanna put your wilderness abilities to the test
with a little round of archery.
Look at that.
[Hunter] Some nice recurves for you guys.
[Art and Karla laugh]
[Guy] All right, well, here's the deal.
You get to shoot the bow with your color.
You hit in the center, you get to shop for 10 items.
Any 10 items you wanna use to make your elevated dinner.
Shoot on the side of that, you get nine items.
Shoot on the side of that, you get eight items.
You shoot off the board, I'll see how many items you get.
[laughs]
Okay? Now anybody here shoot a bow?
All right, here you go.
-You got a 10. -All right!
[Guy] Who's up? All right, buddy.
Yeah, I got it.
Nice and hard.
There you go, eight!
-[Hunter] No, it's nine. -[Guy] With authority!
-All right, Art. You ready? -Yes, sir.
[chuckles]
-[Guy] Oh! -[Art] Split. Nine and a half.
[Guy] Listen, I'm gonna say this.
It's my rules, my house, I say that hit 10. You get 10.
-Hey, I like it. -[Guy] Way to go.
All right. There we have it. Chef Karla, you get 10.
Gerry, you get nine.
Art, you get 10.
Ten items to make your elevated backcountry dinner.
Remember, you do not start
till it's three, two, one, go, and then you...
They could go. I gotta take it easy on 'em.
That or I'm not gonna eat the next time I see them in camp.
[Art] So I'm thinking, for the Elevated Backcountry Dinner,
more of a fine dining dish.
We needed a starch, a vegetable, and our protein.
I cook a lot of rabbits at my restaurant,
and I love to cook 'em and harvest 'em for myself at home.
So I'm thinking I'm gonna make a rabbit cacciatore.
Cacciatore is hunter-style rabbit.
Ten ingredients.
Ten ingredients is very hard to make a meal with.
So I also grabbed guanciale,
it'll add a lot of flavor when you have very limited ingredients.
One, two, three.
Four.
Red currants are very bitter, similar to a chokecherry.
I'm gonna make a red currant sauce.
Polenta is very hardy and can be used in many different applications.
All right, all right. How we doing?
Round two is another anxiety event.
At this point, it was anybody's game.
[Hunter] You're good to go.
All right.
Ground elk. Elk ribs. Rabbit loins. Come on.
Semi boneless squab.
Quail.
Best market ever.
[Klara] When I hear elevated backcountry dinner,
the first thing I think is simple but has some elegant pieces to it.
Something, honestly, that I would wanna eat.
So I see venison tri-tip.
Grabbing venison for two rounds is probably a little risky,
but at the end of the day, I know I just have to cook with what I know.
Now I'm thinking of a pureed thyme, parsnip, and grilled-asparagus side.
I love chimichurri, I make it all the time.
I feel like it's such a beautiful sauce
that adds so much depth of flavor to any dish.
-[Hunter] Seven, eight, nine. -[Karla] Oh, my.
You can get one more.
-I would, go ahead and get 10 items to use. -[Karla] Okay. Okay.
I go back and I grab the flake sea salt
because I know that's a beautiful way to finish this elevated dish.
-What'd you get? -[Karla] Smoked salt.
You're good? Good. Good luck.
Thank you.
Elevated backcountry dinner means fancy, smaller portions.
Quail is a fancy poultry,
so I decided it'd be a great choice for the elevated dinner.
With roasted potato, onions and garlic,
and orange glazed carrots.
With the balsamic vinegar, I can make a sauce by using the pantry ingredients.
I think I have stiff competition today.
These two people know what they're after.
-Seven-- -Eight, nine.
Eight, nine. Awesome. All right.
I wanna hope that my food will taste better.
[Jonathon] This is for up to $20,000.
[mimics cash register ding]
You gotta have your plan, and we need to see an elevated backcountry dinner.
Yes, Chef.
[Guy] Twenty minutes!
[Nyesha] They've already got one round under their belt.
And we need to see an elevated backcountry dinner.
[Jose] Karla doubling down on the venison that she felt confident in her last cook.
-[Jonathon] Yeah. -And I think that was also smart.
[Guy] How we doing, sister?
[Karla] I feel like this is backcountry. It's wild game.
[Guy] And what else are you doing? You doing these parsnips?
[Karla] I'm doing parsnip puree, I have a little bit of roasted asparagus.
[Guy] I like where you're going.
Next, immediately start working on my chimichurri.
I love chimichurri.
You can literally spoon it on any meat to elevate to the next level.
Just to be here, it is so out of my comfort zone.
Honestly, forgot the proportions for chimichurri,
so I was just rolling with the punches,
adding stuff until it tasted good.
Oh, my gosh. Where did the time go?
What are we going with, bud?
[Art] I've got rabbit tenderloin,
and I'm going to pan-sear these.
Some red currants
which I'm gonna try to make a little sauce out of.
Okay.
[Art] Incorporate the bitter with the green
of the broccoli rabe that I have.
Got it. Got it. Got it. Got it. Got it. Got it. Like it.
So Art's got rabbit loins. Those can be a little tricky.
They're lean, they can overcook pretty quickly.
[Art] Next, I need to just start the base of my red currant sauce.
Added some butter to help it emulsify.
And I added some vinegar to tarten it up a little bit,
and let it just all reduce and get nice and gooey.
If I was to win the prize,
I would really enjoy to try to take my family back to Italy.
My daughter graduates high school this year
and it's always kind of been a dream to maybe take her on a large vacation to Europe
for her graduation gift.
I love seeing fresh currants as they have a little bit of tannin in it, too.
-Yeah. -Right?
You can get that sort of pricky Amarone sort of wine
-essence out of them. -[Jose] Oh, yeah. Yeah.
[Art] Coming together really nice.
I came here to win. Round two is mine to lose.
Karla was in second place, and Gerry is a very good cook.
-[Jose] I think Gerry has some redemption on his mind. -[Nyesha] Mmm.
We're gonna see some refinement from him.
What's on the menu, Ger?
[Gerry] Got a bit of grilled quail with fresh thyme,
orange glazed carrots, yams and balsamic reduction with a bit of cinnamon.
Go get 'em, buddy.
[Gerry] The sweet potatoes will take the longest to cook.
And I've decided to put the cinnamon on the sweet potatoes
as a play on sweet potato pie.
This is backcountry 'cause it's mostly a lot of root vegetables
and lots of stuff you can get from outside.
For the quail, I marinate it with a little olive oil, salt, pepper,
and I wanted to get grill marks on them.
You're gonna just give 'em a quick grill and then finish 'em in the oven?
In the oven, yup.
[Jose] One of the difficult parts, I think, of cooking quail
is getting those thighs and legs nice and tender
while not overcooking the breasts.
And once I'm happy with the grill marks,
I put 'em on the sheet pad and place 'em in the oven.
[Guy] Fifteen minutes! Fifteen left.
[Jonathon] I feel like they've gotten a hang of this kitchen stadium
and they're ready to win, lose, or draw on this last plate of food.
[Jose] That's right.
And let's not, too, forget there's $20,000 at hand here.
There's a lot on the line.
-[Guy] Nice char, I like that. -[Klara] Thank you, sir.
-[Guy] How're those parsnips? -[Klara] They're close.
For my pureed parsnips,
I drain them and I add them to the food processor
with butter, heavy cream, salt, and pepper, and garlic.
And I also add some of that dried thyme
which is gonna add that backcountry feel of a fresh herb.
Parsnip puree is a little different than pommes puree
or mashed potatoes, right?
It takes a little more salt, takes a little less butter, takes a little more finesse.
That's good.
[Art] Everything appeared to be coming together pretty well.
The rabbit's cooking.
Red currant sauce looked very good.
Next, I needed to get the broccolini cooking.
Give it a quick blanche.
Threw it in the saute pan.
So, I also grabbed guanciale to render in my vegetable.
I'm gonna use it as a little fat
to saute off my broccoli rabe.
It'll add a lot of flavor when you have very limited ingredients.
The last thing I needed to work on was my polenta.
So I sliced the polenta, it was already garlic and rosemary flavored.
So I just decided to put some really nice char marks on it.
Feeling pretty confident about this.
[Guy] We got six minutes, guys! Six left.
-How you doing, friend? -Oh, I'm good, just waiting for the oven.
-[Nyesha] Can't wait. -Good. Good, good, good. Looking good.
For my orange glazed carrot, I want the orange sauce to be very thick,
so I'll coat all of the carrot.
I add sugar to the pan and fresh orange juice.
Oh, he's making, like, an orange gastrique.
[Nyesha] Yeah.
[Gerry] Next, I wanted to make sauce for the quail,
but with the restricted items, the only thing I could use was onions and beef stock.
Myself and my girlfriend, Wanda, wanna get out of Newfoundland
before the winter is over, to go somewhere nice and hot,
if I win today.
Probably Costa Rica or California.
[Jonathon] There is a lot on the line, especially when you're considering
your home base, Newfoundland or the North Pole,
and you only see the sun 35 days out of the year.
-[Nyesha] Exactly. -Nothing like 20 G's to go through
and tour California to cheer you up.
Three minutes, Chefs! We've got three minutes to go!
[Klara] So the first thing I do is I lay down the charred asparagus.
I spoon a little bit of parsnip puree on each plate.
I take my beautiful venison out of the oven, I slice it.
It looks gorgeous, and I lay that over the parsnip puree.
I take my chimichurri and I spoon it over the top of the venison.
To finish this dish off, I really wanna utilize my tenth ingredient,
that gorgeous, yummy, smoked sea salt.
Oh, here comes the smoked salt.
[Klara] I put that all over each dish,
and I am so happy with the way that it came out.
[Art] So, I added my perfectly grilled polenta cakes to the plate,
two at a time.
And then broccolini, I put those on the plate, next to it.
And then I added a little red currant sauce for moisture and color.
After the red currant sauce, I sliced the tenderloin
trying to get some nice little medallions out of it.
The rabbit looked and smelled spectacular.
Arranged them on the plate.
Topped it off with some more sauce.
This was as most elevated backcountry meal that I could put together.
Forty seconds!
[Gerry] First on the plate, I put the orange glazed carrots.
Then I spoon on the onions and beef stock.
I put two quails on each plate
on top of the onion demi-glace.
All right.
Take the potatoes from the oven
and get 'em on the plate as fast as I can.
-Is there a little cinnamon on there? -Yes.
[Guy] I like it, buddy.
[Gerry] I'm feeling that I've accomplished a lot more than the first round.
Very proud of the food I've produced.
Five, four, three, two, one.
Chefs, that's it. Stop working.
[all cheering]
All right, Chefs,
time to take your backcountry dinners back to the judges.
Follow me right this way.
This is the Wilderness Chefs' Game 2, we played a little bullseye.
The chefs had to make an elevated backcountry dinner using a number of ingredients
that they landed in a round of archery.
Up first, Chef Art. What do you got for us?
I did a rabbit tenderloin
over a piece of grilled polenta
with a red currant reduction and some broccoli rabe.
It's been sauteed with a little guanciale.
Chef Art, I'm sure you've heard this before,
but you've made an artful plate of food.
[Guy laughing]
This is a feast for the eyes.
The grill marks only on one side of the polenta,
lining up with the broccoli on the side of the plate.
You really took the gameplay of Elevated Backcountry Dinner and you just nailed it.
One of the favorite standout parts of this dish
is this amazing red currant sauce.
It is incredible.
Guanciale and broccolini, great choices in terms of, again, balancing this dish.
However, I think you also nailed your rabbit loin a little bit.
For me, this is just a little bit hard cooked.
I know it's 30 minutes, I know it's a lean protein,
I think maybe if you'd been given a couple extra minutes to think about that,
you might have pulled the brakes on it just a little bit.
Thank you, Chef.
All right, Chef Karla, you had 10 ingredients. What'd you make them?
Hi, Chefs, I made a seared venison tri-tip
topped with a homemade chimichurri sauce,
a thyme and parsnip puree,
and grilled asparagus on the side.
I gotta say, the fundamentals of cooking, I see celebrated here, right?
-The parsnip puree is light and fluffy. -[Klara] Thank you, Chef.
[Jose] The venison is cooked perfectly.
I like it, like, on the medium-rare side.
I think you nailed that.
Chimichurri tastes great, not quite a chimichurri in my book.
Typically, a chimichurri is more of a broken sauce,
it has a little more oil, a little more acidity.
I think, overall, great cook.
A few technical flaws, but really nice job.
Thank you, Chef.
It may not be a chimichurri, but whatever the green thing is on the plate is delicious.
I do think every component needed salt across the board.
All of them.
-And it's the kind of dish that I know... -Yeah.
[Jonathon] ...if you and I maybe have seven minutes together,
we could really turn it into that elevated backcountry dinner plate.
But other than that, it was a really enjoyable plate. Thank you.
Thank you, Chef.
He's last, but he's not least. Chef Gerry's up next.
So I grilled quail,
with carrots that are boiled with orange glaze, sugar,
and there's a balsamic reduction over the quail
and yams with onions, cinnamon, salt, and pepper.
The quail, to me, it was a really wise choice.
This one is a little bit overcooked from my standpoint,
but the balsamic glaze kinda brings the natural sweetness
from the quail around.
[Jonathon] Kudos to you for going out on a limb and choosing a protein
that not anybody else chose.
-I gotta say, these carrots are incredible. -Thank you.
[Nyesha] The texture, they're literally craveable.
The orange notes that dance around that carrot flavor is impeccable,
but my palate's kind of looking for a little bit of freshness,
or maybe a pop of acid.
Let's go back to the cinnamon, sweet potatoes.
-What a great combo. -[Gerry] Thank you.
I'm gonna use that.
-Right? I mean, that's a full rip there, dude. -[Jose] Thank you very much.
Yeah, yeah. Good job, that's really, really nice.
Thank you, Chef.
Chefs, you did excellent. You should be very proud of yourselves.
I'll send you back to the kitchen,
well call you when we have results. Thank you.
[Gerry] Thank you.
Chefs, which backcountry dinner had the highest elevation level?
[chuckling]
All right, all right, all right.
This is one of the first times we've ever had a cooking competition
all about wild game,
and I think you did swimmingly.
Unfortunately, only one of you wins.
Let's take a look at Ger's score.
Second round.
Fourteen out of 20, gameplay.
Sixteen out of 20 in taste.
Six for the plating, for a 36.
And a 73.
-Gerry, I've seen people win with that. -Thank you.
[Guy] Karla, you came in hot, though.
Thirteen out of 20 in gameplay. Huh.
Sixteen on the taste.
Seven in the plating, also for a 36.
And a 75.
Ahead of Ger.
Art, it's yours to lose, my friend.
It's yours to lose. Let's see.
Fifteen in gameplay.
Sixteen in taste.
Eight for the plating, for a 39.
And congratulations. 80 points.
Art Ferraro, you win, buddy.
[all applauding]
Karla, Gerry, awesome competition.
You should be very proud of yourselves.
I think you made fantastic dishes,
and I appreciate you being here.
-All right? -[Gerry] Thank you.
Art, congratulations.
Even though I didn't win the money today,
I feel like my kids are gonna see this some day and be so proud.
This show is extremely difficult, but I had a lot of fun.
[Guy] Ladies and gentlemen,
let me introduce you to the Wilderness Chefs' champ, Chef Art! Congratulations.
[judges cheering]
The honor of being here underneath the presence of chefs
and everybody that worked so hard around here,
I would do this in a heartbeat again.
It was a lot of fun.
Now the only thing we have to do is go shopping for some money.
Congratulations.
Couple different ways that you can win up to 20,000 bucks.
One, we call the Shopping Spree.
And that's where I give you two minutes on the clock.
I have a list of ten items on this card here.
-You find all ten items, you get 20,000 bucks. -Okay.
Or, we could skip the shenanigans.
Right behind that door right there, I have a mystery check.
It has an amount on it, Art, anywhere from $13,000 to $20,000,
already written out on that check.
Done.
So what do you wanna go for?
I think I'm gonna take the skyline shot and take the door.
All right, ladies and gentlemen, can I get a drumroll, please?
[drum roll]
[Guy] And the check says...
-17,500 bucks! -[Nyesha] Wow!
-Holy! -[Guy] Bada boom! Congratulations!
-[Nyesha] Whoo! -Yeah!
Not a bad day in my book.
This is gonna take me and my family to see where I came from.
There you have it.
Chef Art leaves the hunting lodge,
shows up in Flavortown Market, and takes home 17,500 bucks.
We'll see you next week on Guy's Grocery Games. Adios.
-Congratulations, my brother. Well done. -Thanks.