[Guy] Hunter, what are you doing?
What do you mean? I thought you said it was summertime
-in Flavortown. -[Guy] No, no, Hunter.
I said it's the summer tournament in Flavortown.
That's today?
Yes, they're waiting for us right now.
You see the crew?
Oh, shoot. Sorry, guys.
It's time for an epic summer tournament, Hunter.
Whoa!
I hope y'all ready.
Tasting just like summer, baby.
[Guy] I've invited eight Triple G winners
to face off in an intensive five week
culinary competition.
[Hunter] Making the smoking summer food we all crave.
And taking on some of our wildest summer games.
Oh, Hunter!
Ultimately, one chef will win the championship trophy
-and up to 25,000 bucks. -[Hunter whistles]
-[all cheering] -Right on.
It's all starting right here, right now,
so go put away your sandbox.
Get changed.
It's Guy's summer grocery games right now,
-on Triple G. -I was tanning.
All right, folks.
Here come the eight chefs of summer.
-[cheering] -[Guy] There we go.
Sharp, looking good, nice hair do.
Big smiles.
I've seen each one of you
beat out the other talented chefs
from Flavortown market.
So now, I know that you have the culinary chops
to take on the extreme summer games, okay?
Now, summer gonna win,
and summer gonna lose.
Ba-da-bum. I'll be here all week.
-[laughs] -[Guy] Each week's competition
is gonna be divided into two culinary rounds.
Now, the chef that wins best dish,
in that first round's
gonna win an instant 5,000 bucks.
They will also pass on to next week's competition automatically.
However, the bad news is
is the last two chefs will face off
in an elimination round.
The chef that loses that match up,
will [clicks tongue] check out.
And ultimately though,
the chef that conquers
my five week summer games challenges
will earn the championship trophy
and up to $25,000
in our big summer shopping spree.
-[all cheering] -Right on.
[Guy] That's not all.
The folks at Kellogg's,
are teaming up with the Food Network
to help the winning chef
turn up the fight on childhood hunger.
They're gonna provide up to 200,000 meals
to No Kid Hungry
in one of your names.
That's amazing.
So, I thought I would start things off
in a really nice way
and I had Hunter put together
a little gift bag for you. Hunter?
What have you got for us, buddy?
Chefs, welcome back.
-Did you say, "Welcome back"? -Here's some gifts. Yeah.
-Welcome back. -Very good. Let me just hand these out.
[Hunter] Got some towels, snorkel, flippers,
-hat, sunglasses. -[Guy] Here we go.
Fantastic Hunter. I appreciate that.
-I think that's a nice assortment of stuff. -[Hunter] Very welcome.
-Yeah. -Now, for your very first challenge,
I want you to make a signature summer dish.
The dish that outshines everyone
when you go to that backyard barbecue.
Let me see everybody's bag.
-Spicy. -[Hunter] Ooh, sweet and sour.
-[Guy] Sweet and sour. Fried. -[Hunter] Yeah.
-[Guy] What is the... -[Hunter] I may have misread your email.
I thought you wanted me to, like, give names,
like, a food adjective names, that, kind of, deal.
-No, their name. -[Hunter] Oh.
[Guy] All right, new game.
We're gonna call this, "Bag-jective."
You are going to cook
with the adjective that is on your bag.
That's how your dish
must be represented.
Gotta get the shopping started.
Ready? Where are the carts?
-We had four... -Oh, God.
...but I ordered more, brand new ones.
[Guy] Um, let me think about this. No carts.
[chuckles]
I got it.
They've got bags. Let them shop with the bags.
Everything would have to fit in that bag.
They got all the gifts in the bags.
They can't really take them out.
You got the right idea.
-Oh, nice. -You take it. You put it on.
That's right. So you can take anything out of your bag,
put it on.
And you can do your shopping that way.
That's it. That's it. Perfect.
Thirty minutes to shop, prepare a plate,
a signature summer dish
that reflects the adjective on your bag,
using only ingredients that will fit in your bag
in one shopping trip.
-[Hunter] Hmm. -If you drop anything,
you have to pick it up.
Drop one thing, I take three things out.
Right? You drop two things,
I'm gonna take and make you put...
All your protein back.
One of those things has gonna have to go
right back to the shelf where you had it, okay?
There we go. Going to the beach, kids.
It's, like, you gotta run to the beach
-to get your-- -[Hunter] Oh, they go. [chuckles]
-She got it. -You don't have to wear it.
He's getting the goggles on and everything.
Oh, it's that look.
It's, like, my mom going to the beach.
[Hunter] I was just gonna say.
[Dan] So, I lift up my bag, I turn it around
and I got smoky.
And I gotta shop with this, like,
come on, man.
I haven't seen those since summer camp.
In a nutshell, I'm a New England summer guy
For my summer signature dish
first thing that comes to my mind, is burgers.
I'm gonna make smoky lamb burgers
with a cucumber salad
and smoked onion jam.
I grab ingredients that are already smoked.
Bacon, smoked beemster,
which is just an aged gouda, that's been smoked.
A little smoked maple.
So, I run down the equipment aisle,
and I grab a smoke gun,
which I've never used before
Dude, how am I gonna fit all this stuff
inside of this bag?
And I got it jammed up with bread
and cucumbers and tomatoes.
Everything's falling out of here.
Like, I don't even have room for mayo.
Plus, I gotta get over ther
and figure out how I'm gonna start smoking stuff.
Let's do it.
It's a one shop. One shop only.
Come on. Just try to keep it together.
I have to make a crunchy
signature summer dish.
Only way I'm going to get anything in this bag
is to take things out and put them on.
Needs to be crunchy.
For my signature summer dish,
I'm making my crunchy corn curry salad.
Two. Buckle my shoe.
I really love all things Thai,
so we've got Thai curry paste,
a little bit of coconut milk
some lime juice, fish sauce
and because I need to make it extra crunchy,
I'm going to grab corn chips and ramen noodles.
This is the number one, most requested item that I make.
In the rough.
Oh, my gosh. I can't believe how out of shape I am.
I get the bag that says, "Blackened."
For my signature summer dish
I'm making blackened seared ahi tuna.
I make it everyday on my food truck.
With a honey toasted sesame cabbage slaw.
I hustle hard for a living
and I cannot believe
what a difficult time I had running around there.
[Gina] A signature summer di
is definitely a tomato panzanella.
Guess what? It's fried.
What comes to mind first
is, like, "Okay, we'll do some calamari in there
and it'll give me a fried component."
All right.
I mean, do I fry with this on?
Maybe, safety's first, right?
♪ Tomato panzanella ♪
Need to get a tiny mayonnaise.
Itty bitty.
I am so happy that I got spicy.
I'm half Mexican and half Italian.
As my dad always says,
"The spice runs through our blood."
My favorite thing to grill in the summer
is skirt steak.
Skirt steak. Tiny bag.
When I think steak, I think chimichurri.
To make my chimichurri spicy
I get chili, habanero,
Thai chili for fun.
I'm a born and raised Cali girl.
So, the summertime runs through my blood.
This is ridiculous.
It is absolutely ridiculous.
[Nick] My adjective is sweet and sour.
Nothing says summer
like something coming off the grill.
For my signature summer dish
I'm making a grilled chicken thigh sandwich.
All right, sugar, sugar.
This is where my sweet adjective is coming in.
I'm using brown sugar in my rub
for these chicken thighs.
Now I have to figure out how I'm gonna get
that sour component.
So, I'm thinking I'm gonna make mango salsa.
I'm grabbing mangoes
and onions and cilantro, jalapenos.
So, I competed on the home cooks tournament
and ended up winning it.
So, I'm here representing all of the home cooks
in the country
against these chefs.
And it feels absolutely amazing
to represent you.
I might not be a chef but I know a trick or two.
One thing that I did not want was cheese.
I didn't grow up with chees
and I don't do cheese.
But, for my signature summer dish,
I am gonna make a cheesy shrimp fried wonton.
We make wonton at our restaurant.
I know it goes really well with cream chees
and I also added cheddar and mozzarella,
'cause it has to be cheesy.
It was really hard to get all my ingredients
in this tiny bag.
Just have Fresno peppers
and jalapeno would make it spicy.
Oh, ah, ah.
So, I gotta figure out how to get the ingredients I need
and what am I gonna pickle and fit it in this bag?
For my signature summer dish
I made my wife's favorites, scallops.
Top it off with this nice pickled fresh salad
of red onion, garlic, cilantro and edible flowers
Coming into the summer tournament,
it's a totally different format.
There's eight chefs and on top of that,
everybody's a winner.
And when you have eight people running around
you gotta be careful too.
Like, that's a lot of folks.
[Guy] All right, so 24 minutes.
Everybody's back at their stations.
You can take your glasses and your shenanigans off now.
I mean, I should've let them cook with it on.
But, they need all the help they can get right now.
[Guy] Twenty three minutes. 23 left.
So, here to grill our chefs on their summer dishes
is our impressive panel of super judges.
We have acclaimed restaurateur
the one and only neon princess warrior herself,
Chef Antonia Lofaso.
Global traveler who's eaten summer foods
on every continent possible,
Sir Simon Majumdar.
And the culinary dynamo
behind her Boston restaurant empire,
and winner of tournament of champions three,
-give it up for sweet tea, Chef Tiffani Faison. -Ahh.
They've all competed.
They all know the expectation level.
They've gotta cook their signature summer dish,
using their special adjective that they had on the bag.
The two chefs that do the worst,
are gonna have to go into another battle
and that battle, one of them will go home,
and the other one will move into the competition next week.
I don't think you're gonna see anything disappointing.
It's just, are you gonna see it,
'cause there's only 22 minutes left.
Ah, I spent a lot of time shopping.
Goodness gracious.
-All right, Ronicca. What's on the menu? -Yes, chef.
We have a lot of fresh seafood in Florida
and there some beautiful tuna that comes out of Miami.
Need to shine bright today with this tuna here.
Okay, so this is right in your wheelhouse,
-your feel great. -Right in my wheelhouse. Right in my wheelhouse.
The first thing I do is to work on the tuna.
I wanna get that blackening seasoning on there
and let it rest for a little bit.
Next, I work on my cabbage slaw.
It's bright, it's vibrant, it's summery.
Toasted sesame.
My slaw is going to offset a salty blackened tuna.
I add honey and the mint.
Pretty delicious.
-[Guy] Dan the man. -[Dan] What's going on?
Smoked is my thing.
So, I'm doing a lamb burger.
We've got some smoked bacon.
Gonna make a little bit of smoked onion jam for my burger.
Put a little bit of smoky beemster cheese over here.
-Smoky what? -I'm gonna do-- smoky beemster cheese.
Beemster. Got a little smoke.
I wouldn't rely on the whole thing for that.
Next thing I'm gonna start is my smoked onion jam.
Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. I gotta get them in a pan.
I got this little smoking gu
I've never used one of these things before.
One of the missteps I had the last time around,
was that i didn't do enough gameplay.
You're in a fried feast competition.
Fry everything.
I got the smoked cheese on there.
I got the extra smoky bacon
and i got the char from the lamb patty.
I'm at least making sure that I try to incorporate
as many smoky things as I possibly can.
I cook a lot with chili
and spices normally anyway.
So, having the spicy bag
was, kind of, like, just my luck.
For my signature summer dish,
I'm gonna make a spicy grilled skirt steak
with fresh chimichurri
and spicy, spicy shrimp.
First thing I need to do
is make a marinade for my steak.
Spicy is what they want.
Spicy is what they're gonna get.
Olive oil, cilantro,
dill, grilled pineapple,
oregano, Aleppo, habanero.
Taking the time to marinate your steak
is the risk, because you need
every single second possibl
with that steak cooking on the grill.
I'm gonna make some grilled
chicken thigh sandwiches.
I'm gonna go sweet
with a little brown sugar in my rub.
Sour with a little bit of mango salsa.
I realize the one component
I needed to grab for my sour, was a lemon.
Now I'm really leaning on this red wine vinegar
in my pantry.
I might not be a chef but I know a trick or two.
I gotta oil this grill up.
I'm here representing all of the home cooks
in the country
against these chefs.
I wanna win this so bad
'cause I wanna prove
that I can compete with these chefs.
[Guy] Eighteen minutes to cook.
I understood the assignment
and the assignment was cheese.
I'm gonna make, uh, cheesy shrimp wontons.
I chop some onions and jalapenos.
Chop up shrimp.
Cook all that down together
and then I threw in some oyster sauce,
sriracha, the pantry ingredient, chili flakes and paprika.
But it has to be cheesy.
Nina, how's that cheese working out for you?
I'm doing cream cheese, mozzarella and cheddar.
For each individual wonton,
I wanna evenly spread it out.
Hot food's great for summer
Everyone thinks of summer is hotdogs, hamburger.
But they haven't seen what I'm about to put out.
Jonathon, what have we got, buddy?
All right, we got pickle today.
So, my wife's favorite thing
in the summer on the grill, is scallops.
-So, you got your scallops for her. -Right.
Corn, popped with some pickled red onions.
-It's a nice, bright, lovely summer dish. -Okay.
In this succotash,
I really think I've got summer flavors going.
The smoky bacon.
The fresh corn.
Gotta bring the pickle into this,
'cause that's the game.
Pickling with the raspberry vinegar,
there's gonna be that hint of freshness in summer
with the fruit flavor of the raspberry.
We're doing a, uh, little pickled salad
to top everything off with.
And even some of the corn in the pickle,
just to, kind of, give you a balance of flavors in your mouth.
I want that acid flavor.
But too much pickle is just an acid bomb.
-All right, sister. -Hi.
-Talk to me. What's your adjective? -Fried.
-What are you frying? -Gonna do fried calamari
and fried croutons.
-Okay. -[Gina] And a little salad panzanella.
I'm from Long Island,
so, we do seafood better than most people,
so, that's what we're gonna focus on right now.
To dredge my calamari,
I pour buttermilk on the to
and then I put it into AP flour
and then just drop it in the fryer.
While the calamari's in the fryer,
I'm gonna start working on my salad.
I rub my bread
with a little bit of tomato and olive oil
and I throw it on the grill
Summer's all about, like, relaxing,
you know, and vacation vibes
I am not feeling any of those vibes right now.
I am feeling super pressure
from having to fry everythin
I've never fried bread croutons in my life.
But I wanna give the judges
fried multiple ways.
This isn't my first time in Flavortown.
As long as I keep my head in the game,
I can take it home.
[Guy] Fifteen minutes. 15 to go.
No pressure at all.
We're gonna make a crunchy
grilled corn curry salad.
Soften the corn up.
I really just want to impart additional curry flavor.
That corn is going to be infused with lime leaves
and some hot curry powder.
Right in there.
While my corn is boiling,
I'm going to start working on my dressing.
Mayo, a little bit of spice
Thai chili paste,
fish sauce, yellow curry paste,
lime juice.
Let's get this working.
Here's what's so smart about what Christian is doing.
He's not frying anything.
So, he's left fried to the side
-and he's keeping crunchy. -[Simon] I like that.
We have eight dishes to try right now.
I want you guys to stretch,
do some deep breathing.
There's some work ahead of us, right now.
I'm worried about you, you didn't have much food.
I mean, a body like this doesn't keep itself.
-Wow. -It's a temple.
[laughs]
Signature summer dish.
[Tiffani] We've invited eight of our winning chefs
to summer camp.
For some, it's gonna be a cruel, cruel summer.
For some, it's gonna be nothing but sun and sand
and surf and success.
Fourteen minutes, chefs. 14 to go.
Oh, gosh. Time is going so quickly.
Now I'm putting my tuna in my piping hot pan
with oil, to sear it off.
When you sear it longer,
the blackened seasoning goes up into the tuna.
So, I start to work on my sauces.
I make my gochujang aioli
and I make my signature wasabi honey cream.
I taste my sauces and they are sweet.
I'm really hoping that the saltiness
of the blackened tuna would offset that.
I make these two sauces all the time on my truck
and people are always asking me,
"How do you make it?" I'll never tell.
This hair is so big for a reason.
[Dan] The onion jam's going
We got the grill going.
I got my cucumber salad.
I want this to balance out the smokiness from the burger.
With my onions bubbling down here,
time for the secret weapon.
There we go.
The smoking gun.
I want that smoky, like, campfire, kind of, flavor.
So, once the burgers are charred,
I got some nice grill marks on them,
I'm gonna put them in the oven
and I'm gonna let the smoky beemster cheese,
kind of, just melt on there
[Noelle] Now it's time to throw the shrimp on.
I know that I want it to be spicy.
I threw in jalapeno
Fresno, habanero.
I want my shrimp to cook in the spice.
Spicy.
I need to get this steak on the grill
and and more hot sauce on top.
When it comes to spice, I'm not gonna mess around.
I'm gonna work on my spicy grilled corn salad.
It has the great sweetness and fresh flavor
but it gets the smokiness from the grill.
I've put the mayo in so that the freshness
and the sweetness could be a relief.
I don't want them to not be able to taste the flavors.
[Guy] Seven minutes. 7 to go.
Nick, talk to me, goose.
Got a little, uh, barbecue chicken thigh sandwich
that's got a little sweetened heat.
And I'm gonna do the sweet mango salsa
with a little bit of vinegar punch to it,
to put on top of it.
Make sure that they get that sour in there, buddy.
[Nick] Sour, you've gotta have something
that gets you back here, in them jowls.
These peppers are done,
so I'm pulling them off to the grill
to cut them up for my salsa
This mango salsa is saying summer to me
because the mango is perfectly ripe.
The tomatoes are fresh.
I'm really hoping this red wine vinegar
is gonna bring enough sour
to not walk away from this.
As I'm pulling the wontons out from the fryer,
I see cheese popping out.
It looks so good and gooey.
[Guy] Oh, those are looking good.
Are we gonna get a sauce or anything with this?
[Nina] Yes, we are.
Little bit of fish sauce, little bit of chili sauce
and a little sriracha.
-Okay. - I want the sauce to be spicy.
Summer and spice go hand-in-hand.
Tasting just like summer, baby.
I've got my succotash going
I've got my onions pickling for my salad.
Last thing I need to do, is cook my scallops.
I'm thinking about my wife,
who's probably gonna watch this and go,
"You better not screw those scallops up."
So, I'm just channeling her energy.
I didn't come back to Flavortown as a winner,
to go home a loser, especially in the first round.
Gina's doing a panzanella salad
with fried calamari as her summer dish.
I think, conceptually, really smart
because the panzanella screams summer.
The panzanella salad is, like, everything that's, like, wonderful
about summer's in Long Islan
And then you're gonna add fried bread croutons.
I get my calamari out of the fryer.
It's got a perfect pan golden color to it
and I'm very happy with that
The grill is everything to do with summer,
so why not grill this corn?
While my corn is on the gril
I'm going to chop up my cabbage
and slice my snow peas.
And to add even more crunch,
I'm going to use these corn chips
and this ramen, pulsed up in the food processor
just to add depth of flavor,
more corn notes, little salt,
some more crunch.
Just substance for this corn dish.
[Guy] We got four minutes.
Four minutes to be plated and finished.
[Ronicca] I put down my cabbage slaw,
blackened ahi tuna.
Drizzle it with my sauce.
[Guy] Three and a half minutes.
[Dan] I taste my onion jam
and there's definitely some smoky elements in there
but it's not got that smoke that I want.
I take the burgers out of the oven.
The cheese is really nicely melted
on the burger.
Adding smoky bacon to this burger
is really gonna start to build those smoky element
I get the jam on the burgers
Now I gotta plate my salads.
[Guy] Three minutes, chefs. Three.
[Nick] I put down my perfectly grilled bun.
I pull my chicken from the grill
and it looks absolutely amazing.
My sour vinegary mango salsa.
Crack me a cold one,
gimme a sandwich and let's sit by the pool.
[Guy] Two and a half minutes.
[Nina] With my wonton,
I wanted to give the judges four pieces
and with a sauce in the middle.
-[Guy] How we looking? -[Nina] We're looking good.
Wow, that's cheesy.
Two minutes. Two to go.
[Noelle] First thing I do,
is put my skirt steak down
and then my perfectly spicy shrimp on top.
Then I add my fresh corn sal to the side
and finish with my marinade
as a chimichurri sauce.
[Guy] Ninety seconds.
[Jonathon] Put down the corn succotash.
Sear on the scallops looking really nice
and then this pickled red onion, garlic slender salad.
One minute.
[Gina] I put down the fried bread,
the panzanella salad,
crispy calamari.
Fried oregano over the top.
Thirty seconds.
[Christian] That's crunchy.
That way, I think that's enough crunch to keep me around.
I scoop my crunchy corn salad
into this tiny crock.
Little bit of furikake on to
for additional crunch.
Five, four,
three, two, one.
-Chefs, that's it. Stop working. -Whoo.
-Great job. -[indistinct]
-[Guy] All right, you guys. -Good.
[Guy] Big battle. Great job.
All right, chefs.
Let's see whose signature summer dish
takes the first heat.
Let's take it to the judges. Right this way.
[Guy] All right, judges. Here we are.
This is game one of our summer games kick off.
Our teams had to prepare a signature summer dish
using only ingredients they could fit
into their beach bags
and incorporating the adjective
that they had on the back of the bag.
Up first, Chef Nina.
Tell us what you made
and your adjective was cheesy.
My dish today was shrimp fried cheesy wontons
with sweet, sour and spicy sauce.
Chef, the outside is crunchy.
You've kept a snap to the shrimp.
You took the idea of, like, a crab wonton
with cream cheese
and completely changed it into this.
I would've liked to see a little bit more cream cheese
'cause then it would've been more, like, cheese forward.
Chef Noelle and spicy. What did you make us?
I have a grilled skirt steak
that's marinated in a extra spicy chimichurri
Got some sauteed extra spicy shrimp
and then on the side,
I have a grilled corn salad.
Chef Noelle, spiciness seems to be
the same spiciness across the scale.
[Tiffani] The cook on the steak is great.
I think the corn and the peppers
and the pineapple, they're all sweet, right,
which is relief from the spice,
which I think it's really, really smart.
[Guy] Nick, sweet and sour.
What have you got for us, bud?
Chefs, what I have
is a barbecue chicken thigh sandwich
with a mango and roasted pepper salsa.
For my sweet, brown sugar in my rub.
For my sour, mango salsa.
Chef Nick, you're the only home cook here.
How does it feel to be amongst
some of the professionals?
If you came to my house on a Saturday afternoon,
you would be eating exactly that.
That actually made me feel comfortable,
that I was able to do something that I know.
Sir, you did that wholeheartedly.
Overall, I like it. I think it has great flavor.
The sweet and sour.
You have to, like, smack us with sweet and sour.
You're a little apologetic here on the sourness.
Up next, Chef Gina and fried.
What have you got for us?
My favorite dish to make in the summertime
is a panzanella salad.
So, I fried the bread
and then I did fried calamari with it,
'cause I'm from Long Island.
I love the crunch on the bread.
Super, super crunchy and fried.
Quality of the fried calamari,
with the cut of the panzanella.
To me, it's, in execution,
it's two different dishes.
It's a little clunky in terms of its presentation
and the fried bread is a little bit oily.
It needed just to be drained a little bit more.
Chef Christian, you had crunchy.
What do you have for us, chef?
So, when I heard signature dish,
I had to make my crunchy corn curry salad.
Grilled corn, red cabbage
and ... salad,
with a Thai coconut curry dressing.
Christian, we have cook outs.
There are salads and then there's the salad.
This is the salad.
I am here for this.
I have to say, like, good things
in small packages, sir.
Phenomenal. I wanna eat the entire thing.
But, I think, maybe save some of that crunchy ramen
and not blend it up and put it in here
and just have, like, one more element of crunch.
All right, up next. Chef Dan.
You had smoky. Tell us about it, man.
I made a lamb burger
with smoky onion jam,
smoked bacon and smoked beemster cheese.
So, to kind of, complement the lamb,
I made a little cucumber and tomato salad.
When you were here last time and you competed,
you said if you won,
you were gonna propose to your girlfriend.
Can hopefully pull off a wi
and buy an engagement ring for my girlfriend.
I gotta propose to this girl.
I gotta go home with a check.
Well, now I'm trying to pay for the wedding.
Chef Dan, uh, first of all, congratulations.
Thank you. Thank you.
Smoky was probably the toughest,
so, you had a real challenge.
I think we are missing
a little bit of that smokiness.
Overall, the flavors are great.
But I think I need more smoky.
Was there more that could've been done here
to really execute and make sure that this is
the best, smokiest burger you can possibly get.
Got it.
Ronicca. Blackened.
What have you got for us, chef?
I made you guys today,
a blackened seared ahi tuna
on top of a toasted sesame, honey mint slaw.
[Tiffani] Chef Ronicca.
For tuna to be your signature dish
and to have blackened, that is a gift in a bag.
I really would've loved to have seen
a more aggressive blackening spice.
It's a gorgeous looking dish
but I think we are missing the blackening a little.
[Guy] All right, not to be outdone.
Chef Jonathon and pickled.
What do you have for us, chef?
I wanted something that my wife loves.
She loves scallops
and being from Oklahoma, we love corn.
So, we have pickled red onion,
pickled corn and pickled garlic.
For me, the pickle rolls through the taste
and I think it works beautifully with these
without taking over
the exquisite cook on the seafood.
The corn. I'm not getting the pickle
on the corn as much.
I'm getting a little bit of, like, a saute,
muted sweet corn situation.
Beautiful dish.
Those large chunks of the pickling
are really needed with the sweetness of the corn
and the sweetness of the scallop.
[Guy] Chefs, thank you very much.
You've all won before.
You all know what it takes.
We're gonna decide next
who gets best dish
and then who will go into sudden death tonight.
Chefs, back to the kitchens.
We'll call you in a bit. Thank you.
So, who's the new kid on the summer block party?
[Guy] Chefs, the judges
felt that one of your dishes
was so over the top
that you deserve to move onto next week,
get 5,000 bucks.
The best dish in the first round
of the summer games is...
Chef Christian.
Well done. Well done.
A delicious dish.
So, what this means, you win 5,000 bucks.
You get to walk down the aisle
and we'll see you next week.
-Awesome. -[Guy] Great job.
-Nice job. -Thank you.
[Guy] See you later.
Good job, chef.
Checking out next,
going onto next week will be...
Chef Jonathon.
See you next week.
Chef Nina.
-See you next week. -Yeah.
-Chef Gina. -Thank you.
-[Guy] Congratulations. -Thank you so much.
Chef Noelle. See you next week.
One of you will move onto next week.
The other two will go into sudden death
in a final round of competition tonight.
The chef that will move onto next week will be...
Chef Ronicca.
Bye, bye.
Good job.
Gentlemen.
Final round of competition.
Sudden death. Dan and Nick.
Back to the carts. Good luck, guys.
Everything was all fun and games
until the other six people left.
So, we've got a home cook
and a restaurant cook
in the elimination round.
This round is gonna determine which one of you
will live to cook another day
and whose summer break will be cut short.
So, for your final challenge,
I want you to make the judges
a grilled winner, winner, chicken dinner.
And the winner will get to go
and meet the rest of the group
for next week's competition.
But first, we're gonna play another summer classic.
We're gonna play a little cornhole.
Everybody knows how to play cornhole, right?
You'll each take a turn at throwing a item
at the cornhole, at the platform,
to determine the corn product
that you must feature
in your grilled winner, winner chicken dinner.
Land it on the top half,
canned baby corn.
Get it in the hole,
you get freeze-dried corn
and if you get it right up here,
it's canned cuitlatoche.
All right, Hunter. I need something to throw.
All right, here you go.
Summer games. There we go.
All right, chefs. Here we go.
You get blue bags.
You get red bags.
Who'd like to go first?
Do the honors.
-Nice. Put it in. -That's a slam dunk.
Freeze-dried corn.
All right, up next. Chef Dan.
Canned baby corn. All right.
So, you made that easy on yourself.
Thirty minutes to shop, prepare and plate
your grilled winner, winner, chicken dinner,
featuring your special ingredient.
You get the canned corn.
You get the freeze-dried corn.
And just remember this.
Out of all those eight chefs that were here,
well, there's three of youse.
You, Ronicca.
Okay and then, you two are left.
Which one of you...
-Ah. -Where are you going?
They watch the show too much now.
Easy peasy.
[Dan] I cannot believe I'm in the bottom
and now here I am in sudden death.
Sudden death.
[Nick] Super stressed out.
Gotta make sure I nail this one.
[Dan] I'm, kind of, intimidated by Nick.
He is a sleeper.
Yeah, this guy's a home cook,
but he doesn't cook like it
[Nick] I'm looking at him going,
I really gotta pull something out of the hat
to take him down.
I have to make a winner, winner chicken dinner,
using freeze-dried corn.
Freeze-dried corn is, kind of, like,
a crunchy, puffy,
got no flavor to it necessarily.
No salt. Nothing's really added to it.
[Nick] I grab a boneless, skinless chicken breast.
I know chicken breast
take on whatever flavor you put on them.
So, I gotta grab this barbecue dust.
Making a grilled chicken dinner
with freeze-dried corn is hard,
because I've never even tried
freeze-dried corn.
So, thankfully,
I have the mayor of Flavortown.
So, what else is corn
that you can incorporate it with?
Polenta. I wouldn't know how to make that though.
[Guy] You know how to make grits.
Grits and polenta, the same thing.
Okay, you just keep shopping.
-I'll go find you something. -[Nick] All right.
Summer for me, is absolutely grilled vegetables.
So, I go and I grab some zucchini,
poblano, red pepper
and mushrooms.
I came into this tournament a winner,
and I do not expect to leave
not a winner.
I just really, really gotta focus on the gameplay.
When I think grilled chicken dinner,
I'm thinking chicken thighs
and they do really, really well with marinades.
To me, grilled chicken a little bit of spice
and I wanna make creamed corn.
We're gonna grab fresh corn,
because that's gonna be the base of my creamed corn
I gotta get these canned baby corn
into this as well.
Chimichurri just goes really well
with grilled meats of any kind.
Something that I'm really comfortable cooking.
So, I go grab some scallion
and some cilantro.
If I go home, that will be a summer bummer.
[Guy] Twenty five minutes.
We have Dan and Nick battling it out for survival.
[Simon] We are right down to the wire here.
If you don't make a winning chicken dish,
you're going home.
Whereas the other person
will go through to fight again.
This is tough.
[Guy] Baby corn.
Nothing says gourmet like baby corn.
-What are you thinking? -I'm gonna grill chicken thighs.
I'm gonna do it with some creamed corn
and I'm gonna make a marinade from the baby corn.
[Guy] I dig it. I dig it.
[Dan] After that disastrous first round,
I really need to redeem myself here.
I've seen what Nick can do
and he came to play too.
So, for my chicken marinade,
I'm gonna take my canned baby corn
umami soy sauce
and I'm gonna hit it with a little bit of fish sauce.
Squeeze in some lime,
spicy chili garlic.
Pour it right over my chicken.
Real way I'm using the baby corn
is make the marinade viscou
add that corn flavor for the chicken.
Back home, I'm really comfortable cooking chicken.
But I fry it.
I know what I'm trying to get in the end here,
but I'm, kind of, out of my sweet spot on the grill.
I'm gonna use the canned baby corn two ways.
The marinade and it's also gonna be in the creamed corn.
So, I'm a New England guy,
and when it's corn season,
we love to just make a beautiful,
almost chowdery, creamed cor
I gotta get these canned baby corn
into this as well.
I even take some of the actual corn
that's already cooking, throw that in there.
I puree all that down
and I fold it right back into the creamed corn.
This is, like, New England summer, right here.
I'm gonna do, like, a barbecue chicken,
uh, sliced on the bias.
So, I've won in Flavortown twice,
against other home cooks.
This is gosh darn delicious.
I love the freshness.
Nick by one point.
But now, I gotta go against Dan
and I know that he is gonna put something
that everyone wants to eat on that plate.
For my grilled chicken dinne
I'm making a barbecue dusted grilled chicken
with grilled vegetables
and a corn grit.
[Antonia] Nick's doing right now,
is he's butterflying chicken breast.
I like a butterflied chicken breast
because chicken breast can be so delicate
and they do take on a lot of flavor.
[Nick] Chicken breasts are not easy to work with.
They can dry out very easily.
So, my plan for this,
is to just get some nice grill marks on them
and put them right into the oven
to finish cooking.
-Here you go. -Thank you, sir.
I've never made grits.
I gotta figure this out.
"Bring water to boil.
Immediately start slowly stirring grits."
[Simon] I have to say that,
given that I never cook grits,
I would probably have to read the ingredients.
I'm gonna incorporate the corn into here,
so it, kind of, reconstitutes.
So, these are gonna be, like, a corn style grits.
They key to grilling all of these vegetables
are they have to have grill marks.
[Guy] Check that chicken there, chef.
Yep, I'm doing it right now.
I really wanna show that this home cook
really has what it takes to compete with chefs.
Ten minutes. 10 to go, chefs.
[Dan] I know that these chicken thighs
take forever to cook.
I need something to weight this thing down,
grill it two ways and make, like,
a brick situation here.
And all of a sudden, I got an idea.
Put it on a sheet pan,
I put the really, really ho griddle on there.
I throw it in a burning hot oven
and I know that this gonna get me where I need to go.
[Guy] And what are we trying to achieve with this?
[Dan] Creamed corn.
If they can't find the corn, chef,
you're gonna have a big problem.
I need all the flavor I can get at this point.
Got the corn cob sitting on the cutting board
Why not just put these in here,
because it's only gonna add more starch
to the creamed corn.
Last time I was here, I took home a check.
-It's got a really nice ring to it. -[laughs]
I brought my girlfriend a beautiful diamond ring.
I proposed to her at the showing party
and it was awesome.
It's really scary to come back to Flavortown,
especially after having left a winner the last time.
I can't go home now.
I don't wanna let my fiance down.
[Nick] Little backyard barbecue trick,
stop it sticking.
[Antonia] Nick's just got the best smile
on his face right now.
So excited. Look at him, he's having the best time.
He loves summer. He loves cooking.
Yeah, he loves chicken.
[Nick] I have some really good grill marks
on this chicken.
I don't wanna overcook it.
So, I just throw it in the oven.
I have to focus on this sauce.
A little bit of chicken stoc
and a little bit of lemon tarragon.
No one wants dry food on a hot summer day.
They want something that's gonna make it sloppy
I check on my grits and they're horrible.
Texture of that corn, it's chewy.
I decided to take it over to the food processor,
soften that corn up,
get it to blend, make it nice and thick
and it will be used as the base of my dish.
Let's see how this tastes.
That's better.
Not, like, uh, super grainy.
You're right about that.
One minute. One to go.
[Dan] I taste the creamed co
and it's right where I want it.
It's the moment of truth.
I gotta get the chicken out of the oven.
Boom. It's right where I want it.
My skin is crispy.
The first thing I do,
put a nice little puddle of creamed corn
right on each plate.
I take my perfectly grilled chicken
and I put it right on top of my creamed corn.
And I put my chimichurri right on the chicken,
but I don't wanna cover all that beautiful crispy skin.
Thirty seconds.
Oh, I like the way this looks.
This was a good plate selection, Nick.
I put a heaping pile of these corn grits.
I turn these vegetables over
They have the perfect color that I want.
This dish is absolutely summ on a plate.
I've never had a piece of grilled chicken
determine my fate.
But this is it.
This grilled chicken decide whether I go home
or if I stay.
Five, four, three,
two, one.
And that's it.
Good job.
[Guy] All right, chefs.
Time to find out whose grilled chicken dinner
is good enough to get back in the game.
Let's take it to the judges. Right this way.
All right, judges. Here we are.
The elimination round
of our summer games kick off.
In this game, the chefs got to play
a little cornhole to determine the corn ingredient
they had to incorporate
into their grilled chicken winner dinner.
First up, Chef Nick. Freeze-dried corn.
Chefs, what I've prepared for you today is
grilled chicken for my winne winner, chicken dinner,
grilled summer vegetables.
What I tried to do was make a real buttery grit,
with a bunch of that corn in there.
Then I grilled all of those vegetables together.
Chef Nick, the corn, I think, works really, really well.
The fact that you added the polenta
and you added the corn to it,
give it this extra corniness
and I think that is just essence of corn.
That feels like summer to me
I really loved that.
I saw you take the chicken breast
and butterfly them
and I was, like, "Such a great idea."
I don't know if they needed to go in the oven.
I think they went a little over.
And with those grits,
there are, sort of, those remnants
of that freeze-dried corn throughout it.
The flavor is delicious.
It's the texture that's throwing me off.
Up next, Chef Dan. Baby corn.
What have you got for us?
I have a grilled chicken thigh.
My ingredient was baby corn
So, I pureed some of that
and I mixed that into the creamed corn
with some nice, fresh, beautiful summer corn
and a little chimichurri.
And for the marinade, for the chicken,
I took the baby corn and pureed that
with a little bit of majie sauce
and a little bit of fish sauce.
I think the use of the baby corn in the cream corn
is really, really smart.
The seasoning on the chicken
gives you this gorgeous char.
But I actually think the chicken's
a little under seasoned.
Okay.
Baby corn on its own for a textural difference in here,
I think would have really been key
and also really honored that special ingredient that you have.
And so, I almost feel, like,
-it was just a missing point for you. -[Dan] Yeah.
[Simon] You've got the skin on top of a chicken thigh
absolutely crisp.
I think what you've produced here,
is really, really good.
Chefs, one of you will move on,
one of you will check out.
Gonna send you back to the kitchens.
We'll call you when we have a decision.
Judges, which chef's chicken dinner
doesn't have a wing and a prayer?
-[chuckles] -Whoa.
[laughs]
For me, I actually think they were pretty equal
in terms of how they used the corn.
I think they both used them really, really well.
So, for me, it's, kind of, every word
is about the bird now.
[Antonia] Dan's chicken thigh,
I thought was wildly under seasoned,
but really cooked well.
Whereas, I think that Nick's chicken
the end pieces just got too much grill mark
It then comes down to, like, overall flavor.
Which dish I love the most
and which I would go back to.
Yeah.
Let's go ahead and bring our chefs back in please.
Nick, Dan. Thank you guys very much.
All of the judges though that you incorporated
the corn well.
This really came down to the chicken.
One was a little under seasoned.
One was a little overcooked, but perfectly seasoned.
Tough decision.
But one chef will be checking out.
The other chef will be coming back next week
to battle with the other six chefs,
with the seven remaining.
The chef that will be checking out will be...
Unfortunately, Chef Nick.
Buddy, I gotta tell you something.
You came here in a very unique situation
as a home cook.
This is not your profession
or your industry that you make money at yet.
But I gotta tell you something.
You were battling against some real heavy hitters.
Nice to have you, buddy. Great to see you.
-[Tiffani] You were great. -[Guy] Leave me hanging.
[Nick] Appreciate it, chef. Thank you.
I'm super bummed that I have to go home.
But being back in Flavortown,
competing with all of these great chefs
in a summer tournament,
I wouldn't trade it in for anything.
Well, congratulations.
Chef Dan surviving the elimination round is tough.
But hopefully, that scares you straight
and gets you focused.
You're gonna go and meet up with the other six chefs
who are returning next week.
-We'll see you next week, okay? -Okay.
And we'll see you next week, also,
when the summer games continue right here
as our seven remaining chefs hit the beach.
Tonight, we're gonna have a little beach bash.
-Whoa. -Really?
[Ronicca] Ooh.
Wow.
Have a bucket of that.
I love this. I think it's great.
So many different kids of flavors and textures.
Use of that canned mango, really smart.
Adios. See you next we.