♪ ♪
-[bell dings] -PADMA: Oh, no.
Another steak dish?
[sighs heavily]
-[bell dings] -We have a lot to eat.
-[dinging] -MICHAEL: Oh, my God.
PADMA: I did not think we would be eating--
-40 dishes. Yeah. -[dinging]
-[Wylie groans] -PADMA: I'm sorry.
[groans] I can't...
-I can't walk. I'm so full. -[dinging]
WYLIE: I couldn't eat another bite.
You know how many dishes we've eaten?
I don't know how you guys are still standing.
Spare a thought for us, okay, Chris?
-[laughing] -Yeah. [chuckles]
-[bell dings] -MICHAEL: Oh, my God. -[Wylie laughing]
♪ ♪
PADMA: I'm Padma Lakshmi, and we've scoured the nation
to bring together the most elite chefs
and the most renowned judges into the ultimate
culinary battleground.
This is a test
of our ten Culinary Commandments.
Master them, and you win $1 million.
Brought to you by our official cleanup partners,
Dawn Powerwash.
Previously on America's Culinary Cup,
the chefs have been tested
on five of the ten Culinary Commandments.
Meat.
Sustainability.
Sauce.
Vegetables.
Dessert.
-Some have thrived... -Aah!
Congratulations, Matt.
-You are the winner. -You killed it.
PADMA: The chef voted most likely to win.
-Beverly. -Oh, my God! -[applause]
PADMA: ...while others have stumbled.
Who was voted least likely
to win?
Chris Morgan?
-Doesn't feel good. -Keith,
you survived another commandment.
I'm really, um, beating myself up right now.
I'm disappointed that I escaped by,
but I live to fight another day.
♪ ♪
-CHRIS: Good luck, everybody. -KEITH: Good luck, everyone. -KATIE: Good luck.
[elevator bell dings]
Okay.
It's very empty in here today.
CHRIS: The worst moment is leading up
to finding out whatever the commandment is.
Things are back to normal.
CHRIS: But I feel like I have
something to prove.
If everybody here thinks
I'm gonna go home, I'm gonna win.
-Uh-oh. -Oh, wait a second.
-Oh, here it is. -Oh.
-Culinary foam. -"Culinary foam was a by-product
of inflating tomatoes with a bicycle pump."
KATIE: Okay.
Oh, we've got extra vac pack machines,
extra dehydrators, double doors of liquid nitrogen.
-This is the molecular challenge. -This is feeling
molecular, yeah.
I'm familiar with a lot
of molecular gastronomy techniques.
You've done molec-molecular?
-She worked at El Bulli. -I worked at El Bulli
-for a bit. -KEITH: Oh.
KATIE: El Bulli was a combination,
this merging of food and science
that blew my mind.
This could play very well into my strengths,
especially since my previous career is in science.
But seems like every time someone says
that they have experience with something,
they end up on the bottom.
[elevator bell dings]
♪
Okay.
-Morning. -Hello.
-WYLIE: Hi, guys. -Hello.
Good morning. Hello.
-Good morning. -Good morning. -Morning.
The seven of you are one step closer
to taking home America's Culinary Cup
and $1 million.
Let's get right to it, shall we?
Here we go.
Today's Culinary Commandment
is culinary science and technology.
KEITH: Oh, [bleep].
I made it through desserts, but I'm going home today.
[laughs] I-I don't have any experience
with molecular gastronomy, but I understand
why it's a commandment.
Food is ever changing. It's a science.
Cooking is a science.
It allows you to push the envelope.
PADMA: For this commandment, we've invited
a special guest judge,
one of the pioneers of molecular gastronomy,
a true mad scientist and genius.
Please welcome...
[elevator bell dings]
[bleep]
I'm just kidding, of course.
-[laughter] -Because there's
no guest judge better than the one we have right here.
-He's in his own house. -[applause]
Wylie Dufresne!
BUDDHA: Wylie's the leading pioneer of molecular gastronomy.
I watched his videos.
I watched him cook in wd~50.
He is someone that was in the forefront of paving a way.
Wylie understand the formulas
to make everything perfect and right.
I did the weird [bleep] so you don't have to.
[laughter]
For the culinary science and technology commandment,
we want to see
how well you can showcase these ten...
-Oof. -[mouths] -Ten?
...advanced techniques.
In this commandment, your strategy
is just as important
as your food, because today's a no-holds-barred,
nonstop cook-off.
You'll have five hours on the clock
to create as many dishes as you'd like
-that feature at least one of these techniques. -Wow.
The more techniques you pack into a single dish,
the bigger the potential score.
At the end of five hours,
the chef with the highest total score
will win and get a big advantage
in the next Culinary Commandment.
BEVERLY: Oh, my God.
I really need to get that advantage.
Being voted most likely to win, now the pressure's on.
It's easier to be the underdog.
Having an advantage moves me
closer to getting that million dollars.
And the chef with the lowest score
will be going home.
[bleep]
Is your head exploding, Buddha?
I don't know where I'm gonna end up,
-but, um... -[laughter]
But this is, like, awesome.
The game is divided into two halves.
Each half is two and a half hours long.
MICHAEL: Chefs, when you're finished
with a dish, ring the bell at your station
and we will do our best
to get to your station right away to taste your dish.
KATIE: Oh, my gosh.
This is crazy.
It's one thing to cook one dish.
It's very difficult
to try to manage cooking a lot of dishes at the same time
with different techniques in them.
Wylie, would you do the honors, please?
I thought you'd never ask.
Your time...
starts now!
Good luck!
[laughing]
Go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go! Whoo!
For this commandment, the chefs have
five hours to score as many points
as they can, with no limit
on the number of dishes they make.
Each dish must feature at least one
of these ten culinary science and technology techniques...
Each technique a chef uses ups the dish's potential score.
A dish with one technique
is worth a possible ten points per judge,
and a dish using five techniques
is worth a possible 50 points per judge,
and so on.
Now let's get back to the action.
How long before someone rings the first bell?
I think it's gonna be quick, and I think it's gonna be Buddha.
WYLIE: Yeah, and if we've learned anything so far
on America's Culinary Cup, never count Beverly out.
She is in the running.
Literally.
Katie, you're into all this science stuff, right?
-You feel good about this? -I think so.
Very intimidating challenge.
I want to stay away from crashing and burning.
I see this commandment as
a scoring battle.
Get as many plates up as you can and try to score as many points
as possible with each plate. That's my strategy.
So I just start
smoking everything.
Duck breast.
Burrata. Getting my carrots going.
Bagging and pickling things,
sous vide-ing things,
making powders out of multiple fats.
I'm starting with foam, which is gonna be a meringue.
Instead of, like, rapid-fire, unintentional dishes,
I'm focusing on quality.
I'm going to make a lemon and blackberry pavlova.
I'm gonna use pavlova for foam, which is the meringue.
Takes about two hours to bake the meringue,
so I wanted to get that on quickly.
BUDDHA: I'm doing spherification.
I'm gonna make a coconut and passion fruit gelato.
The coconut and passion fruit,
I'm adding them into the liquid nitrogen.
It'll flash freeze it and turn them into spheres.
WYLIE: Buddha seems comfortable
with spherification.
I think this is in his wheelhouse.
WYLIE: It's tricky. Traditional spherification
is typically where you take a liquid
and you encapsulate it in a membrane.
Typically it's alginate, but it could be pectin,
it could be gellan gum, and there's a chemical reaction.
So that sphere will become solid.
[bell dings]
All right, Buddha, what have you got?
BUDDHA: Something to get your taste buds going.
I used spherification and flash freezing.
-Two techniques? -Yes.
PADMA: So the dish is worth a maximum of 20 points per judge.
BUDDHA: The spherification technique that I'm doing
is not your typical spherification.
You will still get those spheres, but you won't get,
you know, that sodium alginate feel.
WYLIE: Right on. I think that's smart.
PADMA: I thought you did a great job with these two techniques.
I really got the beautiful brightness
and tartness of the pineapple
with the creaminess from the coconut milk.
It's delicious, it's refreshing, it's cold.
-It hit all the notes. -I thought it was delicious.
But as a cocktail, you can give me more rum next time, Buddha.
-Yeah. -MICHAEL [chuckles]: Yeah.
CHRIS: Shooting for magic.
I'm making an olive oil powder.
You just add maltodextrin with olive oil, you spin it
in the Robot-Coupe, and season it.
It's a very easy way to make olive oil snow.
PADMA: First scores are in, everybody.
Oh, my gosh.
PADMA: Buddha has 54 points
already racked up.
What I'm talking about.
Buddha! [laughs]
He's so good.
CHRIS: Buddha hits the board first.
I really need to kick it into high gear.
Oh, this is brutal.
With a million dollars on the line,
your heart's beating out of your chest.
-[bell dings] -PADMA: Hi, Chris.
-Hi. -What have you made?
CHRIS: Roasted eggplant with smoked burrata.
Compressed tomatoes in vinegar.
Then I made an olive oil powder with maltodextrin.
PADMA: How many techniques have you used?
CHRIS: Smoke, powder,
compression. So three.
PADMA: Your eggplant is cooked beautifully.
CHRIS: I don't think I'd be able to return home
if I couldn't cook eggplant properly.
-[laughs]: Yeah. -Yeah.
WYLIE: As an on-the-record
non-lover of tomatoes, these are delicious.
-CHRIS: Oh, thank you. -The compression
really improved the texture and intensified the flavor.
But maltodextrin-- you have to use
a super flavorful fat.
Picking a more brighter, sharper,
-pepperier oil, something that's punchy. -Okay. Yeah.
Okay.
PADMA: One hour left before halftime.
Hustle, hustle.
[board clacking rapidly]
-BUDDHA: Whoa, Chris. -Wow!
-Nice. -Wow. -Chris is in the lead now
with 77 points!
How many techniques he do?
Three?
KEITH: I don't know that many techniques,
but the ones I do, use in multiple ways.
I want to get on the board.
I'm already intimidated by the challenge.
So I need to take some shots.
Hamachi's easy.
It's a way to get some points quick on the board.
Like, stay in the fight.
-WYLIE: Keith's plating. -MICHAEL: Yeah.
But Katie's plating.
-[bell dings] -Oh, there's Katie. -Oh, Katie's ready.
[bell dings]
-WYLIE: Keith just rang the bell. -What did you make for us?
KATIE: We have crab brandade.
The foam is the brandade,
with molasses powder and compressed lemon.
That compressed lemon was great.
PADMA: And I also love the idea
-of the molasses powder. -Thank you.
The hardest thing about this challenge is
that I have to get dishes up
so fast that I don't have time to think.
Hello.
-What'd you make for us? -So, right here,
you have a hamachi
that's been coated with curry powder.
And then you have compressed pickled peppers,
burnt leaf charcoal and coconut lime ginger foam.
-Foam that has fallen. -That has fallen, yeah.
PADMA: Did you mean for it to fall?
No, it's just been sitting.
Okay.
Your foam didn't have quite that...
-lift. -Lift.
WYLIE: But as a sauce,
which is not what it's meant to be,
-it's delicious. -Mm-hmm.
-WYLIE: Great job, Keith. -Yeah, thank you.
-Thank you, Keith. -Thank you.
New scores are in.
-WYLIE: Oh. Oh! -Ooh, Katie is tied
-with you, Chris. -Oh, boy, Katie.
This is absolute warfare, and it's
-pure chaos. -Man.
-Keith. -KEITH: Whoa!
KATIE: Keith, crushing it!
Let's do it. Stay focused.
I'm at the top. I'm leading it.
With no molecular
gastronomy experience. [laughing]
Where you at, Buddha?
-Buddha, where you at? -[bell dings]
Ooh.
BUDDHA: You got a smoked onion carbonara.
On the bottom, we have a sous vide duck egg yolk
and smoked hickory wood parmesan on top.
-Did you peel the onions though? -Yeah.
But it's very unpleasant.
You can't really chew it.
And I certainly don't want to swallow it.
PADMA: Explain to me what you did
-to the egg yolk. -BUDDHA: So I cooked them
inside a bag.
So they got, like, a nice jammy-style texture.
Is this jammy to you?
[clicks tongue]
In this commandment, every point counts.
If you fall behind,
you could be going home.
-This is just the worst dish I've had ever... -Yeah.
-...from Buddha. -It's not great at all. -BEVERLY: Uh-oh.
PADMA: Hey, Chefs, you only have 30 minutes
before halftime.
We still haven't seen a dish from
Cara,
Beverly...
-[clanging] -...or Matt.
Slow and steady wins the race.
Hell no.
Not slowing down.
CARA: I'm feeling very nervous
that I haven't gotten any points on.
But I'm setting myself up for the second half.
My strategy is to build
and then execute.
I hope this works and I don't mess it up.
♪ ♪
PADMA: Beverly, Cara
and Matt, you are still at zero.
They're clearly using
a different strategy than the others.
MICHAEL: I would be doing everything I could
to get at least one dish done right now.
I don't know why you would wait.
BEVERLY: Trying to create, like, a smoke situation
for my fish.
I don't have any points on the board yet.
And that's because
I'm going for quality over quantity.
Oh, my God.
This is a lot.
I've been winning based on following my gut.
So,
don't change. [chuckles] It's working.
Beverly, you got this.
CHRIS: I'm in second place, tied with Katie.
And my goal
is to move as fast as humanly possible.
-[bell dings] -I'm just going for points
and hopeful that they don't hate it.
Smoked halloumi cheese, pan-seared,
and then sous vide the carrots in their own juices
with a lot of different herbs.
-Finished with a carrot ash. -WYLIE: How many techniques?
Smoke, sous vide, ash--
so, dehydration-- three.
I got to tell you, Chris.
-Huh? -I love this dish.
-It is spicy and smoky... -WYLIE: Yeah.
...and really savory with that halloumi.
Thank you.
-Nice job, Chef. -Thank you, Chef.
Let's do it. Stay focused.
Compression, check.
Jellification, check.
Foam, check.
-[bell dings] -This is the game,
and I'm killing it.
I made watermelon tomato salad.
Compressed watermelon with a pineapple foam
and a honey fluid gel.
Well, this foam made it.
[laughing]
Wylie, eat your salad.
Stop pushing away your greens, Wylie.
He's pushing away the tomatoes.
[laughing]
I love your compressed watermelon.
Really concentrated the flavor.
-Mm-hmm. -And your foam
-was beautiful. -WYLIE: Little lecithin.
-Yeah. -Yeah? It tamped down the pineapple a little bit.
-Yeah. -Okay. -Well done.
-Thank you. -MICHAEL: Thank you.
PADMA: 15 minutes left.
I'm feeling nervous.
Every time I look over at Chris, he's plating another dish.
I need to keep
racking up points.
Let's just check your shrimp.
Those are perfect.
PADMA: New scores are in.
MICHAEL: Wow.
PADMA: Keith at 169 points.
KEITH: Oh, man,
I can't believe it.
Like, literally.
Like, what am I doing here?
I don't do molecular gastronomy, but I'm lit.
Man, I feel like they can't mess with me right now.
WYLIE: That's wild.
Keith is almost at 200 points.
-[laughs] -CHRIS: Calm down, Keith.
I'll come back. If I'm good at anything, it's working fast.
It's fun that me and Keith are battling it out
-for the top two. -All right.
But we'll see if he stays up there.
PADMA: Less than ten minutes to go in the first half.
What is Beverly doing?
I'm really worried.
MICHAEL: You got to show us something if you want to score.
That's it.
That's all it takes.
-[bell dings] -Get it, Katie.
This is a version of shrimp cocktail.
I made a mousse out of alioli.
-So that's a foam? -Uh-huh. And then
I powdered the shrimp shells,
dehydrated them in the oven, and then blended them into a powder.
MICHAEL: You continue to show
a deft hand with seafood.
My only qualm is with that shrimp powder.
I have to agree. I was getting shards
-of shrimp peel. -Yeah.
-And it felt like scales in my mouth. -Yeah.
WYLIE: I love this idea. I think perhaps
grab some liquid nitrogen,
-use that as a flash freezing. -Mm-hmm.
-You could have got superfine shrimp flavor. -Yeah.
-Thank you. -[bell dings]
KEITH: What? Chris got another dish up?
PADMA: All right. Number three.
This is more than we've had from anyone else.
Trying to hustle. This one's simple.
Sous vide for the butternut squash
and then smoke on the tahini.
MICHAEL: The sous vide technique, you use it
to great effect.
It's still a bit firm.
The sweetness from the squash comes through.
But it's, like-- it's meaty at the same time.
-You're a new man, Chris. -[chuckles]
-Thank you. -You gave us, like, three concise...
-Focused. -Thank you. -...focused,
delicious dishes. Well done.
-You should always cook like this. -Thank you.
PADMA: 90 seconds left in the first half.
MATT: I got to get something out quick.
I had a bigger dish in mind,
but I was like, "Screw it, I need to get
-something out now." -[bell dings]
-Ooh. With... -MICHAEL: Sounded like Matt.
-PADMA: You made it. -Got to get something in there, right?
-Yes. -Nice.
MATT: This is tempura-fried anchovy Caesar salad.
Dehydration of the kale,
jellification of the tahini Caesar dressing,
the foam of the tempura
with the anchovy, and the compression of the tomatoes.
This is a really fun riff on Caesar.
-Well done, Matt. -Appreciate it.
-[timer beeps] -PADMA: Time's up!
Everybody, hands up.
-All right, Chefs. -Oh, man.
That's the first half of the game.
Let's see where we are at halftime.
-BUDDHA: Oh, wow. -WYLIE: Oh.
Chris, you are in the lead, my man,
with 207 points.
CHRIS: I feel good. I mean,
it gives me a little bit of breathing room
going into halftime, so...
I'm not changing my strategy.
My strategy's very much working.
I think other people are gonna see
what I was doing and start
taking notes.
PADMA: Keith, you're down to second place.
Katie up to third place.
Matt, you're in fourth.
And, Buddha, I'm sorry. You went down to fifth place.
Overall, we had ten dishes and 29 techniques.
We have yet to see some dishes from Beverly or Cara.
I'm stressed 'cause I'm at zero.
But I have a good plan. I'm just...
[laughing]
I'm just trying to-to stay the course.
BEVERLY: I don't have any points.
I know that's not
looking great for me, but I do have a plan.
And I know I'm gonna get points for the dishes
that I put up.
It's still anyone's game.
There's a whole second half.
I want to remind you, at the end of the game,
the winner's gonna get a major advantage
in the next commandment.
The loser will be going home.
So use this halftime wisely.
Think about your strategy. I'll see you in 15.
Come on, boys.
Oh, God.
I am formulating a plan.
The second half is gonna make or break.
If I want to keep up with Chris and Keith,
I need to start batching techniques
and getting as many out as quickly as possible.
KEITH: Chris is killing us
with more dishes, less technique.
-Yeah. -He put up three dishes.
Boom, boom, boom. And they-they add up.
How was your strategy, Buddha?
Oh, my strategy sucked.
-Like, I... -[laughter]
Next half's gonna be interesting.
-[chuckles]: Yeah. -I'm gonna try and do a lot of dishes.
-[chuckles] I'm gonna ring the bell like [bleep]. -[Keith laughing]
You got your cape on now, huh?
BUDDHA: Game on.
[elevator bell dings]
Chefs, I'd like you to all take your stations, please.
CHRIS: My worry is that, in the second half,
the people that haven't put up a lot of points
are building a massive amount of components.
I've got to come in doing exactly what I did
in the first half and just start slinging pans.
Two hours and 30 minutes are on the clock.
CHRIS: Every chance I get,
I'm just closing my eyes,
praying and talking to my mom.
Help me get this one,
because this is for a million dollars.
I'm doing it for her.
Chefs, are you ready?
-Yes. -BEVERLY: Yeah!
Hell yeah!
PADMA: Your time
starts now!
Did Beverly do track when she was in school?
Think she might have.
[rattling]
BUDDHA: I'm coming in it
completely different now.
I literally just grabbed the Wagyu steak.
-I'm sous vide-ing my meat. -And I'm gonna let them sit there
for the next two hours while I work on other dishes.
And I'm ready to just keep pushing 'em out.
WYLIE: It's hard to imagine that if Chris
-just doesn't keep putting dishes out... -Yes.
-...how he could not walk away with this thing. -Yeah.
Mind if I jump in this water, Katie?
That's totally fine. I need one at 85C and the other at 60.
I've been paying attention
to what Chris has been doing.
His strategy is to take one method and apply it
to a bunch of different things at the same time
and then figure out how he's gonna
use those ingredients later.
If I want to keep up,
I know I need to cook the same way.
I'm working on a celery root foam,
a potato foam and a corn foam.
I am making my egg pearls go inside my egg
for the Scotch egg.
I'm using six techniques on my Scotch egg.
I made a ham stock gel.
I then quickly added the sphered
egg whites and egg yolks,
stuffed that inside of the egg.
The gelatin will set on the inside of the egg.
Let it set, bread it
and then fry it, and then through the frying process,
that jelly
liquefies again.
So I'm rendering down this pork fat.
I'm also powderizing pork fat.
And I render all that pork fat out,
strain that, then you take tapioca and maltodextrin.
It kind of gets blended in together
until it has that same consistency of powder.
It's gonna taste good.
PADMA: We're starting to see the chefs
who took longer squeezing more techniques into each dish.
But Beverly and Cara--
if I were in their place, I would feel scared.
MICHAEL: They're gonna need to employ a lot of techniques.
Of all the commandments we've done,
this is the most gamified one we've had,
where strategy really does come into play.
All I did in the first half was set myself up
to just crank.
Now it's time to score.
-[bell dings] -Ooh, Cara's rang the bell. Come on.
All right, Cara.
We're excited to taste your first plate.
CARA: It's a lobster spring roll.
Poached, slow-cooked lobster, compressed watermelon,
coconut hoisin espuma,
peanut powder, burnt ash.
This is so good. There's a ton of different textures,
which is really great.
My only comment, if I had one, would be,
it comes off maybe just a touch sweet.
PADMA: This is a creative dish,
chock full of different techniques.
-So thank you, Cara. -CARA: Thank you.
108 points is okay.
Got a couple big dishes here
that I think will continue to add up.
[bell dings]
So this is a take on "Scotch egg."
I took a consommé of the ham
and then spherified the egg yolk and egg whites,
put it back into this jelly of consommé.
So as you crack into it, should, like, pour out.
-Oh, my God. -CHRIS: Yeah. [chuckles]
-Lucky this is leather today. -[Michael laughs]
MICHAEL: I understand now why
-it took you almost three hours. -[Chris laughs]
We've seen a few powders already.
Yours was the best that we've seen so far,
and actually tasted like Ibérico ham fat.
WYLIE: You gave us six techniques, all of which
I think really were effectively executed.
[bell dings]
-PADMA: Hi, Buddha. -BUDDHA: Hello.
Ooh, the scores are in.
Cara moved to third place.
Buddha, I'm sorry. That puts you at sixth place right now.
BUDDHA: I mean, I do have two dishes of, uh,
variations of blackberry-- dehydrated blackberry,
pickled blackberries with a whipped crème fraiche
-and olive oil powder. -MICHAEL: Did you finish yours?
-It was damn good, right? Yeah. -That's a good sign.
And my second dish, it's a tomato salad.
It's been compressed in tom kha.
PADMA: Tom kha is supposed to have a punch of heat, and to me,
it was very appropriate and delicious.
-MICHAEL: Well done. -PADMA: Great.
PADMA: Matt Peters taking the lead.
All right!
Beverly still with zero.
-Buddha from six to first. -Let's go, baby.
-[bell dings] -Hello, Cara. Pumping 'em out now.
CARA: Butter poached shrimp with miso espuma.
PADMA: Cara, I think your shrimp were cooked beautifully.
I love the powder.
It had the exact right amount of spice that it should.
-Well done, Chef. -Thank you.
-PADMA: Ooh. -MICHAEL: Cara. Yeah, jumped right up.
Cara just knocked Matt out of second place.
This is [bleep] nuts.
The points are really
about the techniques.
And so, executing those techniques is
where... I'm only caring about.
Let's keep going.
-Hi, Katie. -Hello.
I made sous vide salmon with smoked corn.
PADMA: I love this dish.
I just didn't get much smoke in your corn.
-I'm sorry. -Yeah.
BUDDHA: It's a liquid nitrogen pavlova.
The pistachio powder was really nice.
CHRIS: I made a smoked rib eye kebab, potatoes and mushrooms.
The mushrooms had a ton of flavor. Good work.
-Thank you, guys. -Yeah, nicely done.
See you all again soon.
WYLIE: It's time for Beverly to take a swing.
Oh, my gosh. I think I can do this.
To plate my pavlova,
I stuff it with blackberries,
lemon gel and chrysanthemum pastry cream.
Brown butter powder.
I've done all the techniques.
I hit the bell.
-Hi, Beverly. -Hi. How are you?
Good. We're excited to taste your first dish.
BEVERLY: I made a lemon and blackberry pavlova.
Beverly, your meringue is great.
Unfortunately, I think that these berries are kind of big.
Maybe you could have thrown them
in liquid nitrogen and broken 'em up.
-Oh. -Got some flash-freezing points there.
PADMA: Hopefully, you can hustle
-and get a bunch of dishes going, because... -Okay. Okay.
-Yes, yes. -PADMA: ...we want to see you get out
-of last place. -BEVERLY: Yes.
[bleep]
I'm a little worried. My first dish
was a lot of effort for only 99 points.
I don't want to be the last.
-[bleep] -[bells ding]
-One, two, three. -[bells ding]
PADMA: Matt. Okay, let's go.
Seared duck breast seasoned with a ras el hanout.
Buttermilk panna cotta first, which is the white one.
And then, there's hibiscus to follow.
-Ah, so we have a strawberry and apricot parfait. -Mmm.
Oh, wow.
Cara, you're in second place now.
It's a long way to go.
-[laughter] -You're right.
My strategy is working.
I'm pumping out dishes twice as fast
as everyone else is at this point.
PADMA: Okay, now I'm getting full.
-What'd you make for us? -So I've got a hamachi crudo
with smoked hazelnuts, carbonated grapes,
pickled turnips and walnut oil.
Unfortunately, Buddha, slicing
your grapes took the carbonation out of them.
BUDDHA: No one's safe.
It's all about technique and strategy.
If you put ten techniques on a plate,
you're available to 300 points.
And if you nail every single one of them, boom,
you're back in the game.
[bells ding]
WYLIE: That's two more bells that just went off.
[bells ding]
-Hi, Keith. -KEITH: Hello.
Here I have a sous vide
cauliflower puree, a clam beurre blanc foam
and dehydrated bread.
PADMA: I love your cauliflower foam.
I thought it was luscious and tasty.
The bread, unfortunately, because
you put it on top of something moist...
It's hydrated.
-It got soggy. -Okay.
The beurre blanc is, like, curious,
and I mean that as a compliment.
I keep going back to it, and it keeps
changing as I eat it. It's very interesting.
PADMA: Keith, you are skating
close to last place.
I want you to bust out some dishes
-in the next 25 minutes. -Oh, I got another dish
-in the next few minutes. -All right.
-We'll see you soon. -Nice. -Okay.
MICHAEL: I'm getting really full.
-PADMA: Hi, Katie. -Come on over. Hello.
So what we have here is migas. Migas is a Spanish dish
with, like, bread crumbs, usually cooked in animal fat.
-How are you feeling, Katie? -KATIE: I mean,
it's getting down to it.
The board is, like, flipping all over the place.
WYLIE: Just changed again.
PADMA: Buddha, you're in first place
with 516 points.
-Oh, my God. -Chris, you are now in second.
-Good. -[bleep]
BEVERLY: I'm starting to sense
a little bit of a, like, [bleep].
I really don't want to go home.
-Hi. How are you? -Hi, Beverly.
-Oh, good. Two dishes. -Yes.
Um, so the first dish is snapper that I smoked,
sous vide the sweet potato in a fish caramel.
Beverly, I love this dish. I think it's flavorful,
it's full of surprises.
This is one of the best examples
of sous vide root vegetable we've seen today.
MICHAEL: Fish was cooked nicely, smoke came through well.
And, you know, generally, quite a nice dish.
BEVERLY: Then our next dish--
it's avocado coconut sorbet
-with pineapple monk fruit soda. -Wow.
-So it's just two techniques? -Yeah, just two techniques.
-That is really good. -Well... Yeah, it's very refreshing.
You could have thrown a little whipped cream or something
on there, gotten a foam, give you some more points.
I just don't want to go home.
PADMA: I don't want you to, either.
-Put something else out. -Congrats and delicious.
-WYLIE: Yeah. -[Beverly sighs]
PADMA: Beverly, you're 24 points behind Keith.
I want to survive, I want to do the best I can,
but I feel like I don't know if I can
catch up at this point.
Uh, what can I put out?
Um... [stammers] mousse? Uh...
PADMA: 30 minutes. 30 minutes left.
BEVERLY: Being on the bottom,
I have some catch-up to do.
Keith is just a few points in front of me,
but time is short.
[bells ding]
Uh, what can I put out? Um...
What kind of foam can I put on? What kind of-- uh, think of gel.
Oh, [bleep].
I'm reaching. I'm trying to dig really deep.
I don't have much time now, so I got to figure this out.
KEITH: Damn, that's scary.
To be at the lead, and then now on the verge of getting put out.
I'm only 24 points
above Beverly.
I need to get in the game
and not be in the bottom.
[sighs]
Tell me what this is.
KATIE: Cold-smoked oyster and a grape
horseradish ice.
CARA: Sous vide beef, gochujang,
espuma with caramelized onion,
sesame powder and sesame seeds on the side.
BUDDHA: Uh, dish number seven for you.
I've made an everything bagel salmon tartare.
PADMA: Oh, my God, I can't.
I can't think. I'm too full.
[laughter]
Fun combo, fun flavors, well done.
PADMA: Cara, I love this dish.
That sauce, the foam, it's beautiful.
MICHAEL: The salmon was well-seasoned, and I think
the salmon eggs really added a lot to the dish, as well.
-A little pop to it? -Yeah.
BUDDHA: At this point,
I don't think my score is
actually reachable, so I'm not going home.
But I'm not just trying to outrun
who's on the top of the leaderboard.
I'm trying to outrun myself and the camera guy.
15 minutes. 15 minutes left.
Beverly, you got to get some dishes together,
or you're going home.
I'm not going down without a fight.
We're working on our dessert, our chocolate mousse.
I want to do a caramel caviar
to try to get at least
30 more points.
PADMA: You have ten minutes left.
I didn't get it right.
I can't tell you the science
behind why it's not working right now.
It's just not working. I don't know
if it's from the fat, the caramel.
Come on.
I was at the top of the leaderboard.
And now I'm, like, fighting for my life.
So moving away from the spherification.
Like, so I have to pivot.
So I compress this,
compress that, smoke this, smoke that.
[bell dings]
I heard a bell. Let's go.
There's, like, barely any time left.
Yup.
But I'm like, "Point, point, point."
Take it.
Matt, what did you make us?
MATT: Smoked peanut Thai beef.
PADMA: I think your cucumber relish
was a little bit over-salty.
And I could have had some more smoke on your peanuts.
Hi, Chris.
-Hi. -What'd you make this time?
So this is compressed cantaloupe,
and then you have, like, a whipped ricotta and mascarpone.
Now, you could've given us just each one piece of melon,
-a little bit of that cream. -Yeah, yeah.
You know how many dishes we've eaten?
I don't know how you guys are still standing.
Spare a thought for us, okay, Chris?
-CHRIS: Yeah, yeah, yeah. -[laughing]
-MICHAEL: Please. -This is pure chaos.
I love the board.
I like knowing the numbers
and not being in the blind on it.
PADMA: Five minutes left.
CARA: So I know I just need to execute,
and I think I could come in first.
-[bell dings] -PADMA: Oh, no.
Another steak dish?
-Come on, Buddha. -[laughter]
Oh. I can't... I can't walk.
-Steak, huh? [laughing] -Yes.
WYLIE: It's what's for dinner.
BUDDHA: Did a Wagyu strip loin
with four different techniques.
MICHAEL: Well done. Good effort.
PADMA: The beef is cooked beautifully.
I love the sweetness on the compressed cucumbers.
What'd you make?
CARA: Some Burmese rice crepe
with sous vide chicken,
a peanut, chili maltodextrin powder.
You knocked it out of the park with this one.
Get some rest. Get off your feet.
Thank you. Go lie down.
Just don't know what I can do in three minutes.
[bell dings]
We're getting down to, like, the wire.
What else can I do?
I can make another dish.
A chrysanthemum. I put that-- agar-agar in it.
That technically is another
fluid gel.
Also, to make it cohesive,
I grab some cornflakes, make it like
cereal and milk.
-[sighing]: Aah. Aah. -[bell dings]
Just get it on the plate.
Just get one more dish on the plate.
I am going down a cliff.
Fast. Like, in points
and in emotions.
Damn, Beverly.
Beverly's putting up two dishes.
Knowing Chef Beverly,
I am in a bad position.
Think I have two minutes left
to do something.
And I still have the caramel, I still have the whip.
I can fold that in and create
a new whip.
I'm in my two-minute offense right now. [laughs]
And I'm driving down the field.
Ding!
My final dish
is definitely a Hail Mary.
PADMA: Ten seconds.
Oh, my God, there is no time.
I have to get this stuff on the plate.
-[bell dings] -[gasps]
Five, four,
-three, two, one. -[bell dings]
-Time's up. That is the game. -That was an ass-whupping.
PADMA: Come on, let's go eat some more.
Tomorrow's a water challenge, right?
-I hope so. -[laughter]
Wow, Beverly, you got two in. Good for you.
Yeah, I squeezed a couple out, uh, in the last ten minutes.
Avocado sorbet with coconut foam and crispy rice.
-How many techniques? Three? -Yeah.
For something you just pulled out really fast,
I thought it was really good.
MICHAEL: Maybe a little touch more
-acidity in the star fruit. -Okay.
And that would've really made its flavor pop.
-And what is this dessert? -BEVERLY: It's like milk and cereal.
It's only one technique.
Very fun, very whimsical.
PADMA: It's so good.
It's been years since I've had cornflakes.
-Yeah. [laughs] Thank you. -WYLIE: Well done. Well done.
So here you have a chocolate mousse with compressed peach,
sous vide plantain, smoked hazelnut and citrus gel.
PADMA: It's rich, but it's good.
It is. It's decadent.
PADMA: I love this dish.
I do think there's a little bit of bitterness in the smoked nut.
WYLIE: You got the salt this time. Next time,
-a little bit more acid. -KEITH: Little more acid.
PADMA: And what's your second dish?
Just some strawberry, chocolate and caramel whip cream.
-Just one technique? -Just one technique, yeah.
Keith, there are only 24 points separating you and Beverly.
It's scary. It's scary.
BEVERLY: Who knows? I still have
two dishes, all the points aren't up.
Please let this be enough
to get me on that board and safe.
All right, Chefs, please gather around.
The final scores are in.
Chefs, that was a gastronomic gauntlet.
Over the course of five hours,
you served us an incredible 40 dishes.
-BUDDHA: Wow. -Wow.
It was a well-fought battle.
But only one of you can take first place and secure
that all-important advantage in the next commandment.
And believe me, you are going to want this one.
Let's see the scores for our top five.
PADMA: Let's see the scores for our top five.
Buddha, congratulations.
Well done. You are the winner.
And you will get an advantage in our next commandment.
Thank you.
Feels great.
I'm glad to finally
be on top.
And also, going to the next commandment with an advantage.
It feels great.
Not bad, Cara.
I just tried to play the game.
You played it very well.
CARA: It sucks to come in second
over and over and over again.
It's a total bummer.
It's like, "Oh, you're good, but you're not good enough."
PADMA: And now, it's down
to the bottom two:
Keith and Beverly.
The chef with the lowest score will be going home.
You were separated by just 24 points
going into the final minutes.
How are you feeling, Beverly?
Um, I'm sad that I'm so low.
Didn't play the right strategy this time.
Keith, how are you feeling?
I feel great. I don't really know the...
these techniques. I know a couple.
And so, I live and die by what I did.
Keith and Beverly, please step forward.
[Beverly murmurs]
Let's see the scores.
[board clacking rapidly]
Beverly, unfortunately, you've served your final dish.
[sighs]
I'm so sorry to see you go, Beverly.
[whispering]: Oh, Beverly...
BEVERLY: This commandment was crazy.
I guess it got the best of me.
I was kind of like in the zone,
and I... I got lost in it.
Can I give you a hug?
Yeah. That would be nice.
[Beverly sobs]
PADMA: It's okay. You did great.
[cries softly, sniffles]
[sobbing]
-PADMA: You did great. -[sobbing]
BEVERLY: I feel like
this past seven weeks, I've grown as a chef, but I also
have grown as a person.
I'm less afraid to be myself.
-PADMA: Yeah, girl, do your dance. -Yeah.
PADMA: You were one point away
-from perfection! -BEVERLY: Oh, my God!
PADMA: The chef voted most likely to win.
KEITH: Beverly.
BEVERLY: Just because
this chapter is ending here doesn't mean
my book isn't continuing to go forward.
-All right. -Good job, Chef.
[laughs]
Oh. All right.
-Bye, guys. -Bye, Beverly. -[overlapping chatter]
-Bye. Come see me in Chicago, okay? -MICHAEL: Well done, Chef.
Bye!
-KATIE: Keep dancing. -[laughter]
Today we lost a great chef.
Beverly absolutely came to play.
And I just would love to be her friend after all of this.
I have an immense amount of respect for her.
I thought she was gonna be the one to win it.
Keith, you made it through with 59 points ahead.
This is a hard one to celebrate.
At this point,
you can't even celebrate the wins
because of who's going home
and how much time you spent with these people.
Like, even though they ass got to go home
in order for me to win that [chuckles] million dollars.
You get it?
-Well done, Chefs. -Thank you.
We'll see you soon. Great work.
Next week, we don't want to have 40 dishes, okay?
[laughter]
PADMA: I don't know about you guys,
but I got to get off my feet.
I'm gonna go get a foot rub.
Michael, I'll rub the right foot, you rub the left?
-PADMA: Oh, thank you. -[Michael laughs]
Great job, Cara.
KATIE: Like, secretly, like, sneak in there.
I'm never at the top, and I'm never at the bottom.
-So I stay somewhere in between. -Second place is the top.
-CARA: I'm staying somewhere in between. -It's the top.
Cara's the silent assassin. That's what we call her.
This was a game to play.
Beverly, unfortunately, went home,
and, uh, I'm still here.
You know, it's shaking out a little different
than people anticipated.
-Final six. -Final six. -Final six.
-We're putting it in? -Okay, Beverly would want it.
-KATIE: She would want it. -[overlapping chatter]
Yeah. One, two, three, Bev.
-Yeah. Okay. -Okay?
ALL: One, two, three. Bev!
PADMA: Next time on America's Culinary Cup...
Now our seventh commandment: consistency.
CHRIS: Consistency is what separates
good and great restaurants.
Making 30 of the exact same dish.
KEITH: 30 pieces at the same time--
that's not easy.
Some of these are really stuck in there.
BUDDHA: If it doesn't work out,
I think Matt will probably kill me.
[bleep]
Holy [bleep].
KEITH: This bass is dangerous.
CHRIS: With a million dollars on the line,
it's brutal.
[bleep] I'm done. I'm done.
You see that? Bones.
PADMA: Delicious.
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