Top Chef, S13E03.

All my Insider links from the week are in today’s stick to baseball post, along with the link to my top ten new boardgames of the year plus the usual miscellany.

So the road tripping begins with this episode, as the crew heads to “Santa Barbara” … except they’re really going to Sanford Winery, which is up in the hills towards Lompoc.

* Frances … there’s more to that story about her dad kicking her out, right? That deserved some more explanation.

* We’re talking sea urchins, specifically uni, the gonads of the spiny echinoderms, which are eaten both raw (as sushi) and cooked, with a “briny, buttery,” “cucumber-melon” flavor, according to these folks. I’ve never had it raw, only cooked, in pasta with uni butter at a restaurant that’s now closed. I don’t particularly care about eating one part of the animal versus another – I’ve had heart, liver, thymus gland, tongue, “head cheese” – but can’t say I’m particularly drawn to sea urchins or their relatives, the sea cucumbers.

* Oh, it’s Dana Downer! Although she’s actually smiling in this episode, maybe because she just retired from Food and Wine.

* It’s a sudden death Quickfire, one of the worst gimmicks in Top Chef history, where the losing chef faces elimination. The chefs have 25 minutes to prepare a dish with uni and pair it with a Sanford wine.

* I noticed Kwame sampling the wine, but did we see any other chef do that? How can you pair a wine you haven’t tasted? With the exception of Chad (who says he’s recently sober) no one else has any excuse to not at least take thirty seconds to sip one or two of the wines.

* Frances worked in the Middle East for seven years and says there’s “no alcohol there,” although I think she was in Dubai, where you can get alcohol in the hotels that cater to foreigners but not elsewhere. She can’t pronounce the wine’s name so she says “whatever, I got a fucking wine.” If nothing else she’s a hell of a quote.

* Wesley says he’s used to cooking “subtle French cuisine,” which is hilarious because I’m pretty sure Jacques Pepin’s station doesn’t look like an F5 tornado just went through it after service.

* Giselle wants to make scrambled eggs with uni, but can’t find any eggs; it looks like Carl took a dozen eggs, which I guess is supposed to make him the bad guy here? This isn’t exactly the pea purée crisis redux.

* Isaac gets into the sea urchin with two cleavers, which amuses me for no particular reason. Chad says Isaac is “like swamp people on steroids,” which I think he meant as a compliment.

* Karen is whipping uni with egg yolks and wants to make an egg drop soup, but won’t the uni’s flavor just get overwhelmed in a dish like that? When you eat egg drop soup, the flavor of the egg isn’t exactly front of palate.

* Angelina says she’s playing it safe, which is always a good idea. (Note: It’s never a good idea.) She’s making pasta with uni butter, which isn’t just safe, but totally uninspired. The place where I had that dish wasn’t even going for haute cuisine – it was just a smart Italian restaurant.

* Grayson seems to be one of the only chefs here who gets the idea that the uni has to be the star ingredient of the final dish – the first time she’s acted like she’s been here before.

* Karen’s uni just dissolves in the soup. That’s not exactly what I was predicting, but the dish was just a bad idea from the start.

* Favorites: Grayson, who made a crab salad with cucumbers, grapefruit, and uni, paired with a Viognier (a white grape related to Chardonnay, per Wikipedia), is praised for the dish’s simplicity and her showcasing of the uni. Wesley’s uni with creamed corn, fennel, salmon roe, and scallop, paired with Chardonnay; Padma and Dana loved the building of flavors. Carl’s eggs and uni – he made am omelet with herbs and green chili, also paired with Chardonnay – are “such a great pair,” and the dish exemplified what the challenge was about. The winner is … Grayson. It’s like she got out of LA and remembered she was on a competition show.

* The least favorites: Angelina, who made one of Dana’s favorite dishes (cacio e pepe with uni butter and Parmiggiano) and made it too salty. Karen, because it was hard to find the uni in her soup. Giselle, who made a potato with uni and onion jam; the potato wasn’t completely cooked and there was too much onion flavor from the jam. Giselle is the bottom and picks Angelina for her sudden-death cook-off, which is probably the right call.

* An aside: I know jack about wine, but isn’t Chardonnay kind of a ‘common’ wine? I mean that in the sense of lacking sophistication, rather than just something popular, although the latter can often lead to the former. I was surprised how many chefs chose it, especially since its main note is usually the assertive flavor of oak.

* Giselle and Angelina have to cook ostrich eggs. Angelina mutters “you better kick ass…” but admits she’s never worked with ostrich eggs before. (Really? Come on, I have a dozen in my fridge right now.)

* Giselle makes soft scrambled eggs with avocado, chipotle salsa, and pepitas. Angelina made a spicy tomato jam with scrambled eggs, shiitake mushrooms, and carrots.

* Dana didn’t seem to like either dish. Giselle rushed her presentation and too many pepitas. Angelina’s dish was overdone in more than one way. Giselle wins but I wonder if this was by default since both dishes sucked.

* Elimination challenge: Pair up to make the ultimate surf and turf dish. Grayson is a team of one because she has immunity. No one wants Giselle or Angelina so they end up a pair.

* There’s a mad rush to grab proteins. It’s the same stupid shit every year. In what possible way is this measuring chefs’ skills? If anything it’s just favoring the stronger or faster, not the better cooks.

* OK, now that I’ve got that off my chest, I don’t have much more patience for chefs who complain about the proteins they end up with because you’re kind of supposed to be able to cook anything, right? Kwame and Chad end up with lamb and crab … yeah it’s weird, but so what? Show off. Why go traditional? I’d think the judges would be more impressed by a clever lamb/crab surf-and-turf than an expected combo like steak and lobster.

* Also, surf-and-turf is incredibly passé. It’s a sign of an era when consuming lots of animal products was considered a sign of status, rather than a sign that you don’t give a rat’s ass about the world.

* Tom shows up. Cue dramatic music. Teams are no longer together, but are going to cook against each other – surf vs. turf. Grayson gets to choose who to go against (she picks Wesley/Amar, because she wants the challenge) and can go surf or turf. Suddenly Giselle and Angelina have to be happy with their pairing.

* Carl, in confessional, says, “I should have picked Giselle!” The sad part is he’s probably right – she and Angelina have quickly emerged as two of the weakest chefs here.

* Even though they’re competing, Kwame helps Chad butcher his lamb. That’s impressive.

* Guest judges include Jon and Vinny from Animal, Cat Cora, Michael Cimarusti from Providence restaurant, and our friend Richard Blais. Wesley took over as executive chef for Blais at The Spence in Atlanta earlier this year, now that Blais has relocated to San Diego, with two restaurants there in Little Italy.

* Wesley is using stencils for plating, which is too clever by half. Get the dish done first, then worry about artwork. And sure enough, he doesn’t get everything on the plate, and the meat isn’t tender enough even though he used sous vide to try to soften it up. (We could have used some more detail on that, just from an education perspective – why it might not have worked, or whether it was even a good idea.)

* And now the dishes … First up is Amar, Wesley, and Grayson. Amar serves olive oil-poached halibut with an “eggless Bearnaise” (isn’t this just a tarragon beurre blanc?), asparagus, and morels. Tom says the fish a tick overcooked. Cat, who calls it a hollandaise, says there’s “no complexity” to the sauce. Wesley serves a sous-vide and smoked ribeye with asparagus puree and morels. No one likes it. Grayson serves a spiced carrot puree under a tangy lacquered pork belly with cara cara oranges (a red-fleshed navel orange with nuanced flavors) and cacao nibs. Blais says the purée is “fascinating and dynamic.” Grayson takes the first five voters, so she wins the challenge.

* Blais says that Wesley’s dish is “what gives sous vide a bad rap.” I know it’s a widely accepted technique, but putting food in a plastic bag and cooking it in warm water isn’t exactly an obvious approach for most home cooks. Tell us more about when and why it’s a good idea.

* Second service is Jeremy vs Philip. Jeremy made spot prawns roasted in their shells with potato gnocchi, English peas, and preserved lemon. Tom says it’s “all about finesse.” Philip served a center cut ribeye over rutabaga puree with a nori beurre blanc. Cat raves about the meat, saying she “probably could have cut it with my fork,” but now we’re getting technical about whether it’s a beurre blanc. Jeremy wins by a sliver, although there’s praise all around for Philip.

* Since it’s now come up twice: Beurre blanc is one of my favorite sauces to make at home because it’s simple and very potent, ideal with fish and most cooked vegetables. You cook shallots with white wine and vinegar, reducing till it’s almost a glaze in the pan, and then whisk in too much butter to believe. The butter must be cold to form and maintain an emulsion in the pan. It’s also highly extensible – I’ve swapped in all kinds of citrus juices for the vinegar, seasoned it with herbs at the end, even used beet juice to make a sort of “beurre blood.” Unlike egg yolk-based emulsions like Bearnaise and hollandaise, beurre blanc comes together faster and is far less likely to break.

* Third service is Angelina vs Giselle. Angelina made marinated mussels with a light escabeche sauce, fennel leek puree, potatoes, and radishes. The mussels are dry and flavorless, and Tom says she “tortured” the ingredients. Giselle made quail with cucumber radish salad and a tamarindo sauce. The judges like the serrano chilies she seems to have used in the sauce. Giselle wins.

* Angelina’s response afterwards: “This bitch beat me again.” I can only imagine what Madeleine Albright would think of this.

* Fourth up is Kwame vs Chad. Kwame made a rock crab salad with turmeric, asparagus, and radish. Tom called it “Playful and fun.” I’m just surprised to hear turmeric, which I associate with color but not flavor (or at least not a positive flavor), cited as the first item after the protein. Chad made a spicy bean, honey, and orange lacquered roasted lamb with asparagus and mint puree. The lamb was cooked perfectly, and the puree was “rockin’.” With four votes apiece, Tom breaks the tie with … “Kwame for President,” which I can only assume is an allusion to the late Ghanaian President and dictator Kwame Nkrumah.

* Other than Giselle and Angelina, every team seems to be getting along. I’m not sorry to see a lack of enmity here – too often that ends up taking screen time away from the food.

* Fifth service is Isaac against Carl. Isaac serves a fennel-crusted halibut with English peas and a brown butter hollandaise (that sounds like a really good idea, by the way). The halibut is a tick overcooked and needs a hit of acid. (Don’t we all.) Carl made a roasted chicken thigh with prosciutto, English peas, and a white wine dijon sauce. Cat says it’s very reminiscent of home and they’re all talking about the chicken like it’s fried, so I assume he did something to crisp the skin. Carl wins although Isaac gets three votes.

* Sixth service is Karen vs Marjorie. Karen is missing a piece of fish … and Padma ends up with the plate without it. Karen looks like she wants to die; I can feel her mortification through the television. Her dish was a seared rock cod with carrot-orange puree, blood orange vinaigrette, and roasted carrots. David Lentz, chef at the Hungry Cat, says it’s “one of the best dishes” of the day. Everyone loves it, except Padma, who looks forlorn as everyone else raves. (I think we got more shots of Sad Padma on the screen than we did of the food itself.) Marjorie made a roasted pork loin, olive oil crushed potatoes, citrus gremolata, bok choy, and carrot. Dana just murders this dish, and Marjorie overcooked the pork. Karen wins despite the mistake.

* Seventh and final service pits Jason against Frances. Jason made a marinated grilled pork loin with “steamed crudit&eacutes,” and a Thai egg. Who the heck calls anything “crudité” in 2015? That’s 1970s cocktail party shit. Tom says he needed to develop more flavors. Frances made a ginger-glazed black cod with jicama and cucumber salad. The skin is rubbery, and with dripping disdain David says, “just take the skin off if it’s going to be like that.” Nobody likes hers either, with Tom calling it a “hodgepodge of stuff on a plate.” (I thought Hodgepodge was a rabbit, not a black cod.) Tom has to break the tie again and picks Jason.

* Wesley is having a big pity party out on the veranda there in the beautiful weather, where Kwame is simultaneously trying to give him a pep talk and tell him he’s being a big whiny baby.

* Judges’ table – the favorites: Jeremy, Kwame, and Karen. Karen is immediately DQ’d because she didn’t serve Padma fish. Kwame’s dish was strong, creative, and respectful of the ingredients; I get the sense he did more with less. Jeremy had never worked with spot prawns that quality and gets raves for his treatment of it. Kwame wins and gets his own barrel of wine from Sanford Winery.

* Bottom three: Frances, Angelina, and Wesley. Wesley didn’t start plating in time, and Tom kills him for playing with stencils. Wesley explains that the steak had no marbling (finally, some real explanation), and thought sous vide would soften it, but Blais says “it didn’t eat that way.” Angelina’s mussels dried out once they were out of the shell; Michael said they would have loved it had the mussels been cooked right. Frances added acorn squash because she thought the dish was too simple with just black cod and jicama relish, but that appears to have overcomplicated things, although everyone killed her on the rubbery cod skin anyway. Blais hits them all on time management – he says they had plenty of time but didn’t use it well, especially Wesley.

* Frances is out. That’s too bad for us because her commentary was entertaining. Meanwhile, the chefs are packing up right away and going to Palm Springs.

* LCK: Frances and Garret start trash-talking each other right away. Challenge is to cook a vegetable three ways, using the whole thing, with all trimmings on the station to be factored into the grading. The chefs must use Hidden Valley Ranch seasoning in one of the three ways; I guess even Top Chef has to pay the bills. Frances says, “I’m from Third World country (sic), you use everything!” She picks broccoli, which is a fairly easy vegetable for this challenge – the stalks and leaves aren’t just edible but are good. Garret picks beets. He slices the bulbs into discs and grills them, which … I actually don’t know how that would work. They take so damn long to cook otherwise. He also fries the beet peelings in the deep fryer to see if he can use them rather than creating more waste. Frances cooks the broccoli scraps, pur&eacuate;es them, and seasons with the HVR to make the sauce.

* I was fine with all the taunting going back and forth until Garret said, “suck it Frances.” That’s a terrible expression in general, especially for a man to say to a woman. Trash-talking is fine until someone loses an eye.

* Garret made pickled beet stems, chiffonaded greens, beet vinaigrette, fried skins, and grilled beet bulbs. Tom was obviously impressed because beet skins would ordinarily be food waste. Frances made a broccoli puree with chili and yuzu, pickled broccoli stems with yuzu and olive oil, and stir fried broccoli florets.

* Tom: Garret’s grilled beets were bland, while Frances overspiced a few things. Garret wins – the fried skins appear to have won the day for him.

* Quick power rankings: Kwame, Carl, Jeremy, Amar, Karen. Kwame’s the one holdover in my top three this week, but through three episodes he’s the only chef who’s stood out every single time. Bottom three: Angelina, Giselle, Wesley.

* Don’t forget to check out my annual cookbook recommendations and my 2015 gift guide for cooks as Christmas approaches.