Top Chef, S12E04.

Just a reminder that I’m on vacation this week, so I’ll be sparse on social media and not reacting to anything that happens in MLB. I’ve filed all of the buyers’ guides already, so they’ll continue to appear for Insiders. Today’s was on outfielders.

Those of you who’ve argued that this isn’t a great group of chefs got some validation in this episode; it wasn’t a terribly inspiring collection of dishes overall, light on creativity in particular even for chefs who nailed the execution. Meanwhile, we see that Keriann misses her family (don’t they all?) and Aaron is complaining about Katsuji trying to get in everyone’s head (I think he just talks a lot, with no real aim in mind, which makes him rather well qualified to deliver hot sports takes too).

* The quickfire takes place at Cheers! Lame. Mediocre show that somehow has glommed on to the identity of Boston without anything particularly Boston about it.

* Guest judge is … George Wendt. Even more lame. He was disappointingly unfunny here and didn’t seem to offer much food knowledge. Maybe the producers really wanted Hugh Laurie but just asked for the star of House.

* Quickfire: By law in Boston all bars must serve food. So a bitters bar like Sother Teague’s Amor y Amargo in Manhattan couldn’t exist? Also lame. I love a lot of things about Boston, but the state’s puritanical attitude to alcohol ain’t one of them. (And the way local retailers can dance around the three-store limit but Trader Joes can’t is downright corrupt.) The challenge is to make a bar snack in thirty minutes, with the winner getting immunity.

* Katie wants to make pickled cheese curds. How do you “pickle” anything in 30 minutes? In thirty minutes, all you can do is marinate it. That’s all. Stop calling it a fucking pickle just because you stuck it in acid.

* The real buzzword of this season is “spin.” Every plate is a “spin” on something else. Or maybe they’re just providing “spin” to the judges.

* Aaron is making a peanut butter and mayo burger, which a friend made for him once. He admits it sounds gross but says it tastes great. It does sound gross, but I imagine the heat of the burger makes the peanut butter into a rich sauce … I still wouldn’t do it, but I can’t knock it since I haven’t eaten it.

* Rebecca didn’t put enough glaze on her chicken wings. This might have made more sense if we’d seen more of her cooking – the editing of the quickfire this week really left us without much context.

* Aaron’s burger also has caramel bacon and a fried egg. That had to be an absolute mess to eat – the juices from the burger mixing with mayo, the runny egg yolk, and the liquid peanut butter. Katie fried cheese curds (beer-battered) with lemon and lime zest and fried olives. Stacy did an arugula pesto with prosciutto chips, balsamic tomato jam, and burrata as a spin on a BLT. Rebecca’s wings with spicy ponzu glaze didn’t have enough sauce. Keriann’s beer-battered onion rings were topped with crab salad and spicy hollandaise. Once again, she’s talking about her dish too much – spinning it instead of just letting the food talk. Wendt is “a sucker for crab meat.” That’s #analysis.

* Mos Chef has his first real stumble when all of the stuff on one of his burgers falls off the plate as he walks out to serve it. Pro tip: Try a toothpick next time. Or some epoxy.

* Adam made black bean chilaquiles with fried egg and avocado; probably not Boston bar food, but actually that and a brown ale sounds pretty good to me. Mei made fried chicken wings with lime-chili vinaigrette and pickles, probably the most appetizing thing I saw in this challenge. James made pickled and grilled carrots with red bean puree. How is that bar food? It’s rabbit food. Do rabbits go to bars? Can you ferment carrot juice? Maybe that’s what the White Rabbit was really getting high on. Katsuji made a mahi mahi and tuna ceviche with roasted tomato and jalapeno salsa. Now that is bar food – eat it with a salty tortilla chip, so the salt and acid make that beer taste even better.

* Down: Mos Chef, although Wendt says “Woody’s a vegan anyway.” James, because it didn’t feel like bar food. Up: Katsuji’s was creative and “yummy” (#analysis), and Keriann’s because it had crab meat. Winner … Katsuji, who, given how he’s performed to date, might need that immunity for his next twenty-ingredient special.

* Elimination challenge: Chef Michael Schlow of Via Matta is on hand, and the chefs will cook at Via Matta for sixty diners, working in teams of three to prepare a three-course Italian menu, which Padma calls “antipasta, pasti, and secondi.” I’m pretty sure that second course is “primi,” meaning first – antipasto means before the meal, then you have the first course (pasta or another starch, typically) and the second (protein). Diners will pick from the four menus, and the team whose menu is ordered the most wins the challenge; the others are up for what will be a double elimination.

* The chefs make their own teams, which can be a little awkward for chefs who don’t get “picked.” Adam, Doug, and Mei teamed up together fast, which says a little something about the mutual respect there, especially since we know Mei is very sharp. Mos Chef ends up with Katsuji and Aaron, who’ve already fought once, which means he’ll be playing traffic cop more than he should have to.

* Katsuji says they should use “macerated” on the menu instead of “marinated” because there’s no difference, which isn’t true. You macerate a fruit; you marinate anything else. So they’re right to say “macerated” peaches, even if it means no one will understand it. (At the table, Tom jokes that it looks like “masticated.” No, Tom, I don’t think that’s the word people will see when they misread it.)

* Melissa, James, and Keriann form the Grey team. James wants to cook lamb, but one or both of the women says not to use lamb, doesn’t think it’ll sell. James is Italian and cooks Italian; he says not to go seafood-centric but is outvoted. I believe this is known as … foreshadowing.

* That is a HUGE kitchen. Given what they usually have to work with, it must feel like chef heaven.

* Aaron is arguing for space with Mei/Adam. Then he’s bickering with Katsuji. In other words, it’s a day ending in -y.

* Mei says “at work I’m actually known as the Fish Bitch.” Seems proud of this. I guess it’s okay if you want to call yourself that.

* Melissa is making fresh ravioli in two hours. Katie (on the blue team with Rebecca and Stacy) is making fresh pappardelle. Is the challenge here the rolling and cutting? It doesn’t take that long to make the dough and rest it, and it cooks in two minutes, so I can only assume the difficulty is in rolling out the sheets and cutting or shaping it.

* Stacy discusses the difference between serving whole steak pieces versus slicing it before serving. Slicing means you can pick out fatty/gristly pieces, but she doesn’t say that it cools off much faster that way.

* Schlow is expediting and has to tell Katsuji and Aaron to shut up. Mos Chef says, “I feel like a dad in the setting with my two bickering sons.” I wish we’d heard Schlow say whatever he was thinking, probably something like, “who let these two clowns in my kitchen?”

* The celebrity diner is Emmy Rossum. Blais is back too, always a good thing.

(Rossum was also recently a guest judge on Project Runway, where she seemed to have a little more insight into the content. I mention watching Runway from time to time, and usually get some troglodyte responses that the show is gay or just for women. Rossum, who is very attractive, dressed as nearly all of the starlet guest judges do, in a short skirt or dress. The host is Heidi Klum, still one of the hottest women on the planet. The models are …. you know, models. A bit tall for me, but still, models. So, hey, if you want to tell me this show isn’t for you while you sit around on Sundays and watch big sweaty men grind their bodies against each other for six hours, be my guest.)

* Blais points out that the first item on the orange team’s menu has radicchio, which is a mixed bag: “Radicchio to the general public, it’s a tough sell,” since it’s so bitter. Also, does the general public really know what it is? I don’t think I knew until I saw it on Good Eats when I was about 30. And it took me a while to figure out how to prepare it in a way I liked. (You either need to brown those bitter heads like radicchio and endive to get some sugar out, or balance it with fat and acid like a bacon vinaigrette.)

* The purple team – Mos Chef, Aaron, Katsuji – is getting a lot of early orders, Aaron credits the scallops, because it’s his dish. Cool story bro.

* Rossum is gluten-free and has been for 15 years due to celiac disease (sprue), which she explains as an “allergy” on air. It ends up a last-minute twist for the teams, each of whom had prepared a traditional primo course with pasta. Katie improvises with zucchini ribbons; Melissa does risotto, which is very traditional for a primo. Katsuji just “deconstructs” his ravioli, giving Rossum the filling and sauce but no pasta. You do have a few options if you have time – rice and corn (polenta) are obvious ones, zucchini or vegetable ribbons less obvious (although Blais has a recipe like this in Try This at Home), and if alternative flours were available you can make pastas out them. Chickpea flour works surprisingly well, and they’re quite common in southern Italian cuisine (called ceci). If they had the right pan, chefs could have prepared farinate, a crepe made with chickpea flour that is outstanding and crispy without feeling heavy. Granted, I’m thinking of this at a keyboard, not a grill station with a clock taunting me.

* Purple team is up first. Aaron serves seared scallops with macerated peaches, pickled ramps, and crispy speck. Solid reviews all around. Katsuji just does a deconstructed ravioli – without the pasta. Emmy sees it for what it is and no one is amused. The pasta dough in everyone else’s spring pea and goat cheese ravioli is very dry. Mos Chef’s secondo of peppercorn-crusted strip loin with sweet onion compote and roasted tomato, cured olives, and herbs gets raves. Don’t call it a comeback.

* Orange team (Mei, Adam, Doug) is not getting many orders. They serve the judges next.

* Blais is “anxious” for Doug now because of the radicchio. Doug’s salad comes with warm pancetta, goat cheese vinaigrette, and hazelnuts. The judges seem to like it, but “not a bad little salad” is not what you’re going for. Adam served a bay scallop with fennel linguine, and swaps out a polenta cake for Rossum (good call). The Fish Witch (can’t do it, sorry) serves a gorgeous branzino with lemon jam, salsa verde, and radish. The skin is crispy too. I want this recipe.

* Grey team is also not getting a lot of orders. “Chilled wild shrimp” is not that appetizing a description, really. James’ salad is really a chilled seafood salad with shrimp, mussels, and clams along with arugula and wild orange. Sounds boring, although I admit I’m not a big chilled seafood guy unless it’s raw fish. Melissa made a homemade spring pea ravioli with ramps and bacon-parmiggiano broth, substituting a stunning bright-green fresh pea risotto for Rossum. Keriann made a pan-seared halibut with with olive oil, potato, warm asparagus salad, and pistachios. I wonder if Melissa was dragged down by her team here, as her dish was lauded but the structure of the challenge didn’t give us much positive feedback at the end.

* Aaron is incredibly messy in the kitchen, but at least he’s pleasant to work with.

* Blue team is up. Rebecca’s scallop with “charred” fennel, orange, and arugula starter is not very creative; Blais doesn’t even like the concept, saying she didn’t understand the ingredients. Katie hand-cut pappardelle and served it with a basil-walnut pesto and confit tomatoes, swapping in those zucchini ribbons for Rossum, who loved the idea and the dish itself. I think Katie should at least get points for the most creative gluten-free solution of the four. Stacy’s ribeye with king trumpet mushrooms, asparagus, and a kalamata olive vinaigrette is kind of a disaster; the steak was sliced too thin and the vegetables were brutalized from overcooking.

* The judges’ discussion, which includes Rossum and Schlow, overall feels like they were all a little underwhelmed. Purple team: Blais liked Aaron’s scallops, and Tom did too. Padma liked everything except the pasta, which was dry. Orange: Doug’s salad was not the prettiest, but was delicious. Schlow says it would have been a “satisfying” salad if you had a large serving, but it wasn’t great. Five years ago I might have argued there was no such thing as a “satisfying” salad, but I know better now. Blais loved Adam’s pasta, which reminded him of growing up on Strong Long Island. Grey: Keriann and Melissa are safe, but James had the worst salad of anyone’s. That’s where I wanted to hear more on Melissa’s dish. Blue: Rebecca’s scallop dish was the least inspiring of all for Blais, who said it felt “totally incomplete.” Stacy’s vegetables were destroyed, although Blais liked the olive vinaigrette. That reminds me of the strangest viniagrette I’ve ever had: chicken-liver vinaigrette, at Ludivine in Oklahoma City, one of my favorite restaurants in the country. It’s a great example of something I never would have thought to make, and was even reluctant to try, but then loved once I ate. I wish I hadn’t been such a closed-minded eater for the first 25 years of my life.

* Judges’ table: Tom says he would have preferred to see teams take more risks on their menus, which was my sense just watching the dishes and descriptions, too. Italian cuisine doesn’t have to be safe or boring. The purple team wins, but Katsuji looks totally bummed, even before Tom tells him that he would have gone home if he hadn’t been safe twice over.

* Blais tells the orange team they have to work on their menu-writing skills, because they didn’t get many orders but their dishes were all good. They’re safe.

* The blue team was the judges’ least favorite – Katie, Stacy, and Rebecca. Stacy said in the kitchen she knew her vegetables were overcooked, then lies to the judges about it and says she thought they were good. Blais says “there’s a difference between standing behind a dish and being honest … the vegetables were annihilated.” Man I am I glad to see Blais call someone on that bullshit. Just tell the truth, don’t make excuses, and you won’t make them hate your dish any more than they already did.

* Rebecca’s fennel wasn’t charred and the dish reminded Blais of mediocre room service. James’ salad barely had any olive oil, but wasn’t it also just a boring salad? He talks about “team harmony,” but how does that justify a badly executed dish? Be a team player AND make a good salad.

* Rebecca and James both go home, so Stacy barely skates by. James says he should have done a “louder, more seasonally relevant dish,” so at least he’s not blaming his teammates. If you cook something great, you don’t go home, not this early.

* Power rankings: Mos Chef and the Fish Witch seem like they’re miles ahead of everyone else right now. Adam, Doug, and Melissa make up the next tier, ahead of Aaron and Keriann and Katie. Stacy and Katsuji are on the bottom, probably with Katsuji most likely to get the boot next.