Top Chef, S12E05.

The elephant in the room right now is the fact that Aaron, the villain on the show, was arrested last week for allegedly shoving his girlfriend, after which his employer tweeted that he no longer worked for them. Hating the guy in the context of the show is one thing, but if he did indeed assault his girlfriend, then this is no longer a laughing matter.

* Quickfire: Jamie Bissonnette of Coppa/Toro is in the house. I don’t know him directly, but I’m a big fan of his work – the meatballs with lardo at Coppa might be the single best thing I’ve ever eaten – and we have a few friends in common. He’s all punk rock on Twitter but it turns out he cleans up OK, wearing a suit and sporting a crisp haircut.

* It’s the Reynolds challenge, so the chefs have to cook using various Reynolds products, although at least this time they didn’t waste a few hundred pounds of foil wrapping up the entire kitchen. Bissonnette says they use foil in his kitchens to diffuse heat for hot- and cold-smoking. The chefs get paired up for head-to-head battles; the first chef picks the opponent, the opponent picks one of the available cooking methods.

* Katsuji picks Aaron; Aaron chooses smoked salmon for their battle. Doug picks Adam, who chooses steamed mussels. Keriann picks Stacy, who chooses trout en papillote. Melissa picks Katie, who chooses smoked BBQ (note: if it’s not smoked, it’s not BBQ). Mei draws Gregory by default, and he chooses steamed dumplings, saying he believes his will have much more flavor than hers even though she’s been making dumplings since she was about seven.

* Keriann talks about how cooking in parchment means praying the fish cooks in time. She doesn’t mention how cooking in parchment produces the blandest-tasting fish imaginable. I love fish, but if you’re going to cook it, you need the Maillard reactions from direct heat, or else you might as well have let it go spawn.

* Gregory serves steamed shrimp dumplings with ginger and herbs, but no dipping sauce. Mei serves pork dumplings with black vinegar, of which Padma is a big fan.

* Katie serves grilled chicken breast with pine nuts cooked in the style of baked beans, while Melissa serves a smoked and seared scallop with charred corn, smoked bacon, and grilled fennel.

* Katsuji, who wants to show Aaron how a real chef acts (if he only knew), serves a sake-infused chipotle broth with smoked jalapenos and salmon. Aaron serves a “lightly smoked” (that’s a tipoff) wild salmon with tarragon creme fraiche and pickled shallot. He says he “brined” the salmon for five minutes. Why not just show it some pictures of salt instead?

* Keriann serves trout with white wine butter sauce, fennel, serrano, bell pepper, and shallot – so, a ton of aromatics to make up for the total lack of flavor you get in the parchment. Stacy serves her trout with heirloom tomatoes, basil, onions, and spinach.

* Doug serves steamed mussels in orange/saffron butter with lemon preserve and roasted sweet red peppers. Adam serves his mussels with vadouvan (a curry-like spice mix), fresno chili broth, apples, and toasted pepitas. Adam is being a total dick to Doug in front of the judges, going past chest-thumping to flat-out insulting him. So you’re a New Yorker; that doesn’t justify being an asshole right before the two people who decide your fate and your opponent’s.

* Judging: Aaron’s salmon didn’t have enough smoke flavor (shocker), so Katsuji wins. Doug did a better job cooking his mussels, while Adam’s pepitas “really sung,” but Doug wins. Keriann’s trout had more texture and flavor, with more balance in the dish, so she beats Stacy. Katie scores the upset win over Melissa, as Jamie loved the pine nuts cooked down like beans. In the dumpling battle, Gregory wins, and Mei looks really upset. That might be your finals preview right there – or at least the one I’d choose to see at this point.

* The overall winner is … Gregory, of course, winning a $10K prize as well. He’s going Full Qui on this season. Jamie says, “If you had a New York City dumpling truck, there’d be a line around the block.” I’ll pay someone to stand in line for me, cronut-style.

* Elimination challenge: The chefs split into two teams, the winners on one team (blue) versus the losers (red) from the quickfire. The winning team will be safe from elimination. Teams offer up one chef for each challenge, but we end up with a lot of rematches because the chefs hear “strategy” and think “revenge,” at which point everything should be served cold, right?

* First battle: Adam vs Doug for a rematch. Adam bullies his way to that spot. Second: Katsuji vs Melissa. Third: Gregory vs Mei. Fourth: Keriann vs Stacy. Fifth: Aaron vs Katie. Aaron’s mad because he didn’t get to face Katsuji again and I think he feels like he was relegated to the last spot (which he was). Chefs say they don’t come on this show to make friends, but playing a little bit well with others has its advantages.

* The big twist: Each team has $1000 total to spend to serve 100 guests the next day at the Watertown Arsenal, so that’s $2 per plate. How do you economize for this? My first two thoughts were to avoid meat or fish, and to avoid pricier flavoring agents like Parmiggiano-Reggiano (which brings salt and umami but can easily run to $20/pound).

* Gregory is buying fresh turmeric (he says “toomeric,” like most people, but there’s an “r” in that first syllable). Have you ever seen fresh turmeric? It looks like giant maggots. I’ll buy mine powdered, thanks.

* Katsuji is putting charred cauliflower in the tostada. That cooks the exterior, but won’t it be raw inside? When I cook cauliflower by roasting it, it takes an hour-plus to cook through as a whole head and at least a half-hour as florets, and I have to work to prevent the exterior from burning before the interior softens.

* Melissa is having problem the texture of her gazpacho, and I believe this is what we refer to around here as “foreshadowing.”

* Gregory says Adam “just loves to talk shit.” Truer words were never spoken.

* Aaron’s pot of dashi broth ends up on the ground somehow. Mei, an actual team player, lends him “instant dashi mix” so that he’ll have some moisture in his meatball/noodle dish, but says it won’t be the same for flavor. That’s a lousy break for Aaron, but given what we know now, I couldn’t muster a lot of sympathy – I just want him off the show.

* Hugh’s back, always a win for the viewers. He was in rare form with the quips this week, asking Jamie if he brought a musket to the Watertown Arsenal, informing everyone that “you can open carry a musket in most southern states.”

* Adam says “it’s gonna be a bloodbath out there.” I get it, we do violent metaphors in sports too, but unless you’re making black pudding, that’s a bit much.

* The dishes: Doug serves beef tartare with ginger aioli, radish, chili oil, and cilantro. Tom says the “meat could be a little more seasoned,” which seems like a death knell for a raw beef dish. Adam made salt and pepper grits with cheddar cheese, a poached egg, and bacon and onion jam. Hugh, saying he’s had a lot of crappy grits on Top Chef, points out that “those are not crappy grits.” Adam wins unanimously.

* Doug says in the confessional that “I don’t know who won the battle of Lexington and Concord” but guessing it was the U.S., saying, “Go ‘Murica.” Gotta love the state of education in our country.

* Katsuji made a tostada with charred cauliflower, goat cheese, olives, dates, and a tomato and chili sauce. The judges say it was a little rich with the oil and the fat of the cheese, but it had a good texture and the cauliflower was cooked well (so I missed something in that process). Melissa’s chilled white gazpacho with cucumbers, mint, green grapes, and marcona almonds was, as expected, thin and watery. Katsuji wins 3/4, with Padma the dissenting vote.

* Katsuji said a few times there that he was having a panic attack … if he was, and I don’t mean to doubt him, I wish he’d gotten to explain more about what he was feeling.

* Tom says something very dismissive to Padma about this dish; did anyone catch it? I rewound a few times but couldn’t hear his words. His facial expression said a lot, though.

* The third battle is Gregory versus Mei again, and unsurprisingly, they both nailed their dishes. Gregory made shiitake mushrooms in a coconut milk-curry broth with turmeric and fresh dill; Jamie says it’s great Thai food for hot weather. It’s pretty weird to our palates here to have a hot dish in hot weather, but in Asia it seems like it’s quite common. Mei makes a quick kimchi with a New York strip loin and scallion salad; her beef was perfectly cooked and Tom loves the kimchi. But Gregory still wins the battle.

* Tom praises Gregory effusively, saying “he has a way of balancing a lot of different things … all of these aromatics that just … perfectly go together.” That might be some foreshadowing for the season finale.

* Keriann serves an herbed meatball with red onion jam, ginger mustard, and port reduction. Padma loves the jam, but Tom looks like he wants to reach for the ipecac. Stacy served marinated beets with pecan sage yogurt, horseradish brittle, and fresh horseradish. The judges say the beets were well cooked but the yogurt was bland, and I just don’t see going to battle (pun intended) with roasted beets – shouldn’t there be a LOT more to this dish? I feel like I’ve had more ornate beet dishes at a dozen restaurants. Stacy runs the table, though, because Keriann’s dish just sucked. The producers get what they wanted, though: A deciding fifth head-to-head.

* Tom says, “the war always comes down to the last battle.” Well, except for the War of 1812.

* Aaron serves an Asian pork meatball with scallop noodles, but he’s too clever by half as there’s no texture in the noodles – plus he did something similar in the elimination quickfire challenge against Katie. He admits the dashi disaster, but I don’t think he buys himself anything with his honesty. Katie takes a risk by making dessert, making an imperial stout chocolate cake with pomegranate molasses-macerated strawberries, smoked sour cream, and basil pink peppercorn oil. Hugh says the cake is classic and good but “not that exciting.”

* Aaron’s comments about dessert being a “copout” get him some flak from the judges, and when he says he can’t see going to war with chocolate cake, Hugh asks if he could imagine going to war with scallop noodles … Aaron can’t take it as well as he can dish it out, apparently.

* Katie wins unanimously, so the blue team takes the title, and one of the red team is going home. Mei and Adam should be safe. Stacy won her challenge, so if that’s enough to save her, it’s Aaron or Melissa. There’s no question whom I’d like to see sent home, but watery gazpacho isn’t helping anyone’s cause here. Jamie says he would have flunked Melissa’s gazpacho in a home economics class; do they actually still teach home ec in schools? I got a bad grade on one home ec test because the teacher insisted that peanuts were a “meat” (because they contained protein), but I refused to put the wrong answer and wrote they were legumes. Fight the power, folks.

* One interesting note from judges’ table: When the judges ask Adam and Mei if they ever thought to dissuade Aaron from trying a dish so ambitious he might not execute it, Gregory speaks up from the sidelines, saying “I would never have allowed that (the scallop noodles) to happen.” He didn’t deliver it in a condescending tone – although you could argue saying anything at all was out of line – but that just made it even more incisive to me. That did have the benefit of shutting Adam up for the first time all season.

* Aaron is eliminated. That’s fortunate for all concerned at this point, even though this was filmed months ago. He says a lot of the right things on the way out, with a few excuses thrown in. I might have been sympathetic, given what he’s told us about his childhood, before his recent arrest, but now I’m just glad he’s off the show. Melissa skated on a pretty bad dish, though, and Keriann might have been bounced if her team had lost.

* Rankings: Gregory, Mei, Doug, Adam, Melissa, Katie, Katsuji, Keriann, Stacy. There’s a big gap after Mei, and it’s starting to look like there’s a big gap after Katsuji, too.