QUICKFIRE: The chefs went to market (Green City in Chicago) to buy five fresh ingredients to make an entree. The ingredients could be supplemented by free ones — salt, pepper, sugar and oil.
Richard the molecular gastronomer went right for the eucalyptus. Did he think he was cooking an entree for a country gift shop? Mark the kiwi was befuddled by the lack of good lamb and in the process left one of his bags of greens at the market. It didn’t matter, he used his ingenuity to create a dish that guest chef judge Wylie Dufresne loved (or was it his sideburns???).
ELIMINATION: This week’s challenge took the chefs to the Lincoln Park Zoo where they had to create a menu for a cocktail party of 200 employees. The twist: they drew knives that each had an animal on it — gorilla, vulture, bear, penguin or lion. Then the teams of three had to create dishes that contained foods that animal loves.
Mark was happy when he drew a vulture because he learned its diet was similar to his own. TMI.
Dale of Team Bear is already proving to be this season’s most quotable. He admitted he was a “control freak” and wanted to focus on cooking for the event because “I’m not a f***in’ interior designer!” When teammate Nikki’s stuffed mushrooms ended up looking like, as Gail said, “something a bear would produce, not eat,” he decided to douse them with pecorino. “At that time, I was trying to put perfume on a pig.”
Tightly wound Andrew said he was a “tigre” but adapted easily to being a penguin. He delighted in making yuzu mint glaciers to cleanse the palate but took home the smelt for his squid with balsamic tapioca. As a fan of judge Dufresne, Andrew was stoked that he found his dish so soignee
If there was a warning to be learned from this challenge it was this: blini don’t travel well. Valerie of Team Gorilla had to pack up her knives after her blini topped with rutabaga atop a fennel mascarpone cream failed to soothe the beastly judges. Grrrrrross!
