On tonight’s episode of Top Chef Masters:

For the Quickfire the chefs must cook a dish only using the microwave. Most of them go on and on about how they never use a microwave — blah, blah, blah, who cares. We know very well that they don’t use them, at least not in their restaurants, but the point of Top Chef Masters is to pull them out of their comfort zone, and this challenge does exactly that. And no one had better make anythig sashimi or tartare related because that’s cheating!

The chefs must cook for an edible science fair for the Elimination Challenge, not only serving what looks to be middle school students (you can never tell these days), but also educating them on science-y stuff through their dishes. I’m just hoping someone makes an exploding volcano out of mashed potatoes and red Kool-Aid.

And I am very happy to announce — drum roll, please — Ruth Reichl is back in her rightful place at the judges’ table! Huzzah! Oh, and Padma shows up because she can’t have another TC host showing her up.

Preview video highlights:

• In the first preview video, Naomi claims that she didn’t have a microwave when she was growing up. It then cuts to a shot of her playing in the dirt with sticks looking like a feral child. Does Bravo want us to assume that a child brought up without a microwave is some sort of hippie-savage?
• A photo of Hugh’s kids is shown during the Quickfire. Sadly, no unibrows (or at least they weren’t visible).
• Mary Sue demos viscosity for her science fair project. I won’t even type what some of that stuff looks like on her petri dish. What is she serving those children?!

Check out the preview videos below.

Update: Okay, even though all of the new previews are up on Bravo’s site, there won’t be a new episode tonight. This episode will be airing next week. Way to go letting us know ahead of time, Bravo…

Tune in to Bravo tonight at 10 pm EST/9 pm C, join our Twitter party during the show (Jeff: @JeffHouck, Katie: @culinarypirate), and listen to our podcast here tomorrow! (You can even download us on iTunes!) Check out our fellow Top Chef fanatics, Please Pack Your Knives And Go and All Top Chef, for the latest news (and some laughs).

Preview Videos:
Microwave Cooking
Getting All Science-y

On tonight’s episode of Top Chef Masters:

For the Quickfire the chefs must channel their former college selves and create a meal with budget of $1. If their ingredients came from Wal-Mart, I’d say it’d be an easier task, but knowing Bravo’s hookup with Whole Foods I think they might have a harder time trying to stretch that dollar.

As for the Elimination challenge, the heat is on as the chefs must man the lunch rush at a Farmer Boys fast food joint (it’s like McD’s but with better quality food). They have to cook main and side dishes for 100 people that don’t require utensils to eat, and each order must be completed in less than two minutes. I’m sure at least a few of the chefs will reveal that they’ve formerly worked as a fast food burger flipper when they started out in their cooking careers — and you know there will also be those who are completely lost in this type of kitchen environment.

Top Chef Podcast listeners: We’re currently having technical difficulties (due to new site and server) with getting our podcasts on iTunes. Until further notice, please listen to them directly from the posts that we put up every Thursday afternoon on the CL Food & Drink site! We apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for bearing with us.

Preview video highlights:

• Hugh: “…you’ve gotta be able to put something out.” And that’s what he said.
• In the second preview video, it looks like some of the chefs need to ‘ketchup’! (Get it? Because they’re working in a fast food restaurant?) *crickets chirping*
• Traci talks some shade about Mary Sue in the preview, calling her “annoying” and a “whirling dervish.” Hold onto your weave, girl, cuz them’s fightin’ words! (Seriously, I’ve cut a betch for less.)

Check out the preview videos below.

Tune in to Bravo tonight at 10 pm EST/9 pm C, join our Twitter party during the show (Jeff: @JeffHouck, Katie: @culinarypirate), and listen to our podcast here tomorrow! (You can even download us on iTunes!) Check out our fellow Top Chef fanatics, Please Pack Your Knives And Go and All Top Chef, for the latest news (and some laughs).

The Buck Stops Here
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Order Here
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Last night on Top Chef Masters:

I have to say that I love the fact that the chefs had to cook with live insects for the Quickfire Challenge. I mean, when do chefs get the chance to work with these odd proteins? Yeah, they’ve eaten brains and entrails and brains, but when have they ever scarfed down a scorpion? I also enjoyed their grossed out reactions when watching the guest judges sampling their dishes. Hugh ended up taking the win with his tempura fried crickets and sunchoke puree.

For the Elimination, the chefs were charged with creating a ten-course tasting menu for a charity dinner. Sounds easy enough, right? In the middle of cooking their dishes, the water gets turned off in the kitchen. Then Curtis walks in with a double whammy: the chefs have to plate up 30 minutes early and they must be the ones to serve the guests. Panic sets in, tempers flare and mild chaos ensues (definitely nowhere near the level of regular Top Chef, though).

Want to know what happened? Listen to the podcast to find out! (Note: This episode was a bit disjointed — to say the least. Just listen along, laugh and bear with us.)

The Fabio plea video for Katie (as discussed in podcast): A personal plea… from Jeff Houck on Vimeo.

Tune in to Bravo every Wednesday at 10 pm EST/9 pm C, check out our own live Tweets during the show (Jeff: @JeffHouck, Katie: @culinarypirate), and listen to our podcast here every week! (You can even download us on iTunes!)

Check out our fellow Top Chef fanatics’ blogs: All Top Chef gives us their uninhibited reactions and Please Pack Your Knives and Go is just plain hilarious. And check out TalkingTV’s rules for the Top Chef drinking game here.

Listen to this week’s podcast:
Download the podcast here.

For the Quickfire, Chef Hotpants McGee (a.k.a.: Curtis Stone) tells the chefs they’ll be “going back to their roots” and have to create dishes with roots, herbs and some fierce-looking insects. I just want to know if they’ll have to kill the bugs themselves or if they were given live ones for gross-out effect.

As for the Elimination Challenge, Bravo is giving us no clues this week, but it looks like something challenging, stressful and it has to be executed in a short period of time (just going out on a limb here). It looks like, whatever the challenge is, Naomi Pomeroy steps up and takes charge of the kitchen, making sure everyone’s dishes are in line with what’s going on their menu. (Group challenge?). Anyway, some folks aren’t too happy about being “bossed around.”

Preview video highlights:

• Mary Sue Milliken says she’ll eat animal eyes and brains but has a problem with bugs. Really? I’d much rather chow down on a cricket than ingest cow brains.
• If it were one of the male chefs taking the lead (see second preview video) instead of Naomi, do you think there would be as much griping about them being “bossy”? (I’m pulling out my feminist card for this one.)
• Tracy Des Jardin is serving gerbil for the Elimination? Gee, I thought they were sticking to insects, not using rodents for their dishes.

Check out the preview videos below.

Tune in to Bravo tonight at 10 pm EST/9 pm C, join our Twitter party during the show (Jeff: @JeffHouck, Katie: @culinarypirate), and listen to our podcast here tomorrow! (You can even download us on iTunes!) Check out our fellow Top Chef fanatics, Please Pack Your Knives And Go and All Top Chef, for the latest news (and some laughs).

Previews:
Bugging Out
Not Used to Being Bossed Around

We viewers got a nice surprise when we found out that Hugh Acheson was back to to compete in the show, but were sad to find out that it was because John Sedlar had to leave the show for personal reasons. I am happy that Hugh’s wit and talent is back on the show though.

For the Quickfire, the master chef’testants had 30 minutes to grind meat with a hand cranked grinder for the meatballs they were to create for singer Kelis — you know, the “Milkshake” gal? Apparently she has “culinary training,” but it looked like no one gave her training on how to critique dishes by chefs of this caliber, as she was serving up quite a lot of criticism and cojones with not much experience or decent reasons to back it up with. Hugh Acheson called it “pointless criticism,” and I think many of us viewers agreed with him. In the end, she preferred John Currance’s Vietnamese-style chicken meatball over all the others.

As for the Elimination Challenge, the chefs had to take classic (as in “classically awful”) dishes from the 1960s, put a modern spin on them and serve them in bite-sized form at a cocktail party where Mad Men‘s Christina Hendricks and her husband Geoffry Arend would be critiquing them. They also had to make a miniature version of the original dishes to serve alongside the new creations. So, two apps: one fancy, one old school, one hot redhead thrown into the mix. Got it?

There were some hits, misses and some that were just way out in left field, having been deconstructed to hell. (See the food shots from this episode if you don’t believe me.) The judges loved Mary Sue Milliken’s Asian twist on deviled eggs, John Currence’s bacon and collard-filled take on Oysters Rockefeller, and Floyd Cardoz’s ambrosia salad turned marshmallow fondue. Mary Sue ended up taking the win and the $10k for her charity, Share Our Strength.

As for the bottom three, it came down to Suvir’s tough veal, Sue Zemanick’s unfinished dish and Alessandro Stratta’s less-than-stellar bread pudding.

Want to know what happened? Then tune in to the podcast to find out! (It also helps to have watched the show before listening, but that’s totally optional).

Tune in to Bravo every Wednesday at 10 pm EST/9 pm C, check out our own live Tweets during the show (Jeff: @JeffHouck, Katie: @culinarypirate), and listen to our podcast here every week! (You can even download us on iTunes!)

Check out our fellow Top Chef fanatics’ blogs: All Top Chef gives us their uninhibited reactions and Please Pack Your Knives and Go is just plain hilarious. And check out TalkingTV’s rules for the Top Chef drinking game here.

Download the podcast here.

Bread pudding is one of my favorite throw-together, quick and easy recipes. If you have at least these three items on hand, you can make the base pudding: bread (preferably day old and dry), eggs, and milk or heavy cream. It’s also a great go-to because it works for breakfast, lunch, dinner, or dessert. It just depends on the extra ingredients you throw in: sweet for breakfast or dessert, savory for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Plus, prep time is ten minutes or less. How great and versatile is that?

For this version of bread pudding, I had a ton of strawberries on hand because they were on sale at the grocery store, and needed to use them up, so I just threw them in the mix. I had also picked up a gorgeous and aromatic loaf of French bread (the smell of good bread is heaven to me) and let it sit out for a day to get a bit stale (not moldy, there’s a difference) so it wouldn’t get too mushy in the liquid egg/milk mixture. Thus, strawberry bread pudding was born.

I wanted a garnish or topping for my bread pudding, so, thinking about what I had in my pantry, I decided to top it with a brown sugar “caramel” sauce. (I swear, I’m like the Iron Chef of cleaning out the refrigerator and pantry.) This sauce takes just two ingredients, butter and brown sugar, and cooks in just minutes on the stove top while your bread pudding bakes away in the oven. The actual bread pudding just has a hint of sweetness, so this sauce complements it by adding an extra kick of sugar (if you’re into that).

For a sweet bread pudding, use the following base recipe; for savory, omit the sugar, vanilla, and spices. Then get creative with your additions: chocolate chips, fruit, liqueurs (for sweet); pre-cooked sausage, fresh herbs, vegetables (for savory). I hope you’re inspired now, so get baking and bon appetit!

Strawberry Bread Pudding with Caramel Sauce
(makes one 8×8 square baking dish, 8-10 servings)

Strawberry Bread Pudding:
4 eggs
2 cups milk (or half milk, half heavy cream)
1/2 cup white granulated sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (or complementing flavor of your choice)
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
4 cups crusty, day-old bread (I used a 12 ounce French loaf), cut or torn into bite-sized pieces
1 cup (or more) fresh or frozen (thawed) strawberries, sliced

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a small bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk, sugars, extract, and spices until blended.
2. Put bread pieces into a large bowl; pour egg/milk custard mixture over the bread, tossing to combine (use your hands- free tools). Let sit for a few minutes to soak in.
3. Evenly fold in the strawberries and pour the mixture into the pre-greased baking dish.
4. Bake for 30 minutes, or until raised and puffy. Insert a toothpick into the center and if it comes out fairly clean, it’s done. Let cool for a few minutes before serving.

Caramel Sauce:
1/2 stick of butter
1/2 cup of brown sugar (I used dark brown sugar)

1. Put butter in a small pan or sauce pan over medium heat and let it melt.
2. Add the brown sugar and stir until it’s combined. Lower heat a bit, stir constantly, and let it slightly simmer.
3. When the sugar is completely dissolved and it’s of sauce consistency (about 5 minutes), remove from heat. Serve drizzled over the warm bread pudding.

Check out my blog, Culinary Piracy and follow me on Twitter: culinarypirate!

Kelis is bringing her milkshake to the Top Chef Masters yard tonight, charging the chefs with grinding their own meat and making something delicious from it (these previews don’t give me much to work with), as well as acting as Quickfire judge. Did you know she was a trained chef? News to me.

As for the Elimination Challenge, my girl crush for Mad Men‘s Christina Hendricks is fully realized when she and her husband, actor Geoffrey Arend, give the chefs their challenge of modernizing some popular dishes from the ’60s. I’m hoping to see both a Jell-o mold and some form of meatloaf revamped with a fabulous new makeover — and will sneer at any chef who creates some deconstructed mess. (Extra points for any Firefly references during tonight’s live tweet party.)

Preview video highlights:

• The majority of the chefs are struggling with attaching the hand crank meat grinders to the prep tables, let alone being able to actually use them. I find this surprising.
• John Currence: “It sounds like we’re heading into the teeth of the storm.” Gee, I’m from the hurricane and lightning capital of the world (Tampa, FL) and I didn’t even know storms had teeth!
• Sassy Suvir isn’t feeling the love in the kitchen and is muscled out of being able to use the stove, so he’s left with only a fryer in which to cook his dish. ESCANDALO!

Check out the preview videos below.

Tune in to Bravo tonight at 10 pm EST/9 pm C, join our Twitter party during the show (Jeff: @JeffHouck, Katie: @culinarypirate), and listen to our podcast here tomorrow! (You can even download us on iTunes!) Check out our fellow Top Chef fanatics, Please Pack Your Knives And Go and All Top Chef, for the latest news (and some laughs).

Back to the Grind

Christina Hendricks in the Kitchen

Classic to Modern

As for the All-Stars reunion, the previews (below) are making it out to be pretty escandalo — but I’m sure it’s a lot of hype (though it will be nice to see all of them one last time). They will, however, be grilling Jamie about her lack of participation and penchant for cutting herself and hiding under tables during the season.

This is shaping up to be a delicious-looking season of Top Chef Masters (and I’m not just talking about the food): We’ve got the drool-worthy Curtis Stone as the new host, plus guest appearances by Maroon 5 and Mad Men‘s Christina Hendricks. ME-OW! Alas, I will miss NYC food critic Gael Greene as a permanent judge this season; but she’s being replaced by Ruth Reichl who is equally as awesome.

There are 12 new master chef’testants competing in this season. I do love that they’re making all of them compete against each other throughout the season instead of making four compete per episode as they’ve done in the prior two seasons.

Check out the preview videos:

Elia vs. Tom Colicchio
Heart Not in the Game
Coming up in the Third Season
Scrambling for the First Challenge
Through the Ringer

We were lucky enough to have Joe Yonan from the Washington Post (better known as @WaPoFoodLive) as our special guest for this podcast. He dished up all of the hot, behind-the-scenes Top Chef gossip from the D.C. season and snarky commentary on last night’s finale.

As for the episode: the little amuse bouche challenge with the 15 chopped chef’testants was a great twist to the episode — Blais and Jersey Mike having to blind-taste their offerings to determine who’d be on their teams for the finale’s “Restaurant Wars” challenge. Funny how Mike said he didn’t want Jamie on his team and then he picked her! What did I say about karma a few weeks ago, kids?

The rest of the episode was a definite nail-biter. Bias aside, Jersey Mike was putting out some stellar-looking dishes! I was getting scared. Blais, on the other hand, was showing a lot of restraint. Too much, though? Was he true enough to himself in his dishes? It seemed they were toe-to-toe in their courses — Mike having two great courses and the same for Blais.

Tom Colicchio said in his Bravo blog that Padma and Eric were pro Blais, Gail was all for Mike and he was the deciding factor. Tom writes:

“So how do I determine that Richard won? First, by looking at the overall experience. Esoteric, yes, but that was part of the challenge. The overall experience was a bit better at Richard’s restaurant. And second, by looking at the losses. Where each of the chefs lost a course, was it by a lot or a little? Richard’s first course beat out Michael’s by a mile. Michael’s braised course beat out Richard’s by a much smaller margin. Overall, Richard’s four-course tasting menu, therefore, was the stronger of two exceptional tasting menus, giving him the gold and Michael the silver.”

What do you think? Did Blais deserve the win or did Mike outcook him? Listen to the podcast to hear our thoughts (and then some).

Podcast Bonus video!: “Top Chef All-Stars” Podcast – Finale from Jeff Houck on Vimeo.

Tune in to Bravo every Wednesday at 10 pm EST/9 pm C, check out our own live Tweets during the show (Jeff: @JeffHouck, Katie: @culinarypirate), and listen to our podcast here every week! (You can even download us on iTunes!)

Check out our fellow Top Chef fanatics’ blogs: All Top Chef gives us their uninhibited reactions and Please Pack Your Knives and Go is just plain hilarious. And check out TalkingTV’s rules for the Top Chef drinking game here.

Listen to the podcast here.