minxeats

Rainy Weather Supper

theminx1@gmail.com (theminx) — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 13:51:00 +0000

A bowl of homemade tomato soup and a grilled cheese sandwich almost makes one forget that it's raining.

Top Chef Las Vegas Episode Eleven Recap

theminx1@gmail.com (theminx) — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 16:22:00 +0000

Six chefs left and the finale is looming. Who will Padma send home this week? Yeah yeah, we know who you *want* it to be....

Once again we meet our intrepid cheftestants in the McMansion, getting ready for another day in the salt mines. Jen thinks it's a big deal that DoucheyMike isn't around anymore. And Bryan, although enjoying his TC experience, is feeling a bit homesick.

Cyborg technology is apparently quite advanced. They can breed now.

He's allowed a brief phone call to his family. His almost-2-year-old son, Thatcher, answers the phone with an excited, "Bryan!" Gee...only a few weeks away and already the family treats you like a stranger.

Rather than the M Resort, the cheftestants head to the Venetian where they are whisked to a kitchen in the bowels of the hotel, somewhere deep under the faux canal with faux gondoliers and overpriced gelato. A phone rings - it's for the chefs.

If DoucheyMike seemed excited about cooking for scrawny vegetarian Natalie Portman two weeks ago, then how would he react to the voluptuous Nigella Lawson? Alas, we'll never find out. And I'm not all that sorry.

The Breakfast in Bed Quickfire requires that the cheftestants each prepare a yummy breakfast for Padma and Nigella and wheel it through several rings of hell to their suite somewhere upstairs. They, in the meantime, are having fun in bed.

What passes as fun for you, dirty-minded reader, is not necessarily the same thing that turns on our raven-tressed lovelies. A damn shame.

Eli and Robin head off to cook first.

Eli decides to make a Reuben Benedict with 1000 Island hollandaise, and Robin scurries around like a chicken with her head cut off, making something or other. They deliver their dishes to the ladies.

Robin ended up making blintzes with pineapple, and the ladies don't seem too impressed. Eli presents next and his dish is very well-received; Nigella thinks it would make a great hangover breakfast.

The next duo to cook are Michael and Kevin. Michael spends the first 5 of his 30 minutes cleaning up the mess Robin left behind, which puts him directly into the weeds. He of course can't make anything simple, and concocts Huevos Cubana, with banana puree, rice, bacon, and arugula salad. Kevin, pretty much his polar opposite in the kitchen, does steak and eggs.

Finally, Jennifer and Bryan create their dishes. Jen does the American classic, the aptly-named, "shit on a shingle."

Bryan does a four-minute egg, polenta, asparagus, crab and a vanilla butter sauce which does not go over well with Nigella.

After Nigella and Padma finish pigging out, they get dressed (after taking a shower together) and summon the cheftestants for judgement. Nigella's least favorite dishes were Bryan's and Robin's. Her favorites were Kevin's and Eli's, with the latter being the winner. Padma then announces that Eli will get his recipe published in the Top Chef Quickfire Cookbook. Viewers who watched the preview vids for this episode and have the cookbook (or who, like me, read too many blogs and face the dreaded spoiler on a regular basis) already knew the winner. If I remember correctly, Richard Blais was the only cheftestant from season 4 to get a recipe in the original Top Chef Cookbook...and Eli just so happened to be the best man at his wedding. Coincidence? Most likely.

On to the Elimination Challenge. The cheftestants are to celebrate the Strip by creating a casino-inspired dish which will be fed to 175 of "Las Vegas' Elite" (to me, this means Cher, Elton John, and Wayne Newton, but apparently it merely refers to non-tourists who wear things other than ugly shorts and baggy t-shirts).

The knife block comes out.

Each knife bears the name of one of the gaudy hotel/casinos on the Vegas Strip. Bryan draws Mandalay Bay, Michael draws New York, New York, Eli gets Circus Circus, Robin gets the Bellagio, Kevin draws the Mirage, and Jen gets Excalibur.

Each cheftestant has a car and driver to ferry him or her to their designated Palace of Sin. First we see Michael disembark at New York New York. He is immediately inspired.

Next, Jen goes to Excalibur to eat roast chicken with her hands at the Tournament of Kings.

She says she's having a hard time focusing and doesn't know what she's going to do. She's been slipping more every week, but I think the beer had to have something to do with it this time.

At Mandalay Bay, Bryan opts to head directly for the shark reef, where he encounters a sign touting sustainability. (You know Rick Moonen, whose restaurant rm seafood is in Mandalay Bay, had to have something to do with this.) Immediately the idea unit in Bryan's circuit board starts blinking.

On his way out, he visits the gift shop to buy something for young Thatcher.

This disturbs me. First we see Bryan claim he misses his kid and phones home. Now he's buying toys. This is usually a type of loser edit. I express my thoughts to Mr Minx who says he thought Bryan's eyes looked red in one of the Confidentials. Nooooooo! Not my favorite expressionless chef! I calm myself by repeating, "this does not compute," and put my attentions back to the show.

Robin is at the Bellagio, one of the rare classy joints on the strip. She is awed by the Chihuly sculpture in the lobby and vows to make something with gelatin. Sure, I see the connection too.

Kevin is at the Mirage, where he is impressed to see waterfalls and flowers. He looks around carefully, hoping to spot some leprechaun brethren; finding none, he goes to the dolphin show.

Finally, Eli gets to Circus Circus where he's disappointed to find there's no big top, no clown cars, no lions, tigers, or bears, just lots of circus-y junk food like candy apples and cotton candy. He calls his mommy for permission, then gorges himself on sugary treats before heading back to the McMansion and the rest of the cheftestants.

The next morning, the chefs head to the Top Chef Corporate Sponsorship Kitchen for 3.5 hours of cookery, after which they pack up and go to the rooftop of the World Market Center, where they draw straws to decide who will be the one to push off Robin. They get another hour to set up and do finishing touches before the hungry hoardes arrive.

Not surprisingly, Jen is having issues. Robin is as well, as the sugar work she attempted to recreate the look of Chihuly glass did not set up. And Michael is worried that he has to crisp up 175 portions of chicken wings.

Padma and the judges arrive and head straight for Jen's station, where she is not quite prepared. Padma snottily remarks that Jen's empty table looks as if she's sold out of food. Jen's dish is inspired by the Sword and the Stone, using overcooked beef in place of stone.

Next the judges visit Kevin who has made cured salmon with tomato water. Nigella enjoys it quite a lot.

Good thing the cameras didn't catch any of the men from the waist down.

Michael's curried chicken wings, inspired by something the FDNY might eat, had nicely crisp skin and a disc of cold bleu cheese sauce that some of the judges loved. Toby, in place of Gail (because three sets of boobies would have been too much), wasn't entirely impressed.

Robin indeed used gelatin in her panna cotta - too much of it - which caused it to set too hard. And without the sugar work, it was difficult to see the connection to Chihuly.

Bryan prepared an escabeche of halibut with parsley coulis that Nigella thought had fantastic balance. Whew! They liked his dish. He's not going home. Not that I ever thought he was. Of course not.

You know, I think Nigella would make a great permanent judge, don't you?

Finally, Eli's caramel apple and peanut soup with raspberry froth was a bit of a mess. Padma didn't like it at all. The textures didn't work. Toby, however, admired his willingness to try something that might fail. Speaking of fail, I'm wondering where Toby left all of the amusingly harsh insults he tossed about last season.

Then comes a Fake Out Scene that's so dull, it should have been included in last week's Reunion Dinner Special. The chefs open Korbel and toast each other.

/end Fake Out Scene. Yawn.

The cheftestants then head to the Glad Family of Products Stew 'n' Booze Room to stew and booze. Padma shuffles in and drones that she would like to see Michael, Kevin, and Bryan.

Everyone loved Kevin's broth. Bryan's dish was "quiet and elegant" according to Nigella. Toby called Michael's food "effeminate" to which Michael replied, "I believe a chef's personality should be evident on the plate." Huh? Did he just out himself?

Girly or not, Michael is awarded the win, and a big old bottle of Terlato wine. Plus, a trip to the Terlato winery in Napa. I'm sorry, but "Terlato" sounds to me like a euphemism that Archie Bunker might use for bad wine.

The remaining chefs - Jen, Robin, and Eli - are on the chopping block. Jen didn't have a clear vision of her dish, and Tom said she had a lack of knowledge about Medieval food. Because food back then spoiled for lack of refrigeration, it was usually heavily spiced. Oh yeah? Well tell the bozos at Medieval Times that. I hardly think that their Lipton dehydrated-vegetable soup and plain roast chicken could be called "spiced" at all. Toby suddenly gets pithy again and says Jen's dish was more Spamalot than Camelot. Heh. Good one.

Robin's panna cotta was too firm.

Damn, she's hot.

Finally, Eli, who thought he was conceptually on the mark, was told his dish was a failure. Padma didn't want to eat it again, and Nigella said her good upbringing was the only thing that prevented her from spitting it back into the cup. I love that woman.

But just when it was starting to look like Eli was out, Padma asked Robin to please pack her knives and go. :::putting earplugs in to drown out the deafening roar of approval:::

You'll hate me for admitting this, but I got a little choked up as Robin thanked the judges and packed her knives. She should be proud of lasting so long in such fierce competition.

Next week: Thomas Keller and Bocuse D'Or!

What to do with Leftover Sauerkraut?

theminx1@gmail.com (theminx) — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 23:00:00 +0000

Make a reuben! Pastrami, Russian dressing, Swiss cheese, and sauerkraut on griddled rye bread.

Worst Cooks in America

theminx1@gmail.com (theminx) — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 18:00:00 +0000

The Food Network is putting a new spin on Next Food Network Star, this time calling it Worst Cooks in America. Twelve of the "most hopeless" cooks in America will compete for a prize of $25,000.

The five-week series will put the "recruits" through a culinary boot camp led by two acclaimed chefs: Anne Burrell, host of Food Network's Secrets of a Restaurant Chef, and Beau MacMillan, executive chef at elements in Phoenix.

"Watching the Worst Cooks in America struggle to become great cooks, makes a show that is very funny, dramatic and moving," said Bob Tuschman, Senior Vice President, Programming and Production, Food Network. "Ultimately, it offers hope for even the most kitchen-challenged of our viewers."

The winner - or loser - will no doubt get his or her own show on the Food Network.

The show starts Sunday, January 3rd at 10pm (after Iron Chef America). Sounds like a potential trainwreck. Will you watch?

An Unusual Soup

theminx1@gmail.com (theminx) — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 13:02:00 +0000

Last week I was finally able to read through the penultimate issue of Gourmet. What stood out most to me was an article on Chef Edward Lee of 610 Magnolia in Louisville that offered an unusual recipe of sauerkraut soup with scallops - I have a genetic appreciation for sauerkraut and scallops have always been a favorite. The recipe sounded pretty straightforward so I thought I'd give it a try.

A word of caution: when blending the soup, the sauerkraut tends to clog the blade and send the juice oozing out of the blender lid. After a couple of unsuccessful pulses, I poured out most of the liquid and blended all of the solids into a paste, adding a few tablespoons of broth back at a time. The resulting puree was then stirred into the remaining liquid in the saucepan.

The spice rub on the scallops required sumac, a tart flavoring popular in Middle Eastern cuisine. I could have sworn I had some on hand, but couldn't find it. I substituted dried orange zest, which lacked the tartness, but since there was plenty of sour in the kraut, it worked well enough. And speaking of tart - the taste seemed a little one-dimensional, so two teaspoons of honey was added to the finished soup, rounding out the flavors yet adding no discernible sweetness.

Mr Minx isn't a fan of the scallop, so his portion was made with shrimp, which worked just as well. We were both happy with the end result. If one didn't know it was sauerkraut, it would be hard to pinpoint exactly from what the soup was made.

While the seafood worked very well with the soup, my brain can't help but concoct other variations using pork meatballs. And sliced frankfurters and croutons would make for a nice "deconstructed" dish reminiscent of a ballpark favorite. Croutons (particularly those made from rye bread) alone would make this a nice starter for a traditional Baltimore Thanksgiving dinner; sauerkraut always seemed odd and out-of-place next to turkey and cranberry sauce, but this creamy version has a favor that would seem to mesh better with the rest of the meal.

So...unusual, yes, but also delicious. And potentially versatile. Sauerkraut isn't just for kielbasa anymore!

Umi Sake

theminx1@gmail.com (theminx) — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 13:00:00 +0000

When I saw the photo that accompanied the Baltimore Sun review of Umi Sake, a new sushi/pan-Asian restaurant in Cockeysville, I thought, "mmm...pretty sushi - wonder what it tastes like." The other night, I found out.

Umi Sake is in the building that used to house Pacific Rim, long our sushi restaurant of choice. When that closed a few years back, we started going to Yamato Sushi in Timonium, then to Sushi Hana on Falls Road because it was closer. After the sushi tour of Towson - which I wrote about here - we went to Kyodai. So many good sushi restaurants nearby! But we thought we should venture a bit farther north this time and give the new kid in town a shot.

The restaurant has been completely transformed since its days as Pacific Rim - it's rather plainly decorated but that is a welcome relief from the 80s decor it once sported. We ordered some green tea and took a few moments to peruse the menu with its description of fancy rolls. There's plenty of other non-sushi food to be had at Umi Sake, but we weren't interested in any of that.

We started off with miso soup that had a bit more flavor than most versions and a Korean seafood pancake, or pa jeon. The small, crisp-edged round had bits of shrimp, scallop and scallion with the satisfying spongy chew of a good pa jeon.

Next we had some nigiri sushi in the form of "white tuna" a.k.a. escolar, and regular tuna. Both fish were impeccably fresh and buttery.

We also ordered three of the fancy rolls. On top is the "Perfect Fantasy" roll which sounds like porn but is actually a roll filled with shrimp tempura, crab mix, and cream cheese and topped with eel, avocado, and tempura flakes. Cream cheese is a weird addition to sushi, but it somehow works really well with eel. Go figure.

The next roll is the "Spicy Titantic" roll with spicy crab, cucumber, and cilantro, wrapped with tuna and avocado and finished with a sweet lemon chili sauce. Or that's what the menu said. The roll was sadly not at all spicy, nor did I taste any cilantro. And the "sauce" on top was actually bits of pineapple and mango. Mr Minx said he had a blast of citrus in his first bite, but I did not get any. That's not to say the roll wasn't tasty, just not what we expected.

Finally, we ordered the "Eight is Enough" special from the Sun photo: eight pieces of sushi, two each of four kinds, each piece in the pair slightly different from its partner. My favorites were the crisp fried rice cake topped with tuna tartare and either wasabi or spicy mayo (top row, 2nd from left, bottom row 2nd from right) and the tall roll topped with a mixture of crab, shrimp and scallop (top 2nd from right, bottom 2nd from left).

We were impressed. The seafood was very fresh, the rolls were inventive and fun to eat, and the service was great - our waitress was very attentive with the tea pot. And...the food was fairly cheap for fancy sushi. We're used to paying double digits for rolls like these elsewhere, but the most expensive fancy roll at Umi Sake is $9.50.

We'll definitely be making the drive to Cockeysville again.

Umi Sake
9726 York Rd
Cockeysville, MD 21030

We Have a Winner!

theminx1@gmail.com (theminx) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 17:00:00 +0000

The winner of the MinxEats French's recipe contest is....Chris! All I need is your address and your apron will be on its way!

Congrats. :)

Thai Chicken Flatbreads

theminx1@gmail.com (theminx) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 13:00:00 +0000

I read this recipe the other day and thought, "I have to make that!" Actually, Mr Minx made it. We had leftover store-bought roast chicken in the fridge already, so that substituted for the marinated chicken in the recipe.

The sauce is outstanding and I'm looking forward to using the rest of it on some shrimp skewers, or maybe some of the various dumplings we have in our freezer.

Prosciutto and Peas

theminx1@gmail.com (theminx) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 13:00:00 +0000

Make that prosciutto and edamame.

We had some prosciutto hanging out in the fridge so Mr Minx used it to whip up some fettuccini with garlic, shallot, crispy prosciutto, and edamame. We had peas, but like these better.

Top Chef Reunion Dinner Special Recap

theminx1@gmail.com (theminx) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:54:00 +0000

This week, the powers that be at Bravo decided to break the momentum of the swell of excitement that has been building on Top Chef Las Vegas (yawn). Instead of more Voltaggio bickering, we are treated to Marcel Vigneron being himself (you know, a complete and total ass) in a Top Chef Reunion Dinner special. Double yawn.

Bravo execs must have themselves bickered over whether the dinner party should be a nice family show full of fun, feel-good moments, or one filled with bad memories and acrimony. They chose the latter. Where it might have made for good tv to feature the most irritating chefs from each season, they instead made it easy on themselves and invited the finalists from each season, several of whom were pills. And to host this fun fest? Chef Fabio Viviani, who must have signed his life away to Bravo.

The show starts off like a finale episode, with scenes of chefs arriving at the airport in Los Angeles and then traveling to Social, once the location for the Elimination Challenge in episode 5 of season 2.

Tiffani Faison from season 1 arrives first. Fabio has already started drinking because he knows what is to come.

After Tiffany, we see her season's champ, Harold Dieterle arrive.

Next up is season 2 winner Ilan Hall and season 2 asshat, ~~Wolverine~~ Marcel.

Suddenly, the "Top Chef Reunion Dinner Special" becomes the "Marcel Vigneron is a Douche Not-So-Special." Marcel explains why everyone hated him.

Oh, we do get to see the other chefs for a bit, too. Season 3's Dale Levitski and Casey Thompson come in next. Dale talks about how he bonded with Sara Nguyen during their season and that they now live together and she's his "girlfriend/little sister." Casey says she had a little sister too that season - Hung. And on that note, season 3 winner Hung Huynh strolls in.

Season 4 finalist Richard Blais enters and is asked by Fabio if he copied his hairdo from Jennifer Biesty. Lisa Fernandes, sporting a new extra-butch buzzcut, is next to arrive. When asked what she's been up to these past few years, she states she's still with her same girlfriend. Um...I think Fabio meant chefly accomplishments.

Season 5's Carla Hall walks in next and Casey shits herself. It's the first time they've encountered each other since their unsuccessful pairing in that season's finale. But before Casey gets a chance to duck and hide behind the bar, Stefan walks in and starts flirting with the lesbians.

Fabio then grabs another glass of wine and sits down to talk with Marcel, Tiffani, and Hung, three of the more abrasive characters ever to appear in the Top Chef Corporate Sponsorship Kitchens.

Tiffani really owned up to her past bad attitude. But Marcel remained childish. He didn't want to answer any questions about the time he was hit over the head with a bottle by an angry Top Chef fan, requiring 30 stitches. Or about anything else vaguely interesting. Stefan then joins the klatch.

Fabio has enough of the chatter and brings out the knife block. While it would have been fun to watch him throw the knives at Marcel, it's merely a signal that there will be some sort of cooking challenge. Harold's thrilled.

The sight of the block prompts Blais to do a riff on his inquisitiveness.

One person from each season draws a knife which is numbered from 1 to 5. This number represents the course that they will be expected to prepare for the dinner. Hung, Casey, and Dale are doing the first course, Tiffani and Harold get second, Ilan and Marcel get third, Blais and Lisa get 4th, and Stefan and Carla get 5th course. Each season/team has an outrageously high budget of $500.

Cut to the chefs rushing around Whole Paycheck. At one point Stefan is holding a jalapeno pepper in his right hand and a large cucumber in his left. As Carla approaches, he nods toward the jalapeno and says, "Fabio," then indicates the cucumber and says, "Stefan." Carla gives him a "you wish" and walks off.

Ilan and Marcel decide to blow most of their budget on expensive wine. Although they exchanged some pretty harsh words in the past, they seem to have buried the hatchet. Unfortunately, Ilan wasn't strong enough and the hatchet bounced off Marcel's hair....

Back at the Social kitchen, Tiffani remarks that this time she's cooking in a kitchen full of professionals. Is she saying that they weren't professionals in the past? Meanwhile, Stefan is flirting with her. She calls him a "lesbian opportuniwhore," to which he remarks, "look out, Lisa!"

Time's up! Knives down! Everything gets plated and brought to the table, family-style. Looks like the former cheftestants are getting a lot of cold food today. Fabio stands up and gives a long-winded broken-English toast about being a weener and heem sorry he not have been een keetchen with them all.

Fabio then introduces a never-before-seen clip from last season: Blais, Casey, and Marcel in front of Judges' Table, being interrogated after the finale. Marcel, not surprisingly, is being a douche and insists on talking while the judges are talking, prompting Toby Young to tell him to shut up. Marcel then stalks off like the immature brat he is, feigning offense at being called offensive.

That causes Fabio to ask if the cheftestants thought they were unfairly criticized in their season, prompting a montage of various judges saying mean things. We then get another montage showing the cheftestants boozing it up.

Marcel and Ilan then serve their salt-crusted fish dish, giving the producers the opportunity to swing the topic of conversation back to Marcel, King of the Douches.

We momentarily move away from the Marcel Show and face the tension between Carla and Casey. Carla is happy for the opportunity to clear the air.

And Casey acts all innocent. She thinks we've forgotten this.

The chefs then decide they are tired of talking about Top Chef and what they went through. This incenses Fabio who stands up and demands the cameras be shut off. Which they aren't. So we get to see him yell at the group like an angry father, saying that eef they don' wan' to talk, they-a should pack up-a da food and leave because they-a make heem look-a stupid. And the cheftestants all laugh at him, making him look-a stupid.

Back to the Marcel Show: Fabio asks him about the head shaving incident, which he relents to relating with the help of a montage. And I relive cheering Cliff on as he wrestles the little jerk to the ground. Ah, memories! We are also subject to a montage of fights between cheftestants, namely, Howie and Joey in season 3, and the chair throwing incident between Spike, Jen, and Dale in season 4.

And finally, a montage of stew room antics which include faux magic, Glad beds, and volleyball. And I'm looking at the clock and thinking, "oh shit, is this going to be a super-sized episode?" But the credits start coming up on peoples' torsos and I'm relieved.

The end. Let's not do this again, shall we?

Next week: The Voltaggios are back, serving breakfast in bed to Nigella Lawson and Padma. Unfortunately, nobody gets naked.

A Simple Dinner

theminx1@gmail.com (theminx) — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 13:00:00 +0000

I've been cooking fairly involved meals for the past few weekends so I thought I'd make something more simple on Sunday, using whatever odds and ends of food we had on hand. And what's more simple than a creamy parsnip soup?

There are few ingredients but lots of flavor in my version:

Creamy Parsnip Soup

2 large parsnips, peeled and cubed

2 large red potatoes, peeled and cubed

chicken stock to cover, or 1 chicken bouillon cube and water to cover

1 clove garlic

2 - 3 cups whole milk

salt and pepper to taste

Place first three ingredients into a 3 quart stock pot or dutch oven, bring to a boil. Turn down heat and simmer until potatoes are tender. Allow to cool to room temperature. In multiple batches, place vegetables and stock into a blender with the clove of garlic and blend until smooth. Return purée to soup pot. Stir in milk to achieve desired soupy consistency. Salt and pepper to taste. When ready to serve, warm soup on low heat. Garnish with scallions and toasted walnuts.

I could have eaten just the soup and been happy. It was rich and sweet and creamy, yet somehow delicate, and the garlic added just the right zing of flavor. Mr Minx, however, always likes to have something meaty and starchy with his veg (even if the veg themselves are starchy), so I made a bacon pie.

Bacon Pie

1 medium onion, chopped

1 box button mushrooms, sliced

1/2 lb thick cut pepper bacon

1 egg

1/2 cup milk

salt, pepper, cayenne, and nutmeg

4oz shredded cheese (I used Swiss)

1 all-ready type pie crust

Cook bacon until crisp. Remove from pan and drain on paper towels. Chop roughly and set aside. Discard all but 1 tablespoon of bacon grease and use it to sauté onion and mushrooms until onions are nicely browned and soft. Make sure to scrape up all the bacony brown bits on the bottom of the pan. Remove from heat and allow to cool.

Preheat oven to 375F. Dock and blind bake crust 10-15 minutes until light brown. Allow to cool to room temperature. When cool, schmear on onion and mushroom mixture, then add bacon. Top with cheese. Beat egg with milk, season with salt, pepper, a dash each of cayenne and nutmeg, and pour into crust. Bake 20 minutes or until cheese is starting to brown. Devour.

We of course had a salad on the side, just to say we had some non-starchy vegetables. But really - lettuce, cucumber, radish. Hardly real vegetables. Who are we kidding? :)

Mini Pork Roulades with Spicy Maple Mustard Glaze

theminx1@gmail.com (theminx) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 13:00:00 +0000

What to do with a couple of thinly cut boneless pork chops? Make a roulade! Sounds fancy, but it's really pretty simple.

A stuffing was made with a sauté of finely chopped carrot, celery, mushrooms, onion, and fennel, a few pieces of not-quite-stale wheat bread torn into chunks, and a few spoonfuls of stock. The meat got pounded to an even thinner state with my trusty mallet, the surface covered with chilled stuffing, and the whole thing was rolled up and secured with toothpicks. They were then seared in a non-stick skillet with a bit of olive oil.

After about 10 minutes of cooking on medium-high heat, turning them a few times to make sure they were done all the way through, I added a glaze made from 2 Tablespoons of maple syrup, a tablespoon of Dijon mustard, and a heaping teaspoon of sambal oelek. As the sauce bubbled and thickened, I mounted it with a tablespoon of butter.

The salad on the side is simply thinly sliced raw fennel, Granny Smith apple, the juice of one lemon, salt, a bit of sugar, and a sprinkle of fennel seeds.

I always worry about the end result when I get experimental like this, but I'm happy to say that all of the flavors and textures worked well together. The stuffing was rich, the sauce was sweet but not too, and the tang and crunch of the salad was a nice counterpoint.

Doesn't Anyone Want a FREE Apron?

theminx1@gmail.com (theminx) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 17:00:00 +0000

Leave a comment on this post and be eligible to win a FREE French's apron. (The deadline has been extended to 11/7.)

Brown Butter Snickerdoodles

theminx1@gmail.com (theminx) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 14:00:00 +0000

I found this recipe while browsing Photograzing and thought I'd give it a try. I love chewy snickerdoodles, but every recipe I've tried so far produces the brittle, crisp kind. I figured this one would do the same, but the brown butter/brown sugar combo was intriguing.

Eh. They're nothing special. In fact, they're too darn sweet. So sweet, it's hard to taste the browned butter (and believe me, I got it very brown). But...the recipe has potential. Not as a snickerdoodle, but maybe as a cardamom cookie (add a bit of cardamom to the batter), or a butter rum cookie (add a bit of dark rum). If I make these again, I'll reduce the brown sugar to about 1 1/4 cups and omit the white sugar altogether, including the pre-baking roll in yet more sugar. I also wonder what these would be like with some bacon drippings substituting for the butter (and maybe some bacon bits, too). You, of course, will be the first to know of my experiments....

The Charred Rib

theminx1@gmail.com (theminx) — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 17:28:00 +0000

On Halloween, Mr Minx and I fled the neighborhood to avoid germy little trick-or-treaters. We had a ValPack coupon for The Charred Rib, so we opted to eat there and then visit the Borders in the same shopping center.

Although my family had been to the more-northerly-located Corner Stable many times when I was a kid (although it never compared to Arbaugh's in D.C.) I don't remember ever dining at The Charred Rib. Maybe it was better back then, because it's sure not all that great now. Especially for a place that maintains it has the "world's best baby back ribs." That's almost funny.

Not that the ribs are bad, they're just completely ordinary. The meat is tender and falls off the bone, but they're no better than say, Chili's. What was bad was everything else. Let's start with the service: our waitress didn't bother writing anything down, so of course when I requested dry rub ribs, she brought me sauced ribs. And Mr Minx requested Cajun sauce, but the sweet, characterless sauce on his ribs was clearly the boring house sauce. Is it so hard to carry a pad and a pen around? or to pay attention? It's not like she had that many other tables to take care of so early in the evening.

Because the rib combos *sounded* good, I decided to order one with bbq shrimp and scallops. I expected grilled seafood, lightly anointed with a bit of sauce; what I got was a large ramekin with what was probably boiled seafood flooded with a watery sauce that tasted like a hybrid of cocktail sauce and bbq. And the scallops turned pink from bathing in the bizarre liquid.

The side of coleslaw was completely serviceable, but the fries were those nasty extruded potato tubes encrusted with bits of shrapnel. Like mutant tater tots. It seems to be a fad nowadays, this starch abomination, and I wish it would go away. If you can't serve hand-cut fries and must resort to the frozen food-service type, then serve shoestrings. They at least get crispy without resorting to a dip in batter.

Next time I have a hankering for ribs, I'll either make them myself, or go to Andy Nelson's. Or Corner Stable, Bare Bones, or J.R.'s in Ocean City. But never again to The Charred Rib, even if I have a coupon.

Chocolate Pudding

theminx1@gmail.com (theminx) — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 17:41:00 +0000

Last night, I had a hankering for home-made chocolate pudding. My mom used to make the Jell-O non-instant stuff when I was a kid, and that tasted swell to my as-yet-undeveloped tastebuds. But the best pudding I ever had probably came from the Daily Grind, at their short-lived outpost on Cold Spring Lane near Loyola College. My friend Andrée and I would go there late in the evening to have a cup of coffee and lament our woes of the day and occasionally we'd grab dessert. If chocolate pudding was available, it was mine. It tasted like childhood, a flavor that today's box of Jell-O could never replicate.

I checked online for recipes and found this one for John Scharffenberger's silky chocolate pudding. And you know what? It's good, but not great. It's too rich and dense, more like the chocolate creme brulée I almost killed my in-laws with some years ago than your everyday chocolate pudding. More like chocolate ganache than pudding. I could probably make it better by folding in some freshly whipped cream to lighten it, but that's more trouble than I wanted (the cream in the picture comes from a can - hey, it was good enough for Mom). Plus it would only lighten the texture, but not the calorie count.

Next time I'll try a cocoa-based recipe. Anyone have a favorite they care to share?

Ze Mean Bean

theminx1@gmail.com (theminx) — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 12:00:00 +0000

I grew up in a Polish-American family, speaking Polish and eating Polish food. My grandmother was 39 when my mother was born, and my mother was a few weeks shy of 30 when I made my appearance in the world. That meant by the time I came along, for the most part, Grandma's days of cooking were behind her. No more home-made pierogi (ravioli-like dumplings), pączki (donuts), or krusciki (bow-tie cookies). But, she still made some things: soups like barszcz (borcht), szczaw (sorrel soup), and rosół (chicken soup); placki (potato pancakes); for the holidays there was always kapusta i kielbasy (sauerkraut and fresh Polish sausage); and when I was very small there were gołąbki (stuffed cabbage). Eventually, that became too labor-intensive, and Grandma didn't like to have "help" when she was in the kitchen. She grated every beet and potato herself, despite having four other adults in the house. For this reason, her recipes didn't get passed down from generation to generation and I have none.

Grandma's been gone since the mid-90s and I still make the occasional traditional Easter meal (throwing Ostrowski's kielbasa and some sauerkraut into a pot doesn't require a recipe), but it's rare that I get to eat good Polish food. About the only place in town that serves something from my memories is Ze Mean Bean Cafe, in Fells Point. I try to get there at least once a year with friends of mine from out of town, fellow Slavs. This year I remembered to take photographs.

We started off with the hriby dip, a mixture of mushrooms, sour cream, and Gruyere, served warm with toast. We fought over every last creamy, mushroomy bit. (I do not have photographic evidence, but there was even some not-so-clandestine bowl-licking going on.)

Next we had a round of borcht, a pretty similar recipe to Grandma's barszcz, but with the addition of carrots (my grandmother used beets only). It was good, but not as good as it has been in the past, which made me sad. It was usually the one thing that most took me back to my childhood, and this bowl's shortcomings were almost physically painful.

We tried two salads, this one with mache in a porcini vinaigrette accompanied by a raw beet and dried currant salad...

...and this salad with massive walnut halves and blackberries, chunks of Roquefort, and a cognac vinaigrette. Both were very nice, particularly the shredded beets in the salad above, and the luscious cheese in the one below.

On to the "Slavic Sampler" with cured kielbasa (which I had never eaten as a child and always have thought of it as an impostor, like an Eckrich or Hillshire Farms product), pierogi, holupki (a.k.a. gołąbki), and placki with home-made applesauce. I will admit that the kielbasa had nice texture and flavor, despite not being what I had eaten my entire life. The holupki were generously stuffed with rice and meat and had a particularly flavorful tomato sauce topping that might have been better than Grandma's, had I been able to remember back some 40 years.

We also ordered extra pierogi, because one can never have too many. ZMB's were fried until crisp on the outside and served with onions. The fillings were sauerkraut, farmer's cheese, and potato; my fave were the cheese, which had just the right amount of sweet and savory.

This is holushki, a Ukrainian dish of little dumplings, served with cabbage, asparagus, and roasted red pepper. A decidedly non-traditional preparation, but pretty darn good.

Finally, we had to have coffee and dessert. After all, ZMB had started out as a coffee house with home-baked desserts by the owner's mother. She still bakes them today. Here's her cinnamon babka:

and chocolate babka:

Both were more cake-like than Babka should be, particularly the cinnamon version. Too moist, but it tasted good so I'll stop complaining.

This is a caramel apple pie....

...and finally we had apple cake with cream cheese frosting.

While all of the desserts were good, I would have preferred something more classic, like makowiec (poppy seed cake), sernik (cheese cake), or krusciki. But...I guess not all ZMB customers would want to go "full Slav."

So while some things were a little disappointing, the hriby dip was as good as ever and the holupki were better than I remembered. The best part about the meal, however, was the company. Thanks, Ladies. See you next year (but hopefully sooner)!

Top Chef Las Vegas Episode Ten Recap

theminx1@gmail.com (theminx) — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 15:36:00 +0000

It's morning once again at the Top Cheftestants' McMansion where we find Jen beating herself up over her team's loss in last week's Restaurant Wars. Robin, on the other hand, is celebrating the fact that she survived yet another challenge.

At the Top Chef Sponsor-of-the-Week Kitchen™, we find Padma in yet another strapless jumpsuit, standing alongside two-time James Beard Award winner Paul Bartolotta.

Although he's been known to shill for Barilla, this week's challenge is sponsored by TV Guide. For the TV Guide Quickfire Challenge, the cheftestants must give a classic TV dinner their own interpretation. And the dinners are to be based on famous television shows. They of course resort to the knife block to find out who gets which show.

Kevin draws the Sopranos, Eli gets Gilligan's Island, Robin gets Sesame Street, Bryan gets M*A*S*H*, DoucheyMike gets Seinfeld, BrotherMike gets Cheers, and Jen gets the Flintstones.

Actually, Jen, Pebbles was not in the abusive relationship you seem to think she had.... Sounds like someone needs some counseling.

Come on! That would have been perfect!

Everyone seems to be doing fairly well, except for Jen, who is once again struggling mightily. What's up with her? Survey says she'll be in the top four, but from week to week, that's looking shaky.

Maybe she needs one of the guys to play Bam Bam and drag her around by the hair? How does Eric Ripert train his chefs, anyway?

Time's up and the cheftestants bring their dishes one by one to a little retro-style seating area that's been set up at one end of the kitchen.

Bryan presents his dish and gets a "Mmmm!" from Padma. Something weird then happens on the television screen and it takes me a few seconds to process it.

Bryan smiles.

You're probably right. Smiling would signify emotion, and that would be illogical.

After tasting, Chef Bartolotta is asked to reveal his least favorite dishes, which turn out to be Jen's very un-Flintstonian chicken roulade, and Robin's e-coli special hamburger with a raw egg cooked into it. On top were Bryan's Mmm-mmm-good meatloaf and apple tarte tatin and Kevin's meatballs. Guess being Italian swayed him a bit, because Bartolotta chose the meatballs as the winner. Congrats Kevin!

Padma announces that there is no more immunity. Instead, Kevin's dish will be featured as a new Top Chef entrée sold by Schwan's. WTF? Top Chef dinners? Next they'll be offering that damn knife block and special Tom Colicchio skin head wigs.

Padma then tells the cheftestants that the Elimination Challenge will involve taking over Tom Colicchio's restaurant Craft Steak for one night, where they will prepare a meal for four judges and seven other guests. But first, they go home to the McMansion, where the chefs drool over the possibilities.

While the men are planning their manly-man meaty meatfests, Jen is wandering around like a zombie, muttering about not being at the top of her game and needing to regroup. She also looks like she could use a good shower and a conditioning hair masque.

By the magic of television, we then find the cheftestants at the MGM Grand, entering Tom's Manly Meatarama.

The chefs are rooting through the vast collection of aged beef, Kobe, lamb, and lobsters, staking claim on what they want to use, when Tom comes in.

Tom then reveals to the judges that he and Padma have a special guest for this challenge - Darth Vadar's secret wife!

If it wasn't an emotion, I'd say Bryan almost looks disgusted.

Eli gives us the skinny on their guest judge:

Well, that explains why he thinks it's ok to be living with his parents. He's a Star Wars nerd. And is young enough to think the most recent trilogy was worth seeing, which it wasn't.

But Luke Skywalker's mom is not there to make their lives easy. Oh no.

Queen Amidala is a vegetarian. She's also a bit of a nutjob.

It is a cruel, cruel twist of fate that the once-drooling cheftestants have to rein in their own meat-happy tendencies to create a vegetarian meal for an actress. One who isn't even very good. Come on! Have you seen Episodes 1 - 3? Her emoting makes Bryan look like Jimmy Stewart!

But of course Robin is excited about the challenge because she loves to make vegetarian food. You know, that healthy-eating crap, yadda yadda. Bryan is worried (despite his unfurrowed brow) because he says this challenge changes all the dynamics for everyone. DoucheyMike isn't worried because he says out of 60 dishes on his Zaytinya menu, 20 are vegetarian, plus his mother was a vegan when he was growing up. Kevin is also ok with the veg challenge because he and his wife give up meat for Lent. Awww...so cute!

Everyone heads back to the walk-in, this time to find vegetables. Eli and Jen fight over eggplant, and Robin's head is spinning over the outstanding selection. Should she make squash blossoms, or should she make fresh garbanzos? Oh hell, she'll make both! And a bunch of other healthy crap, too.

The two hours of cooking time goes quickly. Robin is up first and doesn't get all of her elements plated - a few dishes go out without the garbanzos she was so excited about.

She takes her dish out to the waiting diners - Padma and Gail (both of whom have packed their boobies tightly away), Tom, Mrs. Vader, Paul Bartolotta, and several of her goofy-looking friends. Right away, Padma complains about the salt; this time, there's too much of it. And Tom had one of the garbanzo-free plates.

Eli's dish came out next. The judges thought his presentation was "thoughtful," but Paul Bartolotta said that he had one mouthful of herb salad that had too much lavender and tasted like a bar of soap.

Michael was up next. He thinks his fanciful presentation of asparagus and tomatoes with banana polenta will make Natalie scratch her head and say "I like this, but I don't know why." And indeed she was delighted by the dish, as were her friends.

This of course cracks up Padma, who remembers Ash's similar comments of a few episodes back. Either it's true, or the young-uns don't know any other artists....

Jen brings out her dish next, choosing to spoon on a sauce at the table. Her hand is shaking badly and she ends up baptizing several of the guests. Her food "tastes nice" but didn't feel substantial enough to be an entrée. It was likened to "a beautiful side dish" by one of the Queen's friends.

DoucheyMike comes out with his leeks-as-scallops dish. The leeks were undercooked, and in no way resembled scallops. Tom stated that if they were meat, they would be too rare.

Then a nervous Bryan brings out his artichokes with shallot confit. Padma may or may not have enjoyed the garlic blossom component:

That comment made all of the girls at the table giggle madly. The dish's flavors are big, so Tom remarks that it starts out as a little prick that gets big in your mouth, which causes another of Princess Leia's Mother's friends to say, "that's what usually happens." Hello? Can we have Eli's lavender soap to wash out these dirty mouths?

Luckily, Bryan is in the kitchen as all of this goes down, otherwise he'd probably turn 10 shades of red and short-circuit.

Last, but not least, comes Kevin with a symphony of unattractive brown stuff. Despite the poopiness, everyone loves his dish, saying it's the most like an entrée, and the most meaty. The Queen calls it "manly." Manly brown poop.

Fake out scene! The cheftestants go to Paul Bartolotta's Ristaurante di Mare to pig out on seafood. And pig out is exactly what Kevin does, as he eats everyone under the table. "I didn't get fat accidentally. This is a personal choice."

Sure, if your business is "slob" or "hooker."

/fake out

Then, once again through the magic of television, we are transported to the Glad Family of Products Stew and Booze Room to find Padma morosely requesting the presence of Michael, Kevin, and Eli to the Judges' Table.

Padmé Amidala (not to be confused with Padma Lakshmi) was enchanted by Picasso's dish:

Despite the good drugs Michael's been using, Kevin's dish, dubbed by Tom as "a mouthful of flavors" (an obvious comment, but I suppose it's a hell of a lot better than "a buttload of flavors") is the winner. And because nobody has a cheesy cookbook to give away, Kevin instead is awarded with a suite of cheesy GE appliances.

They then call out the bottom-dwellers: Robin, DoucheyMike, and Jen. DM is asked why he didn't provide a protein (which could have been asked of any of the others, frankly) to which he replied the leeks were supposed to look like scallops. Gail had to remind him that leeks were not in fact proteins. Nor did his leeks resemble scallops. And why was he so damn cocky about a crappy dish?

According to the judges, Robin's dish didn't have anything to tie it together. She tried to explain it for them.

They thought Jen's dish was more like a fancy garnish than an entrée and noted that over the weeks her performance has started to suffer because she is likely second-guessing herself. However, overall, they thought that someone else should be the one to hit the road.

Mike doesn't think it's such a good decision.

And back in the Stew room, everyone embraces DM like a fallen comrade. Even Jen, object of his derision several times, tells him she loves him. None of this bodes well for the other remaining female in the group....

Next week: Six chefs left - who goes next? Plus, an old-timer reunion dinner special!

Choice Bites 10.28.09

theminx1@gmail.com (theminx) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 17:00:00 +0000

The New York Times spent a weekend in Baltimore and says good things about Petit Louis, Carma Cafe, Woodberry Kitchen, Bonaparte Bakery, and The Brewer's Art. It also says to call Fells Point, "Fell's." I lived in FP for the first 19 years of my life and never did I hear another resident of the area call it "Fell's." It's probably the people who pronounce "Thames" as "Tems" who do that. (On that note, this isn't England, people! Otherwise we'd be saying "leftenant" instead of "lieutenant" and calling Ralph Kramden "Rafe.")

What are 10 things that Tony Bourdain and David Chang hate? Besides Guy Fieri? Read here.

Speaking of Bourdain, check out his new animated series! (Thanks Dara!)

Rachael Ray takes her pets to school.

For Gourmet fans - the November issue is out, complete with turkey recipes! This is the final issue, so make sure to pick up a copy for posterity.

Speaking of Kimchi

theminx1@gmail.com (theminx) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 13:00:00 +0000

Momofuku's David Chang showed Matt Lauer how to make kimchi earlier this week on the Today show.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

What to Do With a Branch of Brussels Sprouts

theminx1@gmail.com (theminx) — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 12:00:00 +0000

I realize this doesn't look anything like Brussels sprouts:

It's a pork burger with Asian flavors, topped with home made kimchi, which was made with...Brussels sprouts.

Last week, a vendor at the University farmers' market had branches of Brussels sprouts for sale, so I snagged one. I asked Mr Minx to use some for dinner one evening last week, and when I arrived home, I found that he intended to make some sort of slaw with which to top sandwiches made with leftover short ribs. Meanwhile, I had been contemplating a similar cabbage dish - kimchi. He had blanched the sprouts but wasn't sure what to do with them next, so I made a quick dressing of vinegar, sugar, garlic, ginger, Korean hot pepper flakes, and sesame seeds to go on top. Unfortunately, the Indian-esque flavors of the short ribs overtook the relatively mild sprouts.

Perhaps it would work better with a similarly-flavored meat product?

Attempt two involved some ground pork with which I made pork burgers. I also made another batch of kimchee, this time skipping the blanching step and instead slicing and salting them. The flavor was good, but Brussels sprouts are a bit on the tough side, like raw broccoli. Next time, I'll try steaming them a bit. However, on a sandwich, the texture didn't make all that much difference. And the pork burgers themselves? Outstanding.

Not much of a recipe here, since I did everything to taste:

Pork Burgers

To 1 lb of ground pork I added 1 egg, 1 tablespoon minced cilantro, 1 crushed clove of garlic, two chopped cloves of black garlic, a splash each of soy and fish sauces, a bit of salt and a healthy pinch of sugar. After forming into patties, I sauteed them in a tiny bit of canola oil until brown on both sides and cooked all the way through, 8-10 minutes per side, depending on thickness. (Aim for an internal temperature of about 160F.) While burgers are cooking, toss in a few slices of mushroom, if desired, and cook until browned.

Kimchi

Trim and slice thinly a pound or so of Brussels sprouts. Place sprouts in a colander and rinse well, then remove sprouts to a dry saute pan over medium heat. Put on a lid and steam for a few minutes (using the water clinging to the veg from the rinsing process) just until they turn bright green. Return to the colander and run cold water over them to stop the cooking process.

Drain well and place sprouts into a large bowl. In a small bowl, mix 1 or 2 cloves crushed garlic, 1 tablespoon Korean pepper flakes, a couple of squirts of fish sauce, a tablespoon or two of white vinegar, salt, four chopped scallions, a teaspoon or so of sugar, 1/2 teaspoon of ground ginger, and a teaspoon of toasted sesame oil. If you have sesame seeds, toast about a tablespoonful in a hot skillet and add to the salad. Mix into steamed sprouts and taste for seasoning - add more fish sauce, sugar, salt, vinegar until it tastes balanced to your palate. (After all, you're going to eat it. We're not going after authenticity here.)

Spicy Mayo

To 2 tablespoons of mayo, add 1 tablespoon of gochujang (a Korean bean paste) and a healthy dose of sriracha chile sauce.

To assemble:

Toast English muffins (or use bread of your choice). Top one half with mayo, sauteed mushrooms, the pork patty, and a healthy scoop of kimchi. Add cilantro sprig, more mayo, and the other half of the bun. Enjoy.

If you make this dish, please come back and let me know how it turned out!

Steak and Salsa

theminx1@gmail.com (theminx) — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 12:00:00 +0000

Saturday's dinner - chuck steak marinated in green chiles, garlic, cumin, chipotle, balsamic vinegar and olive oil and broiled, served over polenta and topped with a black-eyed pea salsa. Sorry, can't share the salsa recipe as I plan to enter it into a recipe contest that specifically states the recipe can't have been published anywhere else. Will post it in the future, when the contest is over.

Chuck steak isn't the most tender of meats, but it's fairly flavorful and it cost all of $3.

French's Recipe Contest

theminx1@gmail.com (theminx) — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 12:00:00 +0000

Feeling culinarily creative? Well, French’s Foods is having a recipe contest -- create and submit a recipe using French’s mustard or one of the other French's products and be eligible to win a Grand Prize of $25,000. Online voting and a judging panel will determine five finalists who will compete in a live cook-off in NYC.

Here are some details about what each recipe should include for the contest:

Be original, unpublished, and created by you;
Include at least one French's product;
Include no more than 8 ingredients(with the exception of salt, pepper and water…those are freebies);
And be prepared and ready to serve in no more than 1 hour.
For recipe inspiration and giveaways, check out the French’s Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/pages/Frenchs/129122660682?ref=ts)

Recipes will be evaluated on appearance, creativity and overall deliciousness and must be submitted by October 31, 2009 online at: http://frenchs.com/Login.php?redirect=/Contest/SubmitRecipe.php.

But wait - there's more!

Because cooking is messy, French's is providing a French's apron to one lucky MinxEats reader. All you have to do to win is to leave a comment with your favorite way to eat French's products. One name will be chosen at random by the very scientific "pick a name out of the hat" technique. Comments for the apron drawing will be closed on Saturday, November 7th. Please - U.S. residents only.

So what are you waiting for?

Top Chef Las Vegas Episode Nine Recap

theminx1@gmail.com (theminx) — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 17:23:00 +0000

As morning breaks over Casa Cheftestant, we find Laurine ruminating that the remaining chefs are definitely the best of the bunch. Kevin is lamenting the loss of Ash, who added a special dynamic to the house, one that lessened the annoyance of the constant bickering between the Voltaggio brothers, who, believe it or not, are in their 30s.

On to the Top Chef Swanson/GE/Alexia kitchen where they find Padma with this week's guest judge.

Honestly, I like Rick Moonen and wish he had done better on Top Chef Masters.

The Quickfire this week is a two-team relay race. But first...the cheftestants draw knives; most are blank except for Jen's and BrotherMike's. They have instantly been elevated to the lofty position of team leaders and get to choose their team-mates. Jen, tempted to break up the Bicker Brothers (yes please!) instead chooses Kevin. Michael seems relieved and grabs Big Bro next.

I am dubbing the teams "Team Bicker," comprising Michael, Bryan, Eli, and Robin, and "Team DickHer," Kevin, DoucheyMike, Laurine, and Jen. Kevin is neither a dick nor a her, but I couldn't convince Jen to trade him for Eli just to make my name work out better.

The teams will get a total of 40 minutes to create their dish, however, each individual chef has only 10 minutes to work. And, while one chef cooks, the others must be...blindfolded.

I would bet money she feels the same way about you.

As the working chef must remain quiet, the blindfolded chefs will have no idea of what is going on. It's rather like an exquisite corpse, and no, I didn't steal that term from CSI, although a CSI/Top Chef mash-up could be pretty amusing.

The teams get 30 seconds to decide on the order in which they will cook. Jen and Eli start for their teams. Eli has a strategy:

Man...bet you didn't see that one coming! Eli also thinks his team is well-suited to working with one another. Well, three of them, anyway....

You know he's thinking "Uranus."

Next up is Robin and Laurine. Robin is pleased that Eli has gotten so much done in 10 minutes and works on a Caesar-like salad concoction. Laurine pretty quickly grasps Jen's concept and goes with it.

DoucheyMike and Bryan are third in line. DM looks a bit confused and dizzy after he takes off the blindfold, but that's not much different from his usual look.

Finally, Michael and Kevin cook last. Kevin realizes that Jen intended for him to oil poach the prepared black cod, but he naughtily decides to switch things up and cook it in butter instead.

Time is called; Rick and Padma taste Team Bicker's food first. They don't make many comments at all, so it's hard to tell if they liked the dish or not. When they get to Team DickHer, they ask Jen to describe the dish. She must still be suffering from her cold because she calls the fish "trout" when it's clearly black cod. (At least that's what she told us in a voiceover while she was cooking.) She's embarrased when corrected, but her team wins anyway.

Padma then tells the chefs that this Quickfire was of the high-stakes variety - the winning team gets 10K, to be split four ways. Or, rather than taking the cash, they can "let it ride" - if they win the Elimination Challenge, they each get 10K. The team, feeling cocky and/or greedy, takes the gamble.

Padma wastes no time in presenting this week's Elimination Challenge - the infamous Restaurant Wars. This year, instead of being responsible for frivolities such as potted plants, china patterns, and Sandra Lee-style tablescapes, the cheftestants will be competing in a fully-stocked existing restaurant, Rick Moonen's RM Seafood, which conveniently has two kitchens and two dining rooms, one more formal, the other somewhat casual. As the Quickfire winner, Team DickHer gets the advantage of choosing in which restaurant they would like to work; they choose the upstairs space.

With 30 minutes to plan, Team DickHer decides to eliminate the dessert course, since that is the traditional bane of most cheftestants' existance. Team Bicker, on the other hand, is so confident, they decide to do two different desserts. Potential Kiss-of-Death action here! Also during the planning stage, the teams choose restaurant names. Michael comes up with the clever Revolt (Robin, Eli, Voltaggio), and associates it with "revolutionary." On the other team, Kevin wants to call their restaurant Mission, based on the no-fuss practicality of Mission architecture.

The two teams each send two members to Whole Paycheck armed with $1500 in poker chips and two teams to Restaurant Depot with the same amount. Before they head to their respective vans, Rick Moonen reminds the cheftestants of something they should keep in mind when they cook in his restaurant:

While shopping, we hear that Eli has decided to be civil to Robin, since they're teammates. Big of him.

Back at the restaurants, the chefs set to work prepping their dishes. Eli and Laurine have taken front-of-the-house duties for their teams, but each is responsible for one dish as well. They all feel the pressure. Michael turns out to be a bit of a martinet and starts bugging Robin about the components about her dish, feeling she's "out of her league." Bryan doesn't like being told what to do by his little brother and starts complaining. Michael snaps at him, "don't be a dick."

The annoyance factor is starting to trump hotness here, boys.

Meanwhile, over at Mission, Jen is seriously in the weeds prepping for her two complicated fish dishes. Kevin is working on two meat dishes, one of which is Laurine's, and DoucheyMike is working on two apps. They are worried. And rightfully so - before they know it, customers are arriving while Laurine is still familiarizing the wait staff with the dinner selections.

Lucky for her, the judges hit Revolt first. Padma doesn't like the name, saying that it evokes "revolting." But they have mouthgasms over Michael's chicken and squid dish. The apps go over well, but then there's a long wait for the second courses (during which time the boys are too busy squabbling to cook). When they finally come out, the judges think Michael's cod is brilliant, but Toby's "not overwhelmed" by Bryan's entree. But I'm guessing he's not underwhelmed either, so maybe he should have just kept his mouth shut?

Dessert comes next, but first...more Revolting squabbling, this time involving Robin.

Lucky for Team Bicker, the desserts are a rousing success. They love Bryan's chocolate ganache ribbon (a similar dish put him in the bottom three in a previous Quickfire) with spearmint ice cream and tuiles.

Robin's pear pithivier was also a big hit with the judges, possibly to Eli's chagrin.

The judges then go to Mission to eat another 3-course meal.

DoucheyMike's char is lacking seasoning so Padma has to ask for salt. The second course at this restaurant also takes a while to come out because Jen is even further in the weeds. When it does arrive at the judges' table, it's disappointing. Also disappointing is Laurine's behavior - she doesn't bother to announce the dishes when they are brought out, she simply leaves, possibly to hide in the walk-in.

Finally the non-dessert third course is served; Laurine's lamb dish is undercooked, but Kevin's pork dish is good.

Fake out scene! Michael talks about being a professional and a really nice guy with the biggest heart in the bunch, yadda yadda. This is intercut with scenes of him being a dick over the Glad Wrap while cursing Bryan, and yelling at Robin in the kitchen. Yeah, nice guy. I sure want to work with him.

Back at the Glad Family of Products Stew 'n' Booze room, Padma comes in and announces in her best undertaker voice that she wants to see Team Bicker. Team DickHer is not suprised, as they know they sucked.

Tom says this was the best Restaurant Wars in all 6 seasons. They complimented Eli on his front of the house activity. They praised Bryan's ice cream and Robin's dessert. Because Michael produced two stellar dishes, he was declared the winner and given an autographed copy of Rick Moonen's cookbook, Fish Without a Doubt. Because a cookbook is a cheesy prize compared to a stage at a fancy restaurant, or a box of pots and pans, Padma also gives Michael the 10K chip that Team DickHer gave up when they let it ride. He generously offers to split it with his teammates.

Back in the stew room, after Team DickHer goes out for their tongue-lashing, Bryan acts pissy. He says Michael can keep his portion of the money.

But of course, like a good sibling, he's glad his brother won. Riiiiight.

Back at Judges' Table, Team DickHer is completely aware of their shortcomings. Kevin didn't cook the lamb to a proper medium-rare, which Laurine should have caught as plates were leaving the kitchen, so it's as much her fault as his. Jen's halibut was good but her trout was tasteless and the sauce was broken. She said at that point she was feeling pretty broken as well.

But not as broken as Laurine, whose poor showing as front-of-the-house manager got her the boot. The fact that Robin is still around is probably sticking in some craws right now....

TC Recap

theminx1@gmail.com (theminx) — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 13:55:00 +0000

...will be a little late today. Still waiting on Bravo to put up a recap video! Hopefully after lunch....stay tuned!