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| New episodes of Chopped air Tuesdays at 7pm PST on Food Network |
So raise your hand if you know what at least two of those ingredients are, cause I didn't. Really, you knew verjus is a very acidic juice made by pressing unripe grapes, crab-apples or other sour fruit?!? Or that Olive Loaf is a meatloaf (usually bologna) stuffed with green olives, sweet peppers, basil and garlic?!? Whatever, overachievers. You can put your hands down cause now comes the tough part...try making those four ingredients into a fancy appetizer in just 20 minutes and having it judged by three world-reknowned chefs as part one of a three-stage competition where the winner takes home a cool $10,000 grand prize.
That's the premise of Food Network's hit show Chopped. Four chefs square off in the kitchen, stocked with every gadget, ingredient, spice and tool they could imagine. I'm talking about world class digs where they can grab truffle oil out of the pantry or run over to use the industrial ice cream maker or blast chiller. The rub is that the dish HAS to be focused on highlighting the mystery basket ingredients. Sorry, no hiding from that log of bologna and olives in this round! Check out the video for an idea of where these contesting chefs come from, what the rules are and just how stumped they can be when they open that mystery basket...the reactions can be priceless.
Here is a brief overview of the rules...four chefs are brought together for each episode. There are three rounds: Appetizer, Entree, and Dessert. Each round is timed and comes with the famous mystery basket of ingredients. After each round, their dishes will be presented to the three judges. And this competition is not just about the way it tastes. The chefs are judged on three criteria: Taste, Presentation, and Creativity. So manipulation and look counts. If chefs get Cheese Curls (Cheetos, basically, and I have seen them be an ingredient), the judges are not going to like seeing them left alone as a side dish or garnish, and don't want the dish as a whole to look like it was thrown on the plate. After all, you "eat with your eyes first." And the panel of three judges is usually stocked with some of the biggest names in cooking, including Aaron Sanchez, Geoffrey Zakharian, Marcus Samuelsson, Alex Guarnaschelli, Scott Conant, Amanda Freitag, Marc Murphy and more! What's more is that in that time, the chefs must conceive their dish and execute it four times because there has to be one for each judge to eat, and one that the chef hopes to never see again (we'll get to that part later). So if the chef gets all of their ingredients on three of the four plates, you can bet that unfinished plate is ending up in front of a judge and it will be weighed as to how egregious of an error it was to have left an ingredient off.
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| Host Ted Allen (left) and frequent judges Marc Murphy, Amanda Freitag, and Geoffrey Zakharian celebrate the show's James Beard Award for best in-studio food show. Ted also took home an award for best host. |
What makes Chopped really special is that it is the epitome of cooking shows. The most seasoned and experienced chef can find themselves completely over matched and going up in smoke in the Chopped kitchen. In addition to needing a great skill, technique and range of culinary knowledge in the kitchen that is a staple among cooking shows, both competitive and not, what sets Chopped apart is that is also requires genuine inspiration, ingenuity, time management. Countless times I have seen a chef use an ingredient in a whimsical, creative way that you just know will taste delicious...but in the pressure of getting everything on the plate, looking pristine, that ingredient completely escapes them and never makes it to the dish. Heck, I've even seen an episode where a chef became so overwhelmed he didn't get ANYTHING on a plate. He literally psyched himself right out of the competition. That's why even your favorite celebrity chefs who have competed on shows like Iron Chef America or Food Network Star come to the Chopped set and speak of how the challenge of the show is unlike anything else they have ever done. In this past Sunday's episode that served as the finale of the Chopped All-Stars competition for charity, Iron Chef Michael Symon, who is considered one of the country's premier chefs and the toughest competitor on Iron Chef America, prepared delicious looking Fried Okra Chips, but in the heat of the battle, completely forgot to put them on the dish and it cost him a chance to win $50,000 for Autism Speaks. And these are the best of the best! Most of the contestants are up-and-coming or well established chefs usually from the east coast, but not used to the competitive environment so the potential for drama is high. The immensity of the Chopped challenge has certainly not gone unnoticed....Chopped just took home a prestigious James Beard Foundation Award for the best in-studio food program on television!
Once the appetizers have been completed, judging of the first round takes place. Each judge tastes the offering of Chef 1 and provides comments, praise, and critiques before they move on to Chefs 2, 3 and 4. Upon asking the chefs to leave the room for a deliberation and discussion period, the chefs return to see whose dish is under host Ted Allen's tray (you may recognize Ted as the food/wine guy from the show Queer Eye for the Straight Guy). Is it yours? Tough deal...you're CHOPPED.
Now, three chefs remain and it's on to the entree basket, full of a completely new and equally perplexing set of mystery ingredients. The chefs get 30 minutes in this round (usually because the basket will include a protein requiring a bit longer to prepare....and it can range from something straight-forward like salmon or flank steak....to outrageous like beef heart or, gulp, rocky mountain oysters!....if you don't know what those are, google it). From there, the preparation, commenting, and CHOPPING process repeats itself, leaving us with two finalists and one more mystery basket for dessert.
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| Seriously? For dessert?? |
Once again, 20 minutes on the clock and the challenge of integrating something not even remotely sweet (or even savory) into a luxurious dessert. Unless, of course, you are always pairing white chocolate with three ingredients you would normally find in a good plate of spaghetti with marinara sauce and making a scrumptious dessert out of it. Dessert can be such a game-changing round because it is the chefs final opportunity to wow the judges and a serious advantage can be had if either of the finalists has a pastry or baking background, as pulling off a baked dish from scratch in 20 minutes is as daunting as trying to get a cat to play fetch. If baking isn't your thing, that industrial ice cream machine I mentioned earlier is just begging to be used.
Final judgement comes not just on the dessert, but a reassessing of how the two finalists meals came together as a whole and which chef performed better throughout the course of the competition. Did one get stronger as the meal progressed while the other survived each round by the skin of their teeth? It all matters when the final chop is made, leaving the Chopped Champion $10,000 richer.
As a dedicated viewer, what draws me to every new episode is seeing just how many different directions these chefs can go with some of the most random ingredients possible. And what they make is almost always not only shocking, but good! It can really bring out the creative side in your own kitchen seeing some of the ways these chefs manipulate ingredients or turn something you would never think could be appetizing into a beautiful, inviting plate of food. I have learned so many things just by watching this show. Seeing the way these chefs almost always sear their meat at scorching heats before finishing them in the oven or over a lower heat as definitely impacted the way I cook. Picking up on the flavor combinations they seemingly pull out of thin air but get rave reviews is just amazing. Some of the sauces and purees that have been produced are awe-inspiring, and what I take away from it are the techniques and common ingredients used by chefs on different episodes. For example, I have made turmeric, cumin, and curry powder staples of my spice rack and use them if I want to put an Indian spin on chicken or fish since its a cuisine both my fiancé and I love. Seeing how to turn a wine or beer into a smooth, creamy sauce by the use of different ingredients has inspired me to try new things. I know that, without a doubt, I have become a better cook just by watching this show!
Overall, Chopped is just a terrific production that is so well-executed, it goes beyond just being food television. It has elements of competition, reality TV, teaching, and sentimentality to it. You find yourself taking sides, rooting for certain chefs, critiquing their decisions, and, mostly, wanting to try their food! If you don't believe me when I say it is so much more than just another show about food, watch this clip about one of my all-time favorite competitors from the show's history and make sure you watch through the end...
Do you know of any other show on television that can provide you with delicious new ideas but also touch your heart quite like this? Give it a try and check out Chopped, Tuesdays on Food Network at 7pm PST with reruns of past episodes airing throughout the week.
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