Quickfire: Guest judges are Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Feniger, owners of the Border Grill (and I believe they just sold a sitcom based on their early years). The challenge is to create a dish highlighting a chili pepper. The hotter the pepper they use, the more money they can win if their dish is the best. The top three are Heather, Grayson, and Paul, who chose some of the hotter peppers. And the winner is Paul, who chose the hottest chili (a ghost chili) to make a coconut soup, so he gets money and immunity.
Elimination Challenge: The cheftestants are divided into four teams and have to create a pot of chili for a cookoff. The twist is that there is no clock, so they'll be cooking at home, and they will be competing at a rodeo.
There's a disaster at the meat counter as the store quickly runs out of brisket and some teams have to scramble. Once they get home, equipment is at a premium, especially in the outdoor fireplace. The cooking goes on through the night, and some people sleep for a few hours and some don't.
At the rodeo, the teams have to serve their chili to the cowboys and their families. Some of them like a more traditional Texas chili (no beans) and others like the nontraditional versions.
The judges are Padma, Tom, Gail (yay!), and Mary Sue and Susan. The food breaks down as follows:
Green Team (Sarah, Chuy, Chris Hollywood): chili con carne (no beans, beef chuck, Shiner Bock beer, and roasted corn garnish). The judges feel that the flavor grows on you, but it's a little thin and needed something like a chip to soak up the sauce.
Red Team (Dakota, Whitney, Chris Moto): braised brisket and short rib chili. The judges like the smokiness and the heat, but think the meat texture is stringy.
Blue Team (Heather, Edward, Paul): smoked brisket chili with summer pickles (peaches, radishes, and haricots vert). Heather is the queen of pickles. She's pickled something in every challenge. The judges like the garnish more than the chili itself.
Black Team (Nyesha, Beverly, Richie): Mole inspired chili with cornbread. The judges like the cornbread, but don't feel the chili is focused, because it's overly sweet.
White Team: (Lindsay, Grayson, Ty-Lor): Three bean and beef chili with poblano cornbread. The judges disagree over the use of pickled vegetables in the chili itself.
The Green Team wins and the Black Team made the least favorite chili so someone from their team is going home. To help determine who's going home, Nyesha, Beverly, and Richie have to try to transform the losing chili into something better. Beverly makes seared tuna with habanero creamed corn. Nyesha makes Frito-encrusted black tiger shrimp with roasted corn salsa. Richie made a Frito-encrusted pork tenderloin, potato hash, and ricotta cheese chili puree. So basically, they all used the chili as a sauce.
The judges like Beverly's dish the most, so she's immediately told she is safe. They felt like Nyesha's dish was too safe and she didn't use enough sauce. Richie's dish was imaginative but lacked seasoning. So ultimately, Richie is told to pack his knives and go to Last Chance Kitchen. Aw, it's really sad. He's devastated. There's something really little-kidding about Richie and when he cries, it's like seeing one of my kids cry. I mean, I won't miss him or anything, but it's still kind of sad.
After Keith's elimination, the cheftestants sit around outside their house and debrief. Lindsay talks about how they did bring up the shrimp issue (where Keith bought pre-cooked shrimp). Sarah adds that Keith didn't go home because he bought the wrong shrimp; he went home for using a flour tortilla which resulted in soggy enchiladas. Nyesha thinks that people's true colors are coming out and the competition has become cut throat.
The cheftestants arrive at the kitchen for the Quickfire. Padma welcomes them and introduces the guest judges: Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Feniger. Susan was one of my favorite people on Top Chef: Masters. [Note: Fun fact: A comedy pilot based on their lives as chefs/besties is currently in the works. -- RS.] Padma explains the challenge: to her is a table full of baskets of chilis, and each chili has been assigned a score on the Scoville scale, some high and some low, which indicates their degree of heat. The cheftestants have to create a dish highlighting one type of chili, but the twist is that the higher the score on the Scoville scale, the more money the cheftestant gets if he or she wins the challenge. So they can choose the mild poblano and potentially win $0 (but get immunity) or use the ghost chili and win $20,000 (and immunity). Mary Sue explains that it takes a lot of skill and talent to balance heat and flavor, and Susan reminds them that the judges have to eat all of their dishes, so please don't burn their taste buds off. They have thirty minutes.
Some rush to the pantry while others head right to the peppers. Beverly just starts chomping hunks of peppers to figure out which one she wants to sue, and she explains that she's going to try to make the best dish she can with a pepper she likes, and not worry about how much money is involved. Richie picked a pepper that is one higher than a jalapeno, because he's not experienced in cooking or eating spicy food and doesn't want to screw it up. Chris Moto explains that the ghost chili (the hottest one) is like swallowing fire, and while he's usually into going big, his stomach can't handle spicy foods, so he's going medium.
Heather chooses a Thai chili, which is fairly hot, but she's going to pickle it to highlight the flavor over the heat. Heather likes to pickle things. If this Top Chef thing doesn't work out, maybe she could get a gig as Snooki's personal chef. Chuy chooses the habanero because, I don't know if you've heard, but he is Mexican and he likes spicy food. He mentions that he needs the money to pay back the IRS which doesn't seem like the kind of thing you'd want to talk about on a nationally televised show. It raises questions. Did he not file one year? Underpay? Nyesha is half-Korean, so she grew up eating spicy food. She explains that she's going to triple-blanch her peppers to remove some of the spice and keep the flavor. Wow, an actual cooking tip I could use on this show? Will wonders never cease?
The judges arrive (Tom, Padma, Mary Sue, Susan and Gail) and pop open some Shiner Bock. Gail has to have someone else open her beer because she had "a weird bagel accident" and has no feeling in her finger. You can read all the details in her interview on Bravo's website, if you're dying to know, but it's not nearly as interesting as you might think. Tom can't get the beer open, but Padma twists it right off. With her teeth. Just kidding, she totally used her hands. And her boobs. Nope, just her hands.
The judges approach the Green Team (Sarah, Chuy, Chris Hollywood) first; they made chili con carne (no beans, beef chuck, Shiner Bock beer and roasted corn garnish). After each chili, we see some of the cowboys' comments, and then the judges' comments. The cowboys like that it has a little kick and some kid says it would be good for dinner with a taco. As for the judges, Tom likes the flavors, and says it gets better with each bite. Gail thinks it's too thin and would have liked something to soak up the sauce. Mary Sue agrees, and she wished for a tortilla or some chips.
up is the Red Team (Dakota, Whitney, Chris Moto), who made braised brisket and short rib chili. Invisible Cheftestant Whitney explains that they made their own beef stock with the short rib bones and really tried to build the flavors. Every time Whitney pops up, I'm like, "Who is she? Is she even on this show?" That either means she's leaving in the middle somewhere or she's going all the way and they're waiting to feature her later. Some cowboy kids don't like the texture or the spiciness of the chili. Gail thinks it's perfectly seasoned and hot, and Tom agrees. Mary Sue thinks the texture is a little stringy, though.
Blue Team (Heather, Edward, Paul) made smoked brisket chili with summer pickles (peaches, radishes and haricots vert). They also put pork rinds on top of the chili. Gail decides that pickled peaches are now her favorite thing to eat with chili, so I guess Heather's gamble paid off. Tom points out that the vegetables and spices are great, but the chili itself is only mediocre.
Black Team (Nyesha, Beverly, Richie) made mole-inspired chili with cornbread. Susan really loves the cornbread, but Tom points out that it's not a cornbread competition. As for the chili itself, everyone thinks it's too sweet and unfocused. Padma disagrees, since the team set out to make a chili that reminded them of mole, and they succeeded by that metric.
And finally, White Team: (Lindsay, Grayson, Ty-Lor) made three bean and beef chili with poblano cornbread and had pickled vegetables on top of the chili. Gail wishes they had served the pickled vegetables on the side. Susan disagrees, because she liked the acid in it, but she admits that's her palate.
So now all of the service is done and the judges discuss their general impressions. Mary Sue was surprised to find that each team's chili tasted completely different, since there's really only so many ways to make chili. Tom is glad that they don't have to choose the winner, because it would be a difficult decision. Gail has had a few too many Shiner Bocks as she slurs that they still have to choose the losing team, which will also be difficult. Padma gets Tom to name his bottom teams. They all agree that the Black Team's chili was too sweet with not enough heat. Meanwhile, the Black Team thinks they did awesome, because so many people came back for seconds. Tom also didn't love the Red Team's shredded meat, even though the flavor was good. Susan points out that the White Team was lacking flavor overall, and then we cut to the White Team talking about how great their chili was. Oh, so sad. I think I like it better when the teams know that they screwed up and are expecting to face the judges.
The cheftestants head to the bleachers to watch the rodeo, something most of them have never seen before. And of course Beverly starts crying, because that's what she does. Now that I know she's breastfeeding, I'll cut her a little bit more slack because her hormones are probably insane. Nyesha is dubious about Beverly's mental toughness and ability to compete, given her emotion.
Padma rides out into the ring on horseback to announce the winner, and then one of the contestants has to perform the contractually obligated ode to Padma's beauty. Seriously, every week someone talks about how hot she is. She's beautiful but does it need to go in every episode? Padma announces that the winner is the Green Team, which is Sarah, Chuy and Chris Hollywood. And then she announces that the loser is the Black Team (Nyesha, Richie and Beverly), and someone from their team is going home. She had to do it in front of the whole crowd? That seems mean. Nyesha interviews, "My heart sinks into a puddle of despair." Is she a spoken word artist? Who talks like that?
So just when you're wondering how the judges are going to decide which person to send home, since they made chili and can't really point to one element that was lacking, Padma delivers the answer. The three members of the Black Team will have to cook an entirely new dish, and repurpose their chili in that dish. And that's the dish that may or may not keep them on the show. They have thirty minutes. And they're exhausted from being up so late, and from working all night at the rodeo. But remember that they were done first out of all the groups (and I wonder if that's why their chili was lacking a bit?), so they probably did get SOME sleep.