Get ready for Laureen to entertain you with her recap of “Chopped” Season 13, Episode 9 – entitled “Hecho en the Chopped Kitchen.”  Take it away Laureen!

“The newest episode of Chopped is entitled, “Hecho en the Chopped Kitchen,” and features—you guessed it—Latin ingredients.  Before I get into the meat of the show (or should I say “carne”), I want to give you a heads up and let you know that starting in April, a new season of “Chopped All-Stars” will air.  The All-Star shows will consist of four episodes, each with a different theme and will feature chefs from The Food Network, as well as The Cooking Channel.  There will also be an episode featuring four of the Chopped judges and an episode featuring some of the celebrities from Food Network’s last season of  “Rachel Ray vs. Guy Fieri’s Celebrity Cook-Off.”  (Really?  Why?) The winner of each episode secures a spot in the finale for a chance to win $50,000 for his or her charity.  I’ll keep you posted as the new Chopped All-Stars season approaches. 

And, another aside, it looks like last week’s “Untrained, Undaunted” episode featuring amateur cooks like you and me was a one-shot deal.  I don’t see any other amateur episodes on the horizon.  Bummer.  I still think we should rally as a group (or angry mob) to push a CCC Chopped series on Food Network!  Kristina and I are going to noodle this for awhile.  And by “noodle” I mean we’re going to get together for a pasta party and drink wine and figure out how to persuade the Chopped producers to do a competitive cooks series!  Stay tuned!

Now, on to tonight’s episode.  As I mentioned, it’s an episode featuring Latin ingredients.  They could have also dubbed it “Viva Las Vegas,” because it’s an episode that features chefs all from Las Vegas.  The competitors are Chef Mike Minor, Executive Chef at Border Grill in Mandalay Bay; Chef Saul Ortiz-Cruz, Chef at Tacos ‘n’ Tequila at The Luxor; Chef Mia Castro, Chef de Partie in Las Vegas; and Chef Royden Ellamar, Executive Chef at Sensi in the Bellagio.  All of the chefs, except Royden, specializes in Latin Cuisine.  Chef Royden’s specialty is Asian cuisine.

Inside the basket for the appetizer round: pickled pigs’ feet (in a jar), a full, frosted and decorated tres leches cake, jicama, and culantro.  I’m stumped.  I wouldn’t know what to do with the pigs’ feet.  And I don’t know what culantro is (neither does my spell-checker, because it keeps trying to change it to cilantro).  Apparently, culantro and cilantro are related (both are annual herb in the Apiaceae family (don’t ask me how to pronounce that).  Culantro tastes similar to cilantro, but has a stronger flavor.  It is  widely used in Latin American cuisine, as well in seasoning and marinating in the Caribbean and parts of Asia.  The herb has also been used in traditional medicine (I find this fascinating, so I apologize if you don’t give a rip about culantro) as a treatment for burns, earache, fevers, hypertension, constipation, fits, asthma, stomachache, worms, infertility complications, snake bites, diarrhea and malaria. The plant, when used as a tea, is even said to calm a person’s ‘spirit’ and prevent  seizures. Sounds like good stuff.

So, Chef Saul made a pigs’ feet tostada.  I couldn’t figure out what he would do with the tres leches cake.  Apparently,  he didn’t know either, until the last minute.  He took a slab of the cake and threw it in the blender with some chipotle chiles and some sort of liquid and made a “sauce.”  Ew. 

Chef Mia (who is only 23!) made salad of arugula with crispy pigs’ feet and a cake “crumble.”  She crumbled up the cake and crisped it up in a skillet to top the salad.  Chef Royden also made a salad and used the cake as a sort of “crouton” topping (he, too, scraped off the icing and chopped up the cake and crisped it in a skillet).  Chef Mike made crispy pigs’ feet and jicama salad (I see a theme here).  The problem for Chef Royden was the cake.  He simply placed  chunk of the cake on the plate and “arranged” his crispy pigs’ feet and salad on top.  The cake element didn’t work.  Chef Mike was chopped.

For the entrée round, the chefs were presented with goat chops, churros, tequila, and huitlacoche.  I’ve always wanted to try huitlacoche—ever since I saw it featured on another Chopped episode some time ago.  I imagine that it’s very earthy and adds an odd richness to any dish. I haven’t tried it yet because I can’t seem to find it in any stores around here (I bet I’d find it in one of the local Mexican markets) and no restaurants are incorporating it into any dishes.  It’s also a little scary when you think about it.  Huitlacoche is actually a disease, commonly known as “corn smut” (hey, who are you calling a corn smut?) caused by a certain type of plant fungus.  It’s grey and ugly and grows on corn.  It is sometimes called “Mexican corn truffle” or “maize mushroom,”  which works for me.  Anything to get the word “disease” out of my head.  Challenging ingredient, to say the least.

Chef Saul made an adobo for goat chop, and made a puree with the huitlacoche.  The puree was a little wet, so he threw some churro into the mix to thicken it.  Chef Royden made a tequila and soy marinated goat chop and a potato, goat cheese and huitlacoche hash, while Chef Mia made a churro crusted goat chop and a savory huitlacoche bread pudding.  That bread pudding looked interesting.  Great creativity!

The judges agreed that Chef Mia’s entrée was creative all around and the bread pudding was a fantastic way to incorporate the huitlacoche.  They were most disappointed with Chef Saul’s entrée . . . his huitlacoche puree was a good idea in theory, but it looked like crap (literally) on the plate.  And the churro he threw in to help thicken the puree remained chunky, adding to the disgustingness (if it’s not a word, it should be) of the puree.  Chef Saul was chopped.

For the dessert course, Chef Mia and Chef Royden were served a whole coconut, pepitas , piloncillo (Mexican unrefined cane sugar), and yucca.  Chef Royden made yucca malazadas (a fried Portugese donut, much like a beignet) with coconut piloncillo caramel and toasted candied pepitas.  Chef Mia made a piloncillo cake (yes, she made a cake from scratch!) and used the coconut water in the batter.  She also made a yucca custard and attempted to make a piloncillo caramel—3 times.  She burned the piloncillo caramel 3 times!  She had just taken on too much!  A cake and a custard and a caramel—all in 30 minutes?  Well, she actually pulled it off.  The judges were shocked that she completed all of the components and they couldn’t praise her cake enough.  They all agreed that it was moist and delicious.  The custard was okay, but nothing special.  Scott Conant called it “one dimensional.”  Who cares?  She made a real cake!  A real dessert! 

The judges also liked Chef Royden’s donuts.  They all agreed that they were light and tasty.  The “candied” toasted pepitas were a problem, though . . . Scott Conant said they were not candied; they were just warmed up and thrown on the plate.  Aaron Sanchez thought the piloncillo caramel was too sweet and combined with the sweet donut, just too much sugary sweetness.   Plus, in my opinion, a donut really has to be some kind of spectacular decadent, indulgent perfection to elevate it from morning wake-up sugar hit to dessert.  I think Chef Mia definitely won the dessert round.

Alas, the dessert wasn’t enough for Chef Mia.  Based on the entire meal, the judges crowned Chef Royden as Chopped Champion and he took home the $10,000.  I must say, on this one, I would have given it to Chef Mia. 

Stay tuned for a few more episodes of Chopped this season before they start the new Chopped All-Stars in April!”