Laureen Pittman recaps this special Memorial Day episode of Chopped!

MILITARY SALUTE

How appropriate!  On the heels of Memorial Day, Food Network brings us a special military tribute episode of Chopped.  Each of the competitors is a former military chef.  Chef Victor Vinson spent 16 years in the Army Reserves and has cooked for soldiers around the world.  He is retired and currently lives in Huntington Beach, California.  Chef Judy Cage-McLean is a caterer in North Carolina, but she spent 8 years cooking in the Army.  Chef Robbie Myers has cooked for the troops in South Korea, Germany and Afghanistan.  He is a recent medically retired, suffering from PTSD.  His 5 kids at home keep him focused and keep him cooking.  Last, but not least, Chef Jacoby Ponder spent 10 years cooking in the Navy and then went to culinary school.  He currently works as a personal chef, while his wife still serves in the Navy.

The judges for this special episode are Celebrity Chefs Amanda Freitag, Scott Conant and Chris Santos.

Here we go!  The basket ingredients for the appetizer round are: freeze dried roast beef; torshi (Persian pickled vegetables); rainbow chard; and Middle Eastern Mint Yogurt Soda. Wow—now that’s a difficult basket.  They’d all have to start by rehydrating the beef.  Chef Judy put it simply: “This dehydrated beef looks like cat food mixed with wood chips.”  LOL.  And none of them had tasted the soda before, so we got to see their twisted faces as they sampled it before deciding what to do with it.  I would have been stumped.

Three of the chefs prepared a salad of sorts, using the chard as a green and using the soda in a dressing or vinaigrette.  Chef Victor was the only one who did something entirely different.  He made a roux and used the beef in the roux and added Italian sausage as well.  This sounded like something my dad used to make called Sh** on a Shingle.  Basically, a white sauce or béchamel (a roux gravy) with cheap meat thrown in to make it hearty.  Then it’s all served on toast.  Chef Victor toasted up a baguette and served it like little crostinis.  He wilted or sautéed the chard and served it alongside the crostini.

The judges were impressed with Chef Victor’s unique take on the ingredients and they loved the crostini and the flavor of the roux.  But the sausage that he added was undercooked—he didn’t even need it.  And, unfortunately, he didn’t get the chard on Scott Conant’s plate, so he was missing a component.  Chef Victor was chopped.

For the entrée round, the chefs had Afghan flatbread, goat chops, zucchini and survival candy to work with.  The wildcard in this bunch was obviously the survival candy, which they described as tasting like cheap cherry cough drops.  Apparently they are given to the troops to provide carbs for energy.

Chef Robbie revealed that he had actually cooked with the flatbread and goat chops before.  He ground up the candy and used it to flavor the goat chop.  He toasted the flatbread  and made a tomato and red wine reduction to go with the chops.

Chef Coby made a curry crusted goat chop and deep fried it.  In a pure stroke of genius, he cubed the flatbread and made a stuffing with rosemary and sage.  He also made some red potatoes to go with his sautéed zucchini.  I’m not sure what he did with the candy, but it must have worked, or at least blended in.

Chef Judy grilled her goat chops, sautéed her zucchini and used the flatbread as a crumble for texture.  She melted the candy for a sauce and added whiskey and cream to disguise the taste.  She couldn’t disguise the pink color of her sauce, however, and although the judges agreed that her goat was beautifully cooked, her zucchini was not cooked enough and the sauce just didn’t cut it.  Chef Judy was chopped.

For the final round, it was a classic battle of Army vs. Navy.  Chefs Robbie and Cody were given pomegranates, pilot bread crackers, fruit chew candy and dried carrots to create a sweet treats for the judges.  Chef Robbie decided on a deconstructed sundae, with pomegranate ice cream, fruit chew candy sauce, and a sweet cracker-carrot crumble for crunchy texture.  He felt he also needed some chocolate—because what is  sundae without chocolate?  He melted some chocolate and was going to use the anti-griddle to quickly freeze it into chocolate “sheets” for garnish.  Apparently he couldn’t figure out how to use the anti-griddle—the chocolate on the plates was more of a “shmear.”

Chef Jacoby made a carrot bread pudding and melted the fruit chews for a sauce.  For his sauce, however, he added a little whiskey and cream to round out the sweetness.  Like Chef Robbie, he used the crackers for a sweet crumble element to top his bread puddings.

The judges loved Chef Jacoby’s bread pudding.  Chef Conant called it “fantastic.”  As for Chef Robbie’s dessert, they called it a comforting dessert.  The ice cream was perfectly silky, but it was missing any hint of pomegranate flavor.  It just tasted of cream and sugar.  So I was surprised when Chef Jacoby was Chopped.  His dessert was superior, but the final “chop” is based not only on the dessert, but on the merits of all three dishes served to the judges.  Overall, Chef Robbie’s three course meal was better than Chef Jacoby’s.  Army wins this epic battle!