Recap - Episode 2 of Top Chef Masters Season 3

Top Chef Masters Season 3, Episode 2, was aired on Wednesday, April 13. The episode began with host Curtis Stone informing the contestants that someone had to drop out because of an emergency. It's too bad he had to drop out, but it was a nice opportunity for Hugh Acheson, who was eliminated in the first episode, to come back and try again. Hugh was eliminated for his overly salty scallops, so he joked that he brought a smaller salt shaker this time.

The remaining contestants were John Currence, Suvir Saran, Alex Stratta, Traci Des Jardins, Mary Sue Milliken, Naomi Pomeroy, Hugh Acheson, Celina Tio, George Mendes, Floyd Cardoz, and Sue Zemanick.

Quickfire Challenge

The Quickfire Challenge was to make a meatball dish in 30 minutes. There were several meat options, including chorizo, ribeye, pork belly, chicken breast, and turkey. Seems easy enough, right?

Of course, the chefs knew enough to expect a twist. They had to use a small hand-crank meat grinder to shape their meatballs. Most of the chefs had not used something like this for a long time, and a few ran into problems trying to get the grinder attached to the counter.

The judge for the meatball challenge was grammy-nominated recording artist Kelis (the "Milkshake" singer). What most of us didn't know about Kelis until Top Chef Masters is that she was professionally trained as a chef and she loves meatballs.

All of the chefs managed to get a dish to the plate during this Quickfire, and Kelis and Curtis dove in. Kelis may have had training as a chef, but it was apparent that many of the contestants did not appreciate her commentary.

For example, she ate the meatball sub, that was supposed to be street food rather than something elevated, without the bread. She complained that the meatballs were just too salty, while Floyd sat on the other side of the camera pointing out that it was supposed to be eaten as a sandwich with un-salted bread. She ate a consommé (broth surrounding the meatballs), with a fork instead of a spoon, so she didn't get the well-rounded taste withthe broth. She also got the garnish wrong by saying she didn't care for the dill when it was actually fennel.

Overall, there were three dishes Kelis enjoyed the most along with three that weren't so successful. She didn't care for George Mendes' chicken and short rib meatball. She thought the combination of meats was strange and she didn't like his "show-offy foam." She didn't care for Floyd Cardoz's beef loin meatball (the one with the bread) and called him out by saying each component had to stand on its own. Finally, she didn't care for Hugh's lamb and shitake mushroom meatball because the flavors were battling each other.

On to the positives. She liked Sue Zemanick's classic meatball with pork belly and spaghetti, John Currence's Vietnamese meatball, and Suvir Saran's sweet and spicy meatball combination with tamarind sauce. The winner was John Currence for his Vietnamese meatball. He took away $5000 for his charity, No Kid Hungry, whose goal is to end childhood hunger in the U.S. by 2015.

Elimination Challenge

For the Elimination Challenge, the Top Chef Masters' contestants were taken back to the iconic '60s era. AMC's popular TV show Mad Men has shoved this era back into the limelight. Immediately, one of the contestants visualized the days of the three martini lunch and cheese fondue parties.

Eleven dishes on silver platters were brought out. To find out what was underneath each lid and which iconic '60s dish each Top Chef Masters contestant would make, they selected fondue sticks with numbers attached to the end. Some of the dishes included chicken ala king, ambrosia salad, deviled eggs, oysters rockefeller, and duck a l'orange.

Then walked in the sultry Christina Hendricks, one of the stars of Mad Men, and her husband Geoffrey Arend, also an actor. She says she's around this '60s food a lot because of the show and she kind of hates it. He says they are foodies and enjoy throwing their own cocktail parties (minus the '60s food). Their challenge is for the chef-testants to create the original version of the dish and an updated version showing more creativity, both in appetizer sizes rather than full size dishes.

There were troubles in the kitchen for two chefs in particular, Sue and Suvir. There was so little space for 11 people to cook, so I thought it was a bit ridiculous. I understand that the show is called Top Chef Masters for a reason, but they should be given enough space to allow them to create successful dishes since they're already so limited in preparation time.

Once the dishes were served, the guests and critics seemed to be pleased with most of the chefs' efforts. The top three dishes were Mary Sue Milliken's deviled eggs, Floyd Cardoz's ambrosia salad, and John Currence's oysters rockefeller.

Curtis said he wanted Mary's recipe for the egg dish, which had very little of anything that resembled a deviled egg, but that was ok because the challenge was to make an updated version and to wow the judges with flavor. Floyd, who didn't even know what ambrosia salad was going into the challenge, managed to make what Ruth said was a chef's version of a horrible home classic. James told John he'd created the benchmark standard for oysters rockefeller.

All three dishes wowed the critics, but there could only be one winner. In episode 2, that winner was Mary Sue Milliken. After being on the bottom the week before for playing it safe, I'm sure it felt good to win after taking a risk.

Then it came time to pronounce the losing dishes. Sue Zemanick's incomplete dish was at the bottom, not only because it was missing components, but also because the critics weren't sure the concept was enough to wow them anyway. They asked why she didn't finish, and she said it was because she kept helping others in the hopes that they would then get out of the limited cooking space in time for her to finesse her own dish.

Alex Stratta's bread pudding was too safe and boring for the judges, and even though Alex said he'd never made a bread pudding before, they kind of thought that was something from Cooking 101.

Suvir Saran's veal oscar was also on the bottom. He complained of the divas in the kitchen that took up so much of the already limited space, pointing out that he only had the use of a deep fat fryer rather than a regular burner for pan frying. They said his veal was just too tough and too large of a portion, but they did like the creativity he showed in updating the dish.

In the end, it was Sue Zemanick who was sent home. Top Chef Masters made a donation to her charity, the Louisiana ASPCA.

So, that's the scoop for the second episode of season three in Top Chef Masters. After seeing a preview of next week's episode, I'm not sure I'll be able to stomach it. The chefs will be cooking with bugs. Gross. Oh well, I just have to remember that bugs are a delicacy in some places.