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Top Chef Recap: Episode 3 – Death by Meatloaf

This week Top Chef went all apple pie ‘n’ mom on us and made the theme of the show “American classics.” The chefs had to work with classic American comfort foods like sloppy joes, fried chicken and tacos (I imagine Tom Tancredo will be staging a protest against TC, insisting that tacos are not all-american). The chefs had to update these classic dishes to make them both upscale and healthy. The result was a smorgasbord of disaster, with many tasteless, disappointed glares from Padma. CJ took the healthy idea way too far and made some sort of flaxseed-wheat grass-hemp oil-left coast abomination. But the challenge proved most difficult for our foreign friends, who seemed both disgusted and confused by our greasy, lard-soaked traditions. Jamaican chef Sara M. just said screw it and instead of updating Chicken a la King, she made Chicken kebabs over couscous. But it was snobby South African chef Micah who was left in tears when the judges did everything but spit her meatloaf and mashed potatoes back in her face. Maybe she should have just made bunny chow.

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Bunny Chow

In my recent trek through South Africa, I was in general not too wowed by the food scene. Every meal from breakfast to dinner is served with french fries (def not complaining, but not exactly exotic) and many meals are anchored by a dry, mealy porridge-like substance called pap (I tried to provide you with a pic of this, but learned that google image searching for the word ‘pap’ is not a good idea.)

There is however, one original South African dish that is a must-eat: bunny chow. A specialty of street vendors in Durban, a port city with a huge Indian population, bunny chow is a straight-forward but utterly genuis creation. The insides of a loaf of bread are removed and replaced with spicy veggie curries, and less frequently, lamb or chicken curry. When I first heard about this dish I thought they meant something like a bread roll, but no, they are not kidding around; it’s an entire loaf of sandwich bread filled to the brim. The pic above (not mine) is a half order. The best part is once the curry is gone, the remaining bread crust is soaked full of tasty curry spices.

Bunny chow is so popular in SA that it is even the title of an upcoming movie from the country’s MTV division, which looks pretty amazing so here’s hoping it will be released in the states.

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ES Trend Alert: “No Mayo” is the New Mayo

Maybe Shania was on to something in I Heart Huckabees when she kept telling Jude Law “NO MAYO.” I am not one to hate on gooey, mayo-loaded traditional side salads – simple, tasty and unhealthy – I can’t think of anything more American. But inspired by gansie’s previous posts about mayo-free pasta salad and tuna salad, I decided to try my hand at Kim OD’s recommendation, which gansie pointed us towards, for mayo-free potato salad. I brought my very lemony version to my cousin Moira’s family BBQ last night. In a perfect twist, the host made a more traditional mayo potato salad as well, which ignited much discussion on the great mayo debate of 2007 (Moira did use fingerlings, so she still gets some edgy points.) My recipe after the jump.

Top Chef Recap: Episode 2 – Blind Dates

For those of you still unaware, Top Chef Recap is a weekly column here at ES and an excuse for us to run pictures of Bollywood porn star Padma Lakshmi.

This week’s quickfire was a vague challenge centered around citrus fruits, with most chefs opting for the luscious-looking blood oranges. The only thing of note is that Micah made some kind of nasty pudding-soup concoction, lost, and then cried for the rest of the episode. Hung won, and his shameless gloating makes him so happy it’s almost endearing.

The elimination challenge was a gourmet BBQ, won by Brian, who had the balls to make seafood sausages, which sounds like a course worthy of school lunch, but actually looked, and apparently tasted, pretty great.

Despite her Sanjaya-style haircut, Sandee just wasn’t cut out for reality TV, and the judges freaked out on her when she screwed up unscrewupable lobster by pairing it with dates (seriously) and poaching it when she was supposed to be BBQing. So Sandee gets the boot, even though Joey thought “gourmet” includes chicken drumsticks and was acting like a total a-hole.

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Hott Links: Is There Anything Bacon Can’t Improve?

Hott Links is ES’ semi-regular roundup of the tastiest content on the web (aside from ours, of course)

One Bacon Chocolate Bar, Hold the Eggs [Chowhound]

Micro Food [Culinate]

Best NYC Street Food [NY Mag]

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B’Stelllllaaaa!!!!!!!!!!!

After a good few years of anticipation, I finally made it to D.C. institution Marrakesh this weekend, courtesy of Travis’ bachelor party. This Morrocan place is an event restaurant – speakeasy-style entrance to a cavernous space, sexy belly dancers, endless shots for the bachelor – but I was obv. most excited for the seven course meal.

While Marrakesh puts on a party and a half, I have to say I wasn’t blown away by most of the food. Some fairly standard couscous, hummus and baklava, with slightly more impressive lemon roast chicken and almond-honey lamb. The standout course was the B’Stella, pictured above in before and after mode. It’s the kind of loopy dish that would make you think someone had a few screws loose if they served it to you in their home, but a fancy restaurant can pull it off. Phyllo dough stuffed with chicken, egg, onion, nuts and topped with kilos of powdered sugar. No utensils, just dig in and go. A gooey, glorious mess. More pics from Marrakesh after the jump.

Top Chef Recap: Episode 1 – Amuse Douche

The third season of everyone’s favorite gourmet for gonzos cooking show has hit the air, and thus the occasion for endless simmer’s first weekly column (yeah, yeah, we’ll get it up on the right days and weeks when we launch).

The chefs are in Miami, where they started out cooking in Gianni Versace’s mansion, which is kinda creepy, because, um – wasn’t he murdered there? Anyway, for the first quickfire challenge, they each had to take generic cocktail party fare and turn it into an amuse-bouche, which apparently translates as “a mouth amuser,” and basically means really fucking fancy cocktail party fare.

It was clear from the start that poor Southern hick Clay would be amusing us for only the first episode, despite the fact that he “likes to cook food that tastes good” and believed some sort of blue-state/red-state calculus meant being from Dixie had it all wrapped up for him. Also, I just learned what an amuse-bouche is, but I could have already told you a fruit salad is not one. The only other character who stood out from the crowd was Hung, a 29-year-old sous chef from Vegas and this season’s laughably unrealistic supervillain.

The main challenge was a surf-and-turf made from out-there ingredients like rattlesnake and kangaroo. The coolest-looking dishes were actually the ones made from sea urchin. Anybody ever cooked with that? My interest is piqued.

If you need more of a TC fix, or just can’t stop thinking about the cold, dissaproving stare of Mrs. Salman Rushdie, Bravo has not one, but TWELVE blogs about Top Chef. Wow, not even I’m that bored.

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