May 18, 2010

Top Chef Masters Season 2, Ep. 6

Original Air Date: May 12, 2010


1) Tony, you had me at "fried bacon honey pizza dough."
2) I didn't know that Paul McCartney is the reason why Lisa's a vegetarian. I do remember the "There's enough gazpacho for everyone!" episode and quote it a lot.
3) What was up with the creepy taxidermied animals on the cart?!
4) This is what I know about the exotic items:
     - Geoduck: Delicious, if tremendously odd-looking. I always thought it
       looked like a clam that tried to eat an elephant, but couldn't quite manage
       the trunk. I would have picked this for sure. You barely need to cook
       geoduck - a quick dunk in boiling water, some microgreens, a little
       dressing and you have a fantastic salad. I'm really surprised Marcus
       bungled it to the degree he did.
     - Sea cucumber: A pain to prepare and tastes like fish-flavored Jell-O. The
       standard Chinese preparation involves literally days of soaking and
       blanching and peeling. I'm impressed with Susan's tempura idea; I've
       never seen it done like that before.
     - Black chicken: Flavorful but pretty scrawny. Mostly used to make chicken
       broth / stock. Interesting that both Rick and Susur decided to go French
       with their ingredients.
5) To answer Jay's question of why someone would try to eat a crazy-looking animal, the answer is obvious - they were very, very hungry. You can see some of this in French cuisine. I mean, escargots? At some point, a guy looked at a snail and thought, "If I cook it with lots of garlic, maybe it won't be so bad."
6) I usually want a big plate of whatever Jonathan cooks but versatility is definitely not his strength. (Nor is plating.)

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