Puckerbutt
Season 23
Episode 2
Editor’s Rating
3 stars
***
Top Chef heats things up with a visit to PuckerButt farm and a progressively spicier Elimination challenge.
Photo: Paul Cheney/Bravo
Let me start off this recap with a little confession: I have indirectly given PuckerButt impresario Ed Currie my money. My partner makes hot sauces as a hobby, and every summer we plant jalapeños, habaneros, banana peppers, ghost peppers, scorpion peppers, and, most recently, Carolina reapers, the pepper that Ed developed at his PuckerButt Pepper Company. One time, we accidentally pepper-sprayed the house by putting a second batch of peppers we were cooking directly into an already-hot pan, which you don’t want to do in an enclosed space. We opened every window, turned on every fan, and tied bandannas over our faces (we already had masks on), and we were still coughing, choking, and crying for hours. It was not a good time! But the hot sauce was delicious. Maybe we’ll start selling it at our local farmers’ market, get a little side hustle going. Very millennial behavior.
This week on Top Chef, Ed and his pepper farm shape the Elimination challenge. It’s all about heat, while the Quickfire is all about cool — featuring Talenti! Mei Lin, Top Chef: Boston winner and Mike Voltaggio’s former sous chef, walks out into the gigantic set kitchen carrying a tray of Talenti pints, and I’m disappointed in the contestants for not all immediately clocking that clearly they would have to use these sweet treats in their first challenge. Top Chef rarely does snacks without strings attached. For the Quickfire, the judges have to make a savory dish inspired by the region attached to the gelato or sorbet they tasted — Mediterranean mint gelato, Southern butter pecan, etc. They’ll have access in the pantry to ingredients from that region, and their savory dish will then need to pair well with the gelato or sorbet itself, which Mei and Kristen will taste after their offering.
It’s a complicated premise, but I like it! It’s definitely more creative than just “make a dessert inspired by this dessert,” which is what I assumed the challenge would be. The chefs seem to like it, too, with Laurence noting that most times chefs think about how their dish might be paired with wine or another alcohol but rarely with a dessert course. There are two chefs per gelato or sorbet flavor, and they’ll present their dishes at the same time. During the 30-minute cook, no one really has any issues, so let’s just dive into the dishes:
Alphonso Mango Sorbetto, India:
• Nana: Curried cauliflower steak with chunky tomato salsa and spinach.
• Jassi: Malani paneer tikka with kachumber salad and spice mix.
Caramel Cookie Crunch Gelato, Argentina:
• Sherry: Polenta-crusted grouper, kabocha crema, guava gastrique, Champagne grapes.
• Oscar: Polenta cachapa (Venezuelan pancakes), brown sugar and butter caramel, fresno chile, almonds, crispy-skin provolone.
Pacific Coast Pistachio Gelato, California:
• Laurence: Lamb börek (Turkish pastry) with apricot jam, pickled tomatillos, and pistachios.
• Anthony: Crispy artichoke with Mexican pipián sauce, candied apricot, and pistachio.
Southern Butter Pecan Gelato, the American South:
• Duyen: Pecan-crusted pork tenderloin with peach-and-grape reduction, braised mustard greens.
• Brandon: Pork-loin medallion with peach mostarda and crispy mustard leaf.
Coffee Chocolate Chip Gelato, Colombia:
• Rhoda: Coffee- and chile-rubbed pork lamp chop with pan jus, tostones, and dragon-fruit salsa.
• Brittany: Coffee-spiced lamb tartare with crispy plantains, aïoli, pickled chiles.
Mediterranean Mint Chip Gelato, the Mediterranean:
• Jennifer: Marinated fennel salad, oranges, cured black olives, figs, feta cheese, chocolate, and lemon purée.
• Justin: Oven-roasted fennel, feta, roasted pine nuts, roasted figs, olives.
Madagascan Vanilla Bean Gelato, Madagascar:
• Jonathan: Charred eggplant, tamarind, miso-and-vanilla sauce, litchi, coconut.
• Sieger: Strawberry snapper with cracked coconut and uni.
It’s actually adorable that Justin and Jennifer both tried the Mediterranean mint gelato before knowing the specifications of the Quickfire and then end up making similar dishes. I want their love to endure forever. And both of them are safe! The low dishes belong to Brittany, who didn’t get enough coffee flavor into her tartare; Sieger, who added the vanilla gelato to his actual sauce and made it taste muddy — an ice-cream sauce served with fish? Sieger, what the hell, man??? — and Duyen, whose pork was very underseasoned. In the top are Oscar, singled out by Mei for his crispy fried cheese; Laurence, whose börek wasn’t as good as Kristen’s mother-in-law’s but was still delicious; and Nana, whose spiced cauliflower worked well with the mango sorbet. Laurence gets the win and $10,000 in cash, bringing his total so far to $15,000, and I am really curious to see how far he can go with these Turkish flavors. What can this guy do with sumac, you know?
Time for the Elimination challenge! The chefs randomly divide into two teams, and they’re tasked with working together to create a progressively spicier seven-course meal. On the Red Team are Brandon, Nana, Laurence, Sherry, Duyen, Justin, and Jassi, and on the Green Team are Sieger, Rhoda, Brittany, Oscar, Jennifer, Anthony, and Jonathan. Mei takes the group to Ed’s farm so they can try some of his peppers, and everyone gets redder and sweatier as they eat little slivers of cayenne, Scotch bonnet, Carolina reaper, and Pepper X peppers. (The latter is Ed’s latest evil experiment.) Justin saying he was hallucinating and “in another dimension” after trying the peppers got a great laugh out of me, especially as he legitimately looked like the lone surviving soldier on a battlefield, glassy-eyed and bent over as the spices fucked with his brain. I was a little sad no one made a reference to The Simpsons’s “The Mysterious Voyage of Our Homer” and the Guatemalan Insanity Pepper, but now I’m doing it, so that’s that.
As the groups start planning their menus, we get some legitimate friction at Whole Foods. In a classic bit of Top Chef shadiness, Jonathan and Sherry wildly overspend, blowing the Red Team’s budget and forcing the group to reevaluate all their purchases during checkout. Justin is the last to be rung up, and he gets $9 fewer than the $100 he should have had by the end. That’s just one sign of the Red Team’s lack of cohesion. Jossi insists that he cook vindaloo as the final and hottest dish, but he also admits that he can’t handle hot food at all. Justin decides to do chicken wings as the penultimate dish, which doesn’t really work well within the menu progression. Brandon unexpectedly makes his opening dish so spicy that Sherry has to make her second-course chowder spicier, too. No one really takes the leadership role in the Red Team, while over on the Green Team, Rhoda steps up. Yes, she has immunity from winning last week’s sweet potato Elimination challenge, but she doesn’t want to get complacent. She encourages the Green Team to all taste their dishes all the time and ensure that their meal progression really builds the heat throughout, which helps keep the team disciplined and collaborative.
This all plays out during judging, which progresses with Red and Green Team members presenting their courses at the same time to judges, including Ed, Mei, and Heatonist founder and CEO Noah Chaimberg. (Heatonist makes the Pepper X hot sauce and the official branded Hot Ones sauces.) Overall, judging is incredibly positive; in fact, the only real ding on either team is the aforementioned issues with the Red Team.
First course:
• Green Team, Sieger: Kumamoto oyster with cucumber mignonette granita and green jalapeños.
• Red Team, Brandon: Tuna tartare with jalapeño tomato jelly.
Second course:
• Green Team, Brittany: Poached shrimp and corn salad with pickled cayenne pepper.
• Red Team, Sherry: Chilled seafood chowder with Fresno-chile granita.
Third course:
• Green Team, Jennifer: Pepper crab and Southern grits with Fresno-pepper mash.
• Red Team, Duyen: Pork laab salad with puffed rice crackers and jalapeños.
Fourth course:
• Green Team, Jonathan: Seared snapper with habanero and mango emulsion.
• Red Team, Laurence: Carolina-style Yuxiang eggplant with anchovy and basil pesto.
Fifth course:
• Green Team, Anthony: Grilled jerk lamb with pikliz, hoe cake, and cayenne-pepper mash.
• Red Team, Nana: Marinated shito red snapper with light soup, fufu espuma, and okra salsa.
Sixth course:
• Green Team, Oscar: Pork al pastor, blue-corn huarache, salsa diabla, salsa criolla, and pickled pineapple.
• Red Team, Justin: Shrimp-stuffed fried chicken wing with habanero oil and yogurt ranch.
Seventh course:
• Green Team, Rhoda: Pepper-braised short rib, chile-pickled pearl onions, blistered cayenne pepper.
• Red Team, Jassi: Lamb vindaloo with flaky paratha, potato mash, yogurt, and lime shot.
None of the dishes blow out the judges’ palates, but they’re all gasping, fanning themselves, and wiping snot off their faces by the end of the challenge, which amused me. (Kristen amused herself by asking the judging panel, “Anyone’s butt puckering yet?”) It’s a unanimous choice for the Red Team to win, and then seemingly another unanimous choice for Rhoda to win the Elimination challenge, making her two for two so far. They loved the smoky layers of her “flavor explosion,” and though her leadership role in the team isn’t really discussed, it’s clear that her guidance gave the team focus. Over on the Green Team, poor protein cookery brings Justin, Nana, and Jassi all to the bottom. Justin’s chicken wing was flabby and not grilled enough, Nana’s snapper was inconsistently cooked (we saw her struggle with the sous-vide machine, and Tom says his fish was fully raw), and Jassi’s lamb was dry and tough — and coupled with his not-nearly-hot-enough vindaloo, that gets Jassi sent home. He didn’t cook enough peppers into his vindaloo from the beginning, so his dish’s heat wasn’t long-lasting, and braising the lamb instead of roasting it gave the meat the wrong texture. I liked Jassi’s personality, and I think his team let him down a little by not more aggressively tasting the vindaloo and challenging him to put more pepper in it. Oh well. Since we won’t see him again in Last Chance Kitchen, good-bye to Jassi.
• The dishes I most wanted to eat this episode: Both Mediterranean Quickfire dishes sounded good, and Jennifer’s crab grits looked amazing. Oscar’s Quickfire was also covetable, but I can’t learn more about frying provolone and how easy it might be to do in my own home. I already do this with halloumi; I cannot incorporate more fried cheese into the mix. That’s too dangerous for my health.
• I probably complained about this the last time Talenti products were featured on Top Chef, but it bears repeating: The Talenti layered ice cream pints are a scam. There’s only like, half as much ice cream as you would normally get in there! And you’re charging the same amount? Absolutely not. Shrinkflation!
• Re: commenters on last week’s recap saying that Jonathan and Brandon are more annoying than the Voltaggios … How recently have you rewatched their original season? Because Mike’s behavior in particular did not age well; he’s constantly sexist and ageist to other competitors. Jonathan and Brandon are loudmouths so far, but they haven’t actively insulted or harassed anyone yet. However, I will hear no ill against Bryan Voltaggio, whom I want to see in The Traitors castle.
• How long do we think Nana will stick around? She pulled herself together in this episode and did better with the Quickfire, but the inconsistent fish for her Elimination challenge was worrying. Time management in the kitchen is hard, and sometimes you dig yourself into a hole you can’t get out of. Also, her behavior in the premiere wasn’t great, but there have been so many times over Top Chef’s run when chefs lose their temper with their servers, and I think that’s way worse than Nana losing her temper with herself.
• If anyone can share some science that aligns with Ed’s claim that Indigenous communities ate more peppers and therefore had fewer instances of heart disease and cancer, I’d love to read it. Not being shady; genuinely curious.
• Is anyone else watching Padma on America’s Culinary Cup? The series is entertaining, if still figuring itself out.
• Next week, the chefs cook with natural dyes and Tom says during judging, “I’m starting to get grumpy.” Uh oh!
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