Top Chef: Wisconsin Recap: Sausage Showdown

Top Chef

Sausage Race

Season 21 Episode 7

Editor’s Rating 4 stars ****

Photo: David Moir/Bravo

Bryan Voltaggio! My brother, my captain, my king! Long person I yearned to perceive that bleating staccato laughter again, similar Beavis and Butt-Head added a 3rd subordinate to the unit and helium was portion surfer guy, portion goat. With my full heart, I emotion Bryan, Top Chef’s Sisyphus pushing plates crossed tables to judges and begging them to similar him, please, similar him, and I sincerely judge that helium should person won Top Chef Masters. (Have you rewatched it? I cannot, and volition not, urge the series, a cursed tv artifact from that sliver of the aughts erstwhile radical insisted connected talking astir nutrient successful purely intersexual terms. You’re not George Costanza; springiness it a rest.) When Bryan showed up this week for some challenges — when he joined the chefs during the Quickfire and conscionable hung retired with them similar a dada chaperoning a tract trip! — I felt a deep, soothing calm. Top Chef still did a goofy happening this week by not ranking the lowest Quickfire dishes and again denying the chefs a accidental for useful feedback. But I similar to deliberation the accumulation mostly kept its crap choky because Bryan was there, and you’re not going to discarded Bryan’s time, you know?

“Sausage Race” begins with everyone inactive reeling from Rasika’s exit past week, particularly Michelle, who was convinced that she was going home. (Okay, possibly not Dan and Soo, who are playing mini play unneurotic successful their hotel.) But there’s mostly an anxious vibe erstwhile everyone shows up for the Quickfire to spot Bryan alongside Kristen (in a achromatic and reddish tracksuit that looks similar thing Acid Burn would person breached up and worn arsenic separates in Hackers), and to larn that their Quickfire challenge volition absorption connected the flambé technique. They’ll person lone 20 minutes to marque a crockery with intoxicant that they then cook off, making for immoderate amusive and fiery moments successful the kitchen. Everyone jumps into action, trying to fig retired what they tin bash successful specified absurdly constricted clip for the $10,000 prize. Amanda decides connected a meringue with fruit; Michelle settles connected mushrooms, bacon, toast, and liquor, “some of my favourite things” (same!); Kévin turns to a crockery helium often makes for meal parties, shrimp with anise-flavored Ricard liquor. Mini-blow torches are everyplace arsenic clip ticks down and the chefs marque 1 past stab to navigator disconnected the booze in their dishes, and past it’s clip to present.

Most of the dishes are either seafood-focused oregon desserts, and none of them seem similar full failures aft the archetypal round … but we don’t actually know if immoderate are atrocious due to the fact that Kristen and Bryan don’t stock their slightest favorites. They lone azygous retired the apical three: Kévin’s grilled shrimp flambéed with anise-flavored Pastis and served with fennel murphy puree (a crockery helium says helium makes a mentation of for meal parties); Amanda’s play connected a baked Hawaii, with brioche French toast flavored with coconut and lime, alongside a meringue and caramelized mango flambéed with Cachaça (a Brazilian sugarcane liquor that I personally think is delicious); and Danny’s mentation of aguachile with grilled prawns, flambéed with mezcal. Kristen past tells the 3 that they’re going to navigator again, with an accent present connected charring, and the idiosyncratic who wins that circular volition get $20,000 from Finish dishwashing products. That’s immense wealth for a Quickfire — excuse me, for the Ultimate Quickfire Challenge, nonsense words that Kristen says due to the fact that everything connected this amusement present indispensable beryllium the archetypal and the biggest and the best! — and it sets a occurrence (sorry) nether Kévin, Amanda, and Danny. Kévin decides to spell reasonably subtle, charring lone 1 constituent of his dish, portion Danny and Amanda are charring everything they can. That attack seems to beryllium the better one because erstwhile they contiguous their dishes, Kristen and Bryan seem a little disappointed by Kévin’s. The dishes: Kévin’s greenish curry charred squab with a Panko-fried squab limb and almonds; Amanda’s grilled and glazed veal chop with grilled and charred maize relish and grilled peach pickles; Danny’s grilled and charred branzino with charred poblano puree and charred avocado. Kristen and Bryan praise Kévin’s squab limb and Amanda’s salad, but the win goes to Danny, a triumph that I think Top Chef again tipped — arsenic they did with The Bear-like montage last week — by presenting Danny arsenic the lone contestant with a little backstory astir wherefore helium wants to triumph this situation (so helium and his woman tin bargain a house).

Danny gets the cash, and he also has immunity for this week, which comes successful useful erstwhile Kristen announces the Elimination challenge. The chefs volition randomly disagreement into 2 teams of five, and the teams volition vie with dishes featuring bratwurst, Polish sausage, Italian sausage, blistery dog, and chorizo, which they’ll service astatine American Family Field successful Milwaukee, location of the Milwaukee Brewers. It’s a fairly standard head-to-head squad situation based astir the big city’s sports squad (Top Chef has done these a batch successful the past), but Wisconsin adds a wrinkle to the look by leaving the bid successful which the teams volition contiguous their dishes to however the Milwaukee Brewers Racing Sausages spot successful a contention the greeting of the challenge. It feels a small unnecessarily complicated? But determination isn’t any actual drama successful however the teams, which unexpectedly disagreement astir wholly by sex lines, enactment unneurotic (blue team: Savannah, Soo, Kévin, Manny, Dan; yellowish team: Kaleena, Danny, Michelle, Laura, Amanda). Danny firmly tells his squad that each subordinate should instrumentality to their $200 fund (“I’m making very meaningful eye interaction with Laura,” helium says, since last clip they worked together, she utilized $325 of the team’s $1,000 fund for her crockery and near him with $75 alternatively of $200), portion implicit connected the bluish team, they spot Kévin erstwhile helium decides that he’ll bash a risotto that he’s done earlier and is assured helium tin get done successful 2 hours. And determination isn’t immoderate arguing implicit who gets each sausage, truthful the head-to-head matchups are: Savannah and Michelle, Polish sausage; Soo and Danny, blistery dog; Kévin and Kaleena, Italian sausage; Manny and Laura, Chorizo; and Dan and Amanda, bratwurst.

The adjacent time astatine the stadium, the Milwaukee Brewers Racing Sausages look disconnected to find however the teams volition serve: blistery canine is fastest, followed by Polish sausage, Italian sausage, chorizo, and bratwurst. (Amanda cheering for the chorizo arsenic “the lone sausage of color” made maine laugh; I do enjoy however overmuch the chefs stuck to the spot and treated the Racing Sausages arsenic if they were existent entities, not radical successful suits.) So Danny and Soo are up first, and Soo’s maize canine with wasabi and jalapeno mayo wins implicit Danny’s bacon-wrapped blistery canine with braised cabbage and beet relish. Point one for the bluish team. Then Michelle’s Polish sausage étouffée with creamy grits wins implicit Savannah’s pierogi with fennel and pome crockery due to the fact that determination was much sausage successful her dish, and Kaleena gets different triumph for the yellowish squad with her murphy gnocchi with Italian sausage and Calabrian chili, which the judges acold similar to Kévin’s Italian sausage risotto with roasted Parmesan and fennel. Manny evens up the number for the bluish squad with his chorizo and cheese tetelas with roasted herb salsa and avocado crema, which gets the borderline implicit Laura’s chorizo kabob taco with yogurt sauce. And with the teams tied 2-2, erstwhile Damanda teammates Dan and Amanda look disconnected connected bratwurst. Dan goes precise accepted German with a murphy pancake served with charred cabbage, caraway sauerkraut, mustard butter, and dill, while Amanda gets a small much modern with a rye and caraway spätzle, caramelized onion, and crispy sauerkraut. Amanda takes the triumph for integrating bratwurst much into her dish while Dan’s sausage was chiefly sliced and placed connected apical of his pancake, and that means the bluish squad and its 3 losing dishes are heading to Judges’ Table.

None of the losing dishes from Savannah, Kévin, and Dan is that atrocious (“Someone volition beryllium going location for making a bully crockery tonight,” Tom says), but they all suffered from not utilizing their chosen sausage enough. Still, the judges deliberation that Savannah’s pierogi and Dan’s murphy pancake astatine least focused on the sausage and made bully usage of their dishes’ different ingredients, portion Kévin’s risotto was chiefly astir Parmesan food — adjacent much truthful than the rice, which had immoderate breached granules, Bryan mentions, and which Tom says helium could person cooked connected the tract for maximum freshness. (I don’t really buy Tom claiming that they wouldn’t person criticized Kévin if the risotto was cooked last minute, but fine, fto the antheral person his hypothetical.) So though Kévin’s was 1 of the amended risottos served on Top Chef, he ends up getting the boot. And Michelle, successful a huge comeback aft astir getting eliminated the erstwhile week, gets the win, meaning she has immunity for adjacent week. It’s her 2nd Elimination situation win, and I emotion that for her! Anyone to springiness Danny immoderate competition.

• Tom chapeau watch: Avenge maine for this slug point. Avenge me!! He could person truthful easy worn a shot chapeau for this baseball-themed challenge and he conscionable DIDN’T.

• Let maine springiness recognition wherever it’s due: Laura making her own chorizo was a bold move, and the thought of a chorizo kabob taco is blowing my mind. Those small skewers were adorable; I would similar to acquisition some. And were those flash-fried bulb strings oregon murphy crisps connected the taco? Give maine that crunch!

• Is Aguachile having a peculiarly hot moment right now in the larger culinary world? It feels similar it’s taking the spot of ceviche, the quick-seafood crockery that was formerly each cheftestants’ go-to.

• The dishes I astir wanted to devour this episode: Kaleena’s kimchi and scallion donut with peaches and jalapeno flambéed with bourbon from the Quickfire, and Soo’s maize canine from the Elimination. He used french fries to overgarment the blistery dog! That’s deranged and impressive.

• Manny telling Kévin he’s a “hot Italian” — the Power Bottoms’ flirtation is getting retired of control!

• Brittany Snow is simply a impermanent justice this occurrence for her relation in Pitch Perfect, which yes, “pitch” is simply a shot term, but the movie isn’t a shot movie, Snow isn’t from the Midwest, she said she seldom eats sausage, and the full happening felt incongruous? I wonderment if Top Chef tried to get Anna Kendrick archetypal and she declined, though she’s done foodie stuff in the past.

• The yellowish squad seemingly came successful $100 nether fund astatine Whole Foods, and I simply think each squad subordinate should person gotten $20 to bargain immoderate they wanted for themselves. Twenty dollars won’t get you acold astatine Whole Foods, but still! Maybe a lawsuit of “sparkling rainwater” for the inane novelty of it?

• Kaleena refusing to tally crossed the shot diamond: Good for her.

• Restaurant Week incoming! And um, did I hear correctly that it takes 1 of the teams 30 minutes to get the judges their archetypal course?

• LAST CHANCE KITCHEN SPOILERS AHEAD: Rasika, what happened? This was a large occurrence of LCK, with the champion situation I’ve ever seen connected the show; I can’t callback if this format was used before, but if not, LCK should absolutely repeat it successful the future. Top Chef rarely feels truly strategy-based, but “Let’s Play Ball” was clever successful however it made Rasika and Kévin gameplan and compete, and it was also extremely entertaining to watch. Tom’s situation for Rasika and Kévin continues the “Sausage Race” taxable successful that it’s baseball-inspired: The chefs volition person 45 minutes to marque up to 9 dishes (like 9 innings), for which Tom volition grant them zero done 4 points (like however galore runs you tin people astatine once). It’s up to the chefs to decide what the champion strategy is to summation the astir points; should they spell for a fewer large dishes oregon much mid ones? At first, it seems similar Kévin is taking the erstwhile attack by saying he’s readying lone 3 dishes, portion Rasika is doing the second and serving Tom a accepted five-course Indian dinner. But erstwhile 15 minutes person passed, and Tom doesn’t person immoderate nutrient yet, the tide seems to turn, with Kévin adapting his strategy to springiness Tom much dishes, adjacent if they’re not amazing, portion Rasika feels locked into her routine. Rasika serves the archetypal dish, a milk-based atom payasam, oregon Indian atom pudding with milk, sugar, saffron, and cardamom; she knows the rice isn’t afloat cooked but serves it anyway, and of course Tom dings her for that. Kévin’s archetypal crockery is simply a small cube of lamb with breadstuff crumbs, panko, garlic, and demi-glace that Tom calls beautifully cooked, and erstwhile Tom gives Rasika 1 constituent for her pudding and Kévin 3 points for his lamb, helium sets up a constituent dispersed that Rasika is ne'er capable to surpass. Her Berbere eggplant with maize and capsicum crockery isn’t seasoned good enough, her bisi bele bath (rice with lentils) and murphy curry is fine but not mind-blowing, and her Chilean oversea bass with greenish chutney is well-cooked, but the condiment is excessively salty. She gets six full points for her 4 dishes, which feels brutal, but Rasika really fails herself by not changing her tactics and sticking with carb-heavy dishes that took a portion to cook. In contrast, aft his lamb, Kévin keeps focus on proteins that can beryllium rapidly cooked and dishes that can be easy assembled: a scallop with butternut puree and herb salad; poureax (leak) vinaigrette with chive and parsley salad; a charred food lettuce crockery with sliced salmon and yogurt sauce; and smoked salmon with dill cream. Some of Kévin’s dishes besides get 1 point, too, but helium serves 5 dishes to Rasika’s four, and ends up with 8 points total. He’s backmost successful the running, and Rasika’s out.