Top Chef: New Orleans

[annabelle]

Am I the only one who is over runny eggs? I don't like eggs as toppers on salads and hamburgers, although they have been a darling of judges for it seems like 10 years now. They just gross me out and don't belong there.

[gfweb]

Me too. I had a twitter conversation w Hugh Acheson re this. He is still smitten. I think its a chef thing.

I think its messy and dumb.

[annabelle]

They're all about the "perfect yolk". Alrighty then, having it run down my arm isn't pleasant and doesn't add to my hamburger noshing experience.

[huiray]

Y'know, Gai Lan/ Kai Lan is also kale. It's frequently called "Chinese kale", and is a member of the Brassica oleracea group, just like the standard Western curly kale (ditto Tuscan kale and its synonyms). For that matter, collard greens and Brussels sprouts are also members of the Brassica oleracea group.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kale

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kai-lan

...and so on.

Dana Cowen didn't specifically specify WHICH variety of kale she was throwing at them in the challenge, IIRC - it would have been interesting if someone had taken the broader view of "Kale" and challenged her in return.

Edited October 17, 2013 by huiray (log)

[huiray]

I like runny eggs. I drink my half-boiled eggs, when I have them for breakfast. Snotty, spermy, whatever. Yes, on another food forum there was once a discussion about how barely cooked "half-boiled eggs" looked "spermy" and after an explication of what sperm-y meant some posters avowed that they would never eat such eggs again. Too bad for them. ;-)

But back to the topic - I don't mind eggs on a hamburger or on a salad - I haven't got "tired" of them yet, maybe because I'm not in the habit of eating such things on a daily basis. I wonder about Cowen's eating choices and exposure to these items...

[annabelle]

That's gross, huiray. I'm now cemented in my position against runny eggs.

[Shelby]

Hmmmm.....I think I'll ask my husband if he wants his eggs scrambled or spermy next time

[Jaymes]

Hard for me to be "over" runny eggs since they've always been served that way in our family. I remember my grandmother talking about how to achieve the perfect soft-boiled egg, sometime back in the early fifties, and the beautiful set of delicate English porcelain egg cups that she served them in. She showed me how to lightly tap tap the egg with the side of your spoon so that you could start eating without having all of that yellow goodness go running down the sides.

And in our family, a fried egg sandwich has to have one perfect egg, over easy.

Grits are always served with runny-yolked eggs. And another of my favorite breakfasts, even going back to when I was a small child was a piece of lightly-toasted bread with an over-easy egg placed on top and then cut into bite-sized pieces.

My family has eaten runny yolks from the time we were a family.

To tell the truth, I had no idea until that TC episode that they were trendy and "in style" because I didn't realize that they had ever been "out."

ETA - However, do want to say that I have no desire whatsoever to have a runny-yolked egg on a hamburger. That sounds just ghastly.

Edited October 18, 2013 by Jaymes (log)

[Shelby]

Yeah, like Annabelle said, I really don't want one on a burger....but I do love one or two....or three once in a while on a pizza.

[gfweb]

Runny yolks are for the breakfast table if one likes them that way. In fine dining its a fad that wasn't ever good. Only foams disgust me more.

[Shelby]

I can honestly say I've never had a foam. I often wonder what I'm missing.

[annabelle]

You aren't missing anything, so don't feel cheated.

I love soft-boiled eggs and egg sandwiches and egg salad. I do not love fried eggs on hamburgers, even though my family is German on my dad's side and we had them that way at my Mutti's (our name for our grandmother) house. I also like poached eggs in soup but not on salad.

[gfweb]

I can honestly say I've never had a foam. I often wonder what I'm missing.

Foams are spermy-er than uncooked eggs. Or spittle.

Not that I have a standard for comparison.

Edited October 18, 2013 by gfweb (log)

[huiray]

Fun recaps in a "modern format" seen with some frequency. :-)

http://www.amateurgourmet.com/2013/10/top-chef-new-orleans-cartoon-recap-episode-3.html

http://www.amateurgourmet.com/2013/10/top-chef-new-orleans-cartoon-recap-episode-2.html

http://www.amateurgourmet.com/2013/10/top-chef-new-orleans-cartoon-recap-episode-1.html

[Mjx]

I can honestly say I've never had a foam. I often wonder what I'm missing.

Foams are spermy-er than uncooked eggs. Or spittle.

Not that I have a standard for comparison.

It depends on the foam: some are firm[er] and dense, sort of like meringue, and those are actually kind of fun, if the kitchen hasn't gone berserk and squirted dollops of foam over every single dish (then it stops being 'Ooo, interesting' and becomes 'God, AGAIN?!').

I can't imagine any competitive cooking programme today not featuring foam, it seems to have become something more or less expected.

[huiray]

The first episode of "Last Chance Kitchen" has been posted on the Bravo Top Chef website. All five of the PPYKAG chefs (so far) face off together, only one advances. (Guess who)

[Brown Hornet]

Well that was completely predictable. How many times have we seen it on Top Chef -- young contestant gets overly confident because a challenge involves "his" or "her" cuisine -- and then proceeds to completely botch it up.

I liked the challenge. Vietnamese food is deceptively simple, but there's a lot going on behind the scenes flavor-wise. I especially liked that they dispensed with the quickfire to spend a day sampling local Vietnamese restaurants and bakeries.

[huiray]

Episode 4: Hugh Acheson's blog is up, and I think it's a good one with some brief chit-chat about the Vietnamese presence in N.O. and some snark about Eddie Huang. :-) He also has good comments about various issues raised on the episode.

http://www.bravotv.com/top-chef/season-11/blogs/hugh-acheson/hugh-acheson-i-love-the-smell-of-lemongrass-in-the-morning

A Vietnamese food challenge - no QF - with a tour through Vietnamese places and shrimping operations for the cheftestants. As BH says, a nice one. However, I thought it a little odd to find that many cheftestants had close to zero exposure to (or experience with) Vietnamese food. One comment that the lady from Saloosha made while they were shopping also made me furrow my brow a bit - when she was surveying that rack of cooking utensils and containers and accessories and said "...there's everything but there's nothing...". I wonder if it was that she was looking for some specific things (according to her mental ideas of whatever they were) and it wasn't there (and she couldn't imagine a way to use what they had on the shelves)? Just speculating.

@Brown Hornet – Captain Vietnam - heh. Yes, perhaps his understanding of Viet cuisine is not as excellent as he thought.

Justin continues to impress me.

So - deep-fried battered shrimp covered w/ hot (temperature-wise) sauce (=overcooked mushy-batter shrimp) goes home...but LCK offers a way back in. :-)

Edited October 24, 2013 by huiray (log)

[gfweb]

Love the twitter feud between Huang and Acheson.

[huiray]

Love the twitter feud between Huang and Acheson.

Heh.

Like these compilations?

http://www.thebraiser.com/eddie-huang-hugh-acheson-twitter-fight/

http://storify.com/TheBraiser/hugh-acheson-and-eddie-huang-get-in-weird-fight

I have to say I'm not a fan of Huang myself. On this episode of TC he did not help his image, IMO. I also smiled a bit when Captain Vietnam disparaged Huang's Vietnamese food bona fides even if he himself wasn't quite the expert himself.

[annabelle]

The hell? Eddie Huang sounds like the punk Hmong kids in "Grand Torino".

[gfweb]

Huang is all schtick, I think. Hipster Gangsta with a JD.

[annabelle]

No kidding. "Yo" who says that? I love his picture too, nothing says wannabe like thick chains, over-sized shades and baseball jersey.

[Shelby]

I was kind of surprised about who got kicked off.....thought it would have been Travis for his crappy red sauce shrimp concept.

[huiray]

Well, the judges did yell at Travis (Captain Vietnam) for his odd idea - but they did remark that the sauce wasn't that horrible by itself and if it had been served with meatballs would have been a decent Italian dish. :-) The shrimp, OTOH, was mangled, it seems - and according to the judges' preferences...and it is frequently the case that poor execution send someone home over almost anything else. I'm guessing that if the dish had been perfectly done it would have been a different matter? OK, I just went back and reviewed the JT for the losing team - and Eddie Huang faulted the concept (for the shrimp dish) the worst, Padma Lakshmi faulted the rice the worst, Tom Colicchio faulted the shrimp the worst...and "Head Judge" wins out, it would seem. The tomato sauce was semi-defended by Emeril Lagasse as being equivalent to some generic sauce and indeed the comment about adding some meatballs and it would have been OK was said at the table.

Shirley's dish was not really "Vietnamese" - again, according to the judges - although she did say back to them that the folks on the docks told her repeatedly that they used butter in cooking their shrimp. In his blog, Hugh Acheson talks about her dish being a successful Viet-fusion dish; and when she was declared the winner Eddie Huang described her win as the best "capture of the spirit of the Vietnamese community in New Orleans". That formulation of the rationale for the decision did catch my notice.