BANANA S'MORES WITH CHOCOLATE GANACHE

BANANA S’MORES WITH CHOCOLATE GANACHE
1. For the sauce, combine chocolate, heavy cream, and vanilla and heat in 30
second intervals on high heat in 30 second intervals on high heat in microwave,
stirring well between intervals.
1. For the S’mores, liberally spread fluff on each graham half.
2. Torch each graham’s fluff until golden or darker to taste.
3. Top one graham with 4-5 slices of banana and torch banana briefly to warm
through.
4. Top bananas with another freshly torched graham with fluff.
5. Liberally pour ganache over s’more and serve while still warm.
BANANA S’MORES WITH CHOCOLATE GANACHE
2 bars 72% cacao chocolate, broken into pieces
1/4 cup heavy cream
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 box grahams, separated into 1/2 “sheet” squares.
1 large jar of marshmallow fluff.
6 bananas, peeled and cut into 1/4” thick slices

Richard Sweeney ( to[p Chef )

LAMB MARINATED IN FRENCH AND CURRY SPICES, VADOUVAN CARROT PUREE, AND KALE

Ariane Duarte, Jamie Lauren, Radhika Desai, Top Chef Season 5
LAMB
1. Clean fat cap off lamb and French bones.
2. Combine ingredients to make marinade.
3. Pour marinade over loins of lamb.
4. Cover completely. Let sit over night.
5. Remove lamb from marinade. Wipe excess off. Season generously with salt
and pepper.
6. In hot sauté pan, add about 2 tablespoons blended oil. Heat oil to smoking
point, add rack, one at a time, let brown on both sides.
7. Place on a wire rack with sheet pan underneath. Continue same procedure
with all nine.
8. In a 450 degree oven, put lamb in for 9 minutes. Let rest until ready to serve.
9. When getting ready to serve, put back in oven for about another 8-10
minutes.
10. Let rest for about 2 minutes, and slice.

SPICE MIX
1. Roast seeds in pan and blend in a coffee blender.

VADOUVAN CARROT PUREE
1. In a rondeau, melt 1/2 lb. of butter.
2. Add garlic, bay leaves and cinnamon.
3. Season with salt.
4. Cook over medium heat until the garlic begins to toast.
5. Add the onions, season with salt and cook until soft.
6. Add the vaudouvan and cook out about 2-3 minutes until aromatic.
7. Add the carrots and cover with stock and cream.
8. Bring to a simmer and cook until carrots are soft.
9. Remove bay leaf and cinnamon.
10. Puree the solids in a vita prep blender, adding cream from the cooking
process if necessary to thing the puree to proper consistency for each batch.
11. Put 1 T of butter in the mixture to help make the puree smooth.
12. Check seasoning and adjust if necessary.

LAMB PLATING METHOD
1. Place 2-3 Tablespoons carrot puree in the center of a plate.
2. Top with 1-2 Tablespoons of wilted kale.
3. Place 1 lamb chop (cooked medium rare – medium) on top of kale and carrot.
4. Place 1/2 Tablespoon of raita on top of lamb.
5. Sprinkle raita with chopped toasted almonds.
6. Drizzle lamb with a little toasted almond oil and drizzle a few drops of paprika
oil around the plate.
7. Finish the lamb with a little sea salt on the pink part.
8. Garnish with micro greens if available.

LAMB
9 racks of American lamb (8 chops)
2 T blended oil

MARINADE
1 quart plain whole milk yogurt
1 cup coarsely chopped mint
1 cup coarsely chopped cilantro
3 cloves garlic coarsely chopped
1 inch ginger coarsely chopped
salt and pepper to taste

SPICE MIX
2 tsp coriander seeds
2 tsp cumin seeds
1 stick cinnamon

CUCUMBER RAITA
1 pint Greek yogurt
1/2 pint sour cream
1/4 cup finely chopped cilantro
1/4 cup finely chopped mint
1/4 cup lemon zest
salt and white pepper
1 small diced seedless cucumber
Mix together

VAUDOUVAN CARROT PUREE AND KALE (Jamie Lauren)
8 qts. cleaned carrots cut into 1” pieces
3 yellow onions, sliced
20 cl garlic, crushed
1 lb. butter
1/4 cup vaudouvan
1 1/2 qt. heavy cream
salt to tastes
1 bay leaf
2 cinnamon sticks

orange braised turkey breast ( Ariane Duarte )

Orange Braised Turkey Breast with Mushroom and Caramelized Shallot

Prep Time: About 3 Hours

Serves: 7-10

Directions:TURKEY
Remove breast meat from bone.
Save bones.

Heat water, OJ, salt, and sugar and let salt dissolve in a pot.
Add thyme, orange zest, and peppercorns.
Let steep and cool.
Pour over turkey breast, let sit for 1-4 hours.

Chop up breast bone, preferably with a cleaver.
Put in stock pot and add all ingredients.
Let simmer for one hour.
Strain into pot, let boil, and whisk in flour.
Let cook for 15-30 minutes more on medium heat.

MUSHROOMS
Melt butter almost to brown.
Add shallots and mushrooms, raise heat and let brown.
Season with salt and pepper.
Add to thicken gravy.


TURKEY
1 Butterball turkey breast on bone

BRINE
1 1/2 cup water
1/2 cup orange juice
1/2 salt
1 T sugar
8 sprigs of thyme
2 T orange zest
1 T whole peppercorns

TURKEY STOCK FOR GRAVY
breast bone
2 carrots, wash and chop 1 inch pieces
3 celery stalks, wash and chop 1 inch pieces
2 bay leaves
1 T white peppercorn
2 qts Swanson low sodium chicken broth
1/4 cup Wondra flour

MUSHROOMS
1 lb baby potabellos, sliced
3 shallots, cleaned and sliced
3 T butter

Thanksgiving on TOP CHEF ( Difficult to downright Awful Food ?)

Chilled Sweet Corn Soup with Mint and Chili Oil ( Jamie Lauren )

Chilled Sweet Corn Soup with Mint and Chili Oil

Prep Time: About 2 hours

Serves: 4-5

Directions:Soup:
1. In a stockpot, heat butter.
2. Add garlic and toast till golden.
3. Season with salt.
4. Add onions and season with salt.
5. Cook till soft over a medium heat.
6. Add celery and cook till semi-soft.
7. Add potatoes, corn, mint and cover with vegetable stock.
8. Bring to a simmer and cook till potatoes are soft and check seasoning.
9. Remove mint.
10. Puree in batches in blender and add a small amount of cream to each batch
till smooth.
11. Strain through a china cup and allow to cool.
12. Adjust consistency with extra stock and re-season if necessary.
13. Place 6-8 oz chilled soup in a chilled bowl and top with a little cooked corn,
chili oil and mint.

Chili Oil:
1. Heat to a simmer and let steep 20 min.
2. Strain and reserve.

GARNISH
mint leaves, chiffonade corn kernels, cooked in butter and seasoned with salt

Soup:
15 ears yellow corn, cleaned and cut off cob
1 bunch celery, chopped
5 yellow onions, sliced
10 cloves garlic, smashed
5 qts vegetable stock
1/2 lb butter
1 qt heavy cream
1 bunch mint, tied with a string
salt to taste
5 Russet potatoes, peeled and quartered

Chili Oil:
1 T crushed chilies
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oilsalt to taste

Beef Tenderloin Carpaccio ( Fabio Viviani )

Beef Tenderloin Carpaccio with Arugula, Roasted Pine Nuts, Aged Parmesan Cheese, Spherical Kalamata Olives and Aged Balsamic Vinegar

Prep Time: About 2 hours

Serves: 3-4



Directions:Beef Tenderloin Carpaccio:
1. Slice the meat.
2. Display and season the arugula, shaved cheese, toast the pine nuts.

Kalamata Olives:
1. Mix first three ingredients together, let rest for three hours.
2. Mix water and algimate together, let rest for 3 hours.
3. Scoop first mixture into second mixture.
4. Let rest 3 minutes.

Note: Xanthan gum is not strictly necessary, but it can be used as a thickener. You can also use a thicker puree and it will work as well. Without the gum you will have to keep the olive in the solution for longer, around 5-6 minutes.


1 lb. tenderloin.
4 oz. parmesan, aged 5 years
6 balsamic vinegar, aged 6 years
8 oz. arugula
8 oz. pine nuts
olive oil
salt and pepper
kalamata olives

Spherical Kalamata Olives:
400 grams olive puree
1.8 grams Calcic Acid
1.3 grams Xanthan Gum
1.5 liters water
7.5 grams Sodium Alginate or Algin

EPISODE 1 NYC Top Chef

Melting Pot
Bravo's Emmy and James Beard Award-winning series Top Chef: New York returns for its fifth season, bringing seventeen promising chefs to The Big Apple. Drawing inspiration from New York's diverse cuisine, the chef's team up in their first challenge to shop in various neighborhoods around the city to ultimately craft dishes influenced by the ethnic flavors of their chosen districts. One of the world's most famous chefs and restaurateurs, Jean George Vongerichten, serves as guest judge. Guest Judge: Jean-Georges Vongerichten



Lamb Plate
Beef Skewer with Onions, and Lamb Chops with Tabouli, Hummus and Middle Eastern Yoghurt Sauce

Hummus:
Blend in Robot Coupe until smooth

Middle Eastern Yoghurt:
Mix all items together and serve.

Parsley Couscous Salad:
Mix all items together and serve.

Lamb Chops:
1. Marinade lamb with all spices and oil.
2. Sear in pan about a minute, each side.
3. Finish in oven at 375 degrees for 5 minutes.

Beef Skewer:
1. Skewer meat and onions and marinade with all the spices and the oil.
2. Sear in pan about a minute on each side.
3. Finish in oven about 375 degrees for about 5 minutes.

Mint Oil/Jimmy Chutney:
Mix together and serve.

Stefan

Top Chef New York City Premieres Wed, Nov. 12th @ 10/9c

Top Chef Video

Top Chef Cast

Bright knives, big city. On Top Chef: New York, the fifth season of the No. 1 food show on cable, 17 new cheftestants take on the Big Apple and compete for their shot at culinary stardom. Cookbook author, actress and host Padma Lakshmi once again returns to the judges' table, alongside head judge Tom Colicchio, renowned culinary figure and chef/owner of Craft Restaurants, and judge Gail Simmons of Food & Wine magazine. This season introduces new judge Toby Young, food critic and best-selling author of the book How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, which was the basis for an upcoming film. In what will prove to be the most challenging season yet, some of the biggest names in food, music and entertainment, including Martha Stewart, Foo Fighters, Jean-Georges, Eric Ripert, Rocco DiSpirito, Wylie Dufresne, Jean-Christophe Novelli and Natasha Richardson will be featured. Bravo's Emmy- and James Beard Award-winning Top Chef offers a fascinating window into the competitive, pressure-filled environment of world-class cookery and the restaurant business at the highest level. Each episode holds two challenges for the chefs. The first is a Quickfire test of their basic abilities, and the second is a more involved Elimination Challenge designed to test the versatility and inventiveness of the chefs as they take on unique culinary trials, such as working with unusual and exotic foods or catering for a range of demanding clients. The challenges not only test their skills in the kitchen, but also reveal whether they have the customer service, management and teamwork abilities required customer service, management and teamwork abilities required of a Top Chef. The competing chefs live and breathe the high-pressure lifestyle that comes with being a master chef, and each week someone is asked to pack their knives and go home.

Top Chef 5 Spotted

Top Chef fanatics: meet your new Season 5 cheftestants. Photographer Kurt Strahm over at the blog Restless brings us the first paparazzi shots of a group of the contestants leaving their home base at 20 Bayard and getting into the white TC vans. If these are the contestants left at this stage of the game, we have four females (two brunettes and a blond seen clearly in the first two shots, one blond with a ponytail in the last shot) and at least six male chefs (six seen in first shots, an additional chef or PA with hat in last shot), and not a faux hawk nor a tattoo in site. Looks like a Colicchio-like shaved head is the hairstyle of choice for the NYC season, and a female chef could be taking over Spike's role as the self-consciously stylish contestant (the backwards hat, the high tops).
Now, Top Chef fans, restaurant industry insiders—and anyone else unencumbered by a million dollar confidentiality agreement—it's your turn to do your part. If you can ID any of the above chefs, let us know. We still have plenty of tickets to the New York Wine and Food Fest and some choice reservations for informants.

Top chef Season 5 At Whole Foods ??

Top Chef’ Contestants Spotted at Whole Foods Last Night
Earlier today, one of our eagle-eyed readers noticed Top Chef filming outside of Craft, and now an Eater tipster reports that they got a glimpse of the contestants loading food into large white vans outside of the Whole Foods on Houston Street last night. Their description of the cheftestants is as follows.

• 20-something Indian-American woman, on the short side and looking a bit bedraggled.
• 40ish man, balding, gray hair, trim beard, smoking a cigarette and looking tough, black leather clogs.
• Late 30s man, tall, husky, like a mix between Season 3's Joey, Howie and Season' 4's Eric all rolled into one.
• Shorter Asian dude, wearing a wife beater, exceedingly tan, and covered with black tattoos.
• Tall, African-American woman with a bandana.
• Late 20s dude, dark hair, with the soft paunch of a Williamsburg hipster.
•Tall, thin pretty/crunchy looking female, no makeup.
• Another shorter, more non-descript female.
• There was another chick, tall, thin, blond, an indie pin-up, who might have been part of the crew.
• One of the coolers had the name "Gene" written on it.
And there’s your tip sheet. If you see these guys filming around town, do let us know.

nytimes.com

Top Chef In Brooklyn ?????

Bravo's top-rated and highly acclaimed reality food show, Top Chef, has big plans for the fifth season. Like real estate, it's all about location, location, location and Top Chef has chosen a most unique place, somewhere you might not guess in a game of 20 questions. I'm not going to reveal the place until after the jump, because there may be some of you out there that want to be surprised.

Just to recap, Top Chef has already spent seasons in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Miami and Chicago. They've also had special episodes and finales in Napa Valley, Las Vegas, Hawaii and Aspen and San Juan, Puerto Rico. Traveling to interesting and even exotic locales is part of the fun, giving the contestants a chance to incorporate the regional foods and the style of that part of the world.

Okay, if the suspense is getting to you -- I know it is -- go to the jump and see where season five of Top Chef is going to be...

BROOKLYN! No, I'm not kidding. The new season of Top Chef will reportedly be set in Williamsburg, Brooklyn -- hometown of Barbra Streisand. (She grew up at the corner of Newkirk and Nostrand Avenue, if you want to be precise.) Also Barbara Stanwyck, Mae West and the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Seriously, this isn't as bizarre as you might think. Brooklyn is New York. It's one of the five boroughs and it's quite trendy and gentrified, as they say in NYC. There are great studios out there -- I remember going to Brooklyn when Another World filmed there, in the same studios that now house As the World Turns.

Also, some of the most amazing restaurants and chefs are in the metropolitan area, including season one winner Harold Dieterle. Peter Luger's, the number one steakhouse in the world for 24 years and running, is in Brooklyn. There'll be no shortage of guest judges or restaurants. It's actually an excellent choice.

Top Chef contestants probably will be bunking in a Brooklyn townhouse or loft, and they're putting together a new kitchen and studio set as speak. TC isn't the only reality show that'll be shooting in Brooklyn; MTV's The Real World is also going to be filming there in the upcoming season.
Tags: Barbara Stanwyck, BarbaraStanwyck, Barbra Streisand, BarbraStreisand, Brooklyn, cooking, Hawaii, Las Vegas, LasVegas, location, Los Angeles, LosAngeles, Mae West, MaeWest, metropolitan, Miami, Napa Valley, NapaValley, Puerto Rico, PuertoRico, season five, SeasonFive, Top Chef, TopChef, Williamsburg
TvSquad.com

Top Chef Season 5

Coming Soon !