Tonight, Monique entered last chance kitchen,
this internationally trained chef
made her mark early on this season,
but she had to Packer after her fried oyster broth
with missing a major component.
The broth, I didn't get any broth,
I didn't really like it was dry on the bottom.
Most of the flavor was in that broth with a pancetta.
And that's where I messed up.
Now she was battle.
Sara can't get rid of me who face possible elimination,
but fought back so hard she earned
the right to continue cooking.
Time flies.
It's always like this.
And often insurance.
This is last Chance Kitchen presented by BMW.
Looking back, I definitely played it safe.
I shouldn't have been shy.
I wanted to show a little bit more technique,
but I just stuck with safer dishes
that wouldn't have any risk.
I feel like I haven't even touched the surface of what
I can do in this competition.
Last year's kitchen, you cannot be timid.
You just got to bring it.
All right.
Welcome to last Chance Kitchen.
Thank you for having me.
Sarah Hughes been cooking pretty well.
I'm honestly surprised to see Sarah.
I haven't seen her for a very long time.
She has a powerful personality and something
that you really can't forget.
It's really cool to know that she pushed through.
She made it through two rounds came
this close to rejoining the competition,
but she got beat by Ashley.
Can't get rid of me.
There are movies where people rise from the dead,
but they don't often have movies where people rise from the dead
twice.
I have been knocked down, but I'm still here
and I still have something to fight for.
So many feel to be here.
I'm ready to give it back to my all.
Mo'nique was eliminated for a challenge.
We tasked the chefs with making dishes inspired
by historic Texas women.
Oh, and mo'nique, you drew.
Congresswoman Barbara Jordan, right?
The dish that you created to honor
one of the boldest women in Texas,
unfortunately, was a little timid.
What's the time? I don't know.
Two minutes.
Oh my gosh, I'm worried about.
I'm not going to finish this at all.
I need to get the broth on a plate.
I didn't get the broth.
I didn't get the Apple that you talked about.
I didn't get any herbs.
Sorry, I struggled with the time.
You made a broth and we all didn't get it.
But those of us did try it found it lacking
in depth and personality.
One of the most basic things you can possibly do
is make a good stock or broth, which
brings us to your challenge.
And, sir, how long do you take to make a broth?
Usually overnight, usually overnight, it's protein based.
Yeah we don't have the luxury of time
here because you're only going to have 30 minutes after you
need to make a dish as delicious,
but also allows your broth to shine through when
you present your dish.
Your present your dish in its entirety.
Plus give me a side of the broth as well, so I
could judge that separately.
I'm ready to take stock of you both.
Yes you have 30 minutes on the clock and your time starts now.
But I'm thinking of making a brunch broth,
and I am elated when I see that there are marrow
Bones in the fridge because the benefits marrow Bones is that I
have a greater likelihood of getting
some anxious, velvety texture.
So I'm like, great.
Now I'm making a marrow bacon broth in honor
of my namesake restaurant Nero.
Hello I consider myself as being really knowledgeable
about broths at home or in the restaurant itself,
I really pride myself in making lots of Asian soups and stews.
I know damn well that I can make some good broth.
Monique, what you make?
I am going to make like an iteration of a sour soup
that I grew up with.
It's called quote bong.
Yeah so take this one back to the root Monique's kind
of like a little bulldog in the kitchen.
She's what we like to call it tough cookie.
She's a little sweet and a little tough.
And that time flies.
This is crazy for broth in 30 shuras.
It's always like this in typekit.
Yeah, it's a pretty big, pretty big task here.
Monique's never been to last chance kitchen,
so I hope she's ready.
I'm like going to take Monique on with the same vigor I
took on every other person I lost to.
So it's going to be brutal for her.
I mean, you always start with the same ingredients
for this type of soup.
First thing is first, I really need to get this stock on.
So I just need to chop up the onions, tomatoes, garlic
and ginger and get those going in the pot
so I can just build that flavor.
Those four ingredients are always
what I start with for a base for this type of soup.
What else are you thinking for your dish?
It's going to have salmon and then green beans.
I'm kind of going traditional with what
it's normally served with.
Oh Yeah.
Can I get this stock going really quick?
I'm going to make sure this time that the broth is
really flavorful, so I'm making some shrimp
stock to poach my salmon.
So there's kind of like two broth going on.
I just throw some shrimp and hit it
with some water to create some flavor for the shrimp
stock, what about you?
I'm going to do like a breakfast inspired dish.
OK, cool.
Yeah just like celebrating breakfast flavors,
this broth is based off of a dish
we used to do for breakfast.
It was a ramen broth, crispy bacon,
and then we called like a toast geraci,
and it was like a Brown butter bread chromatography.
I mean, it's really messed up that we
have to do it in 30 minutes, and everybody
knows that's impossible.
But I'm going to try and extract flavor out of animal Bones.
And the challenge there is that collagen breaks down over time.
So I'm going to dive into Ye olde pressure cookers
and see if I can figure out how to use one of those
to maximize my cook time.
Just means a slow and slow because we're going to poach
poaching salmon for me is really cool because you can get
a lot of flavor through seafood very quickly,
but I need to make sure it doesn't get super dry.
15 minutes on 15 bird.
The broth has to be perfect on its own.
So the goal is to only add things to that Bowl
that mimic the flavors already in the broth
so that the things in the Bowl aren't sucking
flavor away from the broth.
They're celebrating and enhancing
the flavor of the broth.
I grabbed some squash trying to make like a hash for the bottom
of the Bowl in lieu of made ramen noodles
because ain't nobody got time to make ramen noodles right now.
But just in case I have noodles working,
because if the squash doesn't work out,
I don't want to have it be starch lists.
But the noodles are spaghetti noodles.
They're not really ideal for what I'm looking for,
and I just think the squash is kind of a cute way to not
it hash for a breakfast ramen.
You're trying to make sure this brought the flavor
a little koslow, because I didn't even get it
really on the plate last time.
The most important thing for me is tasting as I go
and making it as flavorful as possible.
I need to get this right.
I just feel like it needs a little bit more depth to it.
And so I grab some canned clams.
This is just an easy way to get some depth to the soup itself.
Well, we have, sir.
Well, you said you like a bacon ramen, bacon salmon.
Yeah, at my diner, ok?
It's like the first time they let a pressure cooker.
Yeah what's in the broth?
Marrow bacon.
Marrow and bacon.
Yeah just trying to get some flavor and then a bunch of air.
Matt's got it, too. What's that?
That's my contingency.
In case this sucks.
That's noodles in mushroom broth.
Got it! This is butternut.
I would prefer to use the butternut like a hash.
What's in there?
Just the Bones are marrow Bailey.
Ginger lemongrass.
The usual suspects, if you will.
Nice Monique, what are you making?
Hey, I am making like an iteration
of this soup I grew up on.
It's called synagogue and it's a sour soup.
You got bananas. I do.
Yeah, we usually use some sort of banana
sometimes when we don't want to use rice.
We use bananas or plantains as a protein.
So it's going to add some sweetness to it
to counterbalance that acidity.
Great yes, we got 2 minutes left.
Some people would call it pressure cooker a set it
and forget it.
But because I'm horrified of pressure cookers,
I think about it the entire time.
Say, are you ok?
We shall see.
It's it's tasty.
Through the Top Chef journey, I performed best when confident
and for last chance kitchen, I'm confident I
do have a strong dish that I can redeem myself with it.
I think it's strong enough.
5 seconds.
3, 2, 1 typekit.
OK so, Sarah, What'd you make?
I did a bacon broth, crispy applewood smoked bacon poached
egg and then what I call a toast.
She like toasted bread with the components
of a traditional Gresci.
In the bottom is pickled butternut squash kind
of like being the hash that you would get on a breakfast plate,
if you will?
Sir, were you making ramen?
Did you get rid of the pasta for some reason or the noodles?
I didn't really want to use like an Italian spaghetti,
and I like the idea of like at breakfast,
not eating a ton of pasta.
Tony, what do you make?
I made a synagogue, which is a sour soup flavored
with the base of tomatoes, onions, ginger,
and then I flavored it with shrimp stock.
This is intense.
Yeah and they're both really good.
You you know, Monique sourness comes through nicely.
There's some depth to it.
Good texture, the salmon is nicely cooked.
The banana is really interesting.
It gets a little sweetness at the end.
And again, another different texture.
You know, Sarah, again, you created a deep broth
in a short amount of time.
Using the pressure cooker was pretty smart.
It just is spicy.
The eggs kind of mellow it out really nicely.
The butternut squash adds some texture and a little sweetness
as well.
I'm not missing the noodles, either.
I mean, they're both really good.
But I enjoyed what a little more.
And that's.
Sarah, kolsch, you're an animal.
Someone's good job, you know, Monique, I
think you season the broth really, really well,
but I found that the other ingredients weren't
seasoned and so the dish.
It's a little bland because everything else that's
in season with it, I just don't have a heavy hand at seasoning.
It's hard to leave on that.
But he liked my dish.
I mean, I can tell he did.
You can access the kitchen.
Thank you.
This Top Chef journey has been so fulfilling.
I'm more refreshed.
I'm more inspired.
Just disappointed.
I didn't go further.
Sarah, I think you're going to need this.
Thank you, chef.
You go.
This victory feels especially sweet
because this dish is everything I like about food,
and this is the kind of food that I want to be cooking here.
It only gets harder from here, so get ready.
Yes, chef.
Great see you next week.
Thank you, chef.
I think that last chance kitchen,
but definitely more my style and I'm excited to see
how far I can get.
I think I like it a lot.