-
- Am I gonna blow up?
- Can Brian redeem his shipwreck at Lake Cumberland?
- What happened on your last challenge?
- You don't remember?
Oh, you weren't there.
- Or will he once again go down with the ship?
- We don't have to cook on a boat today, do we?
- This is "Last Chance Kitchen."
Brought to you by Hidden Valley Ranch.
♪♪♪
- I'm more embarrassed than I've ever been
in my whole life.
I'm a great chef,
and, you know, I just made some
spur of the moment decisions that landed me here.
Hopefully if I just cook my butt off,
maybe I can get back into the competition.
- Welcome to "Last Chance Kitchen."
- Thank you, Chef.
Hi Brandon.
- Brian and I have a continuous battle going on.
You know, any time you have to go against a buddy,
you don't want to hurt 'em too bad.
But at the same time, I came here to win.
- Brian got sent home for making a porchetta
that kinda came apart.
What happened there?
- Have you done porchetta a lot before?
- I have, I did this one a little bit differently
than I normally do.
- I thought the cooking was really, really, bad.
- I'm a butcher. I'm the meat guy here.
So I'd really like to prove to Tom
that I really do know what I'm doing
when it comes to cooking meat.
- At Last Chance we like to give second chances.
It's not gonna be easy though.
- We don't have to cook on a boat today, do we?
- No, we're not gonna be on a boat today.
You guys's "Last Chance Kitchen"
can stay in dock.
- You and me, "Last Chance Kitchen."
Are you ready?
- Born ready.
- What's the challenge gonna be?
- Um, something that involves me
kicking your butt.
♪♪♪
- There we go.
So this is your chance for a porky redemption.
We have pork ears, trotters, skin, and tail.
All of those parts that no one likes,
but I'm sure you love.
- I do like 'em,
but I usually cook 'em for a long time.
- Yeah, I know, I know.
I'm gonna give you more time
than we've given "Last Chance Kitchen."
Usually you give, what, about 20 to 30 minutes?
You'll need more time.
I'll give you an hour this time.
- Okay. - Okay? That work?
- It's better than half an hour.
Having one hour to cook some of this stuff
is gonna be really hard.
Usually I'll take 24 hours, or even more.
- You talk a big game, I'm expecting a lot now.
- Okay.
- Heads or tails? It's your choice.
You have an hour on the clock.
Better get crackling.
'Cause your time starts now.
- Yeah, let's go guys. - Woo!
- Brian definitely has a lot more experience
working with these products.
When I see this table I know I need to use
as many pieces as possible.
I grab some trotters, I grab some of the tail,
ears, and a small portion of the skin.
- What are you gonna make, Brian?
- I'm gonna make pig ears.
I am grabbing pig ears, and pig tail.
I'm not really sure how I'm gonna use everything yet,
But I know I gotta get everything
in the pressure cooker right away.
- Remember to follow your heart, Brian.
- Huh?
- What's your biggest fear right now cookin, Brandon?
- Trotters, honestly, I've never really cooked much.
- They take a long time.
- I know.
So the first thought in my mind,
is to do some sort of pulled pork sandwich
or a take in that direction.
Hey Brian, you got any advice
for me on this one, bud?
- Stick to what you know, I guess.
- [laughs]
- Is that bad advice? Too late?
- Eh, I wouldn't say it was the best advice.
What happened on your last challenge?
- You don't remember? Oh, you weren't there.
[laughter]
- Ah, that's funny.
- Get him.
- Kind of rude, but I get it.
- I know that I can build
like a really deep, soulful sauce,
really quickly,
and that pork is a perfect compliment.
So we're gonna cook a puttanesca
because pig tails, pig ears,
these are things that are used
in Southern Italian cuisine,
which I have alot of knowledge about.
- Just remember,
I still love you no matter what happens here.
Unless you win, then we're gonna have to talk about it.
- But who will rub vaseline on my bottom later?
- Ooh! - Ohh!
- Puttanesca is a spicy tomato sauce.
It translates roughly to spicy woman,
who is like fiery.
- No, nothing.
- What did you say? - Nothing.
- I think Brian and I have a lot in common.
And we're also close through the competition, so...
This is a battle of friendship.
- I almost wiped out on a pig's tail you left me.
- How do you know it was an accident?
- Exactly. [laughs]
- Would you have been my friend in high school.
- We definitely could have talked about it.
- Hey Brian. - Hi, Chef.
- So what are you doing?
- Crunchy pig ears and tails.
They're braising right now
in like, a tomato and white wine sauce.
Puttanesca style. Some pork.
- You're feeling good about this.
- Yeah, I feel as good as I can
cooking pig ears in an hour, but I'm happy to have the hour.
- Okay, all right, good. - I would never complain.
- Thank you, Chef.
- Hello, sir. - Hey.
- So what are you up to?
- So, I'm gonna do same as the way Brian,
I'm working on a little crispy pig ears,
that I have braising now.
- Two crispy pig ears. All right.
- We've only got so many things that cook so fast.
- I hear ya.
Oh...
[laughter]
- Do you braise a lot of pig parts?
- You know, I'm gonna be honest with you...
- But I'm confident I'll be
able to make something. - Okay.
- It's either gonna be a tartine or a sandwich,
I haven't gotten that far. - Sounds good.
- Okay, Chef, you have 30 minutes left.
- I don't know which is which.
- Your ears are in your right.
- Tomato was here?
- No, no, no. - Ears.
- This is tomato. - That has tomato in it.
- Thank God. - Ha ha!
- Am I gonna blow up?
Pressure cookers are super dangerous.
It's essentially like a pressure bomb.
I've heard of people blowing holes in ceilings
with pressure cooker lids. This is no joke.
- I really like my face the way it is.
- You have to open it so that the steam releases.
- I don't think-- - Ah, it's good.
- Yay!
- Fifteen minutes.
Fifteen minutes of straight hauling ass.
- What is that? - Is that xanthan gum?
- Don't make the same mistake twice.
- Careful. - What are you adding?
- That's a setup. Ultra-Tex 3
- Careful you don't use too much, eh?
- That's real funny.
- Is it? - Funny, ha ha.
- Brandon got sent home for using xanthan gum,
Maybe he'll screw it up again,
and I'll get to move on.
- Five minutes left, chefs.
- Oh my God.
- The hardest part
is getting this meat off of the bones.
They're screaming hot,
it's burning my fingers,
so I'm trying to use basically anything
I can do to get it off the bone at this point.
'Cause there's still quite a bit of work
that has to get done
in order to get this on the plate.
- Two minutes, chefs.
- Wow, that was a quick hour.
- [sighs]
- You happy with your ears? - Yeah, they're nice.
Longer would have been better, but, you know.
- I glanced over at Brandon.
What he's plating looks cute.
But mine looks really great.
It's rustic, it's beautiful.
It is the food that I make.
- Thirty seconds.
- Five, four, three...
two, one...
- Time's up.
- Woo! - Great job.
- Good job, peanut gallery.
♪♪♪
- Hi, Chef. - Hi Bri. What do we have?
I made pig tail puttanesca
with mussels and crispy pig ears
Oh, I put a little kale, I couldn't find parsley.
traditionally I would use parsley,
but I wanted a little bit of that vegetal freshness.
How'd it turn out?
- Are you trying to second-guess yourself, or...
- Yeah.
- Why is that? - Oh, you know.
- No, never.
- Here, good, thanks.
- Thank you very much, Chef.
- So Brandon, what do we have here?
- We have a roasted pepper
and pick trotter and pig tail crostini
with celery salad and mustard.
Crispy pig's ears with pimento aioli.
- What was the hardest part about doing the dish.
- Honestly, it's just not something
I'm super comfortable with. Cooking different pieces of pig,
I mean, I've done a little bit of ears,
but normally I have much more time,
and just trying to get everything properly cooked,
and make sure the seasoning's on,
is obviously the biggest piece for me.
- Great, thanks.
- You're very welcome, Chef.
♪♪♪
- Well I gotta say,
these dishes were both fantastic.
I mean, they had me grinning ear to ear.
Seriously, these were some of the better dishes
I've had all season.
I like the puttanesca and mussels.
And then the crispy ears gave it some nice texture.
I mean, this is a fantastic dish.
Brandon, same thing.
I like that the pig ears-- they were nicely fried,
in both cases.
But I also like the pepper sauce on top,
I thought it was a nice little twist.
I'd hate to see someone lose on one of these dishes.
They were both really, really, really good dishes.
What I'm gonna do here is
award the dish that I think did a great job
of actually using the product that was on the table.
'Cause I think that's what the challenge was about.
That's Brandon's.
- Ah, congratulations, bro.
- Brian, it was fantastic. - Thank you very much.
No, it was really great, I just think that,
the ears were kind of a secondary part of the dish.
And Brandon played up the ears a little more.
But thanks Brian, you can exit the Kitchen.
- Thank you, Chef.
It sucks. It sucks not to be able to compete.
But, I love Brandon.
And I'm not mad that he beat me
because he is that talented.
I plan on staying in touch.
But he has to pay for my plane ticket.
- Well, Brandon, you live to fight another day.
You said you weren't too used to the ingredients,
but I think you did a great job. - Thanks, Chef.
- Sometimes we don't have an ingredient
that you don't know really well,
you just play it by ear.
I'll see you next week. - Thanks, Chef.
It's the first time
that Tom has really been excited about the dish.
- Woo!
I got that "wow" from him which is awesome.
Sorry about that-- - Yeah.
- I want to see Tom's wow face
all the way to Top Chef.
- Another one. Good job.