- Hi, my name is Aedan Reese.
I'm eight years old.
Today, I'm having two chefs make my extreme dish wish.
Yargh!
- Hey, Aedan, I'm Alexis. - Hello.
Hello, Alexis.
- I'm Claudette.
Hello, Claudette Zepeda-Wilkins here
from San Diego, California,
Executive Chef/Partner at El Jardin restaurant.
So I've always been in restaurants but I didn't know
I wanted to be a chef until my son was born.
And then I thought, how can I tell him to chase his dreams
if I don't pursue mine?
So, here we are.
- So Aedan, if you were a pirate out at sea,
what would you eat?
- I'd eat Dead Man's Fish Stew.
- Dead Man's Fish Stew.
So what's in the stew?
- Good question.
Some dead fish, dead food, anything dead from the sea.
- [Alexis] Guts and bones and stuff.
- Yeah. - Yeah.
Do you like seafood?
- Well, not really.
I like salmon.
- He doesn't like seafood, which I find problematic.
- I'll eat meat, rice,
I like healthy food, it's good for your brain, you know?
Here's a little squid, or maybe it could be a jellyfish.
I'll put it dead. (chuckles)
- Then he started mentioning squid.
I know he's not going to like it.
- I've never had squid before, but it's worth a try,
I mean, right?
There'd be dead bones from, like, actual humans
- Sure, yeah, that makes sense - Mmm-hmm.
- [Aedan] So, like, I'd say the skull.
That's the important part.
- [Alexis] It's got the most flavor.
- [Aedan] Mmm-hmmm. - I get it, I get it.
- I'm just going to choose to omit that entire thing.
- It's a little Narcos.
He went a little dark on us (laughs).
Any vegetables that you can find in the ocean?
- [Aedan] Well, there's one vegetable
which they call seaweed.
I've never really tried it, but
it's worth a try. - Uh-huh.
So what normally would a pirate drink
when he's having this Dead Man's Stew?
- [Aedan] They would normally drink beer,
- [Claudette] Uh-huh.
- Coca-Cola,
- [Claudette] Mixed together?
- [Aedan] Mmm-hmm. And maybe some root beer.
- Like a root beer, coke, beer float.
- Sure. - Yeah.
I usually save the cherries for my moms.
- Aww. - (chuckles) Aww.
- That's mostly it.
- Okay, do you think we can make this dish come alive?
- It's worth a try.
(laughing)
- [All] Argh!
- The one thing I have going for me
is that I've done this twice.
I feel like I now know
that if a kid says they want something,
it doesn't necessarily mean that they want something.
I am not going to make a stew, I am going to make pizza.
Top it with Bechamel cheese, salmon, salmon roe, shrimp.
I'm going to fry some squid, add some dill and basil
and then some real seaweed so that it's kind of
a mix for him, so hopefully it'll be like a
seafood medley pizza.
- So for my dish, I'm going to make a tomato bisque soup.
I'm going to carve the skull, the ribs, the toes,
I think there's a pelvis in there too somewhere,
out of potatoes.
I am going to make seaweed jungle out of fried basil.
For the drink, it's easy.
I'm going to make a Fanta float with orange sherbet
and two cherries on top for his moms.
(upbeat music)
- Claudette, I'm so excited to cook with you
- Yeah, me too! - or against you.
You're a chef and a mom, you have so much going for you.
- You're making pizza so you win (laughs).
- I literally don't know what kids like, so let's see.
- [Claudette] I'm going to saute the onions real quick,
get them cooked down.
This'll be the base of the blood plasma soup.
- I'm just trying to get really caramelized,
develop the sugars in the onions.
Last, I'll do the raw tomatoes
since they're going to leach out a lot of water
So I'm making a bechamel,
which is one of the mother sauces,
and you can make so many other sauces based on the Bechamel.
I feel like maybe it'll be a catalyst for him, like pus.
- [Claudette] Yes!
- You know, this could be death.
- Boys, that's the easy part, you just need something
really gross and they're like, yeah!
- Yeah!
This little burner is a little funky, so
I might be doing this again.
- I can see Alexis is struggling with her burner,
so I just give her mine since she needs a constant heat,
and induction gives you that.
I have a reputation for being the worse competitor.
- Claudette is not only so talented, but so nice.
This is not really a competition, it's just like
getting to hang out with a friend.
It's getting this nice, nutty brown,
and then I'm going to add the milk.
- [Claudette] Nice besh.
- [Alexis] Thank you. - If I had a pirate ship,
it would be named the Brown Terror.
It would have, like, machine guns and stuff like that,
which pirates do not have.
- Now I'm going to make brains, made out of tomatoes.
I scored the tomato in hopes that,
when it starts to break down,
it'll look like decomposing brains.
We'll see how this cooks down.
I'll mess it up too much.
- I'm just going to do a super, super simple salmon,
which I'm going to bake, and then flake.
I feel like I've learned my lesson about
being too heavy-handed with spices, so
I'm going to try to tone it down.
- Start making bones.
Right now, I am working on the poor dead guy's
femur bone out of this potato.
- [Alexis] It looks really convincing, so far.
- Leg bone, or thigh bone.
Oh, I gotta make toes. (laughs)
Toes, toenail.
Huh? Huh?
- Okay, I'm actually feeling pretty excited about something.
I just ground up chips and I'm going to
dip the squid in them and deep fry it
so it becomes kind of like a chicken nugget.
So I think it might help hide the squid.
It feels a little moist.
- Are you going to bind it with something?
Egg? It's going to slip right off of it
when you deep fry it. - I know.
- I should not be talking to her about that.
- Agh, okay, this always happens.
- Again, this is why I never win.
I think a lot of the times, because I am a chef
of a restaurant and I am a mentor to my cooks,
when I see someone struggle, my instinct is like that,
like protector, mom.
- We have Claudette's really great suggestion.
I'm going to dip the squid into the egg and then
into the ground chips before frying them.
Oop!
- Yeah, he's totally going to know
that's not chicken nuggets.
- I mean, you can tell that it's not chicken,
but it looks pretty cool, and he might actually like it.
- Don't mean to toot your own horn, but toot, toot!
- [Alexis] (laughs) But it's pretty good.
- Now I'm just going to blend it up, to get the consistency
of the tomato bisque.
My brain is still intact, well, not mine, but that one.
Mine has been shot for years.
- Because we're on a bit of a time constraint,
I'm using a premade pizza dough.
Just rotating the dough like this
is a really easy way to stretch it.
- Can you spin it in the air?
Do it.
- Challenge politely declined.
I am going to put the Bechamel on the pizza.
Cheese. - Lots of cheese.
- Lots of cheese.
God, I'm really cheating this one.
- C'mon little rib, every other bone off.
Alright, I'm only doing one.
Fish bone!
- I feel like he should be honored to get one.
That's incredible.
- I'm gonna add my pus, heavy cream.
- I feel like yours is going to be something
we actually want to eat. (laughs)
I'm just going to brush that just with a little oil,
just to make it a little glossier.
I'm going to bake this and then,
the seafood toppings on after.
- [Claudette] After, you smart.
- Just babysitting.
- You look pretty proud of yourself.
- I mean, this looks really good.
I mean, you are doing what he asked for and I'm not, so.
- That's usually what happens, though.
Again, that's parenting (chuckles).
- I'm looking over at Claudette's station and
she's carving a skull out of a potato,
and I have pizza.
- I've seen more,, healthy looking skulls,
but I think it'll do.
That's as good as you're going to get.
Goodnight.
- Did you say goodnight (laughs)?
- (laughs) Go to sleep with the fishes.
- Do you know what a rockfish is?
- Mmm-hmm.
A rockfish is, like, a fish with a stinger
that when it gets scared or mad, it stings you.
- I just got an idea to fry the basil seaweed
and see if I can get almost like, anemone.
She's got pizza, so I gotta pull out all the stops.
- Uh, what is my vision?
Put some shrimp,
I'm just going to flake some of the salmon.
He's going to hate this.
Aedan doesn't like seafood, but
I think it could be fun to add some salmon roe.
Definitely an acquired taste, but I just want to add a few.
- When they pop in his mouth, he's gonna freak out.
(chuckles)
I think it's kind of genius that
Alexis wants to make a pizza,
because even if you get it wrong on the drawing,
you're gonna give the kid what he wants.
- Claudette has made a masterpiece.
She's done exactly what Aedan wanted, and I haven't.
I just, I'm not feeling great.
- I got my teeth, I got my rotten toe,
joints, skull, not bad.
- I mean, that's amazing.
That's crazy.
I was so focused on the pizza that I
completely forgot about the drink.
I'm just gonna wing it, though.
- [Claudette] I can't think of what else could be
purple and orange.
- [Alexis] Yeah, it's like purple, orange, soda,
call it a day.
- Well. - Well.
let the best woman win.
- Yeah.
Let's go see what Aedan thinks.
(classical music)
- [Alexis] So my pizza's done and, you know,
I feel pretty fine about it, but
he asked for stew, so I really just hope
he actually wants pizza.
- [Claudette] I am happy
with the way the dish turned out, visually,
and I think it tastes delicious.
I'm extra, and so is my plating,
so I know he's gonna like it.
- Bring on the Dead Man's Stew.
Hmm.
It looks like sushi with chicken tenders,
with seaweed, they got everything I wanted.
Okay.
It looks like a pizza.
Oh, it is a pizza.
(laughing)
- Good.
Mmm!
That's pretty good.
It tastes like something slimy, kind of.
Like, edible slime.
That's pretty good.
On to this part.
Ugh.
Okay, that is weird.
I do not like that part.
- Oh, finally.
Mmm.
It tastes like all the kind of sodas combined,
and it's good.
- Now that's what I call a stew.
This is all the stuff I needed.
I like how it looks like my drawing.
Oh, wow, that is weird.
- Yeah, I wanna eat it.
- Root beer and Fanta mixed together,
and it also has the cherries on top.
They're for my moms here.
- Hmm.
Mmm-mmm.
Did not like it.
On to the seaweed.
Mmm.
This seaweed's good, not like normal seaweed.
And now for the rotten fish.
Tastes like mango.
Probably want to keep that on the side.
Looks like, ugh, a brain.
Had to give me a brain.
Uh-uh.
It tastes like tomato and I don't like tomato.
(laughing)
- Okay, Aedan, you just had two very different dishes.
Which one do you like better?
The stew or the pizza?
- Hmm.
That's a hard decision, but, I'd say the pizza.
(laughing)
- I told you.
It was the cheese, right?
- Alexis, because you won, you get to keep the drawing.
- Thank you so much.
I mean, what a drawing.
(laughing) This is really exciting.
This was such a fun competition.
Claudette was amazing, and honestly, really helped me out,
so I couldn't have had this without her.
- Losing is not, like, a failure to me.
I think failing is not trying.
Pizza, cheese, carbs, always wins,
no matter how slimy the stuff on top is.
- Chefs, thank you for my Dead Man's Stew.
Yargh!