- Can a kid chef,
- Beat an amateur home cook,
- In a cooking competition?
The answer is yes.
(upbeat music)
Hi guys, I'm Kyle, I'm 12 years old
and I competed on Master Chef Junior: Season 7.
I've been cooking for almost 9 years now.
My grandma taught me how to cook during the holidays
in the kitchen, and from there I kind of took it to
a new level and taught myself how to cook.
- What's up guys, I'm Vic, I work here at Buzzfeed.
People probably know me in the office here
as like the resident cook.
Wow! That looks good.
Hey, what's going on, I'm Victor.
Hi, I'm Kyle, it's nice to meet you.
- Nice to meet you Kyle.
- You ready?
- I'm ready.
I don't know if you're ready.
- I'm gonna kick your butt. (laughs)
I haven't competed against an adult
but, I hope I'm prepared. - Well maybe that's why
you've been winning.
- Excuse me.
(laughs)
- Think Vic's a little intimidated by me
but he's trying to like, you know, keep a strong face
but I think inside he's very afraid.
- I'm a little bit nervous, because I've seen
what my little friends on Master Chef
and those type of shows can do.
I think I can hold my own.
I think Kyle's gonna be up for a little bit of a surprise.
- I don't know.
We'll have to see.
- So what's the challenge?
I've got to say, I'm pretty familiar with leftovers.
Actually, one of the ways I started cooking
was through what I call the leftover remix,
where I'd take a bunch of stuff leftover from lunch
and try to make something new.
So I'm a little experienced in this way.
- [Both] Good luck!
- You'll need it. (laughs)
- I'll need it?
We'll see.
- All right, what do we have here?
I see mac and cheese, turkey, mashed sweet potatoes,
you know, some of the normal stuff that you have leftover.
I see some cornmeal in the pantry, flour, some sugar,
so I think I'm kind of getting a really good idea
in my head right now.
When I think of Thanksgiving, I think of sweet potatoes,
so I'm going to repurpose them
and make a sweet potato cornbread.
And when you think of sweet potatoes on Thanksgiving,
you think of more like a casserole with marshmallows,
so I'm going to put my special twist on that and make it
a cornbread with marshmallows.
I'm going to add some pumpkin butter to lighten it up a bit.
I don't think Vic can match this dish.
- All right, let's see what we have in here.
Oh, this looks interesting.
I see shredded mozzarella cheese,
I see shredded cheddar cheese,
looks like some mashed potatoes, some veggies.
Oh, cornbread.
Excellent, excellent.
All these things I could definitely use, put together.
Me being Hispanic, not really the ingredients
I'm used to seeing around Thanksgiving.
These quite bland and unimpressive leftovers.
I think I'm coming together with a little bit of a plan.
I got some cheese, I got some turkey, mashed potatoes,
some cornbread, gravy.
What I'm thinking is I'm going to incorporate,
put all of these things a little bit together,
chop some stuff up, make like a leftover ball.
Something that can incorporate all of these
ingredients here, and then maybe take
some of this cornbread, see if we can pulverize it,
use it as a breading of some sort.
It's very similar to what we would call
(speaking foreign language)
Like an appetizer food, or you make them big
and it's like a whole meal.
I just want to throw a little bit of that Hispanic flair
in there, just to put my own little spin
on these Thanksgiving leftovers.
Let's see if we can try to give Kyle a run for his money.
This should be a flavor bomb.
(suspenseful music)
I've always watched those shows and I've wondered
are these kids really as good as they portray them to be,
or is it just movie magic?
I don't know, but I think today we're definitely
going to find out.
- Yes we are.
- Ready to go.
- [Producer] Three, two, one, go!
- [Victor] All right.
(jazz music)
Locked in.
- How are you doing over there?
- I'm adjusting, as champions often have to do.
- Oh, okay.
- We'll see.
How's everything over there, Kyle?
- Oh it's good, you know, just the usual.
(blender grinding)
- I forgot the top! (laughs)
You didn't hear anything!
(grinding)
So covering the top with my hand
probably wasn't the safest thing.
I'm sure there was a couple bits of bread
that flew all over the place. (laughs)
But, all in all, it worked.
- Hey, Vic, I heard you needed some eggs,
and I also need some sweet corn.
- And then Kyle had the audacity to come up to me,
"Hey Vic, can I borrow some of your stuff?"
You should have been prepared, Kyle!
But, I was also unprepared, so I was willing
to make the trade.
You know what, since you helped me out before,
I'll do that trade for you.
I have some sweet corn here.
- Thank you.
- Eggs, thank you, Kyle.
- [Kyle] No problem.
- So I'll take some oil, just in case the oil
in the other skillet burned.
This is gonna be good.
Mm, hear that sizzle?
(chopping)
After I put the cornbread in the oven, I had to rush
and make my pumpkin butter before my cornbread came out.
(electric mixer whirring)
Woo!
- Gonna use a tad bit of breadcrumbs.
Put these fillings in.
A little cheese.
- Oh Vic, it looks like you're sweating over there.
- I sweat standing still.
I assure you, Kyle, it's not because I'm nervous
or anything.
- Okay.
He was so nervous, because I think he was scared of me,
that he started sweating in his food.
I don't know if that impacted the taste of his food,
but, yeah.
- Have my own handy-dandy towel.
- [Kyle] Oh, good.
- I thought maybe there was some sort of way that I could
take him out of the zone.
Think you're gonna be able to finish in 15 minutes?
- Oh, I'm definitely gonna be able to finish.
- All right.
But I feel that I'm moving faster than you are.
Vic, concentrate on what you're doing.
Make these fritters, they're gonna be the best,
and we're gonna crush Kyle.
(rock music)
- I saw that he used the cornbread and the breadcrumbs
to make a coating for the fritter, and I thought
that was really creative that he did that.
Wow, I might have some competition here.
So there is a delicate balance between totally burning
the marshmallows, and having a really good cooked cornbread.
I need to navigate that delicate balance and make sure
that both components are cooked evenly and well.
(upbeat music)
- At first, Kyle seemed like he was very confident,
but after a while, all I heard:
(crickets chirping)
Nothing from the other side.
A little bit of garlic.
Try to just delicately guide them into the pan.
- Five minutes left, I'm basically done.
Quick cornbread, quick butter.
Plated nice and rustically on a nice wooden board.
And Vic is still struggling to finish his dish.
And there we have it.
A nice, homey, cozy, cornbread skillet with marshmallows
and pumpkin butter.
At Master Chef, Gordon Ramsay always taught me
to taste, taste, taste my food.
I really, really enjoyed how it tasted, and I think
I'm going to blow the judges away with this dish.
- Kyle, I feel like I'm a little old now,
a little out of touch with the days.
What kind of music do you like, man?
What are you into?
- Pop, whatever's on the radio.
- That Baby Shark song?
♪ Nah nah ba da da ba da da da ♪
- What did he just say?
Baby Shark?
(laughter)
- I know you know that one!
They all know it, they all know it.
- Vic, who are you listening to these days,
the Chordettes?
- Oh, I'm sorry?
Who was that?
Chordettes?
I have no idea what the Chordettes are.
- They were popular in the 50s, just, you know.
- I'm not old.
Come on, cut it out, Kyle.
29 is not old! (laughs)
I know, I am a little old, but that's all right,
because with age comes experience, I'm hoping! (laughs)
My first guy.
- [Kyle] Can I try some, Vic?
- Holy cow, that's not bad at all!
Do me a favor?
Dunk a little bit in that gravy.
Oh, you missed some of that.
It's not going to stick as nice as I want it to.
Looking, I'm looking.
Why you got this face like you're eating vegetables?
- Mmm.
- He's lying!
Do you see? No.
- Uh, should we bring the judges down?
- Yeah, I think we're gonna need them.
Because you're a little biased, can I say?
- Good luck.
- Good luck, Kyle.
(slow music)
- Okay, it's pretty good.
I think it's just like fried potato, broccoli,
but it's a little simple.
- Wow.
I like that it's cheesy inside the middle,
and some chicken in there.
That's definitely real good.
This is new to me, I never had this type of style before.
- I was not expecting for there to be mashed potatoes in it.
You can't really see, and then you cut it open,
and it's like this gooey, mashed potato wonder comes out.
And then I got very excited because mashed potatoes
are the best Thanksgiving food.
- Overall, it's pretty good.
- What? This is so good!
- It's like sweet, but not too sweet.
- It's like a dessert.
Very sweet, very tasty.
- I don't know, I'm not really digging the corn.
The flavor is very good.
I'm very big on flavor.
- There's like a cinnamon butter that you put on top,
and that makes such a difference.
- I think this is absolutely amazing.
- It's warm and the perfect cake consistency.
It's not too moist.
It's a terrible word.
- Between these two dishes, if I had to pick one,
I would go with the second one,
because I'm very big on flavor.
The first one just, the flavor wasn't there,
just should have added more.
- Out of these two dishes, I think my favorite has to be
the mashed potato ball.
I just love savory foods and mashed potatoes are the best.
And I think mashed potatoes are really hard
to eat the next day, and make it done well.
And I'm taking one of these to go.
- Out of these two dishes, I think my favorite
is gonna have to be the second one.
I've never tried anything like that.
Pumpkin corn bread, with this very cool presentation.
I thought this was tasty, and if I got it,
I wouldn't be mad, but it wasn't anything like,
"Poof! Wow!
"I've never tried this before!"
This, this was awesome.
(drum roll)
- [Announcer] In this contest of amateur adult home cook
versus kid chef, leftover Thanksgiving challenge,
the winner is, drum roll please.
(sigh)
- Nooo!
- Good game, Vic!
- Your dish looked awesome.
- Thank you. - It really did.
I was admiring it from over here,
and I had a little bit of pit in my stomach
because I was like, look at my guy, he's got
all of these machines going,
he's got his little cast iron skillet.
Everything looks beautiful, he's organized,
but it was fun, nonetheless.
I'm very happy for the opportunity.
- Oh, yeah.
- And you really kicked butt, man.
Pound it. - It was a good game.
Woo!
- [Producer] And you know who didn't get that trophy?
(laughter)
(music fading)