Top Chef Canada recap, episode 9: the prez

TOP CHEF CANADA
Season 1 | Episode 9
For any viewers who found the Milestones sponsorship in episode seven of Top Chef Canada unbearable, it’s probably a good thing you were too busy watching the Canucks get trounced by the Bruins to witness last night’s episode, which sometimes felt a bit like a glorified, 42-minute President’s Choice ad. Still, seeing the contestants squirm around the constraints of the challenge made for far more entertaining viewing than watching the obliteration of Canada’s Stanley Cup hopefuls. Plus, the editing in the introductory scenes didn’t manage to give away who would be eliminated—a definite improvement over some previous episodes. After the jump, our recap of how it all went down.
Quickfire
The guest judge this time around was Roger Mooking—one-time chef and co-owner of Nyood and Kultura and host of Everyday Exotic, as well as a ’90s R&B heartthrob—who opened the episode with a mini-lecture on the virtues of knowing your ingredients (short version: sometimes you wanna highlight them, other times you wanna “mould” them, whatever that means). The chefs drew knives sporting a number from four to 16, which turned out to represent the number of ingredients they were allowed to use for the challenge (salt, pepper and olive oil conspicuously provided by sponsor Filippo Berio did not count toward that total).

After 45 minutes of the usual running around, Mooking presided over an unusually entertaining tasting. When he called out Dale MacKay’s 12-ingredient mussel velouté—inspired no doubt by this recipe from his boss Daniel Boulud—for having too much saffron, we got to see the west coast chef’s know-it-all temper flare as he coughed out, “I don’t think it’s overpowering!” (Word to MacKay: talking back to the judges is rarely worth it.) At the top of the heap were the contest’s two remaining women, Connie DeSousa, who somehow managed to make her own pasta (10 ingredients) in the 45 minutes allotted, and Andrea Nicholson (Great Cooks on Eight), who took home the win for, of all things, a basic butternut squash soup (six ingredients), which Mooking praised for its big, bold flavours. Instead of immunity from elimination, Nicholson was given an unlimited budget to shop for the elimination challenge.
Elimination
With her usual showmanship, host Thea Andrews announced that for the elimination challenge, the chefs would be “working with Canada’s number one brand…President’s Choice!” The chefs stood there gawking, their faces stuck between disbelief (MacKay in particular) and glee (Crumb, who relished the chance to “interact with real people”). The challenge? Using up to five PC ingredients, create a dish that could be easily mastered by home cooks, and set up a demonstration and sampling station at a Loblaws store to show off the dish. Cue the frenzied dash for PC products and half-hearted endorsements by various chefs of their favourites. After inspecting the various “Memories of…” sauces, Nicholson announced, confusingly, “I wanna make a memory.” For his part, Dustin Gallagher of Grace pronounced himself a fan of PC’s ricotta. We should probably also note that, yes, each commercial break brought a grinning Galen Weston Jr. shilling Decadent chocolate chip ice cream sandwiches and reduced-sugar drinks.

The fairly silly challenge brought out some pretty decent cooking from the contestants. Mercatto’s Rob Rossi, atoning for his poop-on-a-plate chocolate mousse showing from last episode, made a fantastic-looking maple custard with sautéed bananas, of which Andrews exclaimed, “Everything about this is right!” Gallagher also redeemed himself after his gummy gnocchi from last week with a ricotta gnudi with mushrooms and sage brown butter (he serves something similar at Grace). Head judge Mark McEwan liked the dish enough to address the elephant in the room: Gallagher’s irrepressible puppy-dog cuteness. “I think the adorable factor is really ramping up,” he noted. “He’s a really cute kid.” The producers wisely accompanied this with a shot of the young chef’s giant grin.
Also noteworthy was François Gagnon’s magical ability to turn confit chicken thigh wrapped samosa-style in phyllo pastry into something the average Loblaws shopper would feel comfortable making at home. But the real success was MacKay, who showed for the first time that he could go beyond his complex, precision-executed fare and actually follow the rules of a challenge. His winning dish was pure home-cooking comfort: barbecue sauce–laden pulled pork braised in a slow cooker and served on a bun with a horseradish coleslaw. He used the same PC chipotle barbecue sauce as Gagnon, prompting Andrews to declare, “That product is a real winner!” Cringe. Before announcing the winner of the challenge, Mooking summed things up with a sentiment that seems to perfectly encapsulate the ethos of the Canadian edition of Top Chef: “At the end of the day, we really like really simple things that push our boundaries very slightly.”

The two dishes at the bottom ended up there for opposite reasons. DeSousa decided that home cooks needed to be taught how to make their own sausages, serving up chicken, foie gras and truffled (!) pigs in a blanket, which ended up tasting just like their frozen counterpart. If she was overambitious, Crumb was a tad too simple, putting out ricotta-stuffed manicotti with a red sauce and a Parmesan wafer. In the end, while the judges chided DeSousa for her unrealistic yet insipid creation, they couldn’t get over the awfulness of Crumb’s pasta dish (“He really disappoints with a thud,” McEwan remarked, wistfully). On his way out, Crumb, the baby of the group, couldn’t help but make a few hokey hockey references (“I guess the puck stops here”). We hope the fall of this former Vancouverite isn’t an omen.
Next time on Top Chef Canada
The chefs are asked to make three meals that represent a day in the life of Canadian food (whatever that means). DeSousa makes the often-fatal mistake of using store-bought puff pastry (again). MacKay speculates that she might be out of ideas, but Nicholson backs her up. And Lynn Crawford of Truffles and Ruby Watchco fame utters this doozy at the tasting table: “What was this gentleman thinking?” We’re not sure which gentleman she’s referring to, or what he was thinking, but we can’t wait to find out.
Our weekly Top Chef Canada leader board:
After nine weeks of this nonsense I’m actually missing Carlo Rota. Seriously….Roger Mooking? Niiiiiiiiiiiiiice. At least he didn’t say “obedient ingredient”
i will be just like dale mckay
i will be just like dale mackay or better sum day
missed the previous two weeks due to a vacation; and barely caught the end of this weeks; i was shocked to see how Connie did. I am of Portuguese Background as well and i tell you, she could do a lot better. Not sure where this will all end, but I think Dustin, is going to be in the top 2.
I have posted a previous comment some time ago about this ridiculous show. My hat goes off to Mattagascar. Seems like he/she calls it as he sees it….sheer nonsense.
I hope that prissy faced Rob does not win and that’s all I have to say (for now).
It’s great they are promoting Canadian brands…good for you Top Chef. Got some great tips for sauces via PC.
A strong female rolemodel – crying to get the sympathy pts. Is this a back handed jab at females from the producers – take every short cut available?
I will not waste my time watching another episode – so obvious that the decisions are made for PC reasons. The producers didn’t want to see one of the two remaining women eliminated – so off goes Darryl.
And for Mooking to say “This is Top Chef, not Good Cook” is complete nonsense. Week after week, the producers have have invented asinine challenges designed to prevent the contestants from demonstrating their skills, then the judegs criticize the contestants for being hampered by the obstacles the producers created.
Here are some ideas for new episodes:
prepare an entree while riding in the back of a flatbed truck
prepare a dish with ingredients retreived from dumpsters
team competition with meal cooked underwater
with a budget of $10, prepare a four course meal for 20 that can be prepared in 30 minutes by intubated ICU patients recovering from cardiac bypass surgery (suggested climax – Connie and Andrea have the worst dishes and burst into hystericla tears at judge’s table, only to have Gloria Allred appear with a court order decreeing that they be named co-Top Chefs Canada and the remaining male contestants each pay damages of $300,000 US for creating a hostile environment pervaded by phallocentric culinary standards)
SVT-That made my Friday.
I’m a fan of the show but the level of PC product integration made it unwatchable (not to mention totally unbelievable). Going to shop at Metro this week just to balance the scales and punish Galen.
This competition is really exciting and sisappointing at the same time. It is disappointing only when and excellent chef has a “bad day”
after your last show you said you would post the winning recipe. can’t find it.
Hey Crybaby Connie, guess your strategy worked! Her anemic sausage roll seemed far worse than Darryl’s manicotti. Can you imagine the judges’ reactions if a male chef had blubbered like Connie?
Never watched this show before, just saw my first episode and they took all the chefs down to One restaurant… talk about respect.. didnt anyone ever teach these young “chefs” that it is rude to wear a hat at the table.. baseball cap at the table … give me a break …save that look for your wedding….LOL