You know, Hunter, this is gonna be
one of those nights to remember.
-What? -Wow.
Tonight, we're gonna pull off a big double surprise.
[Katt Dreyfuss] Yikes!
[Guy Fieri] The judges are about to find out
that this is a spicy competition.
My head's starting to sweat.
And the chefs, well, they're gonna discover
it's also a "Beat the Judges" competition.
Holy smokes.
-Wow. -Let's do it.
[Guy] In round one, three accomplished chefs
will compete in a spice challenge,
but only the highest scoring chef will move on to round two.
The winner of round one gets an automatic $10,000
and a shot at doubling their money.
But they have to beat one of the all-star judges
in a one-on-one spice battle royale.
Just me, or are we all sweating?
They want spicy, so I'm gonna give it to them.
This is gonna be epic.
We're gonna judge them, then we're gonna beat them.
It's Beat the Judges Spicy, right now on Guy's Grocery Games.
So let's meet our spicy chefs.
Now first up, we have Katt Dreyfuss,
chef de cuisine of a Boston wine bar,
known for its seasonal spicy bites.
So I work at Hailey.Henry in Downtown Crossing.
We have a lot of spicy bites from my menu.
I'm known for my house-made chili crisp,
and we pair all of our spicy foods with natural wine.
I want to be sweating when I'm eating.
I will just eat a whole jalapeno,
just want it spicy all the time.
-Hi, chef! -[Guy] Here we go!
-What about the boss! -Let's do it!
Next, we got Christopher Callender,
the executive chef from Brooklyn,
whose spicy Caribbean cuisine has been featured in Forbes.
[Christopher Callender] I come from a Jamaican family.
I love heat because I've, you know, grown up on it.
Literally as a toddler, I was eating all types of pepper sauces.
If you don't know anything about Caribbean food,
know one thing, spice is everything.
-[Guy] There you go, chef. -Chef.
Looking good with that hair.
And finally Jenna Lucas, the Pennsylvania chef de cuisine,
who grows her own peppers at her farm
and makes her popular hot honey,
talk about sweet heat.
[Jenna Lucas] I am chef hot honey.
I made the hot honey for the restaurant.
I love a little bit of sweet, I love a little bit of heat,
and it kind of just came from there.
I cook with peppers that people usually don't even know of.
We have Death Spiral, we have Lemon Drop peppers,
ghosts. Spice is life.
-[Guy] There you go, chef. -What's going on?
Strolling and rolling. There we go.
Gonna get hot in here.
Chefs, welcome!
Now, we're standing in Flavortown,
getting ready to sweat it out.
-[all groaning] -Oh, boy.
[Guy] You clearly know how to put the heat in eat.
So I had to bring you
to one of my favorite Triple G competitions,
Beat the Judges, spicy edition.
-Wow. -What?
[Guy] What I love more than a spicy competition
is to watch the judges sweat.
[sighs]
At the end of this first round,
they're gonna be sweating, you'll be sweating
because tonight, whoever makes the highest scorching scoring
spicy dish in the first round
will win an automatic $10,000.
Holy smokes.
-All right. -Let's do it.
The bad news is the other two chefs
will automatically be eliminated...
-[laughs] -...because the winner of round one
will get to now compete against
one of our all-star judges in the second round.
Okay.
The judges love this.
Yeah, thank you so much.
Aarti, she wears a nice outfit,
and then she's gonna cook in it.
[sighs]
-[laughs] -[Guy] All right,
we'll jump right into it. For your first challenge,
I want you to make the judges a spicy comfort dish,
that feel good dish, but just a little added "kachow."
Right? Add a kick.
-Oh, yeah. -[Guy] Okay?
I'm gonna be looking for some heat on these judges.
I mean, I wanna see some sweat.
-Ooh. -Oh, gee.
And since spicy's the biggest twist you can give a dish,
we're gonna forget about playing any silly games.
You can go anywhere you want.
-We're free? -Yep.
You can get anything you want, okay?
-Let's do it. -That's good.
And remember, when I say, "three, two, one, go,"
that's when we start the whole thing, okay?
Go. [clears throat]
[all laughing]
What were they waiting for?
-Oh, this is gonna be good. I think it's nice to-- -[Hunter Fieri] Hey!
-What? -I'm sorry. Sorry I was late. My bad.
-Yeah, Hunter, I mean... -Where are the chefs?
I'm starting. They just took off with the competition,
and you're supposed to be here now.
What's... Go...
What's the game? What did you get them to do?
I didn't do a game. I did spicy competition.
They've gotta make a comfort spicy dish...
-[Hunter] No, they can't. -...and they're gonna compete...
-What? -They can't. They can't do spicy.
They cannot, we are completely...
I've already sent them on their way.
Dad, we are completely out of fresh chilis.
I mean, we have nothing over there.
I'm gonna tell you right now. If this involves another bison story--
Not a bison. No, no, no.
It was, like, a pack of deranged dolphins.
[dolphin chirping]
They attacked the boat the chilis were coming on,
and we lost them all.
Deranged dolphins?
Deranged, wacked out, crazy,
-I don't know what was going on. -Dolphins attacked the ship?
-Yes. -So there's no fresh chilis
in the entire store?
Hunter, I gotta go make an announcement. You're killing me.
[hurried whispering]
I guess we'll have to play a little game of out-of-stock.
I guess there is a game.
[over PA] Attention chefs, I apologize.
Due to an unforeseen situation of a ship
with deranged dolphins, as per Hunter Fieri,
we are out-of-stock on all the fresh peppers.
What? No fresh peppers?
Ah! I was like, "Why? Why?"
[Guy over PA] Good luck on your spicy competition.
Deranged dolphins, seriously?
[Katt Dreyfuss] I knew something else was coming.
There's always something else coming on Triple G.
Fresh chili definitely brings more heat.
Can't use any fresh chilis, they're literally gone.
So, I grab Thai chilis, dehydrated of course.
I will just rehydrate them in boiling water
so that I can try to extract as much flavor from them as possible.
For my spicy comfort dish,
I am doing a coconut rice congee
with grilled shrimp.
Congee is, like, a rice porridge,
coconut milk and coconut cream to cook my rice in,
green curry paste to add floral and spicy notes.
Ghost pepper sauce, really hoping that it's gonna make them sweat,
maybe a couple tears in the eye.
I grab papaya and mango
because the dish could use a little extra sweetness
to balance out the heat and the fattiness.
-You find spicy? -I did.
I'm very happy with it.
I'm worried about how spicy they're gonna get with their spicy.
Some dried shrimp and dried chilis.
There's a different spicy that you get out of a fresh chili...
...to what you're gonna get out of some chili flake...
...or chili de arbol.
You're gonna have to wake them up a little bit.
[Jenna whispering] Let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go.
When I think comfort, I think homestyle,
I think down south.
Wait a minute guys, you can't use any fresh peppers.
So I pivot and I grabbed Thai pepper spice...
...habanero salt.
One of the hottest things that I've ever eaten
is, like, legit Nashville hot chicken.
I make a fantastic hot honey,
and I need to make it number one in this dish.
I grab ghost pepper maple syrup
'cause I want to put it within my hot honey.
It'll burn your mouth, but you're gonna want to keep on going back for more.
If we don't have peppers by the second round,
Hunter's going back to assistant to the assistant parking lot manager.
I'm gonna promote Ryder.
All right, Jamaica, Jamaica, let's go.
Where is that jerk sauce?
Since I can't use fresh chilis,
I had to grab some pepper sauce.
I'm just putting spice in everything.
I love spice, I'm Jamaican.
All right, I think I'm gonna make a Rasta pasta.
That's what I have to do.
Rasta pasta is like Italy and Jamaica having a baby.
Rasta pasta could use any protein,
but I'm going with shrimp because shrimp really
brings out that spice that people are looking for.
I grab the jar of alfredo
because I don't have time to make my own roux.
We are out of stock of fresh peppers.
So I'm gonna go to the frozen area and get some frozen peppers.
It's cool to be here at Flavortown.
But it would definitely be cooler to be able
to compete against one of these judges.
-No. -Bring it.
Yeah.
Here to talk spicy food are the three all-star judges,
who are hopefully up for cooking spicy food as well
because one of them will be competing in the second round.
The most winningest chef in Triple G history,
"Mayhem" himself, Chef Aaron May.
-[Aarti Sequeira clapping] -[Jet Tila] Yeah.
The executive chef with five culinary world records,
-the one and only, Jet Tila. -[Aarti clapping]
And cookbook author and resident spice expert,
they better watch out for chef Aarti Sequeira.
-Hi, everybody. -[Guy] All right.
What is your spice tolerance level?
I like spice. I like to adventure.
Okay.
Yeah, I'm probably an 8 out of 10.
-8 out of 10? -That sounds like a lot of braggadocio.
-[Jet laughing] Yeah. -Brag-o-licious, I like it.
-[Aarti] Really? -Jet, what is your spice level?
I'm guessing I'm, like, probably a 10 out of 10.
We had chilis in the bottles as babies in Thailand.
-That's what it was. -They started super young.
[Aarti laughing] Yeah.
[Guy] 24 minutes!
Bird's eye chili, nice find.
-Thank you, chef. -What are you going for?
[Katt] I really love, like, a papaya salad.
I'm also gonna make a congee out of the white rice here.
-Good heat. -Excellent heat.
Don't let that coconut milk drag that heat down.
[Katt] Oh, it won't.
The first thing that I'm gonna get started on is the congee.
After I get the rice working in the microwave,
I have to get those bird's eye chilis rehydrating.
A marinade for the shrimp with a little bit of mayo, some lime juice...
...fresh garlic, and a ton of cayenne pepper.
There's a lot riding on this competition right now.
This round one, I could win $10,000
if my plate is delicious and spicy enough.
I've struggled to find my place in the world,
and until I really got into cooking professionally five years ago,
I never really thought that I would be able to do it,
but seeing the judges, being in such awe of them,
I would be so lucky to go up against one of them.
It would be amazing.
How are we supposed to have an unbiased opinion.
It's a very tricky one to judge
because whomever's dish is the strongest,
that's the chef that one of us might have to go up against.
Then we're gonna judge them.
We're gonna judge them, then we're gonna beat them.
You know, I for one, am looking forward to this.
You're so ready.
I really am.
[Guy] Chefs, we've got 20 minutes!
You have 20 minutes to be plated!
I've been victim to the spice challenge many times.
Sometimes, people make the mistake of not going hot enough,
but it looks like there's a full-throated
approach to heat here.
I'm gonna need some milk, guys.
-How're we looking, chef? -I'm looking pretty good.
-What's the game plan? -Rasta pasta, I guess.
-Rasta pasta. -[Christopher] Yeah.
-I like that. -Get the heat up from that.
[Guy] What are you bringing heat with?
-Definitely gonna use some jerk seasoning. -[Guy] Okay.
Now, I'm not talking mild. I'm talking, like, cooking them.
-Oh, no, I'm gonna give it to them. -[Guy] Okay.
-I'm gonna give them heat. -Okay.
First thing I work on is my sauce
because I need time to develop my spice.
I add the alfredo into the blender,
followed by some milk.
Since I can't use fresh chilis,
if there's a spice in my station,
I'm using it for my Rasta pasta sauce.
Then I add my jerk seasoning.
The last thing I added was the pepper sauce.
Let's turn it up a bit.
They want spicy, so I'm gonna give it to them.
I come from a very Jamaican family
my grandmother cooks amazing.
My grandma is the dearest to my heart.
She has given me flavor
that I have now and I'm able to give to others.
[clears throat]
I need some water right now.
I'm going fried chicken over grits.
First things first, I need to get my chicken in the buttermilk
to kind of get it that moisture that it needs.
To make the spicy flour mixture,
habanero salt, Thai pepper spice in there as well.
I would've loved a little ghost pepper up in here,
fresh.
To be here today
is probably one of the coolest things I've ever done in my life.
I, you know, started at the bottom,
and I worked my way on up.
I feel like sometimes, most times,
people don't take me...
...seriously because I have a stutter.
I don't care if there's a stutter.
You know, I've had it my whole entire life.
-[under breath] That, put that with... -Chef, where you at?
-[Jenna] Fried chicken and grits. -[Guy] Okay.
Um, you know, I do a lot of that back home.
Grits are your way to go, huh?
-[Jenna] Yeah. -Okay.
To make it spicy,
I put hot sauce, Thai pepper spice
to really give it that bite.
It has taken me a long time
to get to where I'm at
to kind of realize that, like, it shouldn't stop me,
but, you know, it... You know, it just
makes me who I am,
and it kinda makes me work a little bit harder.
Gotta get my chicken rocking.
-Jenna's bringing, I guess, some southern feels here. -Yeah.
[Jet] Uh, spicy fried chicken over hot honey grits.
I mean, apparently she's known for her hot honey. So...
-Yeah. -...I don't think I've ever had hot honey
paired with grits before,
-um, personally, so... -No, that's right.
That's gonna be fun.
[Katt] My rice is ready. I throw in coconut milk
and coconut cream into a pan,
and a little bit of green curry paste.
You wanna make it a little bit more on the soupy side of things.
I'm gonna use the dried Thai bird's eye chili
with a little bit of garlic, some dried shrimp,
and then mash that all together in the molcajete.
And then we're gonna add a little bit of fish sauce and lime juice,
fresh mango, some fresh papaya.
Congee goes well with spice.
I'm putting this ghost pepper sauce in,
and I'm really hoping that it's gonna make them sweat.
I really need to get going on these shrimp.
I wanna make sure that I get the ghost pepper sauce in there
because I'm not confident that just cayenne pepper
is really gonna do it.
Get my shrimp on and get a nice char.
12 minutes, chefs, 12 to go!
[Christopher] While my sauce is simmering, I need to work on my shrimp.
Jerk seasoning, cinnamon, paprika, pepper sauce.
I'm confident in the dish, made it a million times,
and when I win, I'll be able to go up against one of these judges.
Right now, my eye's on Aaron May.
He is an amazing chef.
I know he'd be a challenge.
I'm that competitive that I definitely think I could beat him.
I don't have fresh peppers,
so these frozen peppers make it Rasta.
Butter, a little salt, a little pepper
and just let that simmer.
All right, not gonna waste time on that.
All right.
Grits are going, grits are going.
While my grits are working,
I immediately start working on my hot honey.
Honey. Honey, honey, honey.
I start with regular honey,
just to kinda keep it neutral,
and then I put in the ghost pepper maple syrup.
A little harissa seasoning...
...a little pepper, habanero salt, 'cause why not?
I am chef hot honey.
I made my own hot honey two years ago,
and it's been a hit ever since.
We sell it when we have our farmer's market,
and it sells out every single week.
But it's really kind of become my staple and my name.
Put the rest in here.
So I keep on tasting the grits
to put in more butter, tasting, tasting, tasting.
And I'm having a hard time because dairy kills the spice.
So it's kind of, like, you know, butting heads.
Pickled onions as garnish.
I want to do pickled red onions
because, like, it's just going to enhance the heat
in the rest of the dish.
Fun fact about spicy foods
and, you know, different kinds of spice
is that when you give a little bit of vinegar in there,
it really brings everything to the forefront.
Just me, or are we all sweating?
-No, we're sweating. -All right, that's what I thought.
[Guy] Got 90 seconds, gotta get plated!
[Katt] Congee looks perfect,
and then the shrimp's, like, beautiful charred shrimp.
Who doesn't love that?
The congee would be best on the bottom...
...mango and papaya fruit salad on top...
...and then my charred spicy shrimp.
-[Guy] One minute! -[Christopher] My pasta's done,
cream sauce with spice, that's Rasta pasta.
Spicy shrimp is phenomenal.
Everybody loves spicy shrimp.
First, I put down my Rasta pasta.
Flavortown has not seen Caribbean heat like this.
I really need to nail this dish,
so I can go beat one of the judges.
[Guy] 30 seconds to plate.
Here we go, baby.
[Jenna] The chicken, it's looking golden brown.
I immediately toss it with my hot honey.
First thing that I put down is my hot honey grits,
and then hot honey fried chicken.
This is the dish that's gonna get me into that next round.
Five, four, three,
two, one, chefs that's it! Stop working!
-Whoo! -[cheering]
[Guy] All right, chefs, let's find out
whose pepperless dish packs enough punch to win $10,000.
Let's take it to the judges, right this way.
[Guy] All right, judges, this is it,
game one of Beat the Judges, the spicy edition.
We played a little out-of-stock.
Chefs had to make a spicy comfort dish
in the grocery store that had no fresh peppers.
Up first, chef Christopher. What do you have for us?
I have a Caribbean Rasta pasta for you guys.
I did my best to add some pepper sauce in there to elevate the spice.
It has cheese in there, that's definitely gonna
bring out the flavor of the spice a s well,
and not just kick your butts.
I used some jerk seasoning, crushed peppers as well,
uh, a little touch of smoked paprika.
My roots come from Jamaica,
so I don't know anything spicier than Jamaican food.
Christopher, I feel I'm blushing.
-[laughing] -[Aarti] Everything is cooked so beautifully.
That shrimp is still plump, there's still a nice bite to the pasta.
One of the smartest things you did
was that you married dry heat
with that moist, wet heat from that pepper sauce.
So I'm getting the full spectrum
-Right. -[Jet] So yeah, my head's starting to sweat
right at the top here.
I'm getting all the dry spices
and then to marry that with cheese,
I think it's a really beautiful combination,
and I like your point of view.
I think you played the game, uh, really well,
not having the fresh chilis you want.
I think you compensated great.
Thank you. Thank you, chef.
Christopher, I think that this is well-named, Rasta pasta.
And technically, I think you did a great job.
The shrimp are all cooked great,
the pasta is perfect,
the heat level is creeping,
like, I'm getting, like, my whole mouth
-is, like, starting to build and build and build. -Right.
Sauce is a little loose.
Right? I could have used a little more viscosity,
-reduce it a little bit. -Right.
[Guy] All right, thank you very much.
Up next, chef Jenna, what do you have for us?
For you today, I have a chicken
with spicy hot honey, grits,
topped with pickled red onion and scallion.
This fried chicken, it is everything I want in fried chicken.
It's crispy, it's savory, it's sweet.
The grits also very taste.
I think you've got a great flavor in them.
I see why you're, like, the hot honey expert.
What it's not is spicy enough.
I think there were some other opportunities to really jam in some heat.
I also agree that it's not quite as spicy
as I think you wanted it to be.
The thing that I love about your pickled onions
is they're also slightly sweet,
- but they still have a little bite to them. - [Jenna] Mmm-hmm.
[Aarti] So you get a little bit of sort of natural acidity,
-not vinegar acidity... -[Jenna] Correct.
-...that cuts through the rest of your dish. -Heard that.
If this was, like, a late night,
and this was my ballast after a night on the town
with, like, Guy for example...
-...this is the perfect plate of food. -Heard that.
[Guy] All right, thank you very much.
Not to be out done, chef Katt, what do you have for us?
Today, I have a congee, which is a rice porridge,
ghost pepper hot sauce and a little bit
of green curry paste in there.
The shrimp are marinated in some paprika,
cayenne, lime juice,
and under that, we have a little bit of a salad.
You truly have the soul of an Asian chef.
This shrimp is perfect, and the heat is there.
[mimics explosion] I'm getting that building heat right now.
I'm at like a four right now, and I think it's gonna climb
to a nine by the time I'm done.
I think the flavors are great.
I think the rice is really well flavored and spicy.
It's a different spice than the shrimp.
You know, the one thing that I would say is
I love that, the crunch of a papaya salad,
I'm missing that texturally in here.
You've got so much flavor in here on every level.
Um, and I love the way that you've put
that hot sauce into the mayo,
so that not only do you have a crust on your shrimp,
but that crust itself has a ton of spicy flavor in it.
Excuse me...
[laughing]
...on the set of Grocery Games,
and, uh, my good buddy over here, Jet Tila,
who can handle all that Thai spice, right?
-You're an animal, right? -Oh, yeah, I'm an animal.
Can you tell me ten out of ten today was your number?
Ten out of ten on spice?
And look what I needed to hide?
[Guy] And you have milk?
-[Aarti laughing] -[Guy] Jet, you know as well as anybody
you are not supposed to be having milk.
[Jet] Guy, look behind you.
[laughing]
[Guy] Oh, I'm giving you all Fs.
[laughing]
[Guy] Uh, we are gonna send you back to your kitchens,
we're gonna let the judges sit here and have ice cream...
[laughing]
[Guy] ...and we will call you back when we have a decision.
-Thank you very much, nice job. -[Aarti] Ah, that's so funny.
[Guy] 20 points available in game play,
20 points available in taste, 10 points available in plating
for a total of 50 points.
My milky friends, which spicy chef
will be going to the next heat?
Well, chefs, we asked for a super-spicy dish,
and we asked for comfort on top of that.
I think everybody brought comfort,
I don't know that everybody brought spice.
Unfortunately, two chefs will go home in this round,
but one chef will win 10,000 bucks and get a chance
to figure out who they wanna battle against
for a spicy, spicy, spicy round.
So, let's take a look at the scores.
Chef Jenna, 13 out of 20 in gameplay,
16 out of 20 in taste,
8 out of 10 in plating for a score of 37.
Thank you, chefs.
Chef Christopher gotta beat 37.
16 out of 20 in gameplay,
17 out of 20 in taste,
- 7 out of 10 in plating for a 40. -[Aaron] Wow!
-[Aarti] Whoa! -[Jet] Whoa!
[Guy] So, it is gonna be up to Katt.
Katt, you have got to beat the 40.
- 17 out of 20 in gameplay... -[Jet] Whoo!
[Guy] ...17 out of 20 in taste,
unless you blew plating, you got this,
7 out of 10 for plating for a 41.
By one point!
-[Aaron] Wow! -[Guy] One point!
-[Aarti] Wow! -[Jet] Wow! Amazing.
You two, thank you very much!
Those are thin numbers.
Sorry we don't have another round for you...
-It's okay. -[Guy] ...but it's been great to have you.
-Thank you very much. -Thank you very much.
Thank you, Chef.
I definitely am a little upset I lost by one point.
I really thought I had it.
I am sad that I have to depart,
but I'm super happy that I got to be here.
[Guy] Chef!
You just took down two very talented chefs
and earned yourself $10,000, by the way.
-Congratulations. -[applauding]
[Guy] A one-point win is a win!
Now you have a chance to win an additional $10,000.
[Jet] Mmm.
Going up against one of the superstar judges
in a final spicy showdown.
-Now, this guy... -[Jet laughing]
[Guy] ...won over $130,000
as flavor count's winningest chef,
and that chef, Mayhem Chef Aaron May.
He's a tournament of champions finalist,
master of spicy Asian food,
the one and only world record holder himself,
five world records, Chef Jet Tila.
[applauding]
-[Guy] Now, now is when we really bring out the big guns. -Come on now!
[Guy] ...she's a Food Network star, critically acclaimed author,
and a knowledge expert in spices,
-and has a winning total of over 71,000 bucks. -[Jet] Ooh, yeah!
[Guy] And that is the spice queen, Aarti Sequeira.
-[Jet] Whoo! -[Aarti] Thank you.
Who do you think? I mean, look at 'em,
such smiley, bright faces.
I want you to, I want you to look at this,
they have your money.
[Katt] Um, I think that,
I mean, I think Chef Jet Tila might have my money.
Oh, really?
You think Chef Jet Tila has your money?
I think he might have my money.
Oh, gosh, I love this!
Oh!
Oh, my goodness, 'kay, do me a favor,
reach under the thing and grab your milk...
[Aarti laughing]
...'kay and bring your milk over here and stand up with your pinky up.
Chef Tila, you stand over at the champ stand where she's standing right now.
Uh-oh, look at this!
Hang on, before we commence this relationship,
he was in the final four of TOC three.
Oh, yeah.
I mean, he is on a run right now.
I know.
That's why you wanna curdle his milk.
I like that, all right.
-$10,000 on the line. -Whoo!
Chefs, good luck, and to your carts.
All right, chefs, this is it.
This is the second and final round of beat the judges spicy
Katt versus Jet.
Sounds like an action film.
Right? It does.
-I'm into it. -Yeah, exactly.
Chef Katt, you've already beat out two other chefs,
you've got the ten grand, and if you win this,
$20,000.
[Hunter] That's a nice pay day.
[Guy] And you're taking on Chef Jet Tila.
Why did you pick Jet?
I don't know, I just, like, have always pictured myself
either cooking with him or against him.
I'm actually honored.
Final challenge, I want you to make the judges...
...a spicy dinner, no!
An elegant spicy dinner.
-Oh, elegant. -[Guy] Elegant spicy dinner.
Take your dish to the next level.
And to help you take it to the next level,
we're gonna play a game that has a lot of levels,
we're gonna play a bit of the flaming food pyramid.
In your first option down here,
you will have the choice between ghost pepper queso,
jalapeno chips...
...ghost pepper chips,
Caroline reaper jerky...
Wow.
[Guy] ...ghost pepper salami and wasabi peas.
Uh, Hunter, let's see your magic, kid.
[Jet] Come on, come on!
[drum roll]
[Jet] Yeah, yeah, all right!
[Guy] Ghost pepper chips.
Great. Yeah.
[Guy] Next category.
-[Hunter] Here we go. -[Jet] Oh, this thing spins?
-Oh, okay. -Oh, wow!
[Guy] Are you gonna cook with pork, chicken, beef or seafood?
[Hunter] Here we go.
[Jet] Come on, yes!
[Guy] Chicken.
Oh!
-All right, last but not least, what could this be? -Here we go.
Do you have to use the torch, the molcajete,
the brick or the smoking gun?
Okay, let's see what happens. Hunter!
[Hunter] Okay, here we go.
[Jet] Oh, there it is.
-[Guy] It's the old elegant Molcajete. -[Jet laughing]
-[Guy] So, Molcajete... -[Hunter] Yeah, gotta love that.
...chicken and the ghost pepper chips
must be incorporated
into your elegant spicy dinner for $10,000.
Um, don't run into us.
Gonna go in three, two, one...
-I was gonna tell you guys something. -Oh! [laughing]
See, hey, you have to wait till I say, "go."
[Katt] Sorry, I heard gonna and the I just thought maybe--
Yeah, you just gotta wait till I say, "go." Anyhow...
[Aarti] Oh, no!
[Hunter] Jet, how many times have you competed in here before?
Not a lot, not a lot in the kitchen, maybe under five times.
Okay, I mean, so, how many times really?
Uh, maybe three times.
-[Aaron coughs] -You're pretty good at reading things.
You know, come on!
[Jet laughing]
Let's do it!
I am the king of spices, I grew up eating spice.
I would not have picked me.
Thai culture is synonymous with crazy spicy.
We have to use ghost pepper chips,
a molcajete and chicken.
All right, I gotta figure out what kind of chicken I want.
I'm really bummed I have to cook chicken for an elegant dinner.
Breast is dry, don't wanna break down whole birds,
so, I'm gonna go ground chicken.
Going to make a lettuce cup,
and I'm gonna use these chips to be a textual component.
I'm gonna have to go fancy another way here.
Asian aisle...
I need to really balance all the heat
with really great umami and salt.
Fish sauce, oyster sauce and Thai sweet soy.
I'll also get chicken powder
because it is a secret weapon in the Asian kitchen.
It brings instant savoriness to any Asian dish.
I wanna bring a kind of a fruity note of heat.
Flavortown now has fresh chilis,
so, I grab some fresh Thai chilis and habanero.
The only elegance I can bring is technique,
so, I'm grabbing a young coconut to use as a vessel,
but also use the meat.
There we are.
I give it up to Katt, that was some brave moves right there.
For her to pick me, we have a phenomenal panel of judges,
but of all of 'em, I think I cook with heat the most.
[Katt] I picked Chef Jet Tila.
Know that it's definitely biting off more than I can chew,
but I love a challenge, and I really just wanna see if I can beat him.
For my elegant spicy dinner, I'm making a grilled chicken breast,
a mole and a Fresno chili oil.
I think that that's a really nice incorporation
of the ghost pepper tortilla chips.
I love tequila.
Obviously, I need this one.
I think that the tequila is going to add a really nice smokey flavor
when incorporated into the mole and then my chili oil.
Morel mushroom, so elegant, it's one of the best mushrooms,
it holds flavor so well because of all the little pockets.
I'm definitely very, very nervous right now.
I think that Jet is such a versatile chef.
He is a worthy competitor.
If you're gonna have a spicy challenge,
you gotta bring the person that can't stand spice more than anybody,
well, including the Cuban.
The one and only Troy Johnson.
-They said you needed some elegance on this show. -[laughing]
Oh!
Oh, I can't believe you're here.
Nice to have you, good luck with the heat.
So, Troy Johnson who thinks that apples are spicy
-is now here to judge this competition? -[laughing]
Hey, apples have got a kick.
I'm gonna hurt today, that's what's gonna happen.
There's gonna be a lot of spice, it's gonna be painful,
it's gonna be misery, it's gonna be, you know, all the fun things.
[laughing]
[Guy] 22 minutes left.
All right, Chef, what have we got?
[Katt] So, I'm gonna do a more refined mole sauce
and then incorporate the ghost pepper chips into that sauce.
These are hot, by the way.
Gonna do a grilled chicken breast, slice it nice and thin...
-Got it. -...fresh chilis and the mole itself as well.
Mole is the base of my dish,
so, it's super important that I really get that nailed down.
Mole can be this beautiful, velvety, rich sauce.
Got some quatre within here going in with the chips
to kinda make a little bit of a base of a paste for my mole.
I really love a Fresno chili, it packs a ton of heat,
so, I wanna use that in my mole.
It's gonna get pretty spicy right here.
Going to add the ghost pepper chips and black garlic.
I deglaze with tequila.
Now that I've built my flavors, I can add the mole,
and I'm gonna let that cook down a little bit
before I throw it in the blender.
While my mole's cooking down, I'm gonna start on my chicken,
mayonnaise, and the chicken bouillon.
Paprika, some cayenne pepper.
I totally look up to Jet, I think he is so respectable,
I love how eloquent he is in his description of flavor
and I also love his cooking style so much,
and I really just wanna see if I can beat him.
Got my habaneros, Thai chili.
-[Guy] Chef! -[Jet] Hey, Chef.
Man, I didn't think I'd be cooking today, what is going on?
-Troy is over there judging... -Oh, no!
...and he said, "I can already tell you Jet lost."
Because?
"'Cause he doesn't know how to make heat."
[laughing] Is that what he said?
Wow, so, Troy needs a lot of heat is what I'm hearing from you.
All right, I'm gonna do my best to make Troy cry today.
Oh, Jet!
[Jet] I'm gonna bring the heat just for you, Troy.
I am grinding a chili paste.
Habaneros, Thai chilis, ghost pepper chips,
and that's gonna be my sauteing base.
Stand back, that will hurt you.
[Guy] What's the dish gonna be, Jet?
I'm gonna do, um, a Thai lettuce cup.
[Guy] I like that.
[Jet] I'm gonna dice a white onion, get that into the pan.
I'm gonna start adding more chilis in.
Hottest thing I can for Troy.
Chili flakes, cayenne pepper.
Whoo!
I chiffonade the Thai lime leaves and get that in there
to really boost the flavors.
I take the package of ground chicken thigh
and start rendering it out.
Oh, Troy!
[chuckling]
I've got something for you, bro!
In the blender goes more habaneros, more Thai chilis,
more cayenne, chili flake to make a very hot chili sauce.
Ohhh!
I opened up the blender...
[laughing] Whoo!
...and I got hit with pepper spray, so there's no way it's not gonna be hot.
It's hot, it's hot!
[Guy] How are you feeling, Chef?
Are we cooking chicken, what have we got over here?
Yep, we're gonna throw the chicken in the pan right now.
I got the mole working here.
Got it, got it.
[Katt] The morels are gonna be sauteed right now.
Nine and a half minutes.
Nine and a half? Heard that!
If I don't get this chicken on, that's it.
I really wanna win the money today because my fiance,
he's been so supportive because chef hours are so impossible to deal with.
I think that the best way to pay him back for that
is to take some time off and just go travel and explore together.
The next thing that I know I have to do
is make an agrodolce out of these morel mushrooms.
I don't think that many people have had a morel agrodolce before.
Little bit of oil, a little bit of salt
just to kind of get them browned.
Once that's done, in the blender,
I throw in fresh Fresno chilis, canola oil,
red wine vinegar, and a dash of tequila.
blended that on high, and then right into that hot pan
with all those mushrooms.
I have to get this chicken on the grill
'cause I think that that adds a nice smokey flavor.
[Jet] Once the chicken is cooked through, I need to season it.
So, chicken powder's gonna bring salt, more ghost pepper chips.
I'm not gonna lose this battle because it's not spicy enough.
I am the spice king, I can't lose this battle.
Whoo!
So, while my chicken is cooking, I go to my Thai young coconut,
I take a cleaver, I crack them in half
and I'm savoring this really sweet coconut water.
I'm scooping out the flesh of the young coconut,
I cut it into strips and then dice it,
and throw it in my chicken.
I wanted to glaze with the young coconut water
to bring another level of flavor and sweetness.
[Guy] Two minutes! Two minutes flat!
Time is running out and my mole isn't even in the blender yet.
I have to get everything on the plate immediately.
I put down the morel mushroom agrodolce.
Throw in a little bit of that napa cabbage on there
just to break up some of that heat.
The chicken's looking good.
Slicing that chicken right at the last second.
And then that gets garnished with my Fresno chili oil,
and that gives it a pop of color and a little bit extra heat,
and, like, packs a punch for sure.
[Guy shouting] 1 minute! 60 seconds to plate!
[Jet] I shave the coconut puss
to try to get a nice kind of bowl shape to use as a vessel,
and I want this to be experiential,
I want them to build their own lettuce cups.
I put the cooked chicken inside the coconut cup,
I garnished that with spring onions,
more ghost pepper chips.
I need something crunchy really quick.
I take the apple pear, I julienne it really fine,
and I garnish the chicken lettuce cup.
Five,
four,
three,
two,
one.
Chef's, that's it, stop working.
-Oh! -Wow!
[applauding]
[Aaron] Whoo!
Time's up, and my mole is in the blender still.
I didn't get the mole sauce on the plate,
which is definitely a bummer.
Chefs, I gotta tell you, the dishes look upscale,
and I sure hope they are high on the Scoville scale.
Let's take it to the judges, right this way!
[Guy] All right, judges and Troy,
this is game two of beat the judges spicy edition,
and we had the flaming food pyramid.
Now, our chefs had to make an elegant spicy dinner
incorporating items selected by our triangle of terror.
They had to work with ghost pepper chips,
chicken and molcajete.
First up, Chef Jet, what do you have for us, bud?
Uh, judges, in front of you, you've got
a Thai young coconut and chicken lettuce cup.
So, I took the chips and the molcajete
and about four different kinds of chilis,
mashed it into a chili paste, fried up the chicken in that
with some garlic, and then, to counter,
there's a little bit of apple pear,
and the actual coconut, young coconut neat.
[coughing uncomfortably]
As usual, you've outdone yourself.
The way you've worked that young coconut
and the glassware and the plate and the bibb lettuce,
really feels elegant.
I feel like I'm in some super-luxurious beach resort
enjoying, like, a nice afternoon snack here.
It tastes delicious and I love it and gonna keep eating it...
[laughing]
...but I couldn't find the ghost pepper chips in here.
-Wow. -[Aarti] Wow, really?
[chuckling]
The fact that you used ground chicken, which, to me,
is probably not an elegant cut,
but the elegance about it is that you kept it really tender.
It's not dried out at all.
Um, I think the only thing is that
once I get into the lettuce cup eating of it,
while delicious, I think I get pulled out of elegant dinner...
-I understand. You got it. -...just a little bit.
I think the presentation saved you on the elegance.
I think it's not a lettuce cup, it's a lettuce chalice.
Um, I would say the only thing that I'm missing,
if I'm thinking about a dish like this,
I want more herbal notes whether it be mints
or whether it be a lot of, you know, really aromatic leaves
to go in there to counterbalance the spice
and the depth of that chicken.
Um, and unfortunately, the bibb just doesn't do it for me. That's it.
All right, up next, not to be outdone,
Chef Katt, what do you have for us?
Hi, chefs, uh, today, I have for you
a sauteed and then grilled chicken breast
that's been marinated with a little bit of mayonnaise,
a little bit of tequila, some orange zest, lime zest,
and lots of chili.
Then some Napa cabbage to kind of cool it down a little bit for you guys,
so it doesn't kill you.
The molcajete, I used with a little bit of black garlic
and then some of the ghost pepper chilis,
but the mole didn't make it on the plate.
[Aaron] Your plating is dynamite.
That cabbage, nice freshness texturally,
juxtaposing against the other ingredients.
I think the agrodolce, actually, is really nice.
It's got that sweet, it's got that sour,
it certainly has, like, that spicy at the back of my throat.
My chicken's a little bit under,
which is not my favorite way to eat chicken breast.
[chuckling] Right. Weird!
But I think you had a great idea,
and the flavors work really well together,
I just wish you would have nailed that chicken.
Yep. Of course.
I think that gameplay-wise, this feels like an elegant dinner.
It looks light and small and precious.
I also think the other way that you gave us elegance
is by adding the morels.
Um, so, even though you had a protein
that isn't necessarily the most elegant,
the morels help me feel like you think I'm special,
so thank you so much!
Great.
I really wish that that mole
that's sitting in the blender was on this plate
-because it doesn't feel like a finished dish to me. -Of course.
It's missing that, the roots of it.
I think one of the best things you did was you butterflied your chicken,
and mine is not undercooked, mine is fine.
Uh, and I love that you added the char,
the char matches a little bit of that smokiness in the tequila itself.
I just wonder...
...if you have $10,000 sitting in your blender.
Judges, thank you, time to deliberate.
Chefs, back to the kitchens, we'll call you when we decide
who gets ten grand, thank you very much.
Twenty points available in gameplay,
20 points available in taste,
10 points available for plating for a total of 50 points.
So, whose high-end feast is the one to beat?
Thank you very much,
uh, chefs, we gave you a pyramid of pain.
Uh, we wanted you to give us an elegant dinner with spice to it,
and you had to work with chicken,
you had to work with a molcajete
and the ghost pepper potato chips.
Nothing says, "elegant" like that.
[chuckling]
Unless there had been some canned sardines and a spork.
Um, I don't know how much heat was brought,
that's my only concern.
I just don't know if I saw the judges sweating it out, but...
...we do have a winner.
Let's take a look here, in gameplay for Chef Katt,
15 out of 20,
taste, 17 out of 20,
plating, 7 out of 10
for a score of 39.
Chef Jet, gotta beat the 39, brother.
16 out of 20,
taste, 18 out of 20,
plating...
...9 out of 20 for a 43,
congratulations, Chef Jet!
[applauding]
[Aaron] Yay!
[Guy] You know, Katt, I don't know that I would have picked
a guy that was born with Thai spice chili in his baby bottle.
[Aarti laughing]
I do think that you had a chance to take him over,
I think the clock got away from you a little bit.
It seemed all the pieces were coming together,
but, uh, today wasn't the way to finish it up.
I think you played a fantastic first round,
ten thousand bucks and your first win in triple G, so,
Chef, very nice to meet, thank you.
[Jet] Pleasure, Chef.
So, I'm definitely a little bummed that I didn't win
the extra $10,000
because that mole did not make it on the plate,
but I could not have been happier to lose to somebody
that is so talented,
and I honestly just feel very honored
to have been able to cook with him.
There you have it, our winner Jet Tila, $10,000,
and we'll see you next time on triple G
where you never know who's gonna win and how it's gonna happen.