Top Chef Tejas

I really do not like this Redemption Kitchen Island thing they are doing this season — online only! — with the booted chefs.

 

A guy made it to the actual Top Chef field, then bought pre-cooked shrimp and used flour tortillas for enchiladas?

Jesus. Maybe I COULD learn to cook.

 

Maybe the one dude should have used corn tortillas instead of flour, but the whole, "you used store bought tortillas instead of making them yourself," line is such B.S. unless you've given them the time & equipment to make them.

And, 90% of Mexican restaurants buy in their tortillas -- even in Texas.

That said, you need to watch this show before you go on it.

if you want to be voted off, use pre-coked shrimp, store bought tortillas or rolls, use store bought sausage, and bake a cake from a mix.

They're all deadly. Always have been. Always will be.

 

They took their little shots at the people who used store-bought tortillas, but I don't think that (in and of itself) would have been enough to send any of them home.

When you had the guy who bought pre-cooked shrimp (for someone else's dish ... sabotage?) and made enchiladas with flour tortillas (because that's the only way he knew them to be made?), that made the choice pretty easy, IMO.

He may be a great chef in real life, but those are 2 pretty elementary mistakes coming from a chef at that level.

And I'm on board for ripping people who use store-bought sausage. That's either lazy or dumb, and probably both.

 

For as many seasons as Top Chef has been on, it's amazing that contestants still get eliminated for the cardinal sins committed on previous seasons.

I guess the pressure of the time constraints cloud their judgment on a lot of things. I wouldn't so much as have a problem with store-bought tortillas, especially if it tasted good. But I don't have the sophisticated palate of these judges, so I probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

But frozen shrimp? I wouldn't expect many high-caliber chefs would make the mistake of buying frozen seafood.

 

I was surprised the big guy went so early (tho -- spoiler -- he's not necessarily gone for good); I thought they were giving him pretty good face time for someone who was gone so fast. And I am so trying to figure out how precooked shrimp is a mortal sin. I can see the sausage thing; there's decisions about cuts of meats, proportions and seasonings you should be expected to have to show the judges. But shrimp is a raw material; the key is merely how you cook it and/or season it. Don't see what the difference is in whether it's precooked or not.

 

She got enchiladas at a mexican joint tonight. Flour. Tortillas.
I've eaten at some pretty authentic Mexican joints and never had corn tortillas. Even a Mexican restaurant convention and it was still flour tortillas.

 

My wife grew up in Mexico City. She's never made enchiladas with anything except flour tortillas. Uses corn tortillas for basically everything else, always flour for enchiladas. She thinks it may be a regional thing, though. Certainly not the mortal sin they played it up to be, though....

 

I had dinner at a Mexican joint — as in the owners and employees are all from there — last night. I got a flour tortilla enchilada.

I laughed at the idea of foodies going to Mexican joint and being upset they got a flour tortilla. And the fact there's no ceviche on the menu.

 

Here's my problem with the flour/corn tortilla argument from the show ...

1) Other than the guest judge, you've got Tom Colicchio, Padma and Douchey McUnibrow all passing judgment on using corn tortillas. What makes them such authorities on authentic Mexican cuisine?

2) They said when they were eating it that the flavors were good and it was cooked well. So if he had called it "chicken burritos" instead of "chicken enchiladas", everything would have been fine?

That's the kind of superior-thinking bullshit that gives some foodies a bad name.

 

In my house, he shall be known as Douchey McUnibrow from this day forth.

 

I certainly thought he'd make it longer than this, and he might be back. But the lesson is clear (forgetting the tortilla business). Making a shrimp/seafood mistake, like oversalting, is a kiss of death.