Hail to the Chef: Thunderbirds Are Go!

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Express' Karmah Elmusa recounts a lunch served to service men and women.

This week, "Top Chef: Las Vegas" took the focus off of the decadent, turned our heads away from the superficial, and brought us back to Earth. Because what is the other thing the desert has to offer aside from bright lights? Why, the Nellis Air Force base and hungry members of the military. Enjoy as the cheftestants report for culinary duty and are forced to suffer indignities like canned food.

QUICKFIRE
After the normal opening worry/complaint fest, it's time to get down to business. This week, we're relieved to find there are no rockettes in the kitchen — just the leggy Padma Lakshmi and guest judge Mark Peel. Peel is the Executive Chef of Campanile Restaurant in Los Angeles, and Padma does him the solid of plugging his new book.

Padma announces that for this week's quickfire, a simple ingredient is the star. She then points to an "Iron Chef"-like display of ... potatoes! There are big potatoes, little potatoes, fingerlings and blue potatoes — the challenge is to make something, anything, out of them in 45 minutes.

Straightforward, yes, but Jennifer reminds us lay people that cooking potatoes take a little longer to cook than most things. Creative is key here — and Chef Peel eats a few spuds that really tickle his fancy.

The first among these dishes belongs to (shocker) Jennifer — she makes mussels with a creamy potato sauce. Peel loves the texture and the color. Other favorites are Ash's chilled sweet potato custard with toasted pecans (an ice cream gone wrong) and Ashley's potato gnocchi. It's a miracle the gnocchi made it this far, considering Preeti "blanched in Ashley's water" (which just sounds ... wrong, even though it refers to cooking vegetables) and she had to start a new pot. Apparently Ashley's dramatic yelling and sprinting about the kitchen paid off, but Jennifer still takes the win. We're going to need to give her a snappy nickname soon that starts with "unsinkable." The $15,000 prize is gone this week, replaced with good old-fashioned immunity.

Mark Peel's least favorite dishes are Jesse's sweet potato soup, Ron's sweet potato wrapped yellow tail and Eli's play on a sweet potato marshmallow puff. Jesse lays on the cayenne waaaaay too thick, Ron overcooks his fish and Eli's dish is offensively sweet and leaves Padma with a pistachio shell in her mouth.

ELMINATION CHALLENGE
As soon as the quickfire winner is announced, it's on to the main event. In to the kitchen marches (almost literally), a short, upright fellow by the name of Colonel Dave Belote. The Colonel is a commander at Nellis Air Force base, and informs the chefs that they will be cooking for the Airforce Demonstration Squadron, aka the Thunderbirds.

The chefs will be working as a group to feed 300 people, and will be making the meal in the Air Force Base's kitchen. Using only what they have there. Oh, and they won't know anything more until they arrive on site the following day. NOW I'm feeling that "Top Chef" heat ... make 'em sweat!

The chefs devise a strategy in which they will work in teams of two with each team preparing a dish. Jennifer will be Tyrant of the Kitchen, or ... um, Executive Chef, I think is the term. Having earned immunity, she will run the show while the other chefs toil away. The teams and dishes break down as follows:

» Eli and Kevin: Georgian braised pork shoulder and Southern-style potato salad.
» Preeti and Laurine: Pasta salad. No, there's nothing special about it, and, yes, I could've done better.
» Michael V. and D.C. Mike: Soy and mustard glazed pork belly with crushed peanuts served in a taco shell with lettuce. D.C. Mike gets bored and decides to make a poached shrimp Greek salad, as well.
» Bryan and Mattin: New York strip served with a cauliflower gratin and a button mushroom demi-glace.
» Hector and Robin: A spicy chicken three-bean chili.
» Ash and Ashley: Chocolate bread pudding with a peanut butter sauce.
» Jesse and Ron: New England clam chowder.

The kitchen is pretty basic and full of industrial equipment and canned goods, by which Mattin is appalled: "Wee walk eento zee kitchen and see a lot of food canned. I'm not really comfortable with food cans." Still, even with limited supplies and very few burners, Jennifer's notably military-esque style of running things keeps everyone on pace. They pull off a buffet for 300 people, and overall, it's not a shabby looking spread.

The service men and women and their families are overly gracious and overly thankful, and it brings a tear to almost everyone's eye to watch them give the cheftestants a standing ovation. The judges, of course, are less forgiving, but generally find the meal appealing, which you'll learn more about in about five seconds.

JUDGES TABLE
Remember five seconds ago when I said the judges found the meal appealing? 'Tis true. They are impressed with the chefs efforts considering their limitations. They question making chili and chowder on a 90-degree day, but as Hector says: "You eat hot and spicy food on a hot day, it makes you sweat, it cools you down." Works for us!

What the judges REALLY like is Mike and Mike's braised pork belly. The secret is ... it's not pork belly at all. It's a slab of cured bacon that Michael Voltaggio simply treated as pork belly, and, man, does it go over well. Tom is almost speechless. Gail at one point calls it "super mega delicious." Alright already. Also in the winner's circle are Eli and Kevin for their pork shoulder and potatoes, which even from my seat on the couch looked to die for. In the end, Michael V. is given the win for his genius use of bacon ... the Voltaggio brothers are tied!

Padma asks the men to send back Preeti, Laurine and then tells D.C. Mike he has to return! Once they found out he was not responsible for the pork belly but instead for the dismal shrimp salad, he's in big trouble. He is hopping mad (almost literally jumping up and down), but in the end it turns out the bland, boring, blaaaahhhh pasta salad is the most offensive dish of the week. Laurine knows it sucked, Preeti stands by it ... and as a result, she's gone. That's three down, 14 to go ... check back next week for more delicious "Top Chef" dish.

QUOTES OF THE WEEK
» Condescending D.C. Mike: To all the viewers out there, the risotto is not THE rice, it's the style of cooking, OK? (OK ... geez).
» Jesse on losing the quickfire: I'm on the bottom. Again. Balls.
» Eli: And just my luck, Padma gets the one rogue pistachio shell out of 14 million clean pistachios.
» Kevin (on Eli): We're friends because we're from the same city. And, you know, I think we bond on a fat kid level.
» Ron, four time chowder contest winner: You know da troops, they love chowder.
» A Horrified Ash: I've never made creme anglaise in a wok before, have you?!