Top Chef ™

Challenge Type:

Grilled ribeye, Chokeberries and Rutabaga Cream

Cesar: "I got a ribeye and a chokeberry. Chokeberries are also known as a chokecherry. Kind of have a lot of tannin. So you have to prepare them with care."

Cesar: "Grilled ribeye with cornbread, chokeberry, a few different ways. Rutabaga pickle, and rutabaga cream."

Cesar: "Chokeberries are very, like, astringent, though. Kind of like a really, really intense red wine. Chokeberries are so tannic, they dry out your mouth, so I'm just helping it out with a little bit of sweetness from the sugar with addition of some blackber.ries."

Cesar: "Rutabaga cream. I'm gonna follow that with the cornbread. I feel good. My cornbreads are out. It has this little poof in the center. It's super cute. It smells really beautiful. Some chokeberry. I'm just hoping I get enough of that chokeberry on the plate. We're have a gel. We're going to have a butter, and we're going to have a sauce made out of them. Balance."

Presenting to Judges

Cesar: "We have grilled ribeye, chokeberry reduction, rutabaga cream at the bottom, and cornbread."

Judge: "And what did you add to the reduction? Is it just the berry?"

Cesar: "Mostly berries, but red wine, some sugar to help out those tannics. Those chokeberries are very stringent."

Judges

"I think he cooked his beef perfectly. It was seasoned really nicely."

"Everything on my dish from Cesar, I think was cooked well."

"That cornbread too. The cornbread was very good."

"But the reason why I asked what was in the reduction is because I couldn't taste the tartness of the berry that much."

"If you think about eating a piece of rib eye with a great tannic red wine, you want that interplay."

" I was thinking the same thing."

"So he's trying to tame it."