Previously.
Welcome to Julia Child's Kitchen.
It's so close to the real thing, it's surreal.
There's so many times I go to a restaurant,
I'm like, I can definitely make this better.
Dustin R in both challenges struggled
- with time management. - -Yeah.
The winner of this week, Dustin H.
The cook leaving Julia's Kitchen is Dustin R.
Julia's voice was always in my house.
You're a failure! You're just never gonna learn how to cook.
Eights passion at home cooks
are about to do the impossible.
Get cooking.
They'll cook alongside their hero.
- Delicious. - Yummy.
Who also started as a home cook...
I just love to muck around in the kitchen.
And found her calling later in life.
Welcome to The French Chef. I'm Julia Child.
One cook will win the ultimate prize.
A three-month all expense paid trip to cooking school in Paris.
- What? - Yeah.
All in their quest to prove.
All you need is a little bit of imagination.
Who has the skills to win.
That's time.
The Julia Child Challenge.
That's very good.
Do I feel confident going into week two?
No, 'cause who is confident on week two?
I mean, like, I dare anyone to say, "Oh, yeah, I've got this."
I mean, Dustin H would do that.
You know, coming out of week one, I'm feeling really good.
If I continue to cook at this level,
I have a really, really good chance of taking this.
Welcome to The French Chef.
I'm Julia Child.
This is chicken and red win and this is chicken and white wine.
You'll meet them both when we make coq au vin toda.
I'm in Julia's kitchen, I'm surrounded by great cook.
It's just like a wonderful time to have fun.
Hi, everyone.
Hi!
Cooking for Julia was a labor of love,
but did you know that it was her relationship
with her husband Paul that was her biggest inspiration.
Julia met Paul when they were both working for the government overseas.
Now that's romantic, right?
That's romantic.
He had an amazing love for the culinary arts.
She didn't, but he did.
So I think he was her inspiration for getting into cooking.
Julia's love for Paul and Paul's love for Julia,
that was one of the relationships that I look to in modeling,
like who I was going to marry.
Did you guys know that Paul designed Julia's kitchen for her, completely?
He modified all of the countertops
and the cabinets for her height
because, of course, she was quite tall,
and so it wasn't a standard size kitchen.
Did you guys know that the first meal that Julia ever cooked for Paul
was brains simmered in red wine?
Ambitious. Very ambitious.
She believed anything... anything with wine.
If you're gonna test that kind of recipe,
you test it on your husband or your loved one.
But don't worry, we're not going to make you cook with brains today.
Thankfully.
But we are going to ask you to cook with wine.
For this round,
you're going to be creating your very own take on the Julia Classic,
Coq au Vin.
Add chicken and mushrooms and onions and red wine.
The delicious aroma of sizzling bacon.
And what do you have coq au vin.
One of the most delicious chicken dishes you ever put in your mouth.
Okay. So have you ever broken down a whole chicken before?
- Yes. - Yes.
If not, there's someone very special,
who'll be able to help you out with this.
Julia herself.
Okay, good luck and make sure you put your heart into it.
Everybody who's serious about cooking ought to know
how to cut up a raw chicken.
In a supermarket, they have a great big machine
and it just cuts the chicke down the backbone and then whoosh-whoosh
and it's cut into four piece
I think it's a very good ide to fix it up at home,
slit it right up the back, then you have the... the wing part,
just make a line down the lower third of the breas.
Then you do exactly the same thing on the other side.
So can you believe that we get to sort of honor Julia this way?
Sit almost in her kitchen at this dining table,
watch all these home cooks make coq au vin.
So coq au vin is abo the most classic French dis you can ever make.
- The main ingredient's chicken. - - Yeah.
Mushrooms, onions bacon, red wine.
And it's very, very slowly cooked.
So you come out with this really wonderful stew.
And that's one reason it's a very good one for us to have in our repertoire,
'cause it's easy to do and it's a great party dish
so we're gonna start right in on it.
Yeah, just be careful.
The first time that I ever went to the hospital from cooking
- was from doing exactly what you're doing right now. - -Really?
Drinking wine and then cooking?
Well, I wasn't drinking wine, but I was breaking down the chicken
and I have a scar here, 'cause I slit... like my boning knife slit.
That's what I'm trying to avoid, so I'm trying to avoid.
Okay, I'm not gonna get in your way.
You're fine.
I am in love with Molly Baz.
She's actually, aside from being absolutely beautiful and talented,
she is actually like, the reason I started cooking.
So what's your plan here, are you going classic?
Oh, I see anchovies.
You taught me that anchovies is a great substitute for salt
and just a great additive to flavor.
So I'm gonna go with... play around with some a little bit
like miso and tomato paste, and some anchovies.
- I do that all the time. - White wine. See how it works.
Wow!
Julia Child was a household name for me growing up.
My career started out work in in restaurants
and then pivoted towards teaching regular people how to cook.
That's aioli, folks.
The more that I've embraced that, the more that I feel connected to her work.
This feels ambitious in a way that I'm very excited about.
My ingredients are sticking to the classic bacon, garlic, mushrooms.
And these are just about a pound of fresh mushrooms
cut in quarters instead of little triangles like that.
I'm attempting to make a quick parsnip puree, just a nice side.
I'm gonna braise the chicken just like we would with the classic dish,
but then I'm gonna shred it up and fill my pasta with it.
My mom was a single mom, who worked a lot,
and so pasta was a easy thing for her
to throw together when she came home.
It definitely wasn't handmade pasta, but still,
there's like this sentimental feeling I have
when it comes to like a good bite of pasta.
Here's the thing, I love ambition in chefs
when they're like, "I'm gonna make pasta from scratch",
but I haven't figured out a way yet in competition where I've seen pasta,
you know what I mean, made from scratch that doesn't need to rest.
I am making a braised coq au vin recipe
that we make a lot in my family around Christmas.
And when there's like a blizzard outside in the winter,
it's gonna be like kind of vegetable heavy.
It's gonna have like a red gravy at the end,
and I'm going to make a creamy parmesan polenta.
I think that my cooking is so inspired by home and just my family,
and like my love of gather in with loved ones,
I just think it naturally goes into my food.
I'm just hoping that everything cooks well in the time allotted.
My husband and I absolutely love coq au vin,
it's one of our favorites, and New Orleans
is one of our favorite places to travel, so I'm combining
both of those memories in this one dish.
My husband is absolutely my biggest cheerleader.
He has stood beside me whil I have done some crazy stuff Whoo-hoo!
But I think this has got to one of the craziest.
That could be a little bit of him
wanting to get me out of the house for a while, though.
Richard and I met in Chicago in a bar.
He was this fearless person who would do things like
take me on a date to Paris. Like, who does that, right?
In the flea markets in Paris, kind of checking it out, seeing what I can find today.
This is my attempt to stand out.
I'm gonna substitute in andouille sausage instead of the lardon,
and I'm also going to use some cayenne pepper and some Creole seasoning.
All right. I want to hear your story
about the first time that you met Julia.
We had little tiny city cafe.
- Our kitchen was probably really 12x12. - -Yeah.
So in the kitchen, you know, we had just put a stove in.
And so we had one double door refrigerator,
which was right in front of the bathroom door.
So you had all this produce in there.
So I was in there...
Getting ready to put it away in the refrigerator.
Yeah.
And cleaning it out and right in front of the bathroom door,
because we were... I think we had just opened,
so I didn't think anyone was there, cleaning it out and all of a sudden,
I'm on the floor in front of the bathroom with food all over the floor.
You know, someone comes in through the door
and I think it's maybe a server,
and then I hear the pots and pans that are hanging
- because she's so tall. - -...bang.
Because she's so tall, and you knew it was Julia.
I was just going to say...
That feels perfect, honestly.
Like, she wouldn't want it any other way.
Yeah. And you knew it was Julia,
- who else could it be? - -Yeah. Of course.
I'm feeling pretty positive
that I'll be able to make a good dish.
I've never made coq au vin.
I know the recipe because I've read Julia's Cookbook many times
and I know this is a classic.
All of those French flavors will be there.
I am engaged to a wonderful man, his name is Douglas.
He is my Paul.
We have been together for eight years
and it has been really a great journey
and he's just my best friend.
To make this coq au vin in a way that it feels like mine.
Then we go back to o onions and shake them around.
I'm gonna shake the onions again.
I am making a burrito
- for Susan Feniger. - Wow!
She's OG.
I am serving someone who is pretty known for Mexican food,
a burrito that is a French burrito
'cause I figured braising meat,
it's very much like how every Mexican food, you know...
Yeah, yeah.
Like carnitas and pretty much all of those different things.
So I was just like, that would be a fun play.
My wife loves a burrito and also just the fact that Julia loves Mexican foo.
She made this one taqueria in Santa Barbara very famou
because she would go there all the time,
and even when she was, I think, in her 80s.
So I just thought, why not?
- And is this going? - Is this going in it?
It's going in it, so that way,
- you would get a little bit of pop... - Texture.
Because I always think that coq au vin is like soft on soft on soft.
Yeah.
And so the sauce will be the coq au vin sauce, the red wine sauce.
I love that. I love that. Okay.
Oh, man.
You better fricking do this right.
We're gonna flame it in brandy.
When the brandy's gotten hot, to lighten that just stand well away.
Now I don't know if this does look anything except make people feel good.
Oh, come on.
One of the flour tortillas broke,
I didn't have time to toast it,
but it's gonna have to go on.
You got this Dustin, you got this, you got this, you got this.
I think I'm gonna finish on time, I'm just adding some
butter to my polenta right now.
- That is polenta. - That's the polenta.
What did she do?
Put it in some water, like rehydrated it,
and just some water and then put it in there. That's interesting.
But maybe that's like a cheat to pour boiling water
- over it and plump it... - -Yeah.
- And then... it could be. - To like rehydrate it and then start to cook it.
I don't know, I've never seen that before.
Maybe that's a time saver.
It's not quite as really bright.
It's really bright, it's really bright.
I do love that Bill talks to himself.
Oh, does he?
He's having a full conversation.
Oh, my God, Bill.
Christine is making polenta, but Christine...
And this is what I love about Christine.
She's from New Jersey, so she's like, you got toasted bread
and you got polenta. I was like of course we do.
- Like you know what I mean, like... - -Yeah.
Because you're a true Italian,
it's like how many carbohydrates can I give you?
That's time, everyone.
Hey, Britt, so tell us what you mean for us today.
I made a classic coq au vin with an accompaniment
of a parsnip puree, focused on the chicken, for sure.
I think the chicken is cooked beautifully.
Really, really lovely. Thank you.
Traditionally, there's all of the chicken pieces,
the wing and the breast and everything,
but I love that you went all chicken thigh.
What I like is the sweetness of the parsnip
with the acidity that you get from the wine, it's a really a great compliment.
Dustin, what was your version?
I deviated a little bit.
I made coq au vin ravioli stuffed with braised chicken
with some sauteed oyster mushrooms
and caramelized cipollini onions.
I am amazed that you got it done that quickly.
Chef, I'm amazed too.
Tell us how you cooked the farce.
I braised the chicken just as I would with a normal coq au vin.
Did you, in sort of the mixture for the ravioli,
add any dairy, egg or is it just chicken?
It's just chicken.
I just wish that maybe you treated the inside with some mascarpone cheese,
even just an egg, I think, would have
given us a creamy texture that you want in sort of that
- filling of a ravioli. - Understood.
- Hello, Elena. - -Hello. Hello.
I made for you guys a burrito.
- You did. - Love that.
- You sure did. - Love that.
I want to live inside of your brain.
I wanted to elevate it by doing it with the Israeli couscous
and then there's also popped quinoa for a little texture.
Do we have in here pearl onions, bacons?
Pearl onions, bacon, mushrooms.
And I like the crunchiness that you get from the quinoa,
- and the chicken is cooked perfectly. - -Thank you.
It's super tender.
The sauce, I think, is one of the best parts of this entire dish.
If it had been me, I would have maybe returned this burrito
to the skillet in a little bit of fat and tried to crisp it up.
I think we all can agree that a crispy burrito
- is a delicious burrito. - Yes, I'm all for that.
Hi, Bill.
Judges, I made for you a Cajun coq au vin.
I've substituted the lardon for andouille.
You know, I love with the andouille sausage
that you get the spice in here.
- Right. - -Did you add additional spices
or it's just the spices from the andouille that are permeating the sauce?
No. I also added some cayenne pepper.
I love how it's spiced, I think.
I don't associate these like warming spices with coq au vin,
- but they're actually very welcome here. - -They are, right?
And they're really working in your favor,
I think the sauce is really nice.
What's great is that, again,
- you get that sweet and spicy mixture. - Exactly. Exactly.
Which is really great together,
'cause with a rich dish like this to have the balance over there
to the sweet and spicy is really nice.
- I think you're onto something there. - -Thank you.
- Jaine, how are you? - -Great.
So I prepared coq au vin, braised and I prepared a milk polenta
and a few crispy mushrooms on top.
My grandma taught me that if you hydrate your polenta
a little bit before adding to the hot liquid.
Hot water.
Yes, hot water, always make it water,
'cause I want the flavor to be mellow and and you don't get any lumps.
I really feel like you did a great job
of turning an otherwise heavy dish into something that I can't stop eating,
like I'm... I'm going to finish this plate
if we don't walk away soon, and I think that's thanks
to the brilliance of all the acidity.
One thing I can say is that leg, the thigh meat, is perfectly cooked.
For me, the breast just gets a little dry.
I was kind of in the mood for white wine,
so I'm like, I guess, I'm gonna make a coq au vin blanc.
So it was a miso coq au vin blanc with fried ginger
as well as some scallions, but added some miso, some anchovies,
some crispy chicken skin, as well as some charred vegetables.
I love this sauce, the ginger and the scallions,
and all of this is like really, really brightening the sauce.
Oh, by the way, the anchovy addition,
I totally took that from Molly.
- That's... - -Just stop.
I'm not, I swear, I'm not trying to...
- Yes, you are. - -And you should.
Trying to what?
Anchovies, yeah, I was like, I never even thought
to like ever use anchovies in cooking and then reading your book,
I want to add that.
Makes me maybe cry, so let's just leave it there.
- How old are you? - -I'm 24.
He's 24.
The only thing that can explain this is that like you are like
reincarnate of like a chef that's gone and has now entered your soul
because I'm absolutely blown away by what we just ate.
- Hey, Christine. - -Hi.
I have prepared coq au vin with a creamy parmesan polenta
and a little bit of grilled sour dough, rubbed with garlic
as just a vehicle to enjoy that broth
and add a little bit of texture to the plate.
It feels a little compartmentalized
- and TV dinner-y! - -Mm-hmm.
You did all of this work to create these
like crispy caramelized mushrooms,
but then they got folded in and they lost that.
For me, the braise on the chicken is great
and the bread is great, but I feel like the texture on the polenta is not.
Okay.
If your taste... taste it before the wine is cooked down,
it just tastes awful, it's sort of fun
when you're cooking with win to taste the sauce first
and then taste it about every ten minutes while it's cooking.
We definitely tasted all of the love and all of your dishes today.
It was some really fantastic and interesting takes on coq au vin.
The one that I felt was most well done, Britt.
Great job.
And I love the parsnip puree in there.
- That was perfect. Took it right over the edge. - Thank you.
My favorite dish today was Fabrizio's.
It felt like he really captured what's important about coq au vin,
which is it's about the chicken and it's about the sauce.
Thank you, Molly.
And my favorite today was Jaine.
Thank you.
From the obvious, the chicken, and then the cream polenta,
I think that you just cooked with reckless abandon,
and I would have sat there and eaten the entire dish
if I hadn't already eaten three and needed to eat three more.
Thank you. Thank you so much.
For your second round of cooking,
we want you to tell us about your special relationships.
So we want you to create one family-style dish
that's inspired by a great love in your own lif.
It can be a partner, it can be a family member, or a dear friend.
So what we want to do is learn about the people in your life,
who encourage you through your culinary journeys.
One dish that I always cook
to share my love would be a veal piccata.
It's sort of a representation of a dish that we had growing up,
because it was my father's favorite dish.
Still, to this day, whenever I cook a veal dish,
I always think about the sacrifices that my dad made for our family
and adoration for all of his hard work.
Sweet.
One small request, though, as a nod to Julia,
you guys got to use wine in your dishes.
I think it's time to do a little talking about wine.
The main thing you want to remember is that wine is a living liquid
that has youth, adolescence maturity, old age, and death.
And if you don't treat it properly, it may get a bit too immature death.
Okay. So cooks, you will have one hour and 30 minutes to create your dishes.
All right, get cooking.
Do you know how to open this wine bottle?
Here's some corkscrews.
This is the kind that a sommelier or a waiter uses,
and they work out very nicel.
Here's a French type called a zigzag,
and this zigzag, it gives a leverage and this works beautifully.
Come on.
And then there's another kind, which has two levers on.
And then you just push down on them and the cork comes out of the bottle.
This is gonna be interesting.
So challenge two is make a meal for your loved one, that person is Richard.
The man who became my husban took me on a date to Paris,
and 22 years later, we're still going strong.
Oh, no.
We went to Marseilles and we were on the hunt for the best bouillabaisse
and we found it at Le Cat a la.
It's been open since the 1940s.
Bouillabaisse is a French fish chowder
and it originated on the Mediterranean in Provence.
It's a loud, colorful, authoritative, flavorful brew,
just like the Marseilles themselves.
I'm using red snapper and then clams,
so I can really get a lot of fish flavor into the stock.
If I can pull this off, I hope I can show the judges
that I can make a complex dish quickly.
Need a little bit of wine.
Bill, just like a cook inside of a restaurant,
you drink wine out of a deli cup.
Better than taking it right out of the bottle.
Oh, my forearm.
So this challenge is creatin a dish for someone you love.
And for me, that's my family.
I come from a family of great Southern soul food cooks.
Let some chicken sit in some sweet tea for a minute
and then fry it with buttermilk.
I always remember, when it was fried chicken night,
my mom's fried chicken.
She does simple flour and grease, and that's it and good seasoning.
And it's the best fried chicken you've ever had in your life.
And I'm like, "How do you do that?"
I actually cook with wine in my mac and cheese a lot.
I usually like to whisk in Dijon mustard
and white wine in the cream and everything in the chees on the stove top,
then throw it in the oven and bake it.
And these are the two dishes that you learn to make in my family.
So I am making my husband's favorite meal,
it's poached salmon fillets, roasted Brussels sprouts
with toasted nuts on top and farro risotto
on the side with stage brown butter.
I feel good about incorporating Sauvignon Blanc.
I do poached salmon fillets in that pretty routinely,
and I'm putting sage and butter and white wine together
like it's going to be delicious,
that flavor.
- Ooh, you're making hollandaise? - Going for it.
It's my husband's favorite over poached salmon fillets.
- So you're cooking for your husband? - Yes.
- I love that. - The butter to my bread.
- That's delicious. - Yeah?
- Absolutely delicious. - Thanks.
My husband is my best friend.
He is the rock of our little family.
He's the one that pushes me similar to how Paul would push Julia.
I express my love for him through cooking, and he always supports me.
Any salt pepper advice?
- No, I actually think it's perfect. - All right.
He just makes me brave and he makes me confident and he just... I don't know.
I may cry.
That is already delicious.
- Thank you. - Like really, really,
textbook delicious hollandaise.
- Good luck. - All right. Thank you.
Okay.
For my ode to Julia, I am making shrimp and grits with Sauvignon Blanc.
I'm sneaking a taste.
Yeah. It needs a lot of stuff.
I'm making shrimp and grits.
Oh, and I put the white wine in there, which is
- what's kind of throwing me a little bit off. - -Yeah.
And why is it throwing you off?
I mean, 'cause it's giving this other flavor
that I'm not familiar with, but I think it'll be fine.
I feel like I'm always praying to see Julia to bless my food.
Please just let this be delicious,
even though it looks Sloppy Jalopy.
Oh!
I got to make it quickly.
I'm making torta ahogada, a drowning sandwich.
My mother grew up with six sisters.
I didn't get to see them very often,
'cause they're still in Mexico, and I grew up in the states.
So the handful of times tha some of my aunts
and my grandmother would visit us, they would make torta ahogada.
They would braise the pork with Coca-Cola, but I'm gonna use Riesling,
'cause it's a bit sweeter of the white wines.
I hope the Riesling balance out the savory flavors of the pork,
and I'm gonna put that in a pressure cooker.
All I've heard about pressure cookers is that
they are terrifying and they can explode.
- Fabrizio, how are you, sir? - -What's up?
- First time using the pressure cooker? - Yeah.
- Yes. - The hissing terrifies me.
And so this is why most, like home cooks are scared of the pressure cooker
because it's like, you can't check it.
- Yeah. No. - You just have to trust.
This pressure cooker is like my grandmother.
- I would just watch her do her thing... - And trust her.
- Yeah.
Any time I would like try to help in the kitchen,
my grandmother, she would kind of hiss at me.
Now, whenever I look at a pressure cooker,
I'm going to reference a grandmother and just say,
- like, do your thing... - Yeah.
It's an abuelita, no, no.
- Good luck to you. - Thank you, chef.
I'm making French onion soup, grilled cheese sandwich
with thick slab bacon, and I'm making a pear
and apple chutney to go on that sandwich.
I'm gonna get some caramelization on these onions.
Takes a lot of onion to make onion soup.
If you're a do-it-yourself type
and want to do it from scratch.
You see how I chop them, it's very quick like this.
Bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, all the way down,
which is easy to do if you just take a little practice.
And then I'm going to add some chicken stock and some sherry wine.
The sweetness of that sherry is gonna go really well
with the sweetness of the caramelized onions.
- Hi, Dustin. - -If you want to
- just start unwrapping and begin shredding these. - -Oh, sure, sure, sure.
- That would be fantastic. - Put me on.
- How are you doing? - -How are we doing over here?
- What's happening? - -Uh, pretty good.
We got some French onion soup in the works,
- and then I'm gonna... - Okay.
I'm going to garnish that with a whole grilled cheese sandwich.
And what is this meal inspired by.
The woman who puts up with me.
- Is that your wife? - No.
You're girlfriend?
She's my on and off again, complicated relationship.
- Okay. - Yeah.
So Julia talked a lot about how important Paul was to her life
and to her cooking and to her career.
And that's kind of how I fee about Sarah, who's inspiring this dish.
I would be lost without her.
- Good luck. - Thank you so much.
So today I'm making the Brazilian fish stew
with white wine and fish and shrimps
and a cilantro rice on the side.
I'm gonna use halibut fillet
and a fish head to flavor the sauce.
Sauvignon blanc really goes well with fish,
and I just want to have that hint of wine in my dish.
I've never used wine in this dish,
but I want to combine what I learned from my childhood
and what I learned from the French techniques that I've studied so much.
Hi, chef. So I am working in a Brazilian style fish soup
that I have adapted to the French wine.
Who is the inspiration behind this dish?
So it's Douglas, my fiance, and he's from the south part of Brazil,
Yeah.
And when I made for him for the first time,
he just loved it and it's our dish.
So I'm really cooking with passion today.
- I love that. - Thank you. Thank you.
I hope you like it.
We were about to get marrie this week,
but we had to postpone already, because of the competition.
And of course, we loved it.
We wouldn't change anything.
I felt really good about that.
She's crushing it. She was very Julia.
Yeah. She really does.
She dresses like her.
She's got like big, joyful smile like her,
- like I just want to be in her kitchen. - -Yeah.
I feel like there's a lot of really natural ways
that I'm watching the wine being introduced to the dish,
where we see wine being used to sort of deglaze the onions
in Dustin's French onion soup in the bouillabaisse,
in sort of the Brazilian coconut stew that we're gonna get from Jaine.
And then maybe some not so traditional ways,
like the wine being used as substitute the cola,
the wine, the carnitas.
Right. That was interesting.
You know, wine being used in the macaroni and cheese.
- Wine is used to that. - Yeah.
I'm bagging up the chicken now and going to shake it
around like my mom used to do.
I'm looking at the clock. It seems like a lot of time
but I haven't even gotten it in the pan yet.
- Oh, Britt, that looks good. - -Ah, I hope it is.
Totally forgotten ingredient.
I forgot eggs, cause they hold it together a little bit,
actually I forget sometimes at home, too.
So that's what I usually do, just add it in later.
At this point, I'm like embrace the mistake, like Julia always says.
I lost the handle off that basket.
I'll dump it out.
We take out the pork from the pressure cooker right now.
No explosion.
The second I opened it, I was like, Oh my gosh,
grandmother's carnitas like I just smelled it,
broke apart beautifully.
I don't want to make this sound like a commercial,
but I think I might get myself a pressure cooker.
Two minutes to go.
French onion soup is a hardy dish
and then to put a cheesy, toasty, bacon-y sandwich next to it,
it's a lot of heavy.
My solution to this is to add a little bit of sweet tartness
with a nice apple and pear compote on that sandwich.
Hollandaise.
This is it.
- I hope that's okay. - -Time's up.
Cheers, man.
You know, every once in a while,
I think it's rather fun to have a big formal dinner.
It gives you a chance to show your stuff
and also to use all the wedding presents you haven't given away.
Honestly, we can't wait to hear about all the people
that have inspired these dishes.
Okay, so let's start with Dustin.
I made French onion soup that has sherry wine in it,
and then I also made a grilled cheese sandwich
with thick cut bacon and an apple and pear compote,
which also has sherry wine in it.
This is inspired by Sarah, who is my partner,
regardless of our relationship status.
And she's my biggest supporter,
and when I want to make crazy, elaborate dishes,
she just wants me to make French onion soup.
- She sounds like a keeper. - -She is.
Yeah, we need to talk to Sarah.
I know we need to talk to Sarah.
Oh, I would be.
- I'm going to seal the deal. - -Exactly.
- You're going to seal the deal. - Yeah, yeah.
The sherry, I think, was such a smart choice.
It's really coming through.
I love in the grilled cheese
that you have the apple in there.
- That sweetness balances the whole thing. - -Good.
Separately, these are so delicious.
Together, I kind of feel like I'm eating the same thing twice,
like I probably would have wanted to eat them
in separate meals on separate occasions.
Fair.
So this is poached salmon with hollandaise
and roasted Brussels sprouts with toasted nuts and farro risotto
with some brown butter and sage mushrooms.
- Is that all? - -I know.
I was like, you did...
I used Sauvignon Blanc and I poached the salmon in it,
and I also used it for the farro.
So I prepared this pretty much meal for my husband, John.
I switched careers at 32, and he was just like, I want you to go for it.
We actually enjoyed that meal on that night.
So this is a very special meal.
It's a lot of love and memories.
So very much like Julia, you changed your career later.
Yes, yes.
She was like a personal inspiration
in that decision, for sure.
I think the flavor of the hollandaise is excellent.
I don't know, though, if the cold butter works,
because I think it actually is making it harden in a way that we don't need it to.
My salmon is unfortunately undercooked.
When it doesn't flake away, that's actually undercooked.
So this dish is torta ahogada,
which translates to drowned sandwich.
And this is dedicated to the women in my family.
And the wine that I used was Riesling to pressure cook the pork
with orange juice and some spices.
I mean, what I loved is that you've got spiciness from the arbol
and then the roasted tomato and onion,
which makes the perfect sauce for this.
And then you've got the richness of the carnitas.
So the combination, when you get that one bite, it's really the perfect bite.
Dude, this was stupid good.
Couldn't have said it better.
I'll say you underestimated our heat tolerance, like...
I would have loved some heat out of this.
But I mean, if that's your biggest issue, like...
Okay. So the dish is a fish stew with coconut milk.
The rice is long grain rice.
What was the wine and how did you use it?
So I used sauvignon blanc in the dish
and because the broth is really rich,
because of the coconut milk and the wine was bringing that acidity,
that this this kind of soup needs.
So my loved one is Douglas.
He is actually from the south part of Brazil,
and I'm from the north part and I made this soup
and he just fell in love and it became our dish.
I love this dish.
I think I was expecting something rich and coconutty,
but it feels like really well balanced.
You know, if this was made for me,
I would be like, you... you actually love me.
You actually truly love me
and I'm happy that I'm your husband, like I can...
I can actually feel that in this dish.
So this dish I make for my husband, Richard.
We tried to search out the best bouillabaisse in Marseilles,
and after about three or four tries, we found a place.
So I make this dish once a year to remind us of that trip.
I used a Pinot grigio.
I wanted something kind of tart and mine rally.
It has a little sweetness that is just
it's just perfect, you know, it's just like you want in this kind of dish.
I just want to really, you know, drink it.
You know, I think your finfish is over.
But the Ruhi with the bread and then as I mix it in together,
I thought that was so great. I want to eat the entirety.
It's also gorgeous, like, look at the color.
If the broth just had a little bit more depth of flavor,
like you kind of can't put too many aromatics in a broth.
Next time, I would really build that flavor, double them.
Right.
Elena, tell us about your loved one and what you made today.
Oh, it's just shrimp and grits, because my wife,
when she decided to, you know, be with me, she really took a chance,
and she pretty much reminds me of home.
She's my home.
She's comfort encapsulated, and this is the epitome of comfort.
It's a hug, and that's what she reminds me of all the time.
Tell me, what wine did you use then,
- when you were making the stack. - -Oh, that's right.
I went with a sauvignon blanc, just to deglaze,
because I didn't want to overwhelm the tomato paste.
The flavor of it was delicious.
I mean, you have the texture of the shrimp,
but you've got that creaminess.
And then to finish it with the crunchiness of the bacon
is really a great combo there.
I did a baked mac and cheese with sauvignon blanc, Dijon mustard,
and then I did fried chicken to go with that.
For the mac and cheese, I did incorporate the wine,
actually whisked in Dijon mustard and wine
with the cream and butter and the milk.
And what wine did you use for this?
I used the sauvignon blanc.
I come from a family of great southern cooks,
specifically my mom, she taught me classic mac and cheese
and fried chicken growing up.
The mustard in there just really adds a nice flavor to it.
Mm-hmm.
I could take more of the winey flavor,
like if you're going to go for it, if you're going to go so far as
to put wine on your mac and cheese, let's like,
- let's taste the wine, you know what I mean? - -Yeah.
This to me is comfort food.
I love the mustard.
- It's like a little bit of tang in there. I love it. - Yeah.
The flavor on the chicken is delicious,
- but my chicken is not cooked all the way. - -I'm so sorry.
When it becomes buoyant in the oil, you know,
like they have a little like life preserver on all of a sudden, right?
That's when you truly know that it's cooked all the way
through without having to, like, sacrifice a piece to eat
and like, know, like, is it done?
Thank you so much for the wonderful dinner today.
This would have made Julia and Paul so proud.
So today, we ask them to make us a version
of their coq au vin
and then we asked them to create a dish
that represented a great love in their life.
Susan, who did you love?
I have to say the carnitas torta
was really delicious.
Phenom.
And let's just talk about this.
Fabrizio really does incredible in round one,
- and now he's doing incredible in round two. - Yeah. Yeah.
He's had a day.
I really love Jaine.
The flavor in that broth,
she didn't add too much coconut milk.
The balance in that was really great.
- That was delicious. - -I like that she took this classic dish,
channeled Julia, put her spin on it.
That was entirely her own.
And how about this, Jaine was my favorite in the first round,
so we've got two first round tops and now two second round tops.
So I have to say one of my least favorites was Christine's.
The salmon was undercooked for some people.
And the hollandaise was weird.
I think it was because she didn't clarify the butter.
Unfortunately, I was so excited about Britt's food,
- but my chicken was raw. - The elephant in the room.
The elephant in the room is that my chicken was raw.
We have two great cooks that are in the bottom.
Britt was in the top in round one.
- Christine wasn't. - -Yeah.
- And this is cumulative. - -Yeah.
Is Britt safe because she did so well in round one?
Mm-hmm.
Today was all about Julia's love for Paul
and the people in your own lives that encourage you
to follow your dreams in the kitchen.
The winner this week is...
Jaine.
Aw! Thank you.
Jaine, you did an incredible job today.
Julia and Paul would have been so proud.
Thank you so much.
My fiance is gonna go nuts when he sees this.
We are both crybabies, I bet he's gonna cry.
There were a couple of you that had some issues
with the cooked temperature on your proteins.
The cook, who will be leaving Julia's kitchen today is.
Christine.
The food was beautiful, but there were a couple of pieces of the salmon
that were entirely raw in the center.
And Britt, you being at the top of round one saved you in this challenge.
Thank you, guys.
Really wonderful job.
Obviously, like, I'd love to continue this journey
and keep cooking in this amazing kitchen
with these amazing home cooks and judges.
Unfortunately, that clock got the best of me
when I was poaching my salmon fillets.
She was my favorite neighbor.
Oh, I'm gonna miss her so much.
So that's all for today.
This is Julia Child, Bon Appetit.
Next time.
I don't know that much about French food.
This is my second souffle that I made.
- What was your first souffle? - Unsuccessful.
I don't think any on should be scared to make anything.
I have no idea what's going on.
It ruined them. My oven was set higher.
Can I do the egg white tester?
- Is it safe? - -Whoa.