Previously...
This is the last week before the finale.
No going home until I fight for the win.
I've never made meringue before, so totally new thing.
This is important. Her trifle was without flaw.
There's only three spots in the finale.
- Bill. - Jaine.
Britt, we're gonna have to say goodbye.
Julia's voice was always in my house.
Eight passionate 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 wi the ultimate prize,
a three-month all-expense paid trip to cooking school in Paris.
What?
All in their ques to prove...
All you need is a little bit of imagination.
Who has the skills...
- Woo-hoo. - To win...
That's time.
The Julia Child Challenge.
It's been an extremely tough few weeks.
But now, we are going into the finale.
Very, very excited.
Coming off of a win, I'm absolutely ready.
I'm sure they're going to be throwing a few twists at us today.
Well, one thing I think a lot of people are just so scared of any recip
they see that says sugar syrup or caramel, they're like, "Oh!"
And that is, I think, this is one of this
this awful American syndrom of fear of failure.
And if you're going to have a sense of fear of failure,
you're just never going to learn how to cook.
I woke up this morning thinking that I want to step into Julia's Kitchen
for the last time and just do my best
and cook with so much love, like I've been doing.
Cooking is
well, lots of it is one failure after another.
And that's how you finally learn.
If you're not going to be ready to fail,
you're not going to learn how to cook.
That's what that little lecture is all about.
That was great.
Welcome back to Julia's Kitchen, one final time.
The three of you took risks.
You failed occasionally, and you faced your fears,
and you are all better cooks for it.
I am thrilled to be here and to be back in Julia's Kitchen,
coming in through that side door.
So in Julia's Kitchen, we always came through the side door,
which led right to her kitchen.
And Julia would be at the... There were a couple of stairs,
Julia would be at the top of the stairs and you'd come in
and she'd welcome you with big open arms and a bear hug.
I love that.
Julia said that you are always mastering
and that you're never the master.
For this finale, I want you to take that idea to heart,
call it Mastering the Art of Julia Child.
It's the finale. How does it feel?
It feels like a dream, really.
I'm beyond grateful.
It's really just taught me to continue to take chances.
And that's what leads to growth and success.
It's a really great adventure being here.
One of you will be named the winner and will get
a three-month course at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris, all expenses paid.
Can I go?
Now, I want to be the chaperone.
To kick off this finale for this first round,
we want you to take a French classic,
the cheesy, delicious croque monsieur sandwich,
and use your creativity to turn it into an upscale starter course.
You will do the croque monsieur.
This kind of a toasted cheese sandwich
didn't come into being until about 1910.
And some people think it wa croque monsieur because it was more masculin.
The croque monsieur is made of bread, butter, cheese, and ham.
So there's a lot of room for fun and creativity.
Good luck and get cooking.
Okay.
Croque monsieur.
Remember that that's been pressed down hard
and it's just sauteed until the cheese melts.
I am going to go very off the wall and not use bread.
I'm going to make a crepe, specifically a Vietnamese-style crepe.
In the late 1800s and 1900s, Vietnam was colonized by France.
The goal is to make a Vietnamese rice crape
and take the same fillings and flavors of the croque monsieur,
but then bring in those herbaceous notes of Vietnamese food.
So cilantro and Thai basil and try to tie in these flavors all in one dish.
The opportunity to study in France at the same schoo
that Julia Child went to and be immersed in the culture of
where this food comes from would be absolutely life-changing.
And then I'm absolutely going to need somebody to water my plants.
As usual, a lot to get done.
The prize is three months at Le Cordon Bleu and they put you up in Paris.
That will change someone's life.
And I
it takes my breath away to think about this.
I'm starting with a bechamel, that's holding everything together.
I can't believe I'm about to serve croque monsieur to Dorie Greenspan.
You know, I have all of her cookbooks,
and she's just one of these larger-than-life personalities.
- Ms. Greenspan. - Bonjour.
Tell me what you're making.
I'm making a croque monsieur crouton for a small frisee salad.
Now that's an interesting idea.
So you're taking two classics.
- And combining them, yes. - And combining them.
Usually the sandwich comes with a side of frisee.
I'm going to flip that.
I want to do a salad that has an element of a croque monsieur in it.
So curious to know what you're doing.
I was inspired by Spanish croquettes.
- Mm-hmm. - And I'm trying to do, like, little croque monsieur bites.
Oh, lovely.
- Yeah, it's a thick bechamel with ham and cheese. - Okay.
Do you feel good about this?
- I do. I do. - Have you done this before?
Not exactly, because, you know, I just had this idea,
but I feel good because it's something I would love to eat.
- Okay. - And I think that every time I cook something
- I would love to eat, turns out that is really good. - I agree.
- I'm so excited to try it. - Thank you. I appreciate it.
So what's your plan over here?
Okay, so instead of using bread, I'm making a Vietnamese crepe.
I definitely know, Brooke. I'm a huge fan.
And we've got another round of female power in the kitchen.
I'm sure Julia would love it
I cannot wait to cook for these women.
I'm still trying to figure out what the outside is going to be.
I don't want it to be soggy, so I don't know
if the bechamel is going to go on top or...
Your butter is browning, I don't know how you...
That's not what I wanted.
- That's not what I wanted. - I'm not trying to distract you,
I just want to save your... your crepe.
- Also, the first crepe is a toss away anyway, right? - Yeah, test one anyway.
Test crepe first.
Oh, I don't want you to watch me do this test one.
- I'm here to support. I'm not here... - I know, I know, I know.
- I'm not here to do anything, but support. - Let's see what happens.
Let's see what happens.
- I think your pan's a little hot. - -Way too hot.
I would say don't even add any more butter,
just give that a wave and then put it on a medium heat.
Is this going to be enough?
I think you might want to go a little thicker.
Okay.
- All right. Good luck to you. - Thank you, chef.
Twenty-five minutes.
- Thank you. - Twenty-five minutes.
Ultimately, my plan I to make the sandwich,
get it to where the cheese is just melting
and put it in the blast chiller to freeze it,
cut it into cubes, panko-coat the cubes and deep-fry them.
The sandwich is hot, though
I mean, it is right out of the oven.
I have to go from 425 to 32 degrees in about five minutes.
It's... it's going to be tough.
When I first arrived in the US,
the first book I got was actually Dorie Greenspan Baking Chez Moi.
Yeah. What do you have for spices?
You've got nutmeg and...
Nutmeg, garlic, onion, and white pepper.
We were broke at the time, we had really no money.
Then went to a giant bookstore and then I saw Baking Chez Moi on the,
on the sale shelf and I looked at Douglas
and I said, "Well, get the book."
And I felt like that was the first time
I actually belonged here.
That changed everything.
It needs ham.
Okay, Dorie, I feel like you have the cornucopia of stories about Julia Child.
I met Julia when my first book came out in Boston.
There was a dinner for everybody afterwards at someone's home.
I had no idea Julia was there.
And Julia, she was so gracious, she was so warm.
She said, "You're going to sit with me.
Come on, you'll eat dinner with me."
And that started this friendship.
Yeah, it's not working.
Not working.
I'm just going to pivot and go back to some kind of bread.
I love sourdough bread.
I was going to do this on a crepe.
At the end of the day, this is going to look a lot like a croque monsieur.
So I'm worried that my interpretation
is going to be a little bit too literal.
It's really such fun to make up recipes,
because you, I don't know, you feel sort of smart when you do it,
particularly if it turns out well.
I check in the blast chiller
and the sandwich is definitely getting cold, but I need it almost frozen.
It's just not going to make it in time.
So I'm switching gears, thinking about, you know,
maybe this will be a stick instead of a crouton.
They're really cooking quickly.
Just make sure that you have enough butter in it.
If it begins to smoke a little bit, like this,
you have to put a little bit more in.
Croque and croquer means something
that is sort of crunchy in the mouth.
And this is going to taste really delicious.
That's time, everyone.
There it is.
And I think it's more fun to have it large,
because if you served it all cut up, it really wouldn't look like much.
My inspiration for this version of a croque monsieur
was actually a Spanish croquette.
I love the texture.
There's a really nice balance between the cheesiness of the filling
and enough ham that every bite has a chew of ham in it
and the crunch, really nicely done.
I mean, I can't stop eating. It's delicious.
- Hi, Bill. - Hello.
I have a croque monsieur croquette deep-fried, served with a frisee salad.
When I talked to you, you said you were going to do a frisee salad
and the croque monsieur was going to be the crouton.
And so when I saw this, I was surprised by it.
The sandwich needed more time in the blast chiller.
If that sandwich was frozen, it would have cut into any shape I wanted.
- It's the question for me, being upscale. - -Right.
It reads more like mozzarella stick.
You know what I mean?
Dustin.
Well, this is kind of what happens
when you get dressed up and you go out for a nice dinner,
only to realize you made the reservation for the wrong night
and you have to go somewhere else and get a sandwich.
Bravo on the storytelling.
- Bravo on the storytelling. - Oh, that was great.
That was great.
Ah, so this is a Vietnamese-inspired croque monsieur.
You have ham, fried mortadella,
herb-wise some chive, mint, basil and cilantro.
It's crave able. It's delicious. Does it feel super upscale?
Not really.
What did you marinate the cucumbers in? Is it fish sauce?
- Fish sauce, right? - Correct. So there's lime, fish sauce,
some sugar, a little bit of rice vinegar.
Um... yep, that's it.
It's a big sandwich.
And if we're thinking first course, this would do me in.
So this time around, we will not be naming favorites,
but we will be taking into consideration your performance in both rounds today.
So this is it, the final round that will determine the overall winner.
But before we continue, someone very close to Julia wanted to be here.
Please say hello to the one and only Chef Jacques Pepin.
Hi, everybody.
Hello. How are you?
I'm drinking a glass of champagne to your success
to congratulate you for being the finalist.
I know that Julia would have been very proud of you
to carrying on her legacy and her love of cooking.
So good luck to you.
I'll look at you and I'll drink wine.
Okay?
So, as you know, Jacques and Julia were very good friends.
I'm not sure it isn't better to do it under the broiler, but that's not as much fun.
- It's not as much fun. - Yeah.
Chef, what was it like meeting Julia for the very first time?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You're talking about half a century ago, friend of mine,
who was the food editor of House Beautiful, Helen McCully,
and she received actually the manuscript
of Mastering the Art of French Cooking to review it.
"And she told me, " Well, I want to show you that book that I got there.
And she said, "The woman is from Boston and she's coming next week."
Do you want to cook for her?" I said, "Absolutely." She said,
"She's a very tall woman with a terrible voice."
So, Julia came, we became friends and we continued drinking wi
for the next half a century or so.
Thank you very much and don't be too harsh on them.
No.
All right, cooks, the moment you've all been waiting for.
It's time for you to make the rest of your finale meal.
We want you to cook three more courses today,
all inspired by classic French dishes
that Julia made popular in this country.
Now, when I'm the combinatio hostess, butler, and cook,
I only have three courses instead of four, five, six, seven or eight.
This canard a I'orange or duck with orange,
orange and duck go awfully well together.
Then we're going to make beef bourguignon, beef stew with red wine,
because it showed you so man useful things about French cooking.
And it's just wonderful for a dinner party.
And it's the grand finale for a sit-down dinner.
This is called a croquembouc or crunchy in the mouth.
And all of these are just little, small, sweet puffs
that have been dipped in caramel
and just made into this rath preposterous shape.
We want you to make an entirely original duck a I'orange.
Next, we want you to make an original take
on the French classic, beef bourguignon.
And finally, we want you to make us your own take
on the croquembouche.
We want you to use these dishes as your starting point
and create something that represents you as cooks.
So for the finale, you will have three hours total to cook today.
At the two-hour mark, you'll be serving your duck a I'orange dishes.
At the 2.5-hour mark, you will be serving your beef bourguignon dishes,
and at the three-hour mark,
you'll be serving your croquembouche desserts.
Wow.
After you present your dishes, you'll return to the kitchen to keep cooking.
Okay.
We want to see creativity, but don't forget about time management.
I'm speaking from experience.
Thank you, chef.
We will also be joined by a couple of judges from this season.
Michael Voltaggio.
- Oh. - Oh, wow.
And Nilou Motamed.
Good luck to you and get cooking.
Good luck.
I'm going to get the ducks started on a sear for my first course.
The twist on this challenge is that we have to be making all three courses at once.
This is a large orange.
There's a lot of planning and a tremendous amount of multitasking for this one.
Consulting the Bible here.
The first course is the one I'm the most excited about.
I have this idea for a root vegetable soup
that has an element of orange in it.
Okay.
So while the soup is simmering away there, I'm going to prepare the duck.
I go with thigh.
I'm going to pan-fry it in a cast iron skillet, get a hard sear on that duck
and it's going to go right into the oven.
I'm grating orange zest for the sauce.
This is going to build the flavor.
It's a combination of vinegar and sugar.
Julia was also a huge fan of brandy, so putting that I.
I get some aromatics charred.
I set up this theme of Vietnamese and French,
and I'm going to try to tie that all the way through this meal.
So short rib is going to be used for my beef bourguignon dish.
I am absolutely working on multiple courses.
There is no other way to do this,
so I have a couple of proteins that need a good amount of time to cook.
My goal is to get those into the pressure cooker as quickly as possible.
I know the key to this is organization and planning out
what needs to be done when.
Okay, Mr. Duck.
This is actually the first time I've ever broken down a duck.
But it is the same anatomy as a chicken.
The wings, there's very little flesh on them.
And it's best just to cut the wings off.
Just take a great big knife and spread the wing out and go, wang.
So for duck a I'orange, I'm going to make pho,
noodles with broth, and I'm going to put orange duck on top,
season my meat and get everything in the pressure cooker
so that that can just sit and cook.
I am thinking about cooking the food I'm used to eat
and I'm incorporating ingredients from South Ameri
and make them work in the sort of French-style dish.
I know that my beef bourguignon is going to be a heavy dish,
so I decide to not serve the actual duck in my first dish.
I'm making a plantain gnocch pan-fried in duck fat
with an orange sauce and duck chicharrones on top
I want to use the skin, actually, to make my duck cracklings.
I chop them really quick and throw them in a frying pan.
They have to cook in water before they're actually frie.
Otherwise, it's not, you know, crunchy and it's just rubbery.
So I'm taking my plantains out of the water.
They're nice and soft.
I'm going to mash them and put them in the blast freezer,
so they can, you know, cool off so I can work with the dough.
Hot pan.
This is a crash course in pivoting and planning and cooking.
- Hello! - Hi!
Oh, my God, congratulations.
Thank you.
It's such a nice surprise to see Nilou and Chef Michael.
Could there be anything more exciting than today?
I know.
So happy to be back.
- I feel like I'm at a ladies night out or something. - I know.
- Well, you're the only man at the table. - We love it.
I'm so happy to see you guys.
Welcome to the finale.
- This is unbelievable. - I know.
Well, it's so funny.
Okay, so Brooke and Dorie, Michael actually joined us for the very first challenge.
He was here on the very first day.
So he got to see the eight original home cooks.
You know, I'm not surprised to see the three that are here at all.
But I have to say, I'm disappointed to not see
some of the other faces that were here, too,
because, like day one was out of the gate.
- Yes. - Just great food.
And I was blown away
I kept on actually saying to Antonia,
I don't even really understand how these people are
- so incredibly talented. - Yeah.
I mean, a few weeks ago, she throws whole flat fish in front of them
and says, all right, break down an entire fish and make me sole meuniere.
The duck has been resting.
I'm just going to pull off some meat and see where we are.
My soup is boiling along here, which looks pretty good.
So the hash will sit in the bowl and then I'm envisioning
this kind of country-style soup that will be poured into it.
While that's happening, I ha to start building my sauce for the second course.
It takes a lot of time.
I think I freezed it too much.
I had to bring my gnocchi dough to room temperature
before I was able to roll.
As my gnocchi dough is resting, I start build in the flavors of my sauce.
So I have some orange segments that I saute with a little bit of sugar, salt,
some rum, let them kind of become a syrup.
My chicharrones are boiling most of the time until they,
you know, there's no more water, then they started frying.
I'm trying to roll this, so I can get my gnocchi as soon as possible.
I thought I would have a better consistency dough right away,
and I had to work with this a bit.
Bill, this is the last time, man, I hope you're having fun.
Yeah. Absolutely.
Having a great time here.
This is my first ti cooking a whole duck in a pressure cooker,
so I'm not really sure what the texture of the meat
is going to be like when it comes out.
There's definitely still going to be that sweet orange flavor
that you get with a traditional duck a I'orange.
But we're adding a ton of different spices and putting it in a broth,
which is not typical for a duck a I'orange.
I slice it really thin.
The flavors are correct and it's tender.
I really want to serve this in individual bowls,
but the challenge is to make this family style.
So I'm going to have a big bowl of noodles and a big bowl of broth,
and hopefully the judges decide to eat this in smaller portions.
- For you. - Thank you.
- Hello, chefs.
- All right. - Excuse me.
Wow.
- Thank you guys so much. - Thank you.
- Enjoy. - Beautiful.
- OMG. - Oh, wow.
The duck a I'orange goes to table,
and we just have to keep cooking,
so we're kind of leaving it to the fates that
that it's going to work out.
Thirty minutes till second course, everyone.
So for the first course, Bill made a duck hash with a root vegetable soup.
When you get the orange, it really brings everything up.
The duck itself has so much flavors, beautifully seasoned.
I want to hop all of this duck hash.
- Yeah. - Duck hash is delicious.
- With an egg on top. - Yeah.
Dustin's dish is duck a I'orange pho.
The duck is perfectly cooked for me.
It's creative. It's imaginative,
but more importantly, it's flavorful.
This actually is my most favorite dish that I've gotten
from Dustin in all six weeks of the competition.
So this is Jaine's first course.
It's a plantain gnocchi in duck fat with an orange sauce
and then duck skin cracklings.
It's executed well. There's good balance of flavor.
There's a lot of interesting things happening in here.
I really like it.
But I wish there was like a little duck choux.
More ducky, more orangey.
I think if you get a piece of crackling in your bite, it has enough duck for me.
I think the struggle is, can you make sure
you have a crackling in every single bite,
you need to pay attention to that.
So for our next round of dishes,
it's going to be their version of beef bourguignon.
It's insane.
I just hope I can finish this on time.
Big chunks of beef and onions and mushrooms
in a rich, meaty red wine sauce.
This is really the stew of stews, beef bourguignon.
My personal spin on beef bourguignon is that
I'm going to serve this with the traditional sides of ropa vieja.
I am making a beef bourguign inspired ropa vieja
with carrot and turmeric ric and black beans.
So ropa vieja is a Cuban dish.
It's a stew that is cooked pretty much like a beef bourguignon.
But there are different flavor profiles.
I started cooking in a pressure cooker,
but I still have to shred the beef, 'cause I'm serving it ropa vieja style.
And I want the sauce to be creamy and thick.
And in order to achieve that I have to let it reduce.
Now, I'm reducing my wine.
So when I add it to my beef bourguignon,
I don't have to worry about cooking the alcohol,
because that's going to take a long time to cook.
We're now going to d the sauce,
so I'll let it simmer over here.
So any time you put in part brandy, wine or anything else,
always let it boil down about half
because all you want is the flavor.
So there's really, there's no alcohol left in I at all.
For beef bourguigno I want to stay true to
how I like to cook and use several different parts of the animal
and different techniques with a protein.
So I'm going to do a roaste bone marrow component,
a short rib marmalade, and then a braised short rib.
Now, my beef bourguignon dis is almost three dishes in on
so time can be a factor.
I'm getting all this extra connective tissue off these bones,
because if I don't, when I put it in the oven,
it's going to kind of burn and be kind of unappetizing.
The bone marrow kind of make for a dramatic presentation
six inches of just bone that you just kind of have to dig into with a spoon
and scoop out that goodness.
For a stew, I like to have big chunky pieces like that
because they shrink up a bit when you cook.
When I went to the super mark the other day
and I looked in the counter for stew meat, that's what I found,
these little nasty pieces and you don't know
where it comes from on the animal.
And it's too small and it looks like cat food.
And I don't like it.
I think the beef bourguignon is going to be
the most difficult part of this challenge,
because I've already made it once.
For the beef bourguignon, I used the Instant Pot.
But now I have to put another spin on it.
For my take on beef bourguignon,
I am making a deconstructed version with a different sauce.
This time, I'm only going to use stew meet with wine to build a sauce.
The meat portion will be a piece of New York strip
that will sit on a stack of carrots, onions and mushrooms.
I'm really behind here, I have to get my onions sauteed
and I have to cut these mushrooms,
I've got some steaks that I have to cook.
It'll be a super quick sear.
And if I don't start my dessert now,
there won't be a third course for me.
So...
So I have to absolutely get going.
I'm not going to finish.
I opened the pressure cooker, I realized the bottom
is completely burnt
and I'm about to lose my mind.
There was not enough liquid and it burnt.
I have this idea of just taking the meat out
without scraping or stirring the pot.
So whatever is burnt is goin to stay at the bottom
and not going to really, you know, permeate the flavors on top.
Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't work.
That's all I can do right now.
So I just hope that the meat is not going to be bitter.
I'll try to fix whatever I can.
Oh, I can't believe this kind of cooking time.
Come on, guys. We got this, breathe,
organize, and push through.
That's time.
- Oh, my gosh. Let me help you. - Yeah.
- Thank you. - Beautiful.
Oh, my God.
Oh, whoa, whoa.
Look at what is happening at this table.
Oh!
- Literally can't stop staring. - Yeah. I got you. I got you.
- French Thanksgiving came early. - -Mm-hmm.
- Thank you guys so much. - Thank you.
- Excuse us. - -Thank you, thank you.
So now we have 30 minutes.
I'm the only one that won't finish.
So this is Jaine's take on beef bourguignon.
She has married it to ropa vieja.
The flavors are blowing my mind.
You take a bite and you love it.
And then you take another bite and it doesn't taste the same,
because you're getting a different flavor.
I think it's a great dish.
If you look at the challenge, make your version of...
Beef bourguignon.
Merci beaucoup.
- She did exactly that. - Yeah.
So Dustin's take on beef bourguignon is three ways.
He's got bone marrow, a short rib marmalade
and a braised short rib with a
it looks like a dried mushroom duxelles on top.
I'm not sure that the short rib normally does marmalade,
and I'm not sure it's beef bourguignon.
There's no liquid.
Where's the liquid that braised those short ribs
- and where's the bourguignon? - Yeah.
This is Bill's take on beef bourguignon.
It's basically a deconstructed beef bourguignon.
New York strip over vegetables.
Hmm.
Super simple.
It's super simple.
Is it thinking outside of the box?
Is it wowing me in creativity?
No.
Is it delicious?
- Yes. - Delicious.
I have been craving that unctuous beef bourguignon sauce,
and Bill has given us that in spades.
I think my dough might be a little thin.
I'm going to do another one just in case.
Dessert's not going to be spot on, so I'm going to retract my statement
about maybe being a dessert guy.
Piping out a choux, um, it does take a little bit of time in the oven.
I'm gonna see if I can rush it a little bit.
After that's done, I'm going to make my cream.
We'll see, see how it goes.
I'll have to start my caramel again.
This is not working.
Oh, my goodness.
Look at this.
It's a croquembouche.
Isn't it wonderful?
What it is, it's row upon row of little cream puffs,
and then it's all glued together with caramel.
It's not what we want.
Very ugly!
I'm going to take the choux pastry
that you typically use for croquembouche,
instead of a puff, it's more like a donut
that you split in half and you fill with cream.
Oh, no!
It's good that I made two, because I think I'm going to have
to use the bottom of one and the top of another one.
This whole competition for me is pivoting and making it happen,
'cause I've got no other choice at this point.
So I'm going to make a lime curd to go with it.
Just trying to get my curd going so that I'm in good shape.
I dried out some lime leaves in the microwave
and I'm trying to just make a little dust to kind of go over my dessert.
Oh, I bet this isn't supposed to be in glass, is it?
Oh, boy.
Do you have a pot I can use?
I got all the pots, bro.
That's why that's not coming around.
Oh, baby.
Just going to continue on and do my orange chantilly cream in the puff.
I'm melting some guava paste to make a guava jam
that I'm going to fill my crepes with.
For my take on croquembouche, I am making crepes filled with
vanilla bean pastry cream, guava jam and spun sugar on top.
Oh, my gosh.
Good crepes need to sit for hours,
like the batter overnight, even better.
Oh, no way I'm going to finish this on time.
I think my whipped cream is kind of whipped butter,
but enough to make it not smooth and *y.
Oh, my gosh.
I'm not going to finish on time.
No, no, no, no, no.
I'm doing a brunoise of kumquats.
It's going to top my cream with that.
All right, guys, big push. We're almost there.
Oh, I have no idea how this is going to turnout.
We're just going to put a pretty dress on this.
Dude, those look awesome.
Here we go.
Okay. That's it. Time's up.
Please join us at the table. Bring your desserts over.
I can't believe we did it.
It was kind of this z moment when they called time
and it's suddenly over, serving our last dish in this kitchen,
in this amazing competition.
It's kind of bittersweet.
I want you to take a look at our dining room table, because it's really lovely.
So here we are.
The best way to finish the meal.
Thank you for coming with your hands full.
- Wow. - All right. Time for dessert.
Jaine, let's start with you.
I planned on baking a cake, so I changed my plans
and made simple crepes and filled them with vanilla pastry cream,
guava jam, and made some spun sugar on top.
Janie, what I think was very smart is you used
the components of pate a choux,
but you made crepes which have eggs, flour and milk in it,
which pate a choux also has.
It's really good.
I would never look at a croquembouche and think guava.
It actually balances the sweetness of the pastry cream.
- Bill. - My take is a puff.
It's filled with an orange cream,
and it's topped with a brunoise of kumquat.
Yeah, the kumquat itself just has this great,
you know, sort of sharp, vibrant orange flavor.
The kumquat is very specific, and I love that about it.
I love the tartness that you get from it.
I love kumquat.
I was so happy that you added that as a component.
It's bright. It has an herbaceousness.
I do feel like I'm missing a textural contrast.
So, Dustin, tell us your take on a croquembouche.
Today, I've made a Paris-Brest,
which is basically the profiterole puffs, but in donut shape.
There is a lime curd, a lime mousse, a lime leaf dust on top,
and then some spun sugar.
The contrast of the buttery dough to me with that lime curd
is beautifully balanced.
It had a lightness. It was refreshing.
It's a great finish to a meal.
So you have something that's
that's classic and classically rich
and yet feels perfect to finish a meal.
Thank you so much.
Tasting the different levels of sweetness and acidity
in different lime components I thought was brilliant.
This is a delicious dessert.
I could be blindfolded and each of these dishes represents you so perfectly.
This has been an exceptional meal.
All of us have thoroughly enjoyed this evening.
You should be very proud of what you did
and that you are the final three,
and this finale has been as amazing as it has been.
So to our last toast...
You guys have a tough decision
- ahead of you right now. - Yeah.
We're going to go to the bar, so we'll see you guys.
Bye.
Jaine, Bill and Dustin have had quite the journey.
For the finale, we asked the cooks to make four courses.
Let's discuss our favorite dishes from each course.
Okay, so let's start at the very beginning.
The croque monsieur.
I really loved what Jaine did.
It was beautiful. It was imaginative.
It was a delicious dish and a new reading of a croque monsieur.
I also liked Dustin's, I mean, I know that it was clunky,
and it felt like, you know, the sandwich that I got from the local sandwich shop.
But I thought it was tasty.
It was tasty. It was really tasty.
So let's move on to the duck a I'orange.
Dustin's pho was exciting.
That duck pho broth really stole my heart today,
in the sense that I know how difficult it is
to get that much flavor into a broth in that amount of time.
And I think that he used his time very wisely.
I loved Bill's, though.
I thought there was a rustic simplicity to it that worked.
It was very duck forward.
Now, for the beef bourguignon.
Jaine's dish, she found a way to take the Frenchiest of French dishes
and yet make it very, very much her own.
I thought it was exceptional.
As soon as it came down in sort of that beautiful glass bowl
and it had the glasse of pearl onions on top,
it reminded me of beef bourguignon,
because of those pearl onions that were so perfectly, you know, glassed on top.
Dustin's dish, I was really excited to eat that dish,
but then when I ate it, it was confusing.
The marmalade was not marmaladey enough.
So it was, it was beautiful.
It missed by so, you know, just a teensy-teensy little bit.
I would like to just give Bill an honorable mention, though, in this round.
- Oh, that was... - Because...
Absolutely.
That steak was cooked perfectly, and more importantly...
- That sauce. - The sauce.
That sauce was perfect.
- Spot on. Spot on. - Yeah, yeah.
It all comes down to croquembouche.
I never thought I would say those words.
It all comes down to croquembouche.
We do know that it's between Jaine and Dustin, right?
Right.
And so Jaine didn't have time to make pate a choux, she went for crepes.
The same exact ingredients that are in a pate a choux are in a crepe.
It was such a good connection.
So there's a huge connection between the two, right?
- The pastry cream. - Yeah.
It was like a fluffy, beautifully light, delicate...
- Cloud of vanilla. - Cloud of vanilla.
And I never would have imagined
guava and pastry cream and crepes together.
Dustin's interpretation of croquembouche,
the curd, the whipped cream...
The lime leaf did it for me.
It was delicious.
- And the sprinkle of sea salt on top. - -And the mint.
- And the beautiful sugar work on top. - -Correct.
- I mean... - The sugar work was great.
Who do you think, Julia, what she would think about these dishes?
- I think she would have found delight in everyone's dishes. - Mm-hmm.
I think she would love what Bill did,
because she would recognize Bill's food immediately.
I think Dustin's food would surprise her in a delightful way.
I think she would have fallen in love with Jaine's heart.
I think she would have loved to have seen her take
French food and bring it to her home.
All of them are deserving of being here,
but I think we know who the winner is.
- Hmm. - Yeah.
Today, you made us an incredible finale meal.
Julia Child was my mentor.
It's really moving to see her influence after all of this time.
And I just think that what you did today would have made her so proud.
The food we got today did not feel like food from a home cook.
You all put your hearts into these dishes.
I feel like I know so much about all of you
just by eating your meals today.
One of you will win a three-month course at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris
and get to follow in Julia's own footsteps.
No matter what the outcome, I want you to know
how wonderful it's been watching you.
It's reminded me why I fell in love with cooking in the first place.
The winner is.
Jaine.
Jaine, we are so proud of you.
You cook with so much heart, so much intuition.
You wear all of your love of cooking,
your love for Julia on your sleeve.
It is just coming out of you in every single dish
that we have seen over the course of these weeks.
It's overwhelming.
I love cooking and it always started with Julia,
and she changed everything for me many, many years ago.
And now she's changing everything again.
And we have a little tiny bottle of champagne
and I'll just pour you one glass just to lure you o.
There.
That's all for today. This is Julia Child.
Bon appetit.