Marcel's Quantum Kitchen (2011) s01e02 Episode Script
Rules Of Engagement
Whoa, whoa.
What the are you doing? After "Top Chef", I needed my next challenge.
So I decided to give catering a shot.
I've set up a totally tricked out, state-of-the-art kitchen I could imagine.
- There's Jarrid - Yo! You ready to put down the welder and start cooking? I'm here to make sure the food always matches its surroundings, so I'm going to have to invent something, I'm going to have to build something.
This is my meat grinder carburetor.
Then there's my pal Devon How's it going, man? Marcel's been my best friend since I was 18.
We went to culinary school together.
That's using your noodle.
Not only does he know his way around the kitchen, he's also the Marcel of cocktails.
- Hey, guys! - Oh, hey! I also needed somebody on my team that knows how to run a catering company, so I hired Robyn.
I've run catering on rock and roll tours for three years now.
I'm really nervous, because, obviously, I don't have the chef skills like they all do.
Open your mouth.
With my team in place, my new adventure begins.
To Marcel! Real people, spectacular parties, and the most outrageous food you've probably ever imagined.
Move your ass.
Tonight on The Quantum Kitchen It's gonna be pretty intense.
Marcel is hired by a tough-as-nails party planner named Summer at the request of her clients Gregg and Karen.
This is my event.
You're serving from those plates.
Together, they'll have to throw a spectacular engagement party.
Karen and I dated in high school.
He signed his yearbook, "I will love you till I die.
" But what happens when Marcel's noodle creation goes from brilliant Eating the same noodles.
I love it.
to bust Damn it! when the dessert is destroyed Who's the ? and Marcel hatches a secret plan in the middle of dinner service? That's really, really ghetto.
- I don't have time.
- .
Oh, my God.
Welcome to the future of food.
Welcome to "Marcel's Quantum Kitchen".
Marcel's Quantum Kitchen 1x02 Rules Of Engagement I'm meeting with my new clients, Gregg and Karen, at Church Estate Vineyard, which is going to be the location for their engagement party.
I've got a little bit of background already.
Maybe you can elaborate for me.
Well, I just never, ever thought I'd be back with my high school sweetheart in a million years.
We hadn't seen each other for over 30 years.
Karen and I dated in high school.
Then in his yearbook he signed it, "I will love you 'til I die.
" We ended up just goin' our separate ways after we graduated.
Over time, we each met someone and were married for a bit, but the feeling just never left.
So then I had to look and look and look to find her again for 30 years.
I never gave up.
Then our 30th reunion was coming up and I reconnected with her.
I'm getting all emotional now.
They're story is kind of a tear jerker.
It makes me want to make her back in the day? I did okay, used to do lobster and steak and-- I mean, for 17-years-old, lobster and steak.
That's-- I didn't even cook that when I was-- I was making quesadillas.
- See? - Oh, well, yeah.
Sweet.
So a little surf and turf.
I like it.
I can probably do something with that.
I'm just curious how you're gonna incorporate love in our food.
Me, too.
Only time will tell.
You guys want to pop a cork? - Yeah.
- Yes, please.
You don't have to twist my arm.
- Bob: Or two? - Karen: Or two.
We're gonna open the Pinot first and we're gonna let it breathe a little bit.
Talk about love, this is it.
Yeah, it's absolutely delicious.
- Salud.
- Thank you.
Like, I really wanted to have a-- like, figure out a way to incorporate the wine into the menu.
So knowing that I have an amazing wine to pair with, now the pressure's on me to make sure the food's amazing.
This stuff's off the hook.
Off the heazy-for-sheazy.
This wine is delicious, but what I'm really curious about is where is this party gonna be? Where are you guys taking me right now? Oh, you'll see.
It's-- We think would be a great place for our party.
Down here? - Well, yeah.
- You'll see.
I worked in the wine business for many years when I was in my 20s, and the minute we came here, we were like, this is it.
I think this would be the spot.
This is probably one of the most romantic settings that I could-- I could imagine.
- Told you I did a good choice.
- Yes, you did.
The reason why I wanted to come here is that I want to draw inspiration from not only their love story but also the atmosphere and walking around here and seeing the vineyards.
They want the world and I want to deliver it to 'em.
So I'm gonna have to figure out how I can actually do that.
I'm meeting with Summer, the event planner, and she has a reputation for being quite the perfectionist.
- How are you? - I'm good.
How are you? Um, I'm doin' pretty well.
I, you know, I got the opportunity to see the venue-- - Good.
- Which I liked.
- Yeah.
- And I met with the clients, - which were amazing.
- Yeah.
- They're a great couple.
- I thank you for, you know, having me be a part of this job.
Oh, you're welcome.
I've done everything from awards shows to weddings, and I've heard a lot about Marcel.
and I think that his creativity will be perfect for this event.
Is this kind of what we're thinking for the table setting? Yeah.
We're doing really, really rustic, romantic, like a sort of Renaissance Romeo and Juliet feel, so we've got browns and golds and reds and pink and it'll look really, really lush and just really warm and beautiful.
It's definitely not kind of like what I had visioned.
I'm used to a blank white canvasses, usually.
- Uh-huh.
- When I say canvasses I mean like porcelain plates.
I think white would totally go on this setting.
Now we look like we're at a restaurant.
Marcel puts down this ugly white plate, and I was just thinking, "No.
" I'm the event designer, this is my event.
He's not getting those plates.
I'm kind of concerned that the plate won't match the food.
I'm not budging on the plates.
I'm not really a huge fan of super gaudy plates, and I want my food to be presented on white plates so that way it really shines and the guests are gonna get the full effect.
Plates may not seem like a big deal, but the way that people see food affects the way that it tastes.
So a first impression is really important to me.
No, that's definitely not kind of like what I had visioned.
No.
You're serving from those plates.
Top of the morning, guys.
I'm really excited about this party.
This couple is seriously amazing.
Summer, the event planner, asked us to cater this engagement party, so we have to take this blank canvas and fill it up with some-- - Romance.
- Lovey-dovey romantic, like-- - Love stuff, huh? - Ideas.
Jarrid, try not to vomit.
I know you're over there like-- Look at him sulking over here.
I got the perfect menu planned for this.
I think we should do a big, edible Hallmark card that tastes like .
Someone hasn't had good experiences.
Pity party for one, please.
All right.
When I say romance and food, what do you guys think of? Oysters.
And I think any sort of shellfish in general.
Yeah.
Souffles.
Yeah, surf and turf.
I-- I like filet.
You know what? Gregg used to cook, like, steak and lobster for her when they were dating in high school.
- I knew I hired you for a reason.
- Ding! Yeah.
That's exactly what I was thinking, but why don't we do an updated version where we serve it in different tiers, like stacked on top of each other? Ooh.
What about passionate fruits? - Passion fruits.
- Yeah.
I was thinking actual ingredients, like they're names, like-- Like you want to serve 'em some cow heart? No.
Cow heart.
I was thinking hearts of palm.
Right? Oh, hearts of palm.
Maybe do a hearts of palm salad or something.
Romaine hearts.
That's hearts.
Yeah.
There's a-- that hearts of fire, like that red ribbon sorrel.
Those are good.
Well, that'd be better than hearts of romaine.
What if we actually had two different ingredients that each represent a heart, and one of them can represent Gregg, one of 'em can represent Karen, their love? This guy's gonna vomit over here.
I think that's kind of a cool-- cool dish, right? Like a hearts of palm salad, but we'll do, like, our own version of it.
- Ooh.
- Okay.
Also, super simplistic dishes can be very romantic.
If you think about a bowl of spaghetti and a glass of wine and, I don't know, kind of like-- It's like "Lady and the Tramp"-- - Classic love story.
- They eat the same noodle.
Totally like eating the same noodle, meeting in the middle.
That's actually kind of cool.
Write that down.
That sounds good.
I was thinking about somehow making, like, an edible engagement ring and serve that as a sort of, like, snack towards the end of the meal.
Well, I mean, you can do that 'til death do we part kind of theme, we could go to skeletons and like-- You're ruining my romance buzz, man.
What's the deal, Jarrid? Why are you so anti-romance? I had a high school sweetheart, too.
I put a lot of years in that relationship and, uh never really got over it.
I'm still working it out.
Gonna give you a little Band-Aid.
- Devon: Oh, that is-- - Robyn: Right there.
There you go.
I put a Band-Aid on Jarrid to mend his itty-bitty broken heart.
So now we just have to figure out how we can take these ideas and update 'em to really showcase, like, our style.
We have some very ambitious menu items for this event.
There's the hearts of palm salad, there's the wine noodle, there's the three-tiered surf and turf, and the edible engagement ring.
I'm not really sure if the menu is even physically possible.
So we gotta get to testing.
I think it'd be cool if we make this noodle out of a couple of different types of wine, so it's almost like a progression or like a flight, and so we'll start off with a Riesling, work our way into a rose and then go into a deep red.
- Mm, sounds yummy.
- I don't know if it's-- I don't know if it's possible.
It sounds really cool, right? Yeah, it does.
Totally.
Now let's see if we can actually do it.
I want to make a 30-inch noodle that is basically made out of jellified wine.
One inch to represent each year that the couple's been apart.
So we're going to combine our agar agar, right? Which is the seaweed vegetable gelatin and the regular gelatin with the wine to make the noodle.
The combination of agar agar and gelatin have a synergistic effect, agar being brittle and gelatin being kind of like more elastic.
I want to make sure that it's flexible and pliable enough to have the actual consistency of pasta.
All right, chef, I've got everything all measured out and all three wine gelatins are boiling.
- Right behind ya.
- Okay.
We're gonna need to suck up each base with this syringe.
All right.
Right now we are injecting three different wine solutions into one tube to make a continuous noodle.
All right, you go second.
The biggest challenge with the wine noodle is going to be fusing those three different wines together as one.
Here, hold it up.
All right, just go, go, go.
All right.
Uh.
It looks good.
Drop it inside of an ice bath.
Okay, as soon as it hits this-- this liquid ice bath, it'll-- it'll harden because of the agar agar.
- Yes.
Exactly.
- Essentially.
Okay.
After the Jell-O is set, then comes the fun part, the actual extruding of the noodle, which I use a compressed gas to propel the noodle outside of the plastic tubing.
Let's see if this will actually-- It's so sticky.
You all right? Oh, my God, you just shot noodles in my face.
You're blushing.
Look, it looks like spaghetti.
Look at it.
Look at that, it's a big noodle.
Kind of.
This is-- that didn't really-- that didn't really work.
Take two.
All right, gently.
We need goggles for this one.
Ohh.
The air bubbles between the different wine mixtures are preventing us from getting one continuous noodle.
That doesn't look like it's 30 inches to me.
We have to make this over again.
Let's just do Red? Straight Pinot, yeah.
It's actually coming out perfect.
- Yes.
- Maybe that might help.
The party is tomorrow, and we have a lot of dishes that we haven't even tested yet.
I'm not really sure how we're gonna get everything done.
That's really, really ghetto.
Oh, my God.
Can you get those sliced truffles? What I want to do is, because we-- we do have such an amazing wine-- - Yeah.
- I want to actually let it shine.
into the main surf and turf entree.
I want to take this wine and make a veil, and actually kind of like wrap the wine around the meat.
I think that we should take the , hydrate it with some agar agar, which will allow us to jellify it, then we're just gonna take it while it's still liquid and just pour it over some thinly sliced truffles.
Once the wine mixture solidifies, we'll cut them up and drape them over the meat.
They're gonna be sitting in a-- in a sheet pan.
Right? It's gonna be like truffles in the jelly.
The red wine veil is exactly that.
It's a melting blanket of sauce with truffles, which is draped over the meat to kind of provide flavor and texture.
Nice lookin' meat.
Right? We're gonna cook these flatirons.
I have Devon preparing the meat, which entails combining the seasonings and the marinade with the meat in a bag.
That's gonna be delicious.
The next process is we're gonna sous-vide it, and that's cooking it really, really slowly, basically in its own juices.
This smells delicious.
The concept for the surf and turf dish is to actually have three different tiers of surf and turf.
The first tier will be the lobster heartbeat.
The second tier will be the langoustine ravioli with earthy vegetables like Brussels sprouts.
And the third tier, I want to make a flatiron steak with Alaskan king crab, and top it with a Jerusalem artichoke foam.
I'm making a mixture of wine in this particular hydrocolloid in order to make a wine veil.
The hydrocolloid acts as a stiffener, which will jellify the wine.
We want to make sure that we're setting these someplace level.
- Yeah? - Yeah, absolutely.
Uh, no.
Did you taste it? I didn't get to yet.
- I mean, I had the wine by itself.
- You should probably taste it.
Shouldn't taste too much different, huh? Always gotta taste, man.
- Yeah.
- Taste everything.
- Yeah.
It's true.
- You know? You like it? Um, I kind of wish it was sweeter.
I was gonna say honey.
I'm liking where you're going with that.
And another thing is, do you know what helps you taste better? Close your eyes.
It's better.
- I like it.
- Yeah.
That's much better.
All right, so I'm going to blow torch it, - While you drop it like it's hot.
- Get the bubbles.
Ready? What does the blow torching do to it? Just getting rid of the bubbles and keeping it hot.
Oh, cool.
Just thin layer.
Stop, stop, stop.
We want to make sure that this veil is nice and even.
- Yeah? - Yeah.
It looks sweet.
Is this already set? - Nice.
- Jarrid: Nice.
Let's make another one.
Oh, man, I'm still finding some bubbles in there.
Damn those bubbles.
Putting three wines into one noodle is extremely difficult.
- Ready for extrusion? - Yeah.
I'm starting to think there's no way this is gonna work.
Can we get another little pan? So I'm just gonna use the Pinot Noir, and just use that one wine in the noodle.
All right, here it comes, here it comes, here it comes.
Grab the tip.
Come on, baby.
Easy, easy, easy.
That's a really good one.
What a beautiful noodle you made.
That is a wine noodle.
So we actually made a 30-inch noodle out of wine.
One inch to represent each year.
How cool is that? We may have it.
Noodle down.
Yay for noodles.
We finally got the wine noodle to work, but it took us all day, and I didn't get as much work done as I wanted to, not to mention the fact that Summer, the event planner, is coming in for a tasting.
So when we come in tomorrow, it's gonna be totally brutal, and we're really gonna have to push.
All right.
Top of the morning, guys.
Hey, morning.
I'm a little bit torn by this day.
The party is tomorrow and we actually have a lot of dishes that we haven't even tested yet.
Man, we really gotta push today.
I'm not really sure how we're gonna get everything done on time.
So what I want to do is call in my friend, Sally.
- Hey! - Guys.
Who is a kick ass, rockin' pastry chef.
- Yo! Sally! - What's up, baby? How are you? Hey, what's goin' on? I'm Sally Camacho, and I've been a pastry chef for 11 years.
and I work for Wolfgang Puck.
Here's what I'm thinking.
I want to come up with an edible engagement ring.
For the diamond, I want to pour a hot liquid sugar into a mold.
When it sets, there will be a hard crystal shell that should look like a diamond with a soft liqueur center.
For the ring, I want to use pulled sugar and shape it into a ring band.
I've never gotten an engagement ring, I'm not sure if you have, either, - but they're usually like-- - No.
They're usually on, like, pillows.
So I'm thinking I could use a marshmallow to replace the cotton pillow that's typically found in the bottom of a ring box.
That would be cute.
- Right? Adorable, no? - Yeah.
Neither of us have ever made an edible engagement ring before, let alone a bon bon that's made out of liquid that we're gonna have to glue to this ring.
This is extremely tricky.
I'm making the mold for the bon bon liqueur.
So this is gonna be the impression that's gonna go in the corn starch.
I'm testing a really cool technique where the diamonds which will sit on top of the rings will be made by pouring a hot liquid sugar into a mold.
When the hot liquid sugar sets, there will be a hard crystal shell with a soft liqueur center.
The first step of making the mold is filling a tray with corn starch and pressing it down.
We gotta make it completely level.
Hold your breath when you take it out.
When you're pressing the molds inside the corn starch, it's extremely difficult because you can't breathe, you can't shake, you have the super steady hand.
You have a success rate, probably, about 75 percent.
So that's why we have to make a tray of 30 different molds so that way we can get at least 12 out of 'em.
119, yeah.
Yeah, we gotta go.
I got it.
Hot, hot, hot.
This is totally gonna crystallize.
It's already crystallizing on the pot.
And then we're gonna funnel our sugar mixture into this.
Man, this looks so cool.
So the liquid sugar, which is touching the corn starch, becomes hard because the corn starch is pulling out the moisture.
Natural reaction that's gonna happen is water from the sugar solution is going to be absorbed back into the corn starch, causing a crystallized sugar crust and it creates that outer shell.
We have the bon bon liqueurs that are crystallizing overnight and we won't know if they work until tomorrow.
We hope that those things set, otherwise, we don't have a backup plan.
Devon, are we ready to get pregnant? Let's get pregnant.
All right, we've got some diced watermelon, right? Yes, sir.
The watermelon is part of the hearts of palm salad, and I want to actually change the texture and the flavor of the watermelon to have it mimic tuna.
And the reason why I'm using watermelon is because it has that bright, vibrant red color, which will be the closest to raw tuna.
I love form mimicking, which is essentially making something taste and look like something that it actually isn't.
- We have our-- - Pregger juice.
- Which is what? - I got a little rice wine vinegar, some mirin, as well as a little bit of delicious soy sauce up in there.
Okay.
What we want to see happen is this watermelon take on this flavor of this juice.
And I'm not really sure what's gonna happen.
It could change the color of the melon, it could change the texture of the melon.
I'm getting to use this new machine called the Gastrovac.
Put this right up in here.
So this is actually gonna soak in all that liquid.
In theory.
Let's check it out.
Okay.
Let's see if it works.
What the Gastrovac does is suck the air out of the environment, compressing the watermelon.
Kind of like wringing out a sponge.
When the pressure is returned to normal, the porous structure of the watermelon sucks in the marinade.
You see all those bubbles on top? - It's pulling out the oxygen.
- Exactly.
- Ready and - Go! Wow.
Looks like tuna.
The purpose behind this technique is to not only change the flavor of the melon, but to also change the texture.
So here is our original melon, and you can see where it shrunk a little bit through the compression.
It totally looks like raw tuna.
Let's taste it.
If this watermelon doesn't taste delicious, then we have to abandon the entire idea and go back to ground zero.
Is it a little too intense? No.
It tastes like tuna.
The savory hits you first and then the refreshingness of the actual watermelon, like, comes after so it cleans your tongue.
And you get a little saltiness from the soy.
Saltiness first and then like-- - A little acidity from the rice wine.
- Refreshing.
Yeah.
Sweet.
So great success.
Lesson learned.
Back to work.
Bon bon liqueurs are setting.
Yep.
- And so now we're gonna pull some sugar? - Yep.
The ring component will be pulled sugar, and pulling sugar is, like, no easy feat.
I got it.
Hot, hot, hot.
- This is super hot.
- Yeah, it is really hot.
Now that the sugar is heated, we're gonna pull it, which is gonna make it smooth and glossy and malleable.
All you're gonna do, fold it-- - Yeah, and work it.
Right? - And work it in.
Stretch, pull.
Stretch, pull.
And you have to mold it and shape it and work it till it gets pliable.
You can only do it, like, when it's really hot.
Otherwise, it's too brittle.
It's hot.
Put it down on the-- Don't keep it in your hand, put it down.
You only have approximately five minutes to work with it before it starts to harden.
How thick do you want these rings to be? I think that looks good.
You want to make sure that the ring is substantial enough and thick enough to bear the weight of the bon bon, but at the same time, you don't want it to be too thick because then it'll be like rock candy.
So we make these rings and we're gonna glue the bon bons on there.
With a little nub of sugar.
We figured out the components for the ring.
Now Summer, the event planner, is coming in for a tasting.
I'm just gonna do two versions of the surf and turf, I'm not gonna do the hearts of palm.
I can't make her all of the dishes because there's several components that I'm gonna be doing the day of.
Oh, wow.
Smoke this out, huh? Oops.
I just smoked the out of the kitchen, but I don't really care if Summer minds or not because I'm cooking her dinner.
It is smoky.
Summer's here.
Hi, Summer.
- Hi.
- How are you? Good.
How are you? It's a little smoky in here.
I'm here to do a tasting because it's my event and this is the first time that I've worked with Marcel, and I just want to make sure that his food is up to my standard.
- The menu's coming together.
- Okay.
I'm not actually gonna serve you all of the courses.
And, unfortunately, I didn't have any of those gold rimmed plates, so I had to use white rectangles for the time being.
These are the plates that I have and these are kind of the plates that I had envisioned with the dish.
Here we go again with these white plates.
Marcel needs to understand that this is my event and we are going with a storybook theme.
No white plates.
That is gonna be the third tier of the surf and turf.
A flatiron cooked sous-vide with truffle jus, the king crab with the drawn butter powder, caramelized cippolini, and that's a Pinot Noir and truffle veil.
Pinot Noir is from Church, the vineyard where we're gonna be at.
- Delicious.
- And then the Jerusalem artichoke espuma.
It's beautiful.
Mmm.
Life is delicious.
So this is our third tier.
That is, yeah.
That's gonna be on the bottom.
When we talked about serving dishes, you didn't ask me for one for this course.
Are you providing something that you're serving in? I'm getting some custom service-ware flown in from Spain.
- Okay.
- It should be here tomorrow.
Hopefully.
He tells me that he's ordered these three-tiered stackable plates.
It's a very cool concept, but he's ordered them from Spain, they're not coming until the day of the event.
I'm so nervous.
I'm not gonna be sleeping tonight.
I still have a lot of work to do and doing this tasting for you set me back a little bit, but I was more than happy to accommodate.
We'll be fine.
Hello.
Check this place out, huh? Schwank-a-dizzy.
All right, we got a lot of work to do so let's get everything loaded in here.
Sally : Oh, my God.
The bon bon liqueurs are, like, totally busted.
I had Devon pack 'em but I didn't even see how so - Oh, jeez.
- They kind of got broken.
Hey, Cel, did you see these? - What? - I don't know if we can use these.
- What happened? - Yeah.
They got packed, like, packed-packed.
Who's the ? I had Devon pack 'em but-- Yeah.
I mean, these ones were gonna be awesome and-- I really don't want to talk about it.
Devon.
When you were stacking all the bon bon liqueurs on top of each other, ears of cooking experience in the kitchen, but not as a pastry chef.
Honestly, this is Sally's fault.
She should have told me how to package that, or she should have done them herself.
This sucks.
I'm just hoping that we salvage enough bon bons to serve every guest an edible engagement ring.
One, two, three, four-- - Did you taste one? - Yeah.
Fifteen fatalities and hopefully hopefully 15 surviving soldiers.
Have you seen the plates yet? Look what I have to brighten your day.
- They came in? - Look, they came.
What is that? Oh, my God.
This is like, this is for the surf and turf.
So we're gonna do three different layers of surf and turf.
How much space do you have between that layer and that layer, is that enough space? They're kind of smaller than I had visioned.
I was kind of pissed off that the third tier is way too small for my surf and turf dish.
There's no way that we're gonna be able to fit a piece of flatiron, a king crab, a cippolini, a seared piece of foie gras, and Jerusalem artichoke espuma with the red wine veil.
So I'm thinking, why don't we use my white plates? I think it's time to launch Operation White Rectangular Plates.
So this is the path that your waiters are gonna walk.
Summer is giving Marcel and I a tour of the grounds, and we are gonna see her table setting.
If you're thinking in your head about timing, obviously, it'll be half the pace that we're walking 'cause they'll have the trays.
Or twice as fast because they gotta move their ass.
I don't want them to fall into the pond, and I don't want your food goin' into the pond.
So they're gonna be walkin' pretty slow.
So now you see what I was sayin' about the square plates, right? This is lovely.
As soon as I saw the table, I was thinking to myself, "How am I gonna make my food look elegant and classy "and romantic on these super gaudy gold-rimmed plates?" I'm tryin' to figure out a way to plate my food on my sexy porcelain canvasses.
Operation White Plate is definitely in full swing.
All right, so then this is-- This is your set up.
Looks beautiful.
I love it.
Okay, Great.
Good, good.
Back to work for you.
- Yeah, yeah.
- Absolutely.
Vice versa.
Let me know if I can get you anything.
Okay, I'll send the servers when they're ready.
I think that Marcel is coming to my way of thinking.
Now that he's seen my tablescape, he realizes that my plates are the right plates and I think he's excited to see how it's gonna come together.
So we might have to play a little bit of good cop/bad cop.
Okay.
'Cause I'm pretty sure that I'm just gonna use my plates.
And you can be the one that breaks that to her.
Catering is my expertise, really, so I'm good at making challenging situations a bit more pleasant.
I'll do it.
But it was a bit of a dirty move on his part.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15.
saved 15 bon bons, you guys.
I need to melt that more.
Torch this nub of sugar.
Which is essentially gonna be the glue.
Now we just need to glue the edible bon bon diamonds to the pulled sugar rings with the use of a little bit of melted sugar.
Looks like it's sticking, right? That's really cute.
I think we should go with that.
Let's do it.
Thank God we brought Sally on for this, because we couldn't have done it without her.
Let's go.
And now it was time to transport everything down to our makeshift kitchen by the pond.
All right.
I need a minute to set up my kitchen.
- Hi.
- Hey, Summer.
Ah, this looks great.
There's a couple of things.
So we're using your plates.
- Great.
- Unfortunately, we don't have enough of your plates to get through the whole meal, so we're having to incorporate some of our plates.
What do you mean? - Okay, so for-- - We're just gonna do, like, a combination.
Yeah, a combination of plates, per se.
So we're using-- here we're using this bit.
Right.
Okay.
As well as the bowl.
But the thing is the-- the last dish, they're a tad bit smaller-- - Than you anticipated.
- Yeah.
So we're incorporating our large plates to make it work.
Those are the square plates.
This, to me, is not surprising in any way.
Sneaky, sneaky Marcel snuck that ugly white plate in the dinner.
Okay, so you're selling this.
- Absolutely.
- So I'm gonna buy it.
Okay, well that's good.
But I'm not pleased.
But it's still being stacked on one plate, yes? - No.
- No.
No, it's not being stacked on one plate.
Essentially, we're adding another course.
We originally talked about one course, just on a tiered plate.
But once it didn't fit, it required an additional plate, which meant it required an additional fork.
You guys said that I would need one set of dinner utensils, so what I'm asking the waiters to do is take the dirty utensils off and put 'em back on the tablecloth so that you guys can bring another course.
because I don't have another set.
- Do you see what I'm saying? - Yes, absolutely.
So that's really, really ghetto.
What's ghetto? That they're gonna have to re-use their dinner forks, because you've added a course.
All right, I don't have time for this .
I don't understand what the confusion is.
It's the same amount of silverware.
It's just going out at a different time.
I'm sorry for the change and I-- Right.
So maybe next time you should test the plates before the day of.
It's ridiculous.
- Summer.
- Oh, my God.
So beautiful.
I just love the detail.
Cheers! - Hi.
- Isn't this great? Can I just say thank you all for being here.
All right, you guys, I think the, uh, the couple's getting sat right now, so we gotta be ready to go.
The next three hours are gonna be bananas.
Like, this is an extremely ambitious menu, and there's so many different components and a little makeshift kitchen to do it in.
It's gonna be pretty intense.
All right, let's figure this out.
How the am I gonna put this together? I have to build this plate, and it's my first time doing it, and if that's not bad enough, I've got Summer breathing down my neck telling me that the guests are waiting.
Okay.
Come on.
It's only 12 people but we're making it fancy.
I'm very concerned about the hearts of palm salad.
I mean, Marcel's never plated it before and like everything he does, it's a very complicated dish.
I gotta finish figuring out how we're gonna do this plate over here.
Each plate is artwork to me.
It's something that can't be rushed.
All these components need to be in the right place so that they look good, but also so that they taste amazing.
You can't rush creativity.
- Marcel: That looks sick.
- Robyn: Yeah, it does.
Whoo! The hearts of palm dish is finally plated, and we're on an extremely tight schedule, that it's difficult for me to break away from the kitchen and go present it to Gregg and Karen.
So, hello, everybody.
I would like to present to you your first course.
This is my version of a classic hearts of palm salad inspired by the two of you.
The inspiration for this dish is Gregg and Karen's love story, and have the hearts of palm and the hearts of fire represent their two hearts coming together as one dish.
Inside the hearts of palm is a blood orange fluid gel, and then we have some impregnated watermelon, there's some hamachi, there's an avocado sheet, the nasturtium greens, but also the nasturtium flowers and a little bit of puffed quinoa for texture.
- Well, enjoy.
- Thank you, Marcel.
Thank you.
It's beautiful.
It's so good.
Oh, my God, this is like, this is sushi.
This is amazing.
Well, that's the watermelon.
I love the fact that Marcel used the idea of our love story in the presentation of the watermelon and the orange and it was just fantastic.
I mean, I've never, ever seen a dish like this.
Ever.
Wow.
This is so good.
So we gotta roll right into our next course.
Will you grab the other half of that? All right, we're gonna go ahead and drop the middle in there, and we want to keep each end kind of hanging out so you have something to grab on.
As I see Marcel plating the dish, I notice that the noodle is a single color and it's supposed to be tri-colored.
Rose, white and red wine.
So is this still three flavors of wine? Unfortunately, not.
Next time you should tell me that kind of stuff ahead of time.
If Marcel is gonna be making last minute changes all night on the menu, then that's stuff that I need to know, like he's changed the flavor of the noodle, he changed the dishes.
It's difficult.
I don't know, necessarily, what's going on in my kitchen is what I-- I need to know.
I have a special course for the two of you.
What I have here is a wine noodle, and inside of the base below, we have, basically, a lot of the aromas of the wine.
The noodle is actually 30 inches long, one inch to represent each year that you guys were apart and coming back together.
And, as you can see, the two ends are kind of like sticking out, so I-- I kind of ran out of noodles, I only had one noodle, so I was just hoping maybe you guys could share.
Be a little bit gentle.
I really hope that this noodle is able to withstand the slurping.
I haven't actually tested it during an actual kiss.
It's really fragile because it's made out of jellified wine and not flour, like your normal pasta would be.
Oh, look at the lights.
We slurped the noodle, - and then a very nice kiss.
- Very nice kiss.
That was a great success.
We are really gonna have to push because we have to do both these dishes simultaneously.
Raviolis go in, Brussels go in, and then they'll come down, and put a top on and send it out.
Now we have to plate the surf and turf trio, and in order to do that, I have to plate the first two tiers simultaneously, rush out to the table, present that to the guests, run back to the kitchen, plate up the third dish, and then send that one out.
So I'm really gonna have to push to get this one done on time.
For your next dish, the inspiration is what Gregg used to cook Karen, surf and turf.
And the first part is on top, and this is the spiny lobster heartbeat ravioli.
The heart is made out of a beet wrapper, and then the stuffing on the inside is a spiny lobster.
This is a beautiful presentation.
The surf and turf just brought me back to high school.
It put me right back into Gregg's kitchen at 17-years-old.
Thank God you inspired this, honey.
The presentation was just fantastic.
And then the taste was even better.
Oh, it's delicious.
The earthiness of the beet doesn't overpower the lobster.
Wow.
That's so good.
That was so yummy.
That's why I took my time eating it.
For your second tier, I'm gonna finish your dish with a little tableside saucing.
This is a foie gras truffle au jus that I've prepared for you.
This is beautiful.
I won't tear up, but very special.
Thank you.
Oh, my God.
This sauce is incredible.
You can eat the whole thing.
Absolutely delicious.
Where's the king crab? Can I get the crab? Do you want to torch that corner? Yeah, we'll torch it.
Nice.
- Let me get the blow torch.
- Okay.
Come on.
Marcel has created an additional course, and he's taking a very long time to plate this dish.
Why aren't you plating? I need a veil.
Can you finish plating? Put the brown butter powder on the crab.
Jeez-a-louisa.
We need to work from right to left.
Move your ass.
We have to heat up these veils.
Servers, we gotta pick it up, we gotta go, we gotta go, we gotta go.
Come over here with the veils.
We gotta get this out now.
Move your ass.
Servers, we gotta pick it up, we gotta go, we gotta go, we gotta go.
Let's give these plates to the servers so they can take 'em out.
That's fine.
Just go.
So we finally got out the last tier of the surf and turf, just in time before Summer had a nervous breakdown.
Take your time.
Careful, guys.
Ooh, here he comes.
This is my last version of the surf and turf.
We have a truffled flatiron steak, Alaskan king crab leg, a Pinot Noir veil with truffles.
And to really slam home the turf, this is gonna be a little Jerusalem artichoke sauce.
So, enjoy.
Thank you.
Believe it or not, we've actually made it through all of our main courses.
I'm gonna enjoy this.
I still hate that plate.
I maintain my position.
He said it looked good on the table.
I don't think so.
Oh, my God, this is by far-- Oh, my God, this melts in your mouth.
Combination of flavors that normally you don't put together, and they're together.
It's like a feast in your mouth.
You'll never have it again.
Never.
We'll never have this again.
Marcel did an amazing job with the surf and turf.
And I got emotional.
This has been beautiful because what Marcel has done, and the fact that you guys have all been here, it's like brilliant.
It brought me back in-- when I was 17 and to me, that's an amazing chef that can create something like that to touch my emotions that way.
To Marcel.
Marcel.
Thank you.
We need to start plating desserts, guys.
We're plating up the edible diamond rings.
I think these look amazing.
- Yay.
You happy? - Are we ready to go? - Yeah.
- Yeah, let's go.
The bon bon liqueurs gaveturning out well.
This is dessert for you guys.
Oh, my God.
That is almost as big as our ring.
I know that that engagement ring doesn't really compare to the one on your finger, but, nevertheless, you can try, right? The entire ring is totally edible.
On top we have bon bon liqueur, then the ring is pulled sugar, and the pillow is passion fruit marshmallow.
Please enjoy.
I-- I'm speechless.
I'm speechless.
These two little engagement rings appear, and, honestly, they were so beautiful, I didn't want to eat 'em.
I just wanted to say thank you so much for including me in your incredible love story.
Thank you.
And this final dish is meant to be as sweet as your love for each other, and a symphony in your mouth.
Oh, my God.
Oh, my God.
I love this song.
I love this.
I love this song.
And then the symphony comes on.
How many times do you get a ring out of a beautiful dessert and then a symphony comes on behind you? Wow.
That's unbelieveable.
This event went great.
Everything was beautiful.
It was delicious.
It was on time.
The dish that's the highlite is the surf and turf.
Karen cried.
I mean I think it was very emotional for them.
And I think it really was a nice sorta cherry on the top.
This moment, right now, is where I feel just this amazing, overwhelming sense of fulfillment.
It's just a huge payoff, for me, for my crew - I love you.
- I love you.
I'm pretty happy right now.
I'm kinda on cloud 9.
What the are you doing? After "Top Chef", I needed my next challenge.
So I decided to give catering a shot.
I've set up a totally tricked out, state-of-the-art kitchen I could imagine.
- There's Jarrid - Yo! You ready to put down the welder and start cooking? I'm here to make sure the food always matches its surroundings, so I'm going to have to invent something, I'm going to have to build something.
This is my meat grinder carburetor.
Then there's my pal Devon How's it going, man? Marcel's been my best friend since I was 18.
We went to culinary school together.
That's using your noodle.
Not only does he know his way around the kitchen, he's also the Marcel of cocktails.
- Hey, guys! - Oh, hey! I also needed somebody on my team that knows how to run a catering company, so I hired Robyn.
I've run catering on rock and roll tours for three years now.
I'm really nervous, because, obviously, I don't have the chef skills like they all do.
Open your mouth.
With my team in place, my new adventure begins.
To Marcel! Real people, spectacular parties, and the most outrageous food you've probably ever imagined.
Move your ass.
Tonight on The Quantum Kitchen It's gonna be pretty intense.
Marcel is hired by a tough-as-nails party planner named Summer at the request of her clients Gregg and Karen.
This is my event.
You're serving from those plates.
Together, they'll have to throw a spectacular engagement party.
Karen and I dated in high school.
He signed his yearbook, "I will love you till I die.
" But what happens when Marcel's noodle creation goes from brilliant Eating the same noodles.
I love it.
to bust Damn it! when the dessert is destroyed Who's the ? and Marcel hatches a secret plan in the middle of dinner service? That's really, really ghetto.
- I don't have time.
- .
Oh, my God.
Welcome to the future of food.
Welcome to "Marcel's Quantum Kitchen".
Marcel's Quantum Kitchen 1x02 Rules Of Engagement I'm meeting with my new clients, Gregg and Karen, at Church Estate Vineyard, which is going to be the location for their engagement party.
I've got a little bit of background already.
Maybe you can elaborate for me.
Well, I just never, ever thought I'd be back with my high school sweetheart in a million years.
We hadn't seen each other for over 30 years.
Karen and I dated in high school.
Then in his yearbook he signed it, "I will love you 'til I die.
" We ended up just goin' our separate ways after we graduated.
Over time, we each met someone and were married for a bit, but the feeling just never left.
So then I had to look and look and look to find her again for 30 years.
I never gave up.
Then our 30th reunion was coming up and I reconnected with her.
I'm getting all emotional now.
They're story is kind of a tear jerker.
It makes me want to make her back in the day? I did okay, used to do lobster and steak and-- I mean, for 17-years-old, lobster and steak.
That's-- I didn't even cook that when I was-- I was making quesadillas.
- See? - Oh, well, yeah.
Sweet.
So a little surf and turf.
I like it.
I can probably do something with that.
I'm just curious how you're gonna incorporate love in our food.
Me, too.
Only time will tell.
You guys want to pop a cork? - Yeah.
- Yes, please.
You don't have to twist my arm.
- Bob: Or two? - Karen: Or two.
We're gonna open the Pinot first and we're gonna let it breathe a little bit.
Talk about love, this is it.
Yeah, it's absolutely delicious.
- Salud.
- Thank you.
Like, I really wanted to have a-- like, figure out a way to incorporate the wine into the menu.
So knowing that I have an amazing wine to pair with, now the pressure's on me to make sure the food's amazing.
This stuff's off the hook.
Off the heazy-for-sheazy.
This wine is delicious, but what I'm really curious about is where is this party gonna be? Where are you guys taking me right now? Oh, you'll see.
It's-- We think would be a great place for our party.
Down here? - Well, yeah.
- You'll see.
I worked in the wine business for many years when I was in my 20s, and the minute we came here, we were like, this is it.
I think this would be the spot.
This is probably one of the most romantic settings that I could-- I could imagine.
- Told you I did a good choice.
- Yes, you did.
The reason why I wanted to come here is that I want to draw inspiration from not only their love story but also the atmosphere and walking around here and seeing the vineyards.
They want the world and I want to deliver it to 'em.
So I'm gonna have to figure out how I can actually do that.
I'm meeting with Summer, the event planner, and she has a reputation for being quite the perfectionist.
- How are you? - I'm good.
How are you? Um, I'm doin' pretty well.
I, you know, I got the opportunity to see the venue-- - Good.
- Which I liked.
- Yeah.
- And I met with the clients, - which were amazing.
- Yeah.
- They're a great couple.
- I thank you for, you know, having me be a part of this job.
Oh, you're welcome.
I've done everything from awards shows to weddings, and I've heard a lot about Marcel.
and I think that his creativity will be perfect for this event.
Is this kind of what we're thinking for the table setting? Yeah.
We're doing really, really rustic, romantic, like a sort of Renaissance Romeo and Juliet feel, so we've got browns and golds and reds and pink and it'll look really, really lush and just really warm and beautiful.
It's definitely not kind of like what I had visioned.
I'm used to a blank white canvasses, usually.
- Uh-huh.
- When I say canvasses I mean like porcelain plates.
I think white would totally go on this setting.
Now we look like we're at a restaurant.
Marcel puts down this ugly white plate, and I was just thinking, "No.
" I'm the event designer, this is my event.
He's not getting those plates.
I'm kind of concerned that the plate won't match the food.
I'm not budging on the plates.
I'm not really a huge fan of super gaudy plates, and I want my food to be presented on white plates so that way it really shines and the guests are gonna get the full effect.
Plates may not seem like a big deal, but the way that people see food affects the way that it tastes.
So a first impression is really important to me.
No, that's definitely not kind of like what I had visioned.
No.
You're serving from those plates.
Top of the morning, guys.
I'm really excited about this party.
This couple is seriously amazing.
Summer, the event planner, asked us to cater this engagement party, so we have to take this blank canvas and fill it up with some-- - Romance.
- Lovey-dovey romantic, like-- - Love stuff, huh? - Ideas.
Jarrid, try not to vomit.
I know you're over there like-- Look at him sulking over here.
I got the perfect menu planned for this.
I think we should do a big, edible Hallmark card that tastes like .
Someone hasn't had good experiences.
Pity party for one, please.
All right.
When I say romance and food, what do you guys think of? Oysters.
And I think any sort of shellfish in general.
Yeah.
Souffles.
Yeah, surf and turf.
I-- I like filet.
You know what? Gregg used to cook, like, steak and lobster for her when they were dating in high school.
- I knew I hired you for a reason.
- Ding! Yeah.
That's exactly what I was thinking, but why don't we do an updated version where we serve it in different tiers, like stacked on top of each other? Ooh.
What about passionate fruits? - Passion fruits.
- Yeah.
I was thinking actual ingredients, like they're names, like-- Like you want to serve 'em some cow heart? No.
Cow heart.
I was thinking hearts of palm.
Right? Oh, hearts of palm.
Maybe do a hearts of palm salad or something.
Romaine hearts.
That's hearts.
Yeah.
There's a-- that hearts of fire, like that red ribbon sorrel.
Those are good.
Well, that'd be better than hearts of romaine.
What if we actually had two different ingredients that each represent a heart, and one of them can represent Gregg, one of 'em can represent Karen, their love? This guy's gonna vomit over here.
I think that's kind of a cool-- cool dish, right? Like a hearts of palm salad, but we'll do, like, our own version of it.
- Ooh.
- Okay.
Also, super simplistic dishes can be very romantic.
If you think about a bowl of spaghetti and a glass of wine and, I don't know, kind of like-- It's like "Lady and the Tramp"-- - Classic love story.
- They eat the same noodle.
Totally like eating the same noodle, meeting in the middle.
That's actually kind of cool.
Write that down.
That sounds good.
I was thinking about somehow making, like, an edible engagement ring and serve that as a sort of, like, snack towards the end of the meal.
Well, I mean, you can do that 'til death do we part kind of theme, we could go to skeletons and like-- You're ruining my romance buzz, man.
What's the deal, Jarrid? Why are you so anti-romance? I had a high school sweetheart, too.
I put a lot of years in that relationship and, uh never really got over it.
I'm still working it out.
Gonna give you a little Band-Aid.
- Devon: Oh, that is-- - Robyn: Right there.
There you go.
I put a Band-Aid on Jarrid to mend his itty-bitty broken heart.
So now we just have to figure out how we can take these ideas and update 'em to really showcase, like, our style.
We have some very ambitious menu items for this event.
There's the hearts of palm salad, there's the wine noodle, there's the three-tiered surf and turf, and the edible engagement ring.
I'm not really sure if the menu is even physically possible.
So we gotta get to testing.
I think it'd be cool if we make this noodle out of a couple of different types of wine, so it's almost like a progression or like a flight, and so we'll start off with a Riesling, work our way into a rose and then go into a deep red.
- Mm, sounds yummy.
- I don't know if it's-- I don't know if it's possible.
It sounds really cool, right? Yeah, it does.
Totally.
Now let's see if we can actually do it.
I want to make a 30-inch noodle that is basically made out of jellified wine.
One inch to represent each year that the couple's been apart.
So we're going to combine our agar agar, right? Which is the seaweed vegetable gelatin and the regular gelatin with the wine to make the noodle.
The combination of agar agar and gelatin have a synergistic effect, agar being brittle and gelatin being kind of like more elastic.
I want to make sure that it's flexible and pliable enough to have the actual consistency of pasta.
All right, chef, I've got everything all measured out and all three wine gelatins are boiling.
- Right behind ya.
- Okay.
We're gonna need to suck up each base with this syringe.
All right.
Right now we are injecting three different wine solutions into one tube to make a continuous noodle.
All right, you go second.
The biggest challenge with the wine noodle is going to be fusing those three different wines together as one.
Here, hold it up.
All right, just go, go, go.
All right.
Uh.
It looks good.
Drop it inside of an ice bath.
Okay, as soon as it hits this-- this liquid ice bath, it'll-- it'll harden because of the agar agar.
- Yes.
Exactly.
- Essentially.
Okay.
After the Jell-O is set, then comes the fun part, the actual extruding of the noodle, which I use a compressed gas to propel the noodle outside of the plastic tubing.
Let's see if this will actually-- It's so sticky.
You all right? Oh, my God, you just shot noodles in my face.
You're blushing.
Look, it looks like spaghetti.
Look at it.
Look at that, it's a big noodle.
Kind of.
This is-- that didn't really-- that didn't really work.
Take two.
All right, gently.
We need goggles for this one.
Ohh.
The air bubbles between the different wine mixtures are preventing us from getting one continuous noodle.
That doesn't look like it's 30 inches to me.
We have to make this over again.
Let's just do Red? Straight Pinot, yeah.
It's actually coming out perfect.
- Yes.
- Maybe that might help.
The party is tomorrow, and we have a lot of dishes that we haven't even tested yet.
I'm not really sure how we're gonna get everything done.
That's really, really ghetto.
Oh, my God.
Can you get those sliced truffles? What I want to do is, because we-- we do have such an amazing wine-- - Yeah.
- I want to actually let it shine.
into the main surf and turf entree.
I want to take this wine and make a veil, and actually kind of like wrap the wine around the meat.
I think that we should take the , hydrate it with some agar agar, which will allow us to jellify it, then we're just gonna take it while it's still liquid and just pour it over some thinly sliced truffles.
Once the wine mixture solidifies, we'll cut them up and drape them over the meat.
They're gonna be sitting in a-- in a sheet pan.
Right? It's gonna be like truffles in the jelly.
The red wine veil is exactly that.
It's a melting blanket of sauce with truffles, which is draped over the meat to kind of provide flavor and texture.
Nice lookin' meat.
Right? We're gonna cook these flatirons.
I have Devon preparing the meat, which entails combining the seasonings and the marinade with the meat in a bag.
That's gonna be delicious.
The next process is we're gonna sous-vide it, and that's cooking it really, really slowly, basically in its own juices.
This smells delicious.
The concept for the surf and turf dish is to actually have three different tiers of surf and turf.
The first tier will be the lobster heartbeat.
The second tier will be the langoustine ravioli with earthy vegetables like Brussels sprouts.
And the third tier, I want to make a flatiron steak with Alaskan king crab, and top it with a Jerusalem artichoke foam.
I'm making a mixture of wine in this particular hydrocolloid in order to make a wine veil.
The hydrocolloid acts as a stiffener, which will jellify the wine.
We want to make sure that we're setting these someplace level.
- Yeah? - Yeah, absolutely.
Uh, no.
Did you taste it? I didn't get to yet.
- I mean, I had the wine by itself.
- You should probably taste it.
Shouldn't taste too much different, huh? Always gotta taste, man.
- Yeah.
- Taste everything.
- Yeah.
It's true.
- You know? You like it? Um, I kind of wish it was sweeter.
I was gonna say honey.
I'm liking where you're going with that.
And another thing is, do you know what helps you taste better? Close your eyes.
It's better.
- I like it.
- Yeah.
That's much better.
All right, so I'm going to blow torch it, - While you drop it like it's hot.
- Get the bubbles.
Ready? What does the blow torching do to it? Just getting rid of the bubbles and keeping it hot.
Oh, cool.
Just thin layer.
Stop, stop, stop.
We want to make sure that this veil is nice and even.
- Yeah? - Yeah.
It looks sweet.
Is this already set? - Nice.
- Jarrid: Nice.
Let's make another one.
Oh, man, I'm still finding some bubbles in there.
Damn those bubbles.
Putting three wines into one noodle is extremely difficult.
- Ready for extrusion? - Yeah.
I'm starting to think there's no way this is gonna work.
Can we get another little pan? So I'm just gonna use the Pinot Noir, and just use that one wine in the noodle.
All right, here it comes, here it comes, here it comes.
Grab the tip.
Come on, baby.
Easy, easy, easy.
That's a really good one.
What a beautiful noodle you made.
That is a wine noodle.
So we actually made a 30-inch noodle out of wine.
One inch to represent each year.
How cool is that? We may have it.
Noodle down.
Yay for noodles.
We finally got the wine noodle to work, but it took us all day, and I didn't get as much work done as I wanted to, not to mention the fact that Summer, the event planner, is coming in for a tasting.
So when we come in tomorrow, it's gonna be totally brutal, and we're really gonna have to push.
All right.
Top of the morning, guys.
Hey, morning.
I'm a little bit torn by this day.
The party is tomorrow and we actually have a lot of dishes that we haven't even tested yet.
Man, we really gotta push today.
I'm not really sure how we're gonna get everything done on time.
So what I want to do is call in my friend, Sally.
- Hey! - Guys.
Who is a kick ass, rockin' pastry chef.
- Yo! Sally! - What's up, baby? How are you? Hey, what's goin' on? I'm Sally Camacho, and I've been a pastry chef for 11 years.
and I work for Wolfgang Puck.
Here's what I'm thinking.
I want to come up with an edible engagement ring.
For the diamond, I want to pour a hot liquid sugar into a mold.
When it sets, there will be a hard crystal shell that should look like a diamond with a soft liqueur center.
For the ring, I want to use pulled sugar and shape it into a ring band.
I've never gotten an engagement ring, I'm not sure if you have, either, - but they're usually like-- - No.
They're usually on, like, pillows.
So I'm thinking I could use a marshmallow to replace the cotton pillow that's typically found in the bottom of a ring box.
That would be cute.
- Right? Adorable, no? - Yeah.
Neither of us have ever made an edible engagement ring before, let alone a bon bon that's made out of liquid that we're gonna have to glue to this ring.
This is extremely tricky.
I'm making the mold for the bon bon liqueur.
So this is gonna be the impression that's gonna go in the corn starch.
I'm testing a really cool technique where the diamonds which will sit on top of the rings will be made by pouring a hot liquid sugar into a mold.
When the hot liquid sugar sets, there will be a hard crystal shell with a soft liqueur center.
The first step of making the mold is filling a tray with corn starch and pressing it down.
We gotta make it completely level.
Hold your breath when you take it out.
When you're pressing the molds inside the corn starch, it's extremely difficult because you can't breathe, you can't shake, you have the super steady hand.
You have a success rate, probably, about 75 percent.
So that's why we have to make a tray of 30 different molds so that way we can get at least 12 out of 'em.
119, yeah.
Yeah, we gotta go.
I got it.
Hot, hot, hot.
This is totally gonna crystallize.
It's already crystallizing on the pot.
And then we're gonna funnel our sugar mixture into this.
Man, this looks so cool.
So the liquid sugar, which is touching the corn starch, becomes hard because the corn starch is pulling out the moisture.
Natural reaction that's gonna happen is water from the sugar solution is going to be absorbed back into the corn starch, causing a crystallized sugar crust and it creates that outer shell.
We have the bon bon liqueurs that are crystallizing overnight and we won't know if they work until tomorrow.
We hope that those things set, otherwise, we don't have a backup plan.
Devon, are we ready to get pregnant? Let's get pregnant.
All right, we've got some diced watermelon, right? Yes, sir.
The watermelon is part of the hearts of palm salad, and I want to actually change the texture and the flavor of the watermelon to have it mimic tuna.
And the reason why I'm using watermelon is because it has that bright, vibrant red color, which will be the closest to raw tuna.
I love form mimicking, which is essentially making something taste and look like something that it actually isn't.
- We have our-- - Pregger juice.
- Which is what? - I got a little rice wine vinegar, some mirin, as well as a little bit of delicious soy sauce up in there.
Okay.
What we want to see happen is this watermelon take on this flavor of this juice.
And I'm not really sure what's gonna happen.
It could change the color of the melon, it could change the texture of the melon.
I'm getting to use this new machine called the Gastrovac.
Put this right up in here.
So this is actually gonna soak in all that liquid.
In theory.
Let's check it out.
Okay.
Let's see if it works.
What the Gastrovac does is suck the air out of the environment, compressing the watermelon.
Kind of like wringing out a sponge.
When the pressure is returned to normal, the porous structure of the watermelon sucks in the marinade.
You see all those bubbles on top? - It's pulling out the oxygen.
- Exactly.
- Ready and - Go! Wow.
Looks like tuna.
The purpose behind this technique is to not only change the flavor of the melon, but to also change the texture.
So here is our original melon, and you can see where it shrunk a little bit through the compression.
It totally looks like raw tuna.
Let's taste it.
If this watermelon doesn't taste delicious, then we have to abandon the entire idea and go back to ground zero.
Is it a little too intense? No.
It tastes like tuna.
The savory hits you first and then the refreshingness of the actual watermelon, like, comes after so it cleans your tongue.
And you get a little saltiness from the soy.
Saltiness first and then like-- - A little acidity from the rice wine.
- Refreshing.
Yeah.
Sweet.
So great success.
Lesson learned.
Back to work.
Bon bon liqueurs are setting.
Yep.
- And so now we're gonna pull some sugar? - Yep.
The ring component will be pulled sugar, and pulling sugar is, like, no easy feat.
I got it.
Hot, hot, hot.
- This is super hot.
- Yeah, it is really hot.
Now that the sugar is heated, we're gonna pull it, which is gonna make it smooth and glossy and malleable.
All you're gonna do, fold it-- - Yeah, and work it.
Right? - And work it in.
Stretch, pull.
Stretch, pull.
And you have to mold it and shape it and work it till it gets pliable.
You can only do it, like, when it's really hot.
Otherwise, it's too brittle.
It's hot.
Put it down on the-- Don't keep it in your hand, put it down.
You only have approximately five minutes to work with it before it starts to harden.
How thick do you want these rings to be? I think that looks good.
You want to make sure that the ring is substantial enough and thick enough to bear the weight of the bon bon, but at the same time, you don't want it to be too thick because then it'll be like rock candy.
So we make these rings and we're gonna glue the bon bons on there.
With a little nub of sugar.
We figured out the components for the ring.
Now Summer, the event planner, is coming in for a tasting.
I'm just gonna do two versions of the surf and turf, I'm not gonna do the hearts of palm.
I can't make her all of the dishes because there's several components that I'm gonna be doing the day of.
Oh, wow.
Smoke this out, huh? Oops.
I just smoked the out of the kitchen, but I don't really care if Summer minds or not because I'm cooking her dinner.
It is smoky.
Summer's here.
Hi, Summer.
- Hi.
- How are you? Good.
How are you? It's a little smoky in here.
I'm here to do a tasting because it's my event and this is the first time that I've worked with Marcel, and I just want to make sure that his food is up to my standard.
- The menu's coming together.
- Okay.
I'm not actually gonna serve you all of the courses.
And, unfortunately, I didn't have any of those gold rimmed plates, so I had to use white rectangles for the time being.
These are the plates that I have and these are kind of the plates that I had envisioned with the dish.
Here we go again with these white plates.
Marcel needs to understand that this is my event and we are going with a storybook theme.
No white plates.
That is gonna be the third tier of the surf and turf.
A flatiron cooked sous-vide with truffle jus, the king crab with the drawn butter powder, caramelized cippolini, and that's a Pinot Noir and truffle veil.
Pinot Noir is from Church, the vineyard where we're gonna be at.
- Delicious.
- And then the Jerusalem artichoke espuma.
It's beautiful.
Mmm.
Life is delicious.
So this is our third tier.
That is, yeah.
That's gonna be on the bottom.
When we talked about serving dishes, you didn't ask me for one for this course.
Are you providing something that you're serving in? I'm getting some custom service-ware flown in from Spain.
- Okay.
- It should be here tomorrow.
Hopefully.
He tells me that he's ordered these three-tiered stackable plates.
It's a very cool concept, but he's ordered them from Spain, they're not coming until the day of the event.
I'm so nervous.
I'm not gonna be sleeping tonight.
I still have a lot of work to do and doing this tasting for you set me back a little bit, but I was more than happy to accommodate.
We'll be fine.
Hello.
Check this place out, huh? Schwank-a-dizzy.
All right, we got a lot of work to do so let's get everything loaded in here.
Sally : Oh, my God.
The bon bon liqueurs are, like, totally busted.
I had Devon pack 'em but I didn't even see how so - Oh, jeez.
- They kind of got broken.
Hey, Cel, did you see these? - What? - I don't know if we can use these.
- What happened? - Yeah.
They got packed, like, packed-packed.
Who's the ? I had Devon pack 'em but-- Yeah.
I mean, these ones were gonna be awesome and-- I really don't want to talk about it.
Devon.
When you were stacking all the bon bon liqueurs on top of each other, ears of cooking experience in the kitchen, but not as a pastry chef.
Honestly, this is Sally's fault.
She should have told me how to package that, or she should have done them herself.
This sucks.
I'm just hoping that we salvage enough bon bons to serve every guest an edible engagement ring.
One, two, three, four-- - Did you taste one? - Yeah.
Fifteen fatalities and hopefully hopefully 15 surviving soldiers.
Have you seen the plates yet? Look what I have to brighten your day.
- They came in? - Look, they came.
What is that? Oh, my God.
This is like, this is for the surf and turf.
So we're gonna do three different layers of surf and turf.
How much space do you have between that layer and that layer, is that enough space? They're kind of smaller than I had visioned.
I was kind of pissed off that the third tier is way too small for my surf and turf dish.
There's no way that we're gonna be able to fit a piece of flatiron, a king crab, a cippolini, a seared piece of foie gras, and Jerusalem artichoke espuma with the red wine veil.
So I'm thinking, why don't we use my white plates? I think it's time to launch Operation White Rectangular Plates.
So this is the path that your waiters are gonna walk.
Summer is giving Marcel and I a tour of the grounds, and we are gonna see her table setting.
If you're thinking in your head about timing, obviously, it'll be half the pace that we're walking 'cause they'll have the trays.
Or twice as fast because they gotta move their ass.
I don't want them to fall into the pond, and I don't want your food goin' into the pond.
So they're gonna be walkin' pretty slow.
So now you see what I was sayin' about the square plates, right? This is lovely.
As soon as I saw the table, I was thinking to myself, "How am I gonna make my food look elegant and classy "and romantic on these super gaudy gold-rimmed plates?" I'm tryin' to figure out a way to plate my food on my sexy porcelain canvasses.
Operation White Plate is definitely in full swing.
All right, so then this is-- This is your set up.
Looks beautiful.
I love it.
Okay, Great.
Good, good.
Back to work for you.
- Yeah, yeah.
- Absolutely.
Vice versa.
Let me know if I can get you anything.
Okay, I'll send the servers when they're ready.
I think that Marcel is coming to my way of thinking.
Now that he's seen my tablescape, he realizes that my plates are the right plates and I think he's excited to see how it's gonna come together.
So we might have to play a little bit of good cop/bad cop.
Okay.
'Cause I'm pretty sure that I'm just gonna use my plates.
And you can be the one that breaks that to her.
Catering is my expertise, really, so I'm good at making challenging situations a bit more pleasant.
I'll do it.
But it was a bit of a dirty move on his part.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15.
saved 15 bon bons, you guys.
I need to melt that more.
Torch this nub of sugar.
Which is essentially gonna be the glue.
Now we just need to glue the edible bon bon diamonds to the pulled sugar rings with the use of a little bit of melted sugar.
Looks like it's sticking, right? That's really cute.
I think we should go with that.
Let's do it.
Thank God we brought Sally on for this, because we couldn't have done it without her.
Let's go.
And now it was time to transport everything down to our makeshift kitchen by the pond.
All right.
I need a minute to set up my kitchen.
- Hi.
- Hey, Summer.
Ah, this looks great.
There's a couple of things.
So we're using your plates.
- Great.
- Unfortunately, we don't have enough of your plates to get through the whole meal, so we're having to incorporate some of our plates.
What do you mean? - Okay, so for-- - We're just gonna do, like, a combination.
Yeah, a combination of plates, per se.
So we're using-- here we're using this bit.
Right.
Okay.
As well as the bowl.
But the thing is the-- the last dish, they're a tad bit smaller-- - Than you anticipated.
- Yeah.
So we're incorporating our large plates to make it work.
Those are the square plates.
This, to me, is not surprising in any way.
Sneaky, sneaky Marcel snuck that ugly white plate in the dinner.
Okay, so you're selling this.
- Absolutely.
- So I'm gonna buy it.
Okay, well that's good.
But I'm not pleased.
But it's still being stacked on one plate, yes? - No.
- No.
No, it's not being stacked on one plate.
Essentially, we're adding another course.
We originally talked about one course, just on a tiered plate.
But once it didn't fit, it required an additional plate, which meant it required an additional fork.
You guys said that I would need one set of dinner utensils, so what I'm asking the waiters to do is take the dirty utensils off and put 'em back on the tablecloth so that you guys can bring another course.
because I don't have another set.
- Do you see what I'm saying? - Yes, absolutely.
So that's really, really ghetto.
What's ghetto? That they're gonna have to re-use their dinner forks, because you've added a course.
All right, I don't have time for this .
I don't understand what the confusion is.
It's the same amount of silverware.
It's just going out at a different time.
I'm sorry for the change and I-- Right.
So maybe next time you should test the plates before the day of.
It's ridiculous.
- Summer.
- Oh, my God.
So beautiful.
I just love the detail.
Cheers! - Hi.
- Isn't this great? Can I just say thank you all for being here.
All right, you guys, I think the, uh, the couple's getting sat right now, so we gotta be ready to go.
The next three hours are gonna be bananas.
Like, this is an extremely ambitious menu, and there's so many different components and a little makeshift kitchen to do it in.
It's gonna be pretty intense.
All right, let's figure this out.
How the am I gonna put this together? I have to build this plate, and it's my first time doing it, and if that's not bad enough, I've got Summer breathing down my neck telling me that the guests are waiting.
Okay.
Come on.
It's only 12 people but we're making it fancy.
I'm very concerned about the hearts of palm salad.
I mean, Marcel's never plated it before and like everything he does, it's a very complicated dish.
I gotta finish figuring out how we're gonna do this plate over here.
Each plate is artwork to me.
It's something that can't be rushed.
All these components need to be in the right place so that they look good, but also so that they taste amazing.
You can't rush creativity.
- Marcel: That looks sick.
- Robyn: Yeah, it does.
Whoo! The hearts of palm dish is finally plated, and we're on an extremely tight schedule, that it's difficult for me to break away from the kitchen and go present it to Gregg and Karen.
So, hello, everybody.
I would like to present to you your first course.
This is my version of a classic hearts of palm salad inspired by the two of you.
The inspiration for this dish is Gregg and Karen's love story, and have the hearts of palm and the hearts of fire represent their two hearts coming together as one dish.
Inside the hearts of palm is a blood orange fluid gel, and then we have some impregnated watermelon, there's some hamachi, there's an avocado sheet, the nasturtium greens, but also the nasturtium flowers and a little bit of puffed quinoa for texture.
- Well, enjoy.
- Thank you, Marcel.
Thank you.
It's beautiful.
It's so good.
Oh, my God, this is like, this is sushi.
This is amazing.
Well, that's the watermelon.
I love the fact that Marcel used the idea of our love story in the presentation of the watermelon and the orange and it was just fantastic.
I mean, I've never, ever seen a dish like this.
Ever.
Wow.
This is so good.
So we gotta roll right into our next course.
Will you grab the other half of that? All right, we're gonna go ahead and drop the middle in there, and we want to keep each end kind of hanging out so you have something to grab on.
As I see Marcel plating the dish, I notice that the noodle is a single color and it's supposed to be tri-colored.
Rose, white and red wine.
So is this still three flavors of wine? Unfortunately, not.
Next time you should tell me that kind of stuff ahead of time.
If Marcel is gonna be making last minute changes all night on the menu, then that's stuff that I need to know, like he's changed the flavor of the noodle, he changed the dishes.
It's difficult.
I don't know, necessarily, what's going on in my kitchen is what I-- I need to know.
I have a special course for the two of you.
What I have here is a wine noodle, and inside of the base below, we have, basically, a lot of the aromas of the wine.
The noodle is actually 30 inches long, one inch to represent each year that you guys were apart and coming back together.
And, as you can see, the two ends are kind of like sticking out, so I-- I kind of ran out of noodles, I only had one noodle, so I was just hoping maybe you guys could share.
Be a little bit gentle.
I really hope that this noodle is able to withstand the slurping.
I haven't actually tested it during an actual kiss.
It's really fragile because it's made out of jellified wine and not flour, like your normal pasta would be.
Oh, look at the lights.
We slurped the noodle, - and then a very nice kiss.
- Very nice kiss.
That was a great success.
We are really gonna have to push because we have to do both these dishes simultaneously.
Raviolis go in, Brussels go in, and then they'll come down, and put a top on and send it out.
Now we have to plate the surf and turf trio, and in order to do that, I have to plate the first two tiers simultaneously, rush out to the table, present that to the guests, run back to the kitchen, plate up the third dish, and then send that one out.
So I'm really gonna have to push to get this one done on time.
For your next dish, the inspiration is what Gregg used to cook Karen, surf and turf.
And the first part is on top, and this is the spiny lobster heartbeat ravioli.
The heart is made out of a beet wrapper, and then the stuffing on the inside is a spiny lobster.
This is a beautiful presentation.
The surf and turf just brought me back to high school.
It put me right back into Gregg's kitchen at 17-years-old.
Thank God you inspired this, honey.
The presentation was just fantastic.
And then the taste was even better.
Oh, it's delicious.
The earthiness of the beet doesn't overpower the lobster.
Wow.
That's so good.
That was so yummy.
That's why I took my time eating it.
For your second tier, I'm gonna finish your dish with a little tableside saucing.
This is a foie gras truffle au jus that I've prepared for you.
This is beautiful.
I won't tear up, but very special.
Thank you.
Oh, my God.
This sauce is incredible.
You can eat the whole thing.
Absolutely delicious.
Where's the king crab? Can I get the crab? Do you want to torch that corner? Yeah, we'll torch it.
Nice.
- Let me get the blow torch.
- Okay.
Come on.
Marcel has created an additional course, and he's taking a very long time to plate this dish.
Why aren't you plating? I need a veil.
Can you finish plating? Put the brown butter powder on the crab.
Jeez-a-louisa.
We need to work from right to left.
Move your ass.
We have to heat up these veils.
Servers, we gotta pick it up, we gotta go, we gotta go, we gotta go.
Come over here with the veils.
We gotta get this out now.
Move your ass.
Servers, we gotta pick it up, we gotta go, we gotta go, we gotta go.
Let's give these plates to the servers so they can take 'em out.
That's fine.
Just go.
So we finally got out the last tier of the surf and turf, just in time before Summer had a nervous breakdown.
Take your time.
Careful, guys.
Ooh, here he comes.
This is my last version of the surf and turf.
We have a truffled flatiron steak, Alaskan king crab leg, a Pinot Noir veil with truffles.
And to really slam home the turf, this is gonna be a little Jerusalem artichoke sauce.
So, enjoy.
Thank you.
Believe it or not, we've actually made it through all of our main courses.
I'm gonna enjoy this.
I still hate that plate.
I maintain my position.
He said it looked good on the table.
I don't think so.
Oh, my God, this is by far-- Oh, my God, this melts in your mouth.
Combination of flavors that normally you don't put together, and they're together.
It's like a feast in your mouth.
You'll never have it again.
Never.
We'll never have this again.
Marcel did an amazing job with the surf and turf.
And I got emotional.
This has been beautiful because what Marcel has done, and the fact that you guys have all been here, it's like brilliant.
It brought me back in-- when I was 17 and to me, that's an amazing chef that can create something like that to touch my emotions that way.
To Marcel.
Marcel.
Thank you.
We need to start plating desserts, guys.
We're plating up the edible diamond rings.
I think these look amazing.
- Yay.
You happy? - Are we ready to go? - Yeah.
- Yeah, let's go.
The bon bon liqueurs gaveturning out well.
This is dessert for you guys.
Oh, my God.
That is almost as big as our ring.
I know that that engagement ring doesn't really compare to the one on your finger, but, nevertheless, you can try, right? The entire ring is totally edible.
On top we have bon bon liqueur, then the ring is pulled sugar, and the pillow is passion fruit marshmallow.
Please enjoy.
I-- I'm speechless.
I'm speechless.
These two little engagement rings appear, and, honestly, they were so beautiful, I didn't want to eat 'em.
I just wanted to say thank you so much for including me in your incredible love story.
Thank you.
And this final dish is meant to be as sweet as your love for each other, and a symphony in your mouth.
Oh, my God.
Oh, my God.
I love this song.
I love this.
I love this song.
And then the symphony comes on.
How many times do you get a ring out of a beautiful dessert and then a symphony comes on behind you? Wow.
That's unbelieveable.
This event went great.
Everything was beautiful.
It was delicious.
It was on time.
The dish that's the highlite is the surf and turf.
Karen cried.
I mean I think it was very emotional for them.
And I think it really was a nice sorta cherry on the top.
This moment, right now, is where I feel just this amazing, overwhelming sense of fulfillment.
It's just a huge payoff, for me, for my crew - I love you.
- I love you.
I'm pretty happy right now.
I'm kinda on cloud 9.