Iron Chef: Quest for an Iron Legend (2022) s01e08 Episode Script

1
Will today be the day
when I lose you from my grasp forever?
Will a challenger rise
to become an Iron Legend
and claim you as their prize?
There is only one way to determine
what our future holds.
Battle!
[cheering and applause]
Good evening, ladies and gentlemen
and food fans of all ages.
Alton Brown here,
welcoming you back to Kitchen Stadium.
This is the moment
that we have all been waiting for.
The battle for the Iron Legend.
And I'm Kristen Kish and tonight,
the competition's top challenger
will face off against all five
culinary giants in our grand finale.
Will the impossible happen?
Uh, well, this is truly the Mount Everest
of food competitions.
Sit back, buckle up,
and put on your stretchy pants.
This isIron Chef.
[Alton]Throughout this competition,
seven worthy challengers
have fearlessly stepped
into Kitchen Stadium
Allez cuisine!
to face off against The Chairman's own
hand-picked pantheon of Iron Chefs.
[chefs yell]
Iron Chef Tsai.
Most fell short
of toppling their colossal opponents.
[chefs cheer]
Just two triumphed
in the face of fierce competition.
But only one worthy challenger
has earned the honor
to return to battle all five Iron Chefs
for the chance to claim the title
of Iron Legend.
Please welcome Chef Esther Choi.
[cheering and applause]
[upbeat music plays]
[Alton]Renowned New York chef Esther Choi
returns to Kitchen Stadium
as our most successful challenger,
having defeated
Iron Chef Marcus Samuelsson
in Battle Tailgate.
Being in the finale is a dream come true.
I started cooking at a very young age
with my grandmother.
She shaped who I am today.
Tailgating!
I feel like tailgating
really fit my style of cooking
with my Korean soul food.
I aim to touch people's emotions.
This dish is breathtakingly good.
Yes!
And the winner is Chef Choi.
And to beat an Iron Chef was amazing.
Now I have a chance
to defeat five Iron Chefs at once.
I have to win.
Being able to represent Korean culture
and making my grandma proud,
it's really
it's the ultimate.
Chef Choi, did you ever imagine you would
end up here in the Legends Battle?
Definitely. I worked very hard
to get here, and I deserve the title.
Well, winning my Golden Knife
will not be an easy task,
because you will have to beat
five of the very best chefs
on the planet.
My five Iron Chefs!
Iron Chef Curtis Stone!
[cheering and applause]
Iron Chef Ming Tsai!
Iron Chef Dominique Crenn.
Iron Chef Marcus Samuelsson.
Iron Chef Gabriela Cámara.
[triumphant music plays]
This is a historic moment indeed.
Please meet the very brave
and very bold challenger
you will be facing.
Chefs.
Chef Choi, the quest for an Iron Legend
is very personal for The Chairman,
and I know it is for you as well.
That is why each dish must represent
a food that changed your lives.
The life-changing ingredients you will use
must come from either
land
or sea!
Hope it's the land.
Chefs, you will all have just 60 minutes
to prepare the dishes
that changed your lives.
Chef Choi, as you try
to achieve the impossible,
you will decide what ingredients
you will all cook with.
Will it be land or will it be sea?
I pick sea.
And why did you make this choice?
I can do the most with sea,
'cause it cooks quick.
Iron Chefs, you will each
make one sea dish.
Chef Choi, you will make five sea dishes.
But if you defeat
all five of my Iron Chefs,
you will become
the very first Iron Legend!
So now, with an open heart
and empty stomach,
I say unto you in the words of my uncle
Allez cuisine!
[Kristen] Here we go, the finale.
[Alton] Legends Battle is on
here in Kitchen Stadium.
Allez, allez!
-[Gabriela] Ooh.
[Kristen] Chef Esther Choi,
with her two sous-chefs Ilji and Jin,
against five Iron Chefs.
-[Marcus] You got it?
-[Gabriela] I got it, I got it.
[Alton] There are king crabs up there.
We can see lobster up there.
[Curtis] Behind you.
Lovely.
[Alton] Iron Chef Stone
immediately brings down some Dungeness,
which, of course,
is a very hard-shelled crab,
typically from Oregon.
It's actually named
after a fishing village.
[Marcus] Go. Good.
[Alton] There are bay scallops,
several different kinds of shrimp.
We've got spot prawns,
we've got actual langoustines,
which are actually nice and long
and slender lobsters.
[Jin] I got your oysters.
[Alton] We've also got various clams,
mussels and beautiful oysters,
so there is plenty to work with.
-[Esther] Ready, ready, ready?
-Okay.
Okay, chefs.
We know seafood really well.
We can do a lot of things.
So what do we do? Come on, let's talk.
-All right, we cook global cuisine.
-[Marcus] Perfect.
[Curtis] There's five of us,
so five corners of the world.
-Oh, I love that.
-I'm into that, Curtis, good.
[Dominique] I got some langoustines, guys.
I can go first.
I can do, like, kind of a tartare.
-You know, the sea.
-Beautiful.
[Marcus] Start it light, raw,
and then we just build, build, build.
I have these beautiful head-on shrimp.
I grew up eating these.
We have never, ever, ever, ever, ever
had a battle like this in Kitchen Stadium.
-I got king crab. I wanna make a tostada.
-[Marcus] Yes!
[Dominique] Oh, yeah.
If I could roll up my sleeves
you'd see goose bumps go up my arms,
to watch legends of this caliber
come together, cook all in one space.
For me, a big switch in my life
was moving to Harlem.
I wanna do something
around chicken and lobster together.
I love that.
[Curtis] I got the Dungeness crab.
I really want to do a curry.
I want to show
some Australian indigenous ingredients,
that really changed my life.
First thing we're gonna do
is the tteokbokki mandu dish,
because that's inspired
by Korean street food.
-The wrap.
-How many ways?
Three ways, right?
We're gonna do
Lebanese, Mexican and Korean.
Then we finish with our lobster ramen.
We got this, you guys! We got it!
-[all] Iron Chef!
-Whoo!
[Ming] Let's go!
And there are some fortunate people
who get to eat all of this
super delicious food. Our judges.
Nilou Motamed, Andrew Zimmern
and our special guest judge,
a true legend,
one of the original Iron Chefs from Japan
who then proceeded
to dominate inIron Chef America.
He runs a culinary empire
with 19 world-class restaurants
around the globe.
-Welcome, Iron Chef Morimoto.
-Hi.
-Did you look at him, look him in the eye?
-No! Yes! No, I got nervous!
Don't look at him in the eye.
You gotta to look down.
-He's, like, the original.
-I know he is!
-Don't even look at him now!
-[chuckles]
[Ming] Battle gear on, let's go.
[Alton] A lot of seafood
moving around very, very quickly.
We've got king crab, which, of course,
an exceptionally large animal.
It is the size of my head, literally.
[Alton] Weighing in at anywhere
from 15 to 20 pounds.
Has six legs, instead of eight,
which is funny. Or not so funny,
'cause if a king crab had eight legs,
it would be too terrifying to look at.
Other fish that I'm seeing down there,
we've got good old Homarus americanus,
the Maine Lobster,
we've got diver scallops
still on the shell
over on the challenger's side.
All about shrimp and langoustine, baby.
[Alton] Iron Chef Crenn packing
a big pile of seaweed over on the grill.
She's also breaking up langoustines,
again, members of the lobster family,
not the shrimp family.
They taste a lot more like lobsters.
Do you think there's more pressure
on the Iron Chefs?
Of course, five Iron Chefs
versus the three young chefs.
Don't be fooled. They are fierce.
These challengers are here to win.
I know, I know.
I'm the underdog.
Don't judge someone by their size.
I don't think these chefs
know what's coming for them.
If she wins, she deserves it, that means
she cooked better than five Iron Chefs.
Right? I wish her luck.
[Kristen] While the challenge is real,
Chef Choi and her team
also have the ability
to create one very cohesive
and nuanced menu today.
[Esther] Okay.
[Kristen] Oh look, I see she's working
with some langoustines too.
[Esther] Meat is really sweet
and super delicate
and such a beautiful crustacean.
We are definitely gonna see
what we saw in that head-to-head battle,
which is a Korean interpretation
of her soul food.
Her grandmother,
using ingredients that she was used to.
-[Esther] Jin Ah, your langoustines.
-[Jin] Thank you.
[Kristen] Sous-chef Jin is chopping up
some Napa cabbage.
We are making kimchi right now,
fresh kimchi.
[Alton] And I see gochujang
in the hands of sous-chef Ilji.
Now, gochujang is a fermented chili paste.
It looks like
she's making some sort of sauce with that.
[Ilji] Chef.
Granita.
-Delicious.
-Yes.
Perfect. Thank you.
[Alton] You know, she's putting
that gochujang sauce in the blast chiller.
Interesting.
We'll, uh We'll keep an eye on that.
-[Jin] Chef, your tomatoes are in.
-[Esther] Thank you.
-You guys good?
-[Curtis] Good.
-All right?
-[Ming] Good.
[Alton] Iron Chef Crenn feeding
a little broth to Iron Chef Ming Tsai.
The bowl's hot.
Can you try it? Can you try it?
Can you try it? Try it, try it.
[Alton] She's gonna feed everybody some,
but not me.
Oh yes, Chef, yes. Very, very good.
Iron Chef Stone, what's in the blender?
Sorry, I can't tell from here.
[Curtis] I've got some roasted spices,
some onion, some garlic, some chili,
some fresh ginger going in,
'cause I'm gonna make a curry paste.
[Alton] Okay, so Iron Chef Stone
is going to give us some kind of curry
and I imagine it's going to be
some sort of seafood curry.
[Kristen] We are definitely
gonna see different cuisines,
cultures, representation, styles of foods.
This is ready for the lobster
if you need it, Marcus.
[Marcus] Thank you.
[Alton] So Iron Chef Samuelsson,
who is a pro at cultivating flavors,
is putting the heat
to those lobster shells,
which will certainly add a layer of flavor
to whatever kind of broth
or sauce he's making.
[Kristen] Iron Chef Cámara
steamed those king-crab legs,
and now they're getting into an ice bath.
This is gonna make it easier
for her to peel and get the meat out.
Morimoto-san, how should they be thinking?
Have to do something, message, stories,
"I'm the Iron Chef." You know what I mean?
I'm so excited
that Iron Chef Morimoto is here.
He's really an icon in our industry.
Huge privilege to cook for him today.
Iron Chef Tsai,
what do you have in the wok, sir?
A little bit of caramelized shallots
and some black trumpets.
[Alton] Ah, black trumpet mushrooms, okay,
and now he's got cognac
going into that wok.
Now this has got to be
for some sort of sauce or filling
and that umami flavor he's building
will pair great with seafood.
That is Iron Chef style. Let's go.
[Alton] Kristen, what's happening
on the challenger side?
[Kristen] Sous-chef Jin is putting
pork belly into that pressure cooker,
so that's gonna be locked down
for a while.
And now Chef Choi
has shrimp going into her grinder,
and I'm not sure
what else is going in there.
[Esther] So I am grinding
some shrimp and bacon,
and this is gonna be
going inside my dumpling filling.
How could I not do a dumpling?
That's the story of my life.
I'ma dumpling! My nickname
has always been Dumpling Queen.
[Alton] Sous-chef Jin, she has taken
some very, very young Napa leaves,
and she's salting those,
so Napa cabbage,
when you salt it like that,
but not turning it into kimchi,
you're gonna wrap.
-Yep.
-Gonna wrap.
-It makes it pliable and soft.
-What is that called?
It's going to be ssam three ways.
[Alton] Of course, ssam three ways.
[Esther] We're gonna do
Lebanese, Mexican and Korean.
[Alton] We'll keep an eye out
for these three wraps.
[Marcus] Behind.
A lot of eggs out
over on Iron Chef Samuelsson's side.
Maybe he's gonna make a mousse as well.
He put some of his poached lobster
in the food processor with some cream.
He also has some chicken skin out.
Now, his famous restaurant in Harlem
is known for its chicken,
so maybe that's coming into play here.
[Kristen] Yeah, and he grew up in Sweden,
so the sea had a big influence on him too.
It's going to be really fascinating
to see what he comes up with today.
[Andrew] Iron Chef Cámara
got her masa going.
That's not a taco.
She's not making it thin enough.
[Dominique] How are you guys doing?
-Good.
-[Dominique] What are you doing?
I'm making my tostadas.
[Alton] Definitely tostadas
with that king crab.
Iron Chef Crenn adding
some French-roast beans
to a nonstick skillet.
[Nilou] Have you gotten a sense
of what Chef Crenn is cooking?
I never really have a sense
of what Chef Crenn is cooking,
because Chef Crenn doesn't cook
like anybody else in the world.
True, true.
Thank you! I wanna dance with somebody!
-Chef Crenn.
-Oui?
If there's anything I know about you,
you are your happiest
when you're dancing and cooking
at the same time.
What are you making?
I like how you party.
-[chuckles]
-We're making a tartare of langoustine.
[Kristen] Beautiful, and it looks like
you have other things you're making too.
We're making a yogurt-whey sauce with it.
We're gonna make a little bit
of roasted-coffee coconut oil with it.
Mm. You're a joy to watch.
-Thank you, Chef.
-Oh, you're welcome.
[Alton] We've got five Iron Chefs,
very different from each other,
very different stories.
What's it gonna be like for the judges
when they get
potentially disconnected courses?
[Kristen] Is it that it must be
a cohesive journey through the menu?
Not necessarily. It's just
how it changed each particular life.
[Ming] Yeah, baby.
[Alton] All right,
Iron Chef Tsai's working with truffles.
[Ming] First time
I ate truffles in France,
I was like, "What is this?"
It was revelatory. Changed my life.
I'm making a truffled shrimp with shumai.
[Alton] Okay, Iron Chef Tsai
is giving us shumai, which is a dumpling,
and he's going to fill it
with shrimp and truffles.
All right, on the Iron Chef side,
let's try to figure this out.
[Kristen] We know
Iron Chef Stone is doing seafood curry
and Iron Chef Crenn told me
she's doing that langoustine tartare.
[Alton] Indeed, and Iron Chef Cámara
has her crab tostada,
and Iron Chef Samuelsson
is doing something interesting
with the chicken skin and lobster.
One quarter of your cooking time is done.
We are 15 minutes in, 45 minutes remain.
Forty-five. [exhales]
These look amazing.
These lobsters are going into my ramen,
and I'm using the stock for the broth.
[Kristen] Okay, she's making
a lobster ramen.
Sounds good, right?
[Kristen] Smart, because ramen
is one of her specialties.
I mean, how can it not be?
Lobster and noodles?
[Kristen] Sous-chef Ilji over there
took those gorgeous scallops,
slicing them really thin,
so likely those won't see any form of heat
and they're gonna be served
as a crudo or sashimi.
[Alton] Absolutely.
We can see sous-chef Jin right now
has a fantastic piece of Wagyu short rib.
[Kristen] Galbi,
which is Korean short rib.
[Alton] Uh, Chef Choi,
where's that meat going?
[Esther] Ssam three ways.
I worked in a Mexican restaurant.
I have to totally do a Korean taco.
[Kristen] Makes sense.
[Alton] I'm seeing sous-chef Ilji,
she's working with some spot prawns.
[Ilji] I'm peeling spot prawns
to cure with lemon and salt.
It's gonna go in our second course,
sashimi salad.
[Alton] They're going to do a raw dish
for their second course.
We'll call it a crudo.
All right, let's break down
what's happening on her side.
All right, she has this crudo
with scallop and spot prawns,
uh, she has her shrimp and pork dumpling,
uh, then there's the
oh, the ssam three ways, of course.
Now, one of the ways
is a Mexican-style Korean taco,
and she's got a lobster ramen cooking.
[Kristen] Chef Choi,
what's the general approach to this menu?
I cook with my heart and my love.
This is how my grandma cooks for me,
and I have to stay focused on that.
Let me remind you that that
Golden Knife could be yours
if you take home the win today.
No pressure.
I don't know if you saw, but if you
look closely, my name is engraved on it.
You see this? That's on that as well.
[Kristen] I mean, I expect
nothing less from you, Chef. Thank you.
-[Esther] Chefs, you doing good?
-Yes, Chef!
[Alton] Hi, Kristen. Where you been?
So those dumpling wrappers she has,
she is making dumplings,
she has a farce mixture with the shrimp.
Taking a whole entire shrimp
on top of that farce.
The tail and shell sticking right out,
folding the dumpling.
[Alton] So we've got a handle.
By the way, we use the word farce,
we're not talking about
strange French comedy.
We're talking usually about some kind
of mousse that's been put into something,
um, and that's called,
classically, a farce.
Okay, Iron Chef Samuelsson
has taken some chicken skin,
he's got the pureed lobster mixture
in a piping bag,
so he's piping that lobster
onto the chicken skin.
He's gonna wrap that up
into some kind of little purse,
some kind of dumpling.
Now this, my friends, is a totally unique
Kitchen Stadium creation.
I do wonder, though, if the chicken skin
will divert the focus from the seafood.
We'll see. Iron Chef Samuelsson,
uh, what do you have there?
[Marcus] This is lobster bird.
[Alton] Okay, tell us, tell us about that.
I would say, the idea of lobster,
that's where I started my training,
traditional, classical,
but then, moving to Harlem,
where fried chicken
became a huge part of my life,
I wanna honor both cultures
and have fun with it, with the dish.
[Alton] You can see Iron Chef Tsai
putting shrimp into the food processor,
so he's continuing to work
on his shumai filling.
He is a master at shumai making,
that is for sure.
[Dominique] Ming?
-Oui.
-[Dominique] Are you okay?
-I'm just exercising.
-[Dominique]Oui.
Chef Tsai, how did this dish
change your life?
As a kid, that's all I ate growing up.
Dumplings and shumai.
And then I had the fortune to go to Paris,
and I really wanted
to bring in the butter and egg
into a Chinese technique like shumai.
A true combination
of all those things coming together.
[Ming] I hope so.
[Alton] Over on the challenger's side,
we can see The Chairman
looking pleased with himself.
Chef Choi just got some rice cakes.
[Esther] I am doing my tteokbokki,
which is a rice-cake dish.
This is my childhood.
I went to school in Korea
for a little bit,
and we used to eat this on the street
with dumplings.
It's such a Korean classic.
[Kristen] Okay, so I'm guessing
she's going to pair her shrimp dumplings
with this tteokbokki.
[Alton] Now she's pureeing a mixture, uh
Oh, that was roasted golden tomatoes,
and she added some gochujang to that,
chili paste, fermented chili paste,
and now she's adding that
to her tteokbokki.
[Esther] Golden-tomato sauce.
So bomb. Perfect.
Thirty minutes, ladies and gentlemen!
Let's go, Chefs, let's go!
[Alton] Half of your time is gone!
Half of the time remains.
Keep in mind what's at stake here.
We've got a challenger, Chef Choi,
came in here, she actually bested
Iron Chef Marcus Samuelsson
with a high enough score
to move into this battle.
Chef Choi is a really, really good chef.
We had such a tough battle that she won,
so this is about pride.
[Alton] If she wins
against these five Iron Chefs,
she will become
the first Iron Legend ever.
Three on five, I don't know
if you can call that fair, but
I feel like I deserve to be here.
I've waited for this moment my whole life.
Look at all that crab goodness.
We are saving a very important part
of the crab.
[Alton] Chef Choi
is working with the blender.
She dumped everything
from the crab bodies that she had in there
and added a bunch of butter.
[Esther] That is gonna be on my bibimbap,
which is similar to a fried rice.
[Alton] Oh, she's making bibimbap,
a quintessential Korean dish.
Sous-chef Jin, right now,
squeezing lemon juice into that blender.
Also, chickpeas and water.
There's some tahini in there.
Makes me think hummus,
and that's going to be
for her ssam three ways dish.
Now they mentioned Lebanese style,
so I'm betting she'll wrap that hummus
with some sort of seafood.
Um, we'll just have to see.
[Kristen] Chef Choi has a lot,
and I mean a lot,
of components to her dishes.
She's got some pickled cucumbers,
two different types of kimchi.
They have a seaweed soup.
I'm not sure which dishes
these are all for,
but this is sort of standard
in Korean food.
Lots of little side dishes
and these side dishes are called banchan.
-[Alton] Twenty minutes!
-Guys, I wanna start plating soon, okay?
[Jin] Yes, Chef.
[Alton] Iron Chef Ming Tsai
getting a bandage applied.
-Have you ever cut yourself?
-Cut yourself?
Yeah, because I have maybe
experienced a hundred battles.
Yes.
[Alton] Battle wounds
are par for the course in Kitchen Stadium.
He's wrapped up and back to work.
-What are you burning off there, Chef?
-Just a little bourbon.
And a little bit of my eyebrows.
I thought I smelled something
not bourbon-like.
Okay. That's what's with
the roasted lobster shells.
Now he's really layering those flavors.
[Kristen] Iron Chef Stone
is ripping apart some crab.
I'm gonna go down
and get a closer look.
[Curtis] I'm cracking my crabs.
I'm getting all the good bits,
all the juicy, delicious bits in there.
-[Kristen] Iron Chef Stone.
-Oui.
Can you tell me what the dish is
that changed your life?
[Curtis] A curried Dungeness crab.
I actually went up to a very regional part
of indigenous Australia.
I met an old aboriginal fella,
and he taught me about
a few indigenous ingredients,
and then I cooked him this curry.
Look at this. The brown meat.
This is where all the flavor is in a crab.
So crab has the white meat
that's in the shell and the legs,
but this brown meat here,
absolutely delicious.
-Thank you, Chef.
-Thank you.
So that has to go in.
[Alton] All right, now I can see
into Iron Chef Cámara's pot.
That looks like a big pasilla chili,
a couple of chile de árbolsperhaps,
some garlic and a lot of butter.
And that, my friends, is the perfect type
of bath to poach your king crab in.
She knows exactly what she's doing.
Iron Chef Cámara is a master with seafood.
Her menu at her restaurants
have a ton of seafood on them.
I'm heavily watching
how Chef Tsai makes shumai.
I've never actually
watched him make shumai,
which I feel like is
a master class in technique over here.
See how he kind of flips it over,
and he rotates it as he twists.
Boom onto the board to flatten the bottom.
[Kristen] And shumai,
different than most other dumplings,
is open on the top,
exposing the actual filling.
[Alton] Which I like.
On the challenger's side of the world,
there's that gochujang mixture
that went into the blast chiller earlier
and that, ladies and gentlemen,
has turned into a granita.
Granita, of course,
is an Italian icy, crystallized treat.
It's often made from a fruit puree
and what they have here is actually
a savory and spicy granita, very clever.
[Kristen] Chef Choi,
what's in that big pot? The stock pot?
[Esther] Stock pot of lobster,
all the seafood shells.
Then you're spooning that into what?
Into a broth, because I'm straining it.
That's gonna be my ramen broth.
Pork.
[Kristen] Sous-chef Jin is releasing
her pork belly from the pressure cooker,
and I'm betting that's part
of her ssam three ways dish.
Because traditional Korean bossam
is basically pork that's wrapped up,
so this is her Korean ssam.
[Alton] Okay look, Chef Choi is firing up
her shrimp and pork dumplings.
Feel the heat.
Chefs, 15 minutes remaining!
It is the Legends Battle.
The title, Chef Choi, of Iron Legend
is on the line.
How are you feeling?
-Me?
-[Alton] Yeah.
Oh my God, I'm nervous, nervous.
-We're nervous too!
-But I'm feeling good!
[Alton] Beautiful asparagus out
over on Iron Chef Cámara's board,
so now we know the green
that's going to go with the crab tostada.
[Ming] This is the truffle puree.
[Alton] You can see Iron Chef Tsai
piping his heavily-truffled filling
into those shrimp heads.
[Dominique] What are you making?
Mm! Oh!
Black-truffle explosion, baby.
[Alton] Okay, he's frying up
those truffle-filled shrimp heads,
and those are going to add
a great textural contrast
to his shumai dish.
Chef Stone getting some finger limes out.
Finger limes are really interesting,
because their cells inside
are under pressure.
When you open them up,
they go [blows raspberry]
So it's the citrus caviar of sorts.
[Alton] Yes.
They are indigenous to Australia,
and their citrusy tart taste will offer
another level of flavor to his crab curry.
I'm plating the first course.
[Alton] On the challenger's side,
the plating is happening.
Rice cakes are going down
with the roasted tomato puree
that she made
with the pork and shrimp dumpling.
It's going down on that as well.
The tempura-style prawn heads
coming out of the deep fryer
and claws from the soft-shell crabs
are being harvested.
Chef Choi, it's so hard to follow.
I have a million things.
-[Alton] You gotta lotta stuff.
-I have a lotta stuff.
[Alton] Now here's the stuff we know.
She has the first course
with the shrimp dumpling and tteokbokki.
She has her crudo dish,
with scallops and spot prawns.
She has her ssam three ways.
The Mexican-style Korean barbecue taco,
the Lebanese style
with the langoustine and hummus,
and the Korean style with the pork belly.
And ladies and gentlemen,
we have ten minutes!
[Esther] We got this.
[Alton] And Chef Choi
also has a lobster ramen.
I need my rice on here, okay?
[Jin] Yes, Chef.
And of course, her king-crab bibimbap,
or fried-rice dish.
Over on team Iron Chef,
okay, I see Iron Chef Samuelsson
has indeed started to plate.
[Kristen] Oh, check it out.
He's artfully laying out
that roasted-lobster-bourbon sauce.
[Alton] Iron Chef Cámara
frying off her tostada rounds.
Iron Chef Crenn is using a ring mold
to plate her langoustine tartare.
[Kristen] Iron Chef Tsai
has a shrimp shumai
with truffle and shrimp heads,
and then Iron Chef Cámara
has the king-crab tostada.
Iron Chef Stone
has that Dungeness-crab curry,
and then Iron Chef Samuelsson
has his chicken-wrapped lobster dish.
So definitely delicious dishes
from all over the map.
-You guys start on the rice?
-[Ilji] Yes, Chef!
[Alton] We can see that cooled rice
has gone onto the flat top
with it looks like
some green onions there,
and there's some crab in that as well.
She's doing a crispy rice.
Can also see Chef Choi,
she's working on another plate.
Looks like some kind of sashimi
with granita?
The granita she made with the gochujang.
-[Kristen] With the diver scallops.
-[Alton] Yes. Prawn.
[Esther] Hurry up, guys.
I need help plating! I need my wraps.
[Jin] Got it!
[Alton] Caviar's going down
on top of some crab.
[Kristen] Okay, the wraps
are for the ssam three ways.
There's the Mexican style
with the Korean barbecue-marinated Wagyu,
and looks like a small tortilla.
[Esther] Wagyu!
[Kristen] She also has the hummus
and the langoustine.
That's for the Lebanese-style wrap,
and then there's the pork belly
for her traditional Korean bossam.
[Alton] Ramen noodles now coming out.
I didn't even see those drop.
Yep. Can you get the broth?
Yes, Chef.
[Esther] Jin Ah, I need my oyster!
[Jin] Yes, Chef!
[Alton] Ladies and gentlemen,
five minutes! Five minutes remain!
[Jin] Oyster.
-I'm plating this. We got it. We got it.
-[Marcus] Yep.
Oregano. Perfection. Perrr-fection!
[Kristen] Iron Chef Samuelsson cut open
his beautiful seafood-stuffed chicken,
and that is going down as the centerpiece
of that gorgeous plate.
And Chef Crenn is taking her dish
full circle with that yogurt foam.
[Dominique] That is
what I'm talking about!
Guys, I need the prawn heads.
You have that?
[Ilji] Yes, Chef.
[Kristen] Chef Choi now adding
that tempura prawn head down on her crudo.
That's gonna add
some really great texture.
[Alton] Ninety seconds.
Ninety seconds, chefs!
Plate.
[Alton] There's the Iron Chef's
masterful shrimp and truffle shumai.
I'm pacing like a lion.
-You are.
-I know, I'm kind of nervous.
I'm terrified.
-Guys, just look at the plates, please.
-[Jin] Got it.
[Kristen] Look at that,
Chef Choi is using that crab body
as part of her plate for her fried rice,
or bibimbap dish.
That is brilliant.
And that's going
to go with her other banchan,
her seaweed soup, her kimchi
and her pickled cucumber.
[Alton] And we are going down to the wire.
[Kristen] Iron Chef Stone
serving up his crab curry.
-[Marcus] Let's go!
-[Ming] Perfect food.
[Alton] Are we going to have 
an Iron Legend? It is entirely possible.
[Esther] Do this. Home stretch.
-[Alton] Ten, nine
-Home stretch.
-[Dominique] That is beautiful.
-Marcus, look at that.
-[Alton] Five, four, three
-[Esther] Oh my God.
[Alton] Two, one, and time is up.
Our Legends Battle
is history here in Kitchen Stadium.
-[Esther] Oh my God!
-[cheering and applause]
Yeah!
-Well done.
-Yeah!
Oh my God!
I am so proud and emotional.
I'm trying to keep it together.
I'm extremely proud.
We We cooked our hearts out, you know?
We did it.
Don't underestimate the underdog.
-Yes!
-Thank you!
-Yes.
-Thank you.
Good job.
[Marcus] The first time
we cooked together,
and, you know, the rhythm, the horns,
the music, everything was right there.
We did a great job, guys. Come on!
And it was really fun.
To the competitors.
-Thank you.
-Cheers.
To the cooks.
-Kanpai!
-Kanpai!
-Kanpai.
-Whoo!
[heavenly choral music plays,
dramatic drum beats]
One challenger going up
against all five Iron Chefs
is truly a historic moment
here in Kitchen Stadium.
Remember, you're judging
based on taste, presentation
and use of the secret ingredient,
and in total, for all five dishes,
you have 100 points to award.
Can we acknowledge the GOAT at the table?
Iron Chef Morimoto, Morimoto-san.
This is the original DNA ofIron Chef,
right here.
He is not even blinking.
He's like, "Yeah."
[laughter]
Morimoto-san,
what is the one piece of advice
that you would give a challenger?
Okay, strongly recommend don't do this.
Let's start with the challenger,
Chef Choi.
-Hello.
-[Nilou] Hello.
Hello.
-She knows who to serve first.
-I'd do the same.
I'm gonna take you
on a little journey today.
The journey of the life of Esther Choi,
in becoming a chef.
This dish is inspired
by when I lived in Korea,
and I went to elementary school
with these Korean kids,
and they taught me so much
about Korean culture.
This is a golden tomato tteokbokki,
which is rice cakes,
with mandu, a shrimp dumpling.
So I grounded up some shrimp
with some bacon,
mixed with some garlic chives
ginger, soy sauce,
a tiny bit of fish sauce.
-The plate work is beautiful.
-[Esther] Thank you.
[Nilou] Your mandu,
the flavor profile has lots of depth,
it's perfectly pan-fried.
A beautiful, beautiful start.
Thank you.
I saw the tray
of roasted yellow cherry tomatoes,
and I kept wondering where those
were going to be and here they are,
and I think the acidity
is lovely with them.
I I am blown away
at the textural contrast
between the crispy dumpling wrapper
and the juiciness of your forcemeat.
Iron Chef Morimoto. Please.
I never ate the tteokbokki
with tomato the sauce,
so more Italian approach.
That, I respect,
but this is a seafood battle.
Nice dish, but I don't taste
that much seafood,
only small shrimp
with bacon and the cheese.
Mm-hmm.
-Very nice dish. We look forward to more.
-Thank you very much.
I got a pit in my stomach
when you started talking.
That was smartandscary. Mm.
[Nilou] Ooh!
[Andrew] Ohh!Oh là là.
This dish is inspired
by my first restaurant job ever
at a Korean-Japanese restaurant
and the sushi chef there would
save leftover meat from all the sushi,
and he would make this beautiful salad.
And it was literally
my favorite thing ever.
This is what I call a Hanabi crudo
with a spot-prawn and scallop ceviche
with Dungeness-crab salad,
a gojuchang granita,
and a spot-prawn-head tempura.
[Andrew] I love this dish.
The sweetness of both
the raw shrimp and scallop
against that fermented chili flavor
that's predominant
in the gochujang granita
was a standout,
until I got to the caviar and crab salad,
which might've been
the best combination on the plate.
[Nilou] I love the salinity of the caviar.
It's such a welcome relief
from the sweetness
of the shrimp and the scallops.
Temperature-wise, the shrimp head
suffers from the cold on the plate.
I was a little worried about that.
She mentioned that the tempura,
the temperature is cold.
It's crunchy!
Potato chips have to be hot?
Oh.
I may have gotten schooled just now.
So why this is successful means
that you use a lot of seafood, right?
And then three different textures.
Gochujang granita,
usually you make in your restaurants?
No, I don't.
This the first time?
Just for this plate.
You should have this in your restaurants.
-[Nilou] Ah.
-Thank you.
Thank you, great job.
Thank you.
-[Andrew] Thank you, Chef.
-Thank you.
I'm taking you through my days
of being a young cook in my twenties.
Ssam means "lettuce wrap."
So it's ssam three ways.
I worked in a Lebanese restaurant.
First we have a langoustine pita
with hummus,
and then I was a sous-chef
at a Mexican restaurant,
so we have Korean
barbecue-marinated Wagyu taco
finished with kimchi pico de gallo
and soft-shell crab tempura.
And now I have Korean restaurants,
so finishing with a traditional ssam.
It's with a braised pork belly,
some fresh kimchi,
with a shot of the oyster.
I loved your kimchi and oyster pairing.
I just wish there was more
we could've done with the taco
and to amplify the seafood message.
-It was primarily a beef presentation.
-Right.
I felt the flatbread and hummus
was unnecessary.
The flavors were excellent.
I just think some of the combinations
were off.
Okay. I love you're following the travels,
so your hummus, tacos,
and then, you know, kimchi,
You have a nice, you know, sense in taste.
But it's a little bit of losing the focus.
-Right.
-Thank you very much.
Thank you.
The potential for error
with so many elements, it just increases.
-Yep.
-[Andrew] Oooh.
-[Nilou] Oh! Oh!
-Thank you.
-[Ilji] Enjoy.
-Chef, tell us all about it.
My restaurant Mokbar
is the next phase of my life.
It's a Korean-inspired ramen shop.
Yes, please pour. It's very hot.
So we have a lobster ramen
with spicy lobster broth
and kimchi-butter poached lobster.
I love that, Alton. Gotta hold the bowl.
That is delicious lobster broth.
It was sweet, it was earthy,
it was loaded with lobster flavor.
The lobster was perfectly cooked.
I thought it was
a beautiful bowl of soup, really.
Thank you.
[Nilou] It felt like you took the essence
of the seafood challenge
and distilled it
into this beautiful hot teapot.
-Thank you very much.
-Thank you.
I like this dish, because I love noodles.
I love, you know, broth.
This is the first time very simple,
just Korean taste.
So that, I respect. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
[Nilou] Ahhh.
This is pr Oh, this is pretty.
-[Andrew] Hello.
-[Nilou] This is very pretty.
-[Andrew] Oh.
-[Nilou] Oh!
-[Nilou] Ohho-hohhh.
-It's the crab butter.
Can we hold hands briefly
while this is happening?
-Otherwise I may jump out of my seat.
-[Nilou] Hoo!
Chef Choi, can you describe to us
what's happening?
This is a crab bibimbap,
similar to a fried rice, with king crab
and all the beautiful roe
and juices of the head.
You have some young-cabbage kimchi
and also a cucumber kimchi.
And then the seaweed soup
and I, of course, had to finish with this,
because it's what I love the most,
and I was inspired from my grandmother.
We cooked our heart out, you know?
Every dish we put out there
has something to do with our culture
and who I am.
Last night I called my grandmother.
So I still call her every day
to just talk to her,
because she taught me how to cook
with all your heart, all your love.
She is definitely the inspiration
in my life,
and I'm very proud to represent her
in the best way possible.
I'm coming out of my skin with joy.
This is a true honoring of your heritage.
Every bite of it eats perfectly.
The flavor of the beautiful crab,
the butteriness is exactly perfect,
because you have the acid
from all the different spices,
and I'm very impressed.
-Thank you.
-Thank you.
I'm still uncurling my toes.
This is you at your best.
The soup here,
with the seaweed, spectacular.
-Yes, perfection.
-Thank you.
I like this soup a lot.
So this is more clam taste.
Every single item's taste is great.
Your level of, you know, cooking
and then, you know, passion
is better than anybody, I think,
so this is a great dish.
Thank you.
It was an honor to cook for you all.
Thank you.
-She left the crunchy rice.
-Just out of reach.
Next up we have all five Iron Chefs.
Good evening.
Iron Chefs, hi.
Would you mind giving us a general idea
about your approach
to this challenge as a whole?
Tonight we're gonna take you
to all five corners of the world.
Tonight there are five.
We're gonna stop by different continents
and try and wow you
with dishes from the sea.
We're gonna start off
with Iron Chef Crenn's dish.
So our first stop is France.
Brilliant. We look forward to it.
[Nilou] Thank you, Iron Chefs.
Oh!
Oh-ho-ho!
Thank you.
[Dominique] So this is langoustine tartare
with pickled wakame and yogurt foam.
I love the sea,
and my dad, when I was four years old,
took me for the first time
to go get some fresh live langoustine
and he handed me that langoustine
and I ate it raw,
and he said to me, "This is life.
This is where everything begins."
The rawness of the seafood
changed my life,
so seafood has been a very
uh, something very special
for me in my life.
Spectacular dish.
This is so sophisticated yet so simple,
I don't know how you do it
in such a short amount of time.
Really stunning.
There is an acidity, but not too acid.
There's a brightness, but not too bright.
The raw langoustine
is one of my favorite ways to have it.
This is a beautiful dish.
-Thank you.
-Chef Morimoto.
So this is a very successful
and clever dish.
Langoustines itself, a little bit
too much seasoning, I thought.
But eating with the foam
and seaweed together, it's good.
So that's why I say
this is a very clever dish.
Thank you very much.
Iron Chef Crenn, thank you very much.
Chef Crenn comes out swinging, always,
and this is really yet another one
of her poems on a plate.
Oh, that's a lot. Thank you, chefs.
[Andrew] Wow.
Ooh, what a pretty presentation.
Okay. [gently mimics explosion]
This is a truffled shrimp shumai,
and then I made an exploding shrimp head,
stuffed with a puree of truffles.
It's gonna have a little kind of
a truffle explosion, if you would.
I am Chinese,
and I grew up
eating dim sum, dumplings, shumai.
That was my chefdom.
And then I went to Paris.
I discovered butter and truffles,
and that defined
my East-meets-West career.
The truffle is
Who's not gonna like truffle?
Uh, the explosion certainly happened,
and I love shrimp head.
The dumpling was very, very good,
and you are a master at that.
This was a very dramatic
and very fully thought-out presentation.
This shrimp head, when I bite,
a lot of juice comes up,
so this is seafood.
This is the main theme today.
It's the best dish today so far.
-[Nilou] Wow.
-Thank you very much.
Thank you.
This, to me, was a little bit safe.
Ye Yeah.
-Over here.
-Yes. Look at how beautiful this is.
Thank you. Iron Chef Cámara,
please tell us what you've made.
This is a king-crab tostada.
And my little Mexican twist,
it has a surprise for you.
It has changed my life
to think of a tostada
as a taco in a different form.
Tostadas, you know, they were street food
that wasn't very well known
outside of beach carts,
and I have turned it
into a staple of mine.
You know, for me,
tostadas have really been a watershed
definitely in my career.
What a joy to find one
of my favorite pieces of seafood
hidden inside, the sea urchin.
It works so well, livery and briny.
This combination is fantastic.
The simplicity is so appreciated.
It's the most humble
of street foods, elevated.
A coating of rich, creamy uni
on top of a crisp tostada,
and then what's the spice in there?
-Oregano.
-Oregano?
Yeah. Fresh oregano is a discovery.
Mm! It's really magnificent
and then, of course, the zest on top.
It's just so many layers of flavor,
and thank you so much.
Thank you.
This tortilla, you made, right?
Yeah.
Gorgeous dish. Very simple,
then I ate it,
a lot of different aroma, textures.
This, I like a lot.
Simple, but a lot inside.
A bite of the ocean. Thank you.
-Thank you very much, Chef.
-[Gabriela] Thank you.
-[Andrew] Ooh!
-[Nilou] Oooh!
This is my lobster bird.
Poached lobster with chicken
and lobster sauce.
So this dish represents an experience
at a crossroad.
We'd just opened
Aquavit restaurant in Tokyo
and on the plane back, I started to think
I should open Red Rooster in Harlem,
and what that meant to me
was more comfort food.
So, I left the lobster
and fell in love with chicken.
So this dish represents that.
Did you wrap this in chicken skin?
-[Marcus] Yes.
-[Nilou] Yes.
You don't have a simple story,
and this does
exemplify how complex you are.
The chicken-wrapped lobster, very crisp,
and that is the flavor of my childhood,
so once there was crispy chicken skin
on this, you had me. Thank you for this.
This is a very fun dish.
A lot of different techniques
and a lot of different textures.
I enjoyed that,
but this is a seafood battle.
I don't feel any strong seafood flavor
in it. Thank you very much.
-Thank you.
-Thank you, Chef.
-Thank you very much.
-Thank you, Iron Chef.
[Nilou] Ooh.
[Curtis] Feel like I work
for Singapore Airlines.
I'd like a gin and tonic, mostly gin.
I'm already here for this.
I mean, this is what I like.
Holy table-side service, Batman!
Iron Chef Stone,
while you're at work there,
maybe you could tell us
what the heck it is you're doing.
Um, so the dish that changed my life
is curried Dungeness crab.
I was traveling through Australia,
and I met an old aboriginal fella,
and he started telling us
a lot about indigenous ingredients,
and finger limes are one of them.
He opened my eyes
to a brand-new ingredient
and I cooked a crab curry,
and we sat on the beach
and ate it with our hands,
and my world was totally blown.
So this is curried Dungeness crab,
finger lime, shallots and garlic.
I got the curry sweats in a good way.
There is so much deliciousness in here.
I want to pull up my hair and just get
into every single nook and cranny.
-[Andrew slurps]
-That sound is the perfect sound.
There is sweetness.
There is a beautiful presentation.
I feel like your true happiness comes out
when you are celebrating your travels,
and this, to me,
is a great example of that.
Okay, this is only one Dungeness crab.
Other Iron Chef, "Let's do oyster,
King Crab, lobster, whatever."
You said, "Dungeness crab, I do."
I feel that. That I respect.
So that's why I think this is special.
Iron Chef Stone,
thank you very much for this.
Thank you so much.
The flavors in this are so complex,
and the curry is so well built,
the heat is superb.
All of the crab juice in there.
Love the finger lime.
Takes me back to so many different places.
What a great finish.
Iron Chef Stone, thank you very much
for your curry dish.
-Thank you.
-[Nilou] Thank you, Iron Chef Stone.
Well, judges, um,
quite a task you have before you.
Are we going to have
ourselves an Iron Legend?
You've got a lot to consider.
[Nilou] Thank you.
[Alton]Will it be Chef Choi's
culinary journey on a plate,
or team Iron Chef's
global greatest-hits menu?
Chairman, it is the moment
we have all been waiting for.
Will a new Iron Legend
be joining the pantheon of culinary greats
or not?
Chef Choi.
Team Iron Chef.
This battle was historic.
Seldom have I seen such courage
and such artistry on display.
But the question remains,
was an Iron Legend forged here tonight?
To say this was close
would be an understatement.
And the winner is
[suspenseful music builds]
Team Iron Chef.
[cheering and applause]
[Chairman] Congratulations, Iron Chefs.
You held the line as I expected you would.
Chef Choi, I presented you
with a nearly impossible task,
and you faced it with grace and taste.
-[Esther] Thank you for having me.
-Great job.
Thank you. Thank you.
Well, there you have it, food fans.
The Iron Chefs came out on top
in this unprecedented Legend Battle.
The collective culinary power
simply proved too much for our challenger.
Chef Choi put up one heck of a fight,
defeated by just a single point,
and a narrow 83 to 82 point victory
for Team Iron Chef.
[Esther] It was an honor to cook here.
[Curtis] Well done.
[Alton] And while Chef Choi isn't
taking home the title of Iron Legend,
she can take great pride
as our most successful challenger.
Team Iron Chef took us
on a culinary journey around the world
with truly life-changing dishes.
This was a night for the history books.
Golden Knife is still there. Go steal it.
-[Alton] We can probably just lift that.
-[Kristen] We can take it.
Chairman, any final words before we go?
I have not found an Iron Legend
who can conquer all five of my Iron Chefs,
but my quest
will
continue!
[closing theme music plays]