It's All About the Beef — Chopped After Hours

Catch an all-new episode of Chopped After Hours, where the judges cook with mystery basket ingredients from the show.
Show: Chopped
After Hours: Grandpas
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Chopped After Hours

Ted Allen, Maneet Chauhan, Amanda Freitag, and Chris Santos, during a grandpa theme webisode with special ingredients, London broil, rutabaga, broccoli rabe and peanut butter taffy, as seen on Food Network’s Chopped After Hours, Season 26.

Photo by: Todd Plitt ©2015, Television Food Network, G.P. All Rights Reserved

Todd Plitt, 2015, Television Food Network, G.P. All Rights Reserved

On this episode of Chopped After Hours, judges Maneet Chauhan, Chris Santos and Amanda Freitag get in the kitchen to cook the entree basket from the Battle of the Grandpas episode. They are faced with utilizing London broil, rutabaga, broccoli rabe and peanut butter taffy bites, and the big question Ted poses is what the judges would do with the beef, since it's such a tough cut. "Hard sear, lots of resting," Amanda offers, and Chris says, "Typically you'd attack it with some kind of fat." The two judges decide to do just that, but Maneet takes the meat in an entirely different direction.

Maneet immediately makes a run to the pantry for the grinder, revealing to Ted her plan for meatballs with grits. She shows Ted a slab of bacon, which she's grinding with the beef to add more flavor. "My plan is to make a bitter coffee spice rub," Amanda tells Ted as she cuts up the rutabaga for her BBQ sauce. After searing the London broil, she lets the meat rest just as she suggested earlier. Chris also decides to sear the beef, but his anchor is a rutabaga puree — if only he could find where his rutabaga has gone. Suspecting that Amanda took it, he tries to retaliate by stealing her broccoli rabe, which she needs for a slaw. In the end, we don't find out who the perpetrator was, and Chris never locates his rutabaga. "Now I'm using this one," he says, grabbing a replacement from the pantry and giving up on the battle. As the minutes count down, Maneet makes a last dash to fry up a broccoli rabe garnish, admitting she's doing "the one thing which we tell everybody not to." And Amanda wonders out loud, "How did the grandpas do this?" Maneet's response: "I'm trying to remember!"

Click the play button on the video above to watch the entire After Hours episode and see the dishes Maneet, Chris and Amanda created. Then browse behind-the-scenes images for an insider's look at the cooking.

Start a conversation with fellow fans and tell FN Dish in the comments below how you would have approached this basket: What would you make out of London broil, a rutabaga, broccoli rabe and peanut butter taffy bites?

Catch up on past Chopped After Hours episodes by watching all the battles online.

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