Season 5, Episode 2

Scratching the Surface

Since Chefs Bobby and Anne are starting from scratch with these bad cooks, the lessons for the week involve learning to cook from scratch — including an "udder-ly" hands-on experience sourcing milk for homemade cheese.
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Recipes From This Episode

Turbot with Brown Butter and Capers

Potatoes Lyonnais

Fontina and Mozzarella Grilled Cheese with Bacon and Honeycrisp Apples

Poulet de Grand-Mere

Green Beans Amandine

Perfect Haricots Verts

Pommes de Terre Persillade

Grilled Eggplant and Fresh Mozzarella on Ciabatta with Roasted Pepper Relish

Worse Than Ever
Glazed and Confused

Episode Photos

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Going from Farm to Table

After receiving a special milk delivery with a note explaining their next challenge would be "an udderly hands-on experience," the recruits head to a farm for their Skill Drill challenge of the day. Bobby explains, "This week is all about cooking from scratch."

Photo By: Rich Freeda

Cheese Is Made from Milk

"Well, today is all about cheese," says Anne. After getting some surprised looks, she continues, "You guys know where cheese comes from?" Jamie has a revelation when he realizes "the cows make the cheese" — or do they?

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There's Hope Yet

Bobby begins the demonstration and explains they will be making grilled cheese sandwiches, which they probably remember from childhood. He adds, "And since none of you can actually cook past a child's level, this is probably a good one for you." At least one recruit is excited. "Thank God," says Benji. "I feel like it's what I can deliver at least halfway decently at this point."

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Extreme Cooking from Scratch

But what the recruits were most afraid of comes true: They will be milking the cows in order to get the cheese. "Once you have your bucket of milk," explains Anne, "you can trade it for a bucket of curds" to make the fresh mozzarella. Ken tells Mike, "Hey, if you pinch the top and pull down, it totally works." In the next stall Carol complains: "It's labor-intensive just sitting here milking. I'd rather just buy the milk."

Photo By: Rich Freeda

Making Mozzarella

With just 30 minutes to make fresh mozzarella and cook grilled cheese sandwiches, Carie gets started right away. As she works her curds, she exclaims, "It looks horrible." Bobby stops by to help her with words of encouragement: "Work it a little bit, OK?"

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Finding the Cheesy Goodness

Stephanie and Carol are onto grilling their sandwiches. Carol thinks that constantly flipping hers will help it cook faster. "Just let it cook for a second," Anne tells her. "Let it do, like, grilled-cheesy delightfulness." Carol remarks, "I forgot about the delightfulness part." Surprisingly Carol's sandwich wins the challenge.

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No Extra Points for Overconfidence

Lance thinks he did an "excellent" job but Bobby disagrees: "You only put the mozzarella on one side, so we're gonna take 'excellent' away from you immediately." Bobby also points out the salad he made doesn't score him any extra points since it wasn't part of the challenge.

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A Sad Excuse for a Sandwich

Anne tries Benji's grilled cheese and immediately points out its flaws: First, it's "on the burned side," and second, the bacon is flabby. "That makes me sad, when bacon looks like that," says Anne. Benji responds, "And it makes me sad that you're sad."

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French Catch of the Day

The next day, the recruits are back at the Worst Cooks kitchen, and this time the Main Challenge is a French-inspired one. Bobby demonstrates how to fillet a turbot fish. But not everyone is happy: "Seafood totally freaks me out," says Amber. "I have goose bumps all over my whole body looking at that."

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Butchering Poultry 101

Anne shows her team how to remove the chicken breasts for a poulet grand-mere, or grandmother's chicken. "So, I don't know whose grandmother she's talking about, but she's not talking about my grandmother," says Carol. Both teams have 90 minutes, which will come in handy for all the prep involved.

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Looking Out for Each Other

Even though Danielle won the previous day's challenge with her grilled cheese, her culinary confidence hasn't improved and neither has her attention span. She's distracted by parboiling the potatoes, but luckily Amber is watching out. "Get those," Amber tells her. "Those are your onions — they're burning."

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Somewhere Rectangles Do Have Rounded Sides

Stephanie is having trouble paying attention to her cuts, especially when she's distracted by the accordion player. Anne calls her out for not cutting the potatoes into perfect dice. "Last time I checked, rectangles don't have rounded sides," says Anne. "Maybe in your Barbie world it's a little bit different."

Photo By: Rich Freeda

From Medical School to Cooking School

Filleting a fish doesn't come naturally to everyone, as Danny proves: "I've dissected a cadaver in medical school, but filleting a fish is just something totally foreign." Bobby points out that Danny left a lot of flesh on the bone by slicing incorrectly. He hopes his dish will be up to Bobby's standards.

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An Illustrated Guide for Chicken

"This is the first time I'm feeling the body parts of a dead bird," says Mike, who not only took copious notes but also drew a diagram of a chicken so he had a guide for where to make the correct cuts to remove the breasts. Anne finds his drawing delightful.

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Plating for Perfection

Joe takes extra care when plating his dish because Bobby wasn't pleased with his presentation last week. He's making sure it looks "like it came out of a five-star restaurant." It ultimately pays off because he's declared the winner for the Blue Team. "I know that deep down inside of me, there is a chef," says Joe.

Photo By: Rich Freeda

The Most Growth

Anne praises Jamie for his regular knife cuts but finds his green beans overcooked, calling them "a little flaccid and a little sad." Overall, though, she's really pleased with his "giant improvement" from day one. He ends up winning the Main Dish challenge for a second time.

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Facing Her Fears Head On

Bobby thinks Amber's fish is "actually pretty good." He asks her why she seemed so bothered by the challenge. Amber reveals a childhood trauma that she was once attacked by an octopus. She recalls: "All this blue dye started shooting out and I thought it was poisoning me."

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Breaking the Mold

It's elimination time and Bobby calls forward Danny and Lance as the bottom two. Bobby says he had high hopes for Lance, hoping to mold him, but Lance made it difficult by "running ahead ... not necessarily doing the right thing." Lance set his goals too high: "I expected to win the whole competition, and it didn't work out that way." As he walks away he yells, "Yo, Bobby, I'm still the black Bobby Flay!"

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Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow

Anne calls forward Stephanie and Benji, who are in the bottom two. Ultimately she ends up sending home Benji, who, she says, has gotten in his own way too often. "I was hoping to be here longer," he says. "But with the time that I was here, I did learn a lot." As he starts to walk out, Anne motions for him to return and lets him touch her hair. "I could probably sleep on a pillow of Anne's hair," says Benji.

Photo By: Rich Freeda ©2013, Cooking Channel, LLC, All Rights Reserved

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