Episode 6

Alejandra Ramos: Tonight on "The Great American Recipe"...

This week, we're gonna mix it up a little bit.

We are doing a recipe swap.

Relle, voice-over: I've never made nor have I ever eaten this before.

Salmah: I'm trying to pay tribute to Khela's recipe and still make it a little bit of my own.

Leanna: You are definitely on the right track.

Yes.

Thank you.

Salmah, is this the way it's supposed to look?

Derry: It is a delicious bite.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

♪ Ramos: This is "The Great American Recipe," a celebration of foods from across the country to around the globe...

I am making bison short rib.

Bison is a traditional Native American food.

Ramos: steeped in years of tradition.

Abbe, voice-over: Chicken soup is truly Jewish penicillin, will cure anything.

♪ Ramos: This season, our home cooks from regions all across the country get their chance to share their most treasured recipes.

Oh, it tastes like Mom's!

Elliott, voice-over: This shows us what we are all about, "Great American Recipe" highlighting all the diversity.

Who taught you those secrets?

My mom.

I love that.

Our food memories is how we keep it going.

How we're talking about the people we love is so important.

Thanks, guys.

Ramos: After 8 weeks of challenges celebrating the heart of American home cooking... Whoo!

Whoo!

Ramos: one home cook will be named the winner.

Welcome back to "The Great American Recipe."

♪ [Pen scratches] ♪ Relle: Ha ha!

Another day of cooking.

Relle, voice-over: Going into a new week, I've got a couple of wins under my belt.

The winner of our first "Great American Recipe" bake sale is Relle and your manju.

[Cheering and applause] The winner of this round-- Relle with your malasadas.

[Cheering] Relle, voice-over: This is probably the most confident I've been.

Cohen: Hello!

Welcome!

Ramos: Welcome back, cooks, to Week 6 of "The Great American Recipe."

Say hello again to our judges-- Leah Cohen... Hey.

Graham Elliot... Aloha, everyone.

and, of course, Tiffany Derry.

Welcome back, y'all.

Ramos: Last week, you introduced us to the dishes you prepare for special occasions and favorite holidays.

This week, we're gonna mix it up a little bit.

I'll be right back.

Oh, boy.

♪ What is this?

Ah, yes.

You're probably wondering why I'm holding this recipe box.

I hope I don't pee my pants.

Inside this box is a recipe that belongs to each one of you, but there's a catch.

I'm going to ask each of you to come up and grab your recipe card, and then I'll fill you in on the rest of the challenge.

Ted, come on up and grab yours.

Relle.

♪ Thank you.

♪ Ha ha ha!

Maria, voice-over: There is definitely a suspicious vibe going on.

Ramos: We are going to have you pass your recipe card to your neighbor.

Uh-oh.

Ramos: That's right.

We are doing a recipe swap.

I'm sorry.

That's OK. Ramos: You'll have 60 minutes to cook a dish that follows your given recipe but still incorporates your own unique style and flavor.

As always, your judges will critique your dishes based on taste, presentation, and execution.

Remember, every dish you cook gets you that much closer to earning a spot in the finale to compete for the grand prize of having one of your recipes featured on the cover of the "Great American Recipe" cookbook.

Let the recipe swap begin.

Your 60 minutes starts... now.

♪ Oh... Ramos: This really puts the cooks to the test.

Derry: It's not always an easy thing, you know, to adjust your brain to, "OK.

I thought I was "coming in, gonna make one thing, "and all of a sudden, I'm switching it up, and now I have to make this."

Elliot: Make it your deal, and that's where someone like Relle that's into baking, it might freak her out because she's into, like, exactness, and now it's like, "Here's a recipe.

Do your thing."

I'm gonna be here for a while.

Oh... Relle, voice-over: I end up getting Ted's scallops and parmesan risotto.

I'm like, "Oh, my God."

I've never made nor have I ever eaten this before.

♪ We shall see ♪ Risotto is a rice, but not the kind of rice that I make in Hawaii.

With this dish, you cook the rice on the stovetop with chicken stock.

It's hard enough just to make the recipe as is, let alone try to put a twist on it because I don't even know what it's supposed to be like.

I'm gonna go talk to Relle real fast.

Hey, Relle, you getting your risotto ready, so-- I've never made either of these.

OK. No pressure.

None at all.

Scallops you never cooked before.

Risotto you've never made.

That's got to be intimidating.

Here's one really important thing.

Get a pot and get your stock hot because if you add it in cold or room temp., it stops the cooking process.

Who's dish is this?

This is Ted's dish.

This is Ted's dish?

Yeah.

You have Ted right behind you that you can ask, you know, "When do I add the cheese?

What do I do with this?"

There's a lot of technique in this one.

OK. Let's absorb the liquid now.

Get more liquid in there.

You got a ladle right here.

Why are you using a measuring cup?

Ha ha ha!

Because you're making me nervous.

You got this.

All right.

Good luck.

Thank you, Chef.

Relle, voice-over: Right when I was so excited to share with them Hawaiian foods with loco moco, they decided, "Hey, let's switch recipes and make something you may have never made before."

♪ Loco moco.

I love trying new recipes.

It's actually kind of fun.

I am making Relle's Hawaiian-style loco moco.

Relle: It's my favorite dish.

It's a ground-beef patty, sticky white rice, homemade brown gravy, and a fried egg on top.

Abbe, voice-over: First thing I do is make the burgers.

It's just ground beef, diced onion, ketchup.

This is really watery ketchup.

Looks like she got some hot sauce going on over there, so-- I am what I eat... tss... and that's spicy.

I pat those burgers into shape and get them into a skillet.

Going OK?

Going OK.

It's a good dish...

Yes.

It looks delicious.

and add the heavy cream at the end.

Mwah.

I got Abbe's recipe, and can I just tell you how happy I am I'm not baking?

Abbe's recipe is ziti al fresco.

It has sausage; sun-dried tomatoes; parsley; fresh basil, which I love; tomato paste, and heavy cream.

So I'm getting the meat on first, and then I need, you know-- The pasta'll probably take 9 to 11 minutes.

Khela, voice-over: I'm from the Midwest, and I know how to use every single one of these ingredients to make a delicious dish.

I already know.

Season all the way.

It's a little spicy.

Abbe, voice-over: My ziti al fresco was named after one of my favorite restaurants in Denver that hasn't existed for quite some time.

This dish was so good, so when it closed, I just made from memory something that I thought would resemble that.

Brad: Whose recipe is this?

It's Abbe's.

Oh, my God, it looks so yummy.

Thank you.

Mm.

♪ [Sizzling] We are toasting.

I got my girl Khela's meaty beef and bean chili.

I am familiar with what chili is, so I'm not totally thrown off by the dish, so first, to start, I season my ground beef.

Paprika, dried thyme, black pepper.

To my understanding, chili is supposed to be a warm, hearty bowl, so I'm adding my own little flavor in it-- a little bit of geerah... ♪ diced tomatoes... ♪ Hello, Salmah.

Hello, Tiffany.

What are you making here?

It smells good.

I am making Khela's meaty beef and bean chili, so I'm trying to pay tribute to Khela's recipe and still, you know, make it a little bit of my own.

What's your twist?

I added geerah and Wiri Wiri pepper, which is a pepper from Guyana.

It's a tiny pepper.

It holds a lot of heat.

I mean, you could try it, but you'd need a glass of milk as a chaser.

I love it.

Good job.

Thank you, Tiffany.

I'm gonna let that do its thing and go check on Brad.

"Salt and sugar."

How much salt does she want?

Brad, voice-over: I'm making Salmah's cheese scone.

Hello, my friend.

Hi.

Here, it says, "Making a well in the center, mix everything," but then it says, "slowly."

Is this the same step that you just had it separate?

Yeah.

OK.

Literally, I'd rather make anything else in the world than a pastry.

I struggle with anything baked.

I'm just gonna do it systematically.

I'm going to follow her instructions.

That water needs to be cold.

OK, OK.

Thank you.

All right.

Cool.

You're welcome.

♪ Brad, voice-over: To make it my own, I add some Aleppo pepper.

Salmah, voice-over: Cheese scones, it's one of my favorite things to eat.

I love me a good high tea.

You know, I'm fascinated with a good period piece.

I love Britcoms.

If I'm having high tea, I'm having scones, and cheese scones are my favorite.

I'm a little nervous, but I'm excited to kind of see how it goes and see how good Salmah is at recipe writing.

Brad, voice-over: I'm trying to make sure it's all mixed together nicely.

I get it into a dough.

I stick it in the fridge because it needs, I guess, like-- I don't know.

That's what I was told by Salmah-- put it in the fridge.

Derry: 45 minutes left, guys.

♪ Do you have garlic powder?

Yes.

I do, right here.

Ah.

Thank you.

Welcome.

All right, Brad.

We're gonna make these mazamas.

Hope I can do them the way you like.

So I got Brad's dish.

It is called mazamas.

It basically seems to be a lamb stew.

Leanna, voice-over: Brad's recipe includes lamb shoulder, tomato paste and tomatoes, caraway spice, and hard-boiled eggs...

I've made stews before.

I'm comfortable cooking with lamb.

Leanna, voice-over: but I've got to add a little bit of a Caribbean flair, so I'm gonna add a little bit more heat to it with one Scotch bonnet pepper.

Hopefully, the judges like it.

Brad: So mazamas is something that we would eat generally during Passover.

You have so much lamb from, like, the all the-- kind of the symbolic foods that you eat.

The next morning, we'll take all the leftover lamb and form it into, like, kind of an egg stew, and it's delicious.

Leanna, voice-over: With this recipe, Brad didn't leave a ton of detail in terms of timing.

Hey, Brad, you got a second for a question?

Yes, of course.

So I put the lamb into the pressure cooker.

The lamb, I find, usually cooks pretty quickly.

So 30 minutes is safe.

It's safe.

OK. All right.

If you have any other questions, let me know.

That's gonna be enough.

Thank you.

Maria: Hey, Leanna, my biggest thing is overdoing or underdoing the chicken.

So they're not too crispy yet, but I would say, watch the temperature.

You see how you have those extra brown bits there?

So it can get, like, a little burny, but the color you have is great.

Like, you are definitely on the right track.

Yay.

Thank you.

Maria, voice-over: I got Leanna's chicken drumstick with honey soy balsamic glaze.

I'm so relieved because I know how to cook a chicken drumstick.

If I had gotten anyone else's recipe, I may not know what to do with it.

While the chicken is frying, I make the sauce.

I mix together the soy and the honey and the balsamic.

♪ OK. Leanna: My mom and I would always go to shows down at Madison Square Garden, and there was this Chinese buffet across the street, and my favorite thing from there was their honey soy chicken.

I decided that I was gonna make my own version of that honey soy chicken using drumsticks primarily because my son absolutely loves chicken drumsticks.

Oh, that's nice.

Maria.

voice-over: When the chicken is done, I toast up the shallots and the garlic in the oil.

OK.

I see what Leanna's trying to do here.

Maria, voice-over: I don't like to cook with balsamic all that much.

The flavor is pretty overpowering for me, so I think I might play up more of the lime in this recipe instead of the balsamic.

I love that lime flavor.

♪ 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.

Ted, voice-over: I am making Maria's hominy red chile stew.

Maria: So I'm not sure how much Mexican he cooks at home, so we'll see.

Ted, voice-over: I don't know exactly what this dish is.

I've never made this before, and I'm a little nervous because soaking the chilies and making the sauce with it, I want to make sure I get it right, but the base of the meat is pork shoulder.

Maria, I love pork shoulder.

Oh, it's so good.

It's the best cut.

Ted, voice-over: I'm thinking to myself, "Oh, it's a stew.

OK.

Great."

I'm gonna sear this and braise this, put it in the pressure cooker, not dissimilar to my beef kokkinisto.

Maria, then you're just a sear on these, right, in the-- Yeah.

Sear them up just a little bit, and then put it-- Get a little crust on it?

Yeah.

Ted, voice-over: I'm trying to figure out how I'm gonna put my spin on it.

The first thing I think of is Greek olive oil...

Put a little Greek oil in there.

giving it a little more of a deeper flavor.

This was one of those grad-school dishes.

I came home at probably 2:00 in the morning.

I had some pork shoulder, red chile sauce, and onion and some garlic.

It ended up being so delicious, I do a version of this probably once a month.

Ted is a great cook, so I think he'll do pretty well.

Elliot: You have 30 minutes left.

♪ Salmah, is this the way it's supposed to look?

OK. Yeah.

Put it down, put it down.

Now the best thing, Yeah?

put a little flour on your hands and start squeezing it together... OK. so that it forms into a dough.

OK. Yeah, so, yeah, squeeze it together.

In my head at this moment, I cannot think for the life of me what a scone looks like.

I've obviously had them before, but I'm just blanking, so I'm just gonna make this into more of a cookiesque item.

I'm hoping it's gonna work out, but you never know because I've never done them before.

I hope they're not too dense.

I hope they get cooked.

I hope the flavor's good, all the things.

♪ Salmah: Hey, Khela, do you want to taste what I've done so far?

Yes, lovey.

♪ That's very tasty.

Is it good?

Is it missing anything, pepper?

It tastes great.

Does it?

Mm-hmm.

Chili actually is not my absolute favorite thing to eat, right, but it's because of who it's for.

Khela, voice-over: 2002, my dad died.

My dad loved football, and he loved my chili, and I loved all those times that we're eating chili and watching football.

Oh, yeah.

That's good.

To know that I'm making a dish that means so much to Khela, that holds such weight in her heart, I mean, I'm doing my best to make her proud.

♪ Abbe, voice-over: Before I start to make a new batch of burgers, I have to work on the gravy.

I'm using beef stock, beef bouillon paste, onion powder, heavy cream, and I add some hot sauce because everything deserves hot sauce.

Abbe, I'm coming to see you.

You are, eh?

How are you?

Oh, we're just cooking loco moco, Leah.

OK. Are you familiar with loco moco?

I'm not familiar with loco moco, but honestly, I think it's a nice, homey recipe.

Yeah.

We'll see how it turns out.

I did put my spin on this and cooked them in a little schmaltz.

Oh, I love that.

Schmaltz is a staple in Jewish cooking.

It's just another way to impart a lot of great flavor into what you're cooking.

That's kind of what I figured, and we'll see where it goes.

Abbe, good luck.

Thank you.

♪ Aloha.

Ha ha ha!

All right.

You want to try it?

I added a little extra, the beef bouillon, give it a little richness.

♪ Is there a spice in there?

I put a little hot sauce.

OK. That's what it is.

It tastes great, but it's spicy.

I never thought loco moco could be spicy, but Abbe did it.

How's the sauce, Abbe?

Relle doesn't like spicy, so it didn't taste good to her.

What can I say?

Sorry, Abbe.

♪ All right.

Let's play.

Elliot: So Relle's broken out the canned ham now, so she's totally going and making it her own.

What I'm gonna do with the risotto is make it like a fried rice in Hawaii-- canned ham and some carrots.

We'll see how this goes, friends.

Relle, let's get these scallops going.

Don't yell at Relle.

That's not nice.

Cohen: Relle, make sure that pan's hot, like hot-hot hot.

♪ These need a little more time to put in the blender?

Nope.

Put them in.

They're good?

OK. Ted, voice-over: While the meat is braising, I get the sauce going.

Got garlic, some salt.

Let's get some flour in here.

Now I've got my chilies, get those into the blender, start mixing it up.

I think I could piece this together and make Maria proud of what I make.

Feel like there's something missing.

It needs a lot of salt.

Salt and just blend it through, but its thickness is good?

Is that how--OK. Yeah.

♪ Derry: 5 more minutes.

♪ Just a quick flip, just a little bit.

Leanna, voice-over: Brad's recipe includes hard-boiled eggs that are put into the stew at the end.

Hey, Brad?

What if I do eggs two ways?

OK, so I hate the smell of hard-boiled eggs.

It makes me gag, so I'm gonna do the scrambled eggs so that I can get it in the way you usually do the hard-boiled eggs, and then I thought the fried egg on top would add a nice pop of color.

I think it's gonna be just as good.

I'm really worried about it finishing, so I've got the cast-iron nice and hot.

And that's it, and just mix it all, and then flavor will be there.

OK.

I appreciate you.

Yeah, of course.

I'm very nervous about that pressure cooker.

Leanna, voice-over: I just want to make sure that the lamb is properly cooked and tender, but I still need to plate, right, so, as usual, doing my balancing act.

Ha ha!

You can't go fast enough.

Please go faster.

Ramos: Finish that plating.

Come on.

♪ 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

Time's up.

Whoo!

Whoo!

Whoo!

[Applause] ♪ Ramos: In this first round, you were given one hour to follow the recipe of a fellow home cook and put your own personal spin on it.

Time to present your take on another cook's recipe.

Maria, whose dish did you make, and what is it?

I made Leanna's chicken drumstick with honey soy balsamic glaze, so I did a Maria twist.

I'm not a huge balsamic fan, so I wanted to add a little bit more lime instead of balsamic for acidity.

Cohen: The flavors are actually really well-balanced.

I love how you said, "I don't really like balsamic that much, "but I know it needs that acidity, so I'm going to add that lime to give it that acid."

I thought that was really smart.

Thank you.

Maria, I think you did a really good job of cooking the chicken.

I think I saw you go back and reseason, like, 3 times.

You're making sure that it was going to be seasoned for us.

The lime created a very delicious flavor.

It's good.

You made it your own.

Thank you.

Relle.

I made Ted's scallop and parmesan risotto.

I've never had scallops or risotto in my life, so I tasted the risotto, and it was kind of on the, like, saltier side from the parmesan, so I thought canned ham would pair up with that.

Cohen: I can tell that you put a lot of love and labor into this rice because it comes across, and the scallops are nicely seared.

That crust that you had was really nice.

For someone who's never cooked scallops, you did a really good job.

Mahalo.

Derry: I think that you really embraced the challenge.

You made sure that you had that sweetness that you have in a lot of your cooking, and you still stayed true to risotto and scallops.

Mahalo.

Ha ha ha!

Khela.

I made Abbe's ziti al fresco.

I didn't follow the recipe.

I just took the ingredients and did it like I would do at home.

Derry: Khela, the bowl of pasta that you presented here is beautiful.

The pasta itself is perfectly cooked.

This is, like, a meaty pasta.

I mean, it's you.

You have these boys and men, and this is how you cook at home.

Thank you.

Cohen: I think you really did stay true to Abbe's ingredients and make a well-executed, balanced dish.

I prefer to have a little bit more pasta.

It could've had a little bit more sauce, but overall, the cook on it was great.

Ha ha!

Abbe, please join us.

I made Relle's dish-- loco moco.

This reminded me of comfort food.

Derry: Abbe, this right here was delicious, but the next time that you want to make patties, don't press them so hard.

Leave them a little bit lighter.

This is a really good dish.

Thank you.

So, Abbe, what's great is that you really straddled both sides of what this challenge was all about.

The egg is cooked nicely.

The gravy's delicious.

You added all these other things to make it your own but still paid a lot of respect to what the actual dish is.

Great job.

Thank you, Abbe.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Leanna.

So I made Brad's dish called mazamas.

It's basically a lamb stew.

To put my own little twist, I did add just one Scotch bonnet pepper to bring a little bit of island flair.

Cohen: It's not fall-apart tender.

5 to 10 more minutes, and it would have been perfectly cooked lamb, but overall, everything was seasoned well.

I think you got a lot done in a short amount of time.

Thank you, chefs.

Elliot: Leanna, you nailed the theme of this challenge here by working hand-in-hand with Brad, getting ideas of what the dish is, and then putting your spin on it, which is what we asked for, adding some of your heat of the Scotch bonnet.

This is a great job, so way to embrace it.

Thank you, Chef.

Brad.

So today I made Salmah's cheese scones, and I couldn't picture it, so I'm like, "Let me just make scone-style cookies," and I added some Aleppo pepper.

Derry: It's funny that you called it a cookie because it definitely feels more like a cookie than a scone when you look at it.

It is a bit salty, but the texture is beautiful.

Thank you.

I think it was really great that you added the spices that you are familiar with.

I thought you had fun with it.

You know, baking can be difficult.

Overall, I think you did a really good job making something that you really have never made before.

Thank you.

Ted.

I made Maria's hominy red chile stew.

Sauteing the vegetables, I used some Greek olive oil.

Derry: I think it's a very well-put-together dish.

I like that the pork is extremely well-cooked.

It's a really good dish.

Thank you.

Ted, what I love so much about your food is, you put everything into it.

Like, you can tell it was cooked with a smile, even if it's a dish and recipe you've never come across before.

I love that.

You know, doing a pork justice in 60 minutes to get this color and tenderness, this is a great mixture of your style and Maria's recipe, and that's what we're looking for, so great job on the theme.

Thank you.

Salmah, please come join us.

I made Khela's beef and bean chili.

I actually used Wiri Wiri peppers to add heat.

I hope I did Khela justice.

Elliot: Salmah, great job.

It's a really well-prepared dish, especially when it's so nuanced with the spices that you added.

It's not, "Here's a curry chili."

It like, "I made the recipe, and I added some little things of myself here and there," and as you eat it, it's really comforting.

Cohen: Yeah, so I totally agree with Graham.

This is delicious, and it's really well-balanced.

I think you just did the recipe justice, and I'm so happy that you did because it means so much to Khela, and I think it's just a beautiful story.

Your dad would be very proud.

Ramos: Thank you, Salmah.

Thank you.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Thank you.

Aww.

Mm.

♪ In this first round, you had to swap recipes and cook the cherished dish of a fellow home cook.

Judges, which home cooks had the most successful dishes of this round?

♪ Salmah making Khela's beef and bean chili.

It was beautiful to look at.

You used the ingredients that Khela gave you, but you added your spin to it.

You had your own spices, and it was just a delight to eat.

Salmah, voice-over: I'm happy that the judges appreciated my take on it and they also noticed my spices that I put into it.

It's not just a win for me.

It's a win for Khela.

Cohen: And the other home cook who rocked their recipe was... ♪ Khela with Abbe's dish.

♪ Everything from execution to flavor was very well-done.

Khela, voice-over: Holy mackerel.

Not only am I in the top with Abbe's recipe, but my girl Salmah, she's in it with a dish that I created.

It's a win-win all around for Khela.

Elliot: Congratulations to all of you, being flexible, persevering, and paying honor to those recipes but also finding your own voice and doing your own thing.

Every last one of you did an incredible job.

Ramos: Be sure to take what you've learned from cooking these recipes with you into the next round.

♪ Cooks, in the first round, we shook things up a bit by having you all swap recipes with each other.

For the second round, you'll have 90 minutes to present a dish that has been passed down in your family for years.

Tiffany, Leah, and Graham will be judging and ranking your recipes based on taste, execution, presentation, and theme.

Remember, every dish you prepare is your chance to impress the judges once again and get you one step closer to claiming your spot in the finale.

Who's ready to make their family proud?

I am.

I'm ready.

Ramos: Well, we can't wait.

Your 90 minutes starts now.

♪ So this round, they're cooking something that's been passed down through generations.

Tell me what it is that you want to see the cooks bring forth.

Elliot: This is really like the looking glass into their past.

I really want to know the story of it.

Cohen: I agree with Graham.

It's really about the story.

Me and this darn spice grinder.

Salmah, voice-over: We need to create a dish that best speaks to our family's legacy, and for me, it most definitely is mithai.

Mithai is a flaky, buttery dough scented with anise, and it had this hard sugar crystal around the edges.

Mithai is typically eaten at Guyanese weddings.

I come from a long line of ladies who are famous for their mithai.

This recipe has been in my family for generations on end.

I don't even, like, know how far back it trails.

Normally when we do this at home, there is an army of people there to help you.

One person holding the bowl, the other person has their hands in the flour.

Two people are throwing in the milk and the egg so that your job is to bring it all together...

So, yeah, I'm a little scared because I'm making it by myself.

Salmah, voice-over: but Mom, my Auntie Dolly, my Auntie Shireen would be so proud to see me spearheading my one-person mithai crew.

Ha ha!

See if I can do this.

♪ Cou-cou stick.

Now we're ready.

Leanna, voice-over: For this challenge, my mind immediately goes to Barbados.

Let's get this okra in the water.

Leanna, voice-over: My parents' Bajan heritage flows through my blood.

It is in my DNA, so I'm going to make our national dish-- cou-cou with steamed snapper.

All right.

Cou-cou is made from corn meal and okra.

People might compare it to something similar to grits.

Hello, Leanna.

Hi, Chef Tiffany.

How are you?

Fantastic.

What do you have going on?

So right now, I am making some cou-cou, which is made from fine corn meal and okra and okra slime and water, salt, and pepper.

And what is this you're using to make it?

So this is what we call a cou-cou stick, and--it's funny-- I did not know that this was not something that you just bought in a store.

When I finally moved out and bought my own house, I was like, "Ma, where did you buy your cou-cou stick?

"I've been searching all over.

I can't find it," and she goes, "Baby, nobody buys a cou-cou stick.

Your grandfather made these."

I was like, "What?"

Ohh.

Well, I can't wait to experience this.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chef Tiffany.

♪ Leanna: Relle, what are you making today?

Sweet sour spare ribs and purple sweet potato.

Ooh, that sounds good.

Relle, voice-over: Sweet 'n' sour spare ribs are a dish that my grandma made all the time.

It's a recipe that is very important in our family.

So my grandma's sweet sour spare ribs were always so good.

She had this really big, like, cast-iron Dutch oven, older than me, older than my mom.

It reminds you of her when you see it.

Relle, voice-over: One year, we did pictures of my kid in the pot and, like, decorated the table for Thanksgiving.

It was so funny.

Sweet 'n' sour spare ribs along with many other Hawaiian dishes are very much low and slow, so after curing the ribs, I put them in the pressure cooker with onion, brown sugar, rice vinegar, shoyu, and then ginger.

♪ Ted: What you thinking, Relle?

Ha ha!

If I want to grill the pineapple with some brown sugar or not.

The only big change I've made is the pineapple.

Normally, she'll just toss in diced-up pineapple, but I know the judges are always expecting a little bit more, so I think I'm gonna grill the pineapples with brown sugar.

Ted: Relle, I keep hearing your sizzle, and I think it's my onions overgoing.

Ha ha ha!

Sorry.

For this round, I'm making dolmades with an egg-lemon sauce on top.

Dolmades are a Greek ground beef-and-rice combo with some seasoning stuffed in grape leaves.

Ted, voice-over: The dolmades that I'm making come down from my yaya, which is grandmother, on my father's side.

This was one of his favorites, and I know it's passed down generation to generation in Greece.

♪ Salmah: How's it coming along for you, Ted?

I like your little station you got going on there.

Here's my little assembly line.

I start rolling these up.

I'm feeling pretty good right now.

All right.

20 minutes, everybody...

What?!

until my dolmades go in.

I was just-- Oh, you're not funny.

Ted!

We are not playing with you today.

♪ Ooh, that looks good, Brad.

Are those short ribs?

Yeah.

They're flanken, so it's, like, cut the other way, but it's essentially short ribs.

Yum.

Brad, voice-over: I am making t'becha, which is a Libyan short rib stew.

It's something we eat every single Shabbat, so every single Friday night, this stew is on the table, and, like, the aroma of the t'becha stewing immediately evokes the feeling of home and family and Shabbat.

I feel like, of all the dishes that I make, this is, like, ingrained in my DNA.

First thing I'm gonna do is deal with my flanken.

After I brown each piece of meat, I throw that into the pressure cooker with onions and spices.

The sauce has paprika, cayenne pepper.

It has baharat and salt and pepper.

Derry: So Brad and Relle are both using their pressure cookers right now.

Brad is using short ribs.

Relle is using spare ribs.

Cohen: I'm really excited because I love me some tender short rib and some tender spare ribs.

I mean, and we know that they are tough cuts of meat that take time to be tender.

There's an hour left.

OK.

Thanks, Khela.

OK.

I got to hurry.

Pick it up.

Khela, voice-over: For this round, there's only one dish I can make.

It's my mom's chicken and dumplings.

Chicken and dumplings is kind of a sacred recipe.

For every birthday when we were little, we wanted my mom's chicken and dumplings.

I just remember the Formica table and her bringing out the rolling pin and flour everywhere.

It's, like, a memory ingrained in my brain.

I'm doing a quick version because I don't have time to do a whole chicken, so I'm doing chicken thighs because those are the best part of the chicken.

I prefer chicken thighs.

They're more forgiving, and I just think they have better flavor.

I put some poultry seasoning on them, and I get them in the pressure cooker with some celery and onion.

Whoops.

Man down.

Next, I go to my stock.

This is gonna require my guns.

I'm doing aromatics, like carrots, celery, onion.

My mom's a good cook.

She's a really good cook, and this is her legacy.

This is the dish, and it needs to be right.

So fingers crossed it turns out.

♪ Trying to get these as pretty as possible.

Maria, voice-over: I'm making corned beef and cabbage sandwiches with a slaw and mashed potatoes.

So I've done a lot of my recipe DNA so far with my Native heritage, and a lot of people don't know this, but I'm also half Irish.

My dad is Irish so he cooks corned beef every St. Patrick's Day, and so this is just one of those dishes that really feels like it's from my ancestors in Ireland.

Whoo.

OK.

Doing corned beef in 90 minutes is definitely a tall order, so I need to get the corned beef into the pressure cooker as soon as possible.

While the corned beef is going, I want to get started on the slaw, so I'm just doing a really basic slaw with red cabbage, green cabbage, and carrots.

And I'm gonna do more of a lemon slaw than a mayo slaw because corned beef can get really dense and heavy and I don't want the whole thing to just, you know, sink in their stomachs.

♪ We need something a little comforting.

For this challenge, I'm making Ilse's mocha nut cake.

She was my grandfather's second wife, but we always just called her Ilse.

It's a basic sponge cake recipe.

It's made with ground nuts, matzo meal, and you separate the eggs so that you beat the egg yolks with a little sugar in one bowl.

You whip the egg whites until stiff in another bowl with a little sugar, and then you combine the whole mixture, and basically you have your nut cake.

When I finally got the recipe from Ilse, my kids were 8 years old, and from then on, they always requested it because I have twins, so one cake for their birthday was this one, and the other cake was a chocolate cake.

I always made two cakes.

A recipe tells a story.

It's a special gift to be able to share these recipes with the rest of the world.

♪ Salmah, hi.

Hi.

How are you?

I'm good.

How are you?

I'm good.

OK, so tell me about this dish.

I'll just show you the dough that I created.

I've made something called mithai.

The spice that makes mithai is anise... OK. and my addition to this is a little bit of orange blossom flower.

Ooh.

This dish was brought from India to Guyana from my grandmother's great-grandmother.

Oh, so this goes way back.

See, mithai is usually eaten at weddings.

We make these, like, 25 to 30 pounds at a time.

Like, for me when I got married, this was, like, one of the most exciting parts of my wedding.

I love that.

I roll the dough out.

I cut them into little diamonds, fry that, and each of those fried pieces will spin in that sugar sink, and they'll crystalize over the mithai.

That's so interesting.

I cannot wait to try it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

♪ Leanna, voice-over: My cou-cou is done, so now I have to work on the fish.

Some nice-looking snapper.

The official national dish is cou-cou and flying fish, but flying fish is a bit hard to come by in the U.S., so instead, I'm going to be making snapper.

Leanna, voice-over: I season the fish with a green seasoning really quickly.

Get some of this from the bottom.

Leanna, voice-over: It's just scallions and Scotch bonnets, parsley, cilantro, a little bit of vinegar, and some onion and then pan-fry it.

It's coming together.

♪ Maria: ♪ Come on, potato, we don't have all day ♪ So classically at home, we eat sweet 'n sour spare ribs with sticky white rice, but I feel like I can't just serve that for everything, so another important ingredient that we use in Hawaiian culture is called 'uala, or sweet potato.

It's pretty purple.

We classically use the purple Okinawan sweet potato.

They've got a nice, sweet flavor.

I like it better than the regular orange ones.

♪ Ted: Everybody, 15, minutes.

Ted, I don't know whether to believe you.

For real.

My dolmades are just about done, so now I'm working on my egg-lemon sauce.

Elliot: Hey, Ted.

Hey, Chef.

How are you doing?

Great.

Can you tell me what you're making?

I am making dolmades... OK. and then an egg-lemon sauce over the top, so this is gonna be lemony, fresh, almost like if you're, like, in a Greek restaurant, like an avgolemono, which is the egg-lemon soup with the chicken in it... Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

but no chicken, just the egg-lemon and the broth from the mixture in here.

I've got fresh dill in here, spearmint.

Really?

Wow.

That was what my mom would do, so this was my dad's favorite--dolmade.

Oh, it smells amazing.

All right, buddy.

Good luck.

Have fun.

Thanks, Chef.

♪ Come on.

♪ Mm mm.

That's good.

Khela, voice-over: The chicken stock is delicious... ♪ OK. so now I got to work on the dumplings...

I got to channel my mom here.

Khela, voice-over: so I start making the dough, and then I thought, "It's not gonna be a Khela thing if I don't add some stuff," so I'm like, "I got the time for the thyme," so I add some thyme.

Ha ha!

That was really silly.

Ha ha ha!

[Snorts] Oh, that was silly.

Here goes nothing.

Ha ha!

Khela, voice-over: Some people do drop dumplings, and I don't love those because they're doughy, so instead, I roll it out.

I want it to stick to the board, and I'm trying to channel my mom.

"What would my mom do?"

OK. Time for these guys to go in the pool.

♪ Derry: You have 5 more minutes.

Ramos: Maria's going in a completely different direction from her indigenous recipes, which is exciting.

How do we feel about her making a sandwich?

Because she can use a win.

Cohen: I don't think it necessarily is about what she's making, but it's how she makes it.

That's pretty good.

♪ Yeah.

I think they're done enough.

Abbe, voice-over: These cakes are out of the oven, so I need to make the mocha frosting.

It's just powdered sugar, butter, coffee, and the big thing with Ilse's recipe was that she uses hot cocoa mix in her frosting.

Which was what we loved most as children.

Sometimes we would just have the frosting and not eat the cake.

Ha ha ha!

♪ All right.

Here we go.

Salmah, voice-over: So my favorite part of making mithai is when you're spinning the mithai in that sugar.

It's like magic.

I used to love looking at my mom and my aunts spinning that sugar syrup.

Ted: Oh, my God, those look so good.

Why, thank you.

♪ Leanna: Let's give this one last taste just to make sure.

♪ Mm.

Cohen: You all have one minute left.

♪ Khela: Maybe some chives.

Maybe just call it done.

Ha ha ha!

Ramos: 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

Time's up.

Whoo!

Ted: Whoo!

Whoa, Ted, those look nice.

Thank you.

♪ This week, we've asked you to cook a dish that has been passed down in your family.

Khela, please come and join us.

I made chicken and dumplings.

This was our favorite meal that my mom would make.

Derry: Khela, I love chicken and dumplings.

I really do.

I think you are very good at re-creating a recipe that has been passed down, and you made it better.

That's something that you do really, really well, and, I will tell you, dumplings in this style is my favorite way, where they are rolled out thin and allowed to just kind of cook in the broth.

If Tiffany likes it this way, I like it this way.

I think you did a great job.

The dumplings are amazing.

The texture is really great, and the dish itself is hearty.

Overall, it's really delicious.

Thank you.

Relle, tell us about your precious recipe.

Tonight I made for you sweet 'n' sour spare ribs, grilled pineapple, and a steamed and fried Okinawan sweet potato, so this dish is my grandma-- my mom's mom's recipe.

Elliot: Relle, delicious dish.

I love the sweet 'n' sour sauce and how it's really balanced.

Derry: It's really flavorful and delicious.

Obviously, this recipe has stood the test of time.

Mahalo.

Ted.

I made dolmades with an egg-lemon, or avgolemono, sauce.

These were my father's favorite, so his mom would make these for him back in Greece.

Ted, I love dolmades, and this is how I like to have it.

I love it with the soup on the top.

I love the flavors.

It's tender.

I'm really, really enjoying this.

Thank you.

Cohen: I completely agree with Tiffany.

I absolutely love the sauce.

It's so bright, and it is so light, as well, and the addition of mint was great.

You said that was your little-- That was my mom.

Smart mom.

Yes.

I think it goes really well with all the flavors that are going on.

Thank you.

Brad.

So today I made t'becha.

This is like what we would eat every single Friday night for Shabbat dinner.

It doesn't really feel like a complete week without this stew.

Derry: Brad, this is a beautiful dish.

I love the fact that it feels homey.

It feels comforting and flavorful.

The flavors had time to develop, and that's very important.

Elliot: Brad, another delicious dish.

I feel like there's a great theme with meat and the tomatoes and spices.

This is playing to your strengths, especially since it's got a great story behind it.

Overall, it's great.

Thank you.

Maria, tell us what you made.

So I made a corned beef and cabbage sandwich with mashed potatoes, so I know I've shared a lot of my Native American history, but also I want to bring some light to the fact that I'm half Irish.

Derry: Maria, you did a beautiful sandwich.

Thank goodness for that slaw with the mayonnaise and lemon because that really helps to add to it.

I love the corned beef.

It's very tender.

Next time, just concentrate on your bread slice a little bit more.

There's parts of my sandwich that's a little thin.

There's some that's a little thick, and when you eat it together, it just feels a little dry.

Elliot: It's so great to hear about the other side of your family and your heritage and now to say, "Also Irish Catholic, this is what my dad has taught us."

Ramos: A little last-minute plot twist from Maria.

That's what I was gonna say, last-minute, like-- I had to throw in the twist today.

Ramos: Yeah, pulling something out of your pocket.

Elliot: Yep.

Thanks so much, Maria.

Thank you.

Salmah, please come join us.

Today I made for you mithai.

Mithai is normally eaten at weddings as part of the celebration, and if I talk about family legacy, for me, it's encapsuled in this mithai.

Derry: It is a delicious bite.

There's a lot of spices here, you know.

There's that anise flavor, the textures with the crunch and the sweet, and everything just kind of hits together, and it's so unassuming, but when you're eating, you want another bite, and you want another bite, and I'm gonna keep eating and let them keep going.

[Laughter] The glaze that you have on the outside of these are delicious.

When it comes to actually putting this together, you've done it a million times, and clearly, it shows.

Thank you.

I'm happy to have shared it with you today.

Abbe?

Today I made for you Ilse's mocha nut cake.

Ilse was my grandfather's second wife.

She knew how to cook, and this cake reminds me of my papa and Ilse.

Elliot: It's so great to learn more about you with every different challenge and chance that we get to cook together.

Now I know all about Ilse and her love of this mocha frosting, and it really captured what this whole challenge was about today.

Thank you.

Miss Abbe, I love the texture of the cake itself.

It is dense but still very soft and also very moist, but it feels a little sweet, and when you look at the amount of cake to icing, I mean, it's more icing than cake at this moment, but overall, I really like the dish.

Thank you.

Leanna.

So today I made for you cou-cou with stewed snapper.

My mom learned how to make cou-cou from my granny, who, I assume, also learned to make it from my great-grandmother.

Elliot: Leanna, this is wonderful.

The cou-cou, it's silky.

It's smooth, but it's got that okra kind of, you know-- What would you call that texture?

It's almost velvety to me, okra.

Sure, We can go with that, a thick, velvety texture.

Ha ha ha!

Thick, velvety texture that the okra provides, I love that.

Cohen: For me, what I love is the fact that you're first-generation and you're like, "I want to show everyone "how much I love where my parents come from and how much this means to me, being from Barbados," and, to me, this is Barbados in a bowl.

Thank you, Chef.

Leanna, voice-over: I feel good.

It's like my heart could've, like, burst open and sunshine could have come out.

Like, I'm thinking I have a good shot at being in the top two, and I know I better not be in the bottom.

♪ Ramos: All right, judges.

Our home cooks shared a piece of their family with us through their recipes.

Let's hear which dishes were some of your favorites.

I loved Salmah's mithai.

I thought that it was unique, well-executed.

The flavors really went well together.

There's really nothing that I didn't love.

Elliot: Salmah's mithai was delicious in every way.

I love the story.

I loved this dish.

Derry: You know, one of the other dishes that I really enjoyed was Relle's sweet 'n' sour spare ribs.

Mm-hmm.

The pork was so well-cooked.

It was so tender.

It was so juicy, and the story, how she has a picture of her kid in the pot, I mean, come on.

Sell it with the babies.

Right.

Exactly.

Let's talk about Khela's chicken and dumpling.

You know, I thought Khela's dish was very good.

She was able to cook chicken and dumplings in 90 minutes and give that broth real flavor.

It was strong.

It was delicious.

It was still light.

Elliot: Like, when it's cold out tonight, I want to go grab a bowl of that.

Dang, was that not a good bowl of food.

Like, it was tasty.

All right, so let's move on to some of the less successful dishes.

For me, I have to say Maria.

I liked the idea of her really trying to showcase her other roots.

It had good flavor.

It just missed some execution.

Cohen: I agree with you.

Our bread was inconsistently toasted.

It was too big.

It was hard to eat.

Elliot: What'd you think of Brad's?

Derry: I love the history.

I just didn't think that was one of his most successful dishes.

Cohen: I think maybe adding something to lighten up the dish because it is a heavy dish.

Let's talk about Abbe's cake.

I think if you got a bite where it was the right amount of frosting for the cake, then it was delicious, but there was so much frosting on that cake, it was just too sweet.

Yeah.

All the proportions were off.

I thought the cake itself, though, had good flavor and texture if you can get a bite with very little icing.

Ramos: Thank you so much, judges.

It sounds like you've made your decision.

♪ For the second round, you showed us a recipe that has been passed down in your family.

Unfortunately, two of you had dishes that just didn't rise to the occasion.

♪ Maria, while we loved that you were able to showcase a different part of your family's heritage, the fact that you cooked your own corned beef and it was sliced beautifully, that was awesome, but unfortunately, we did feel that there were some things that needed some more focus, especially the slicing of the bread, so just next time, focus on all those little details.

Derry: And the other least successful dish is-- Abbe, the cake itself was delicious, but proportions of icing to cake is where we felt like you could've done a little better.

Now let's talk about the dishes that were standouts this round.

Cohen: Our first top dish was made by... ♪ Khela, your chicken and dumplings.

Your dish was hearty.

It was warm.

It was cooked perfectly.

It was just really a nicely executed dish.

And the other dish that we have to applaud is-- ♪ Salmah, your mithai was unbelievable.

As a chef, to experience new flavors is exciting, so thank you so much for sharing that with us.

Great work, Khela and Salmah...

Thank you.

but, judges, which home cook is the winner of this round?

Elliot: The winner of this round is... ♪ Salmah.

Good job.

Hey, congrats.

The mithai was an amazing bite of food.

We loved the story.

We loved the execution, the technique, the fact that we couldn't really find anything to make it better.

Thank you so much.

Great job and well-deserved win.

I am proud that I had the opportunity to share my family's legacy and tell what mithai means to me.

With this win, I'm one step closer to be featured on the cover of the "Great American Recipe" cookbook.

We cannot wait to have you back next week on "The Great American Recipe."

Bye.

Elliot: Good job.

Yeah, a real boost.

Ha ha!

Ramos: Next time on "The Great American Recipe"... You'll have to make a dish that is inspired by the flavors that a friend introduced you to.

Ted: There's definitely a lot of pressure this week.

Derry: I like your technique, Ted.

Thank you.

Mm-hmm.

That beef is smelling good.

That's a good sign, Lee.

Cheers.

Ha ha ha!

A little l'chaim.

That's it.

Ramos: It's time to announce who will be moving on to the big finale.

♪ [Pen scratches]