Every Tuesday, Justin Warner, winner of Food Network Star Season 8, is back remixing the Chopped All-Stars baskets as seen in the episode Sunday night in pure Justin Warner style: edgy, intense, passionate and full of wit. If you’ve ever watched an episode and found yourself yelling at the TV, “I would have made this and that instead!” then these are the posts for you.

by Justin Warner

Welcome to the third installment of Chopped All-Stars Rebel Remix, where the things I shouted at my TV last Sunday are written for all to see.

Appetizer: harissa, diver scallops, pink grapefruit, speck
When I compose a dish, especially an appetizer, I like to consider the components in their most basic forms and build from there. A great dish has all of our tastes (salt, sweet, sour, bitter, capsaicin, umami) some exciting texture, a great aroma and visual appeal. Harissa is spicy, scallops are sweet, grapefruit is both sour and slightly bitter, and speck is as close to salty and savory as it gets. The only way the dish resulting from this basket could be horrible is via technical difficulties, or from a cook failing to realize that these guys don’t need much coaxing to play nicely. We aren’t dealing with a mound of veggie terrine that looks like it has already been digested. We are dealing with four gems of gastronomy, and all we have to do is make a nice crown to hold the gems in place. Let’s go.

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Earlier on FN Dish, we broke down the second round of Chopped All-Stars, including an interview with the runner-up (spoiler alert).

If you missed the show and recorded it, don’t read any further — FN Dish is about to break down the episode and chat with the winner.

SPOILER ALERT: Find out who won

The tables have been turned. Tonight four judges-turned-competitors, Alex Guarnaschelli, Amanda Freitag, Marc Murphy and Scott Conant, tried their hands at cracking the code on the mystery ingredients in the infamous Chopped baskets. Only one advanced to compete in the third spot in the finale, one step closer to winning $50,000 for his or her charity.

If you missed the show and recorded it, don’t read any further — FN Dish is about to break down the episode and chat with the runner-up.

SPOILER ALERT: The exclusive interview with the runner-up

To celebrate the new season of Chopped All-Stars, which airs Sundays at 9pm/8c, FN Dish is giving away this Chopped cutting board to one lucky reader.

You can buy your own Chopped cutting board from the Food Network Store, or enter below for a chance to win the item. To enter: Tell us in the comments which All-Star is your favorite and why. The contest starts at 3 pm EST today and ends Wednesday, April 24 at 5 pm EST.

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Some of the mystery basket ingredients that get used on Chopped are pretty unusual, to say the least. But the culinary producers who come up with them don’t just draw them out of a hat — though sometimes it does seem that way! They take their time to decide on the ingredients, making sure the basket components are just right and actually manageable. FN Dish queried the culinary producers to find out the top 16 weirdest basket ingredients they’ve had on the show. The list of ingredients ranged from goat brains to gummy eggs over easy — almost no ingredient is off-limits.

Now it’s up to you, Chopped fans, to vote on the ingredient you think is the weirdest of them all in this four-round bracket tournament, which coincides with the new season of Chopped All-Stars.

VOTE now!

Every Tuesday, Justin Warner, winner of Food Network Star Season 8, is back remixing the Chopped All-Stars baskets as seen in the episode Sunday night in pure Justin Warner style: edgy, intense, passionate and full of wit. If you’ve ever watched an episode and found yourself yelling at the TV, “I would have made this and that instead!” then these are the posts for you.

by Justin Warner

Welcome to the second installment of Chopped All-Stars Rebel Remix. In the space below, you will find my woulda-shoulda-coulda of Sunday’s showdown. Just so you know, I give myself no more than 45 minutes to write these little posts. It gets pretty intense. I actually sweat, a little.

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Chopped All-Stars brings together famous chefs, talent from Food Network and Cooking Channel, current Chopped judges and popular celebrities to compete for a chance at winning the title of All-Stars champion and $50,000 for charity. Though these competitors seem completely unrelated, the one thing that connects them is a shared love for food. But above all they want a chance at giving back to the charities they care about. See how well you know each all-star in this quiz.

Need some help answering the questions? Read the all-star bios and check out the all-star Q&As on FN Dish.

Earlier on FN Dish, we broke down the second round of Chopped All-Stars, including an interview with runner-up (spoiler alert).

If you missed the show and recorded it, don’t read any further — FN Dish is about to break down the episode and chat with the winner.

SPOILER ALERT: Find out who won

The Chopped Kitchen has seen many talented chefs, including its own Chopped judges, compete. Tonight contenders with considerable competitive prowess took each other on in the second round of the All-Star competition. With winning titles like Food & Wine Magazine‘s 10 Best New Chefs and hands-on experience in competitive cooking shows like Next Iron Chef, four mega-chefs, Chuck Hughes, Elizabeth Falkner, Gavin Kaysen and Richard Blais took on the dreaded mystery basket ingredients.

If you missed the show and recorded it, don’t read any further — FN Dish is about to break down the episode and chat with the runner-up.

SPOILER ALERT: The exclusive interview with the runner-up

Week after week, Chopped fans tune in to watch four eager chef competitors take their places in the kitchen for a chance to outcook the chopping block and score the coveted title of Chopped Champion. Not only facing off against each other, the contestants battle baskets full of mystery ingredients like shad roe sacks, black garlic, pig ears and duck hearts — products and produce that are so unusual that some chefs have neither seen nor tasted them before in their career.

Working with such oddball selects surely invites a host of unique problems, including overcooked proteins and underdone grains, but the most-common mistake made among chefs isn’t one resulting from obscure ingredients. Instead, it’s something that trips up even home cooks as they prepare everyday meals for their families.

Speaking to a crowd at the Borgata Hotel Spa & Casino in Atlantic City, longtime Chopped judge Geoffrey Zakarian said that the most-prominent error in competitors’ dishes is seasoning. No stranger to the highs and lows in the Chopped kitchen, he’s tasted his share of meals that have proved to be near disasters simply because chefs used too little of two of the most-basic ingredients found in restaurant and home kitchens alike: salt and pepper. “Nobody puts salt and pepper in their food,” he said. “Amazing. Shocking.”

What cooking conundrums do you struggle with in the kitchen? Tell FN Dish in the comments below.