Chopped Season 39, Episode 4 challenges its pizza professionals to create sweet and savory pies with ingredients you’d never expect to mix with dough and sauce.
When Chopped episodes revolve around a particular dish — in this case, pizza — it’s not uncommon for the show’s producers to bring in experts who really know their stuff.
These professionals are then placed in the Chopped kitchen, which almost always means they’re taken out of their culinary comfort zones. Forced to push their skills and creativity to the limits, chefs need to figure out how to put a fresh spin on a dish they may have made a thousand times before.
This week’s hour-long episode, “Pizza Poetry,” asks its contestants to forego the traditional cheese and tomato sauce combo for something a little sweeter.
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According to the episode description: “A piece of pork that takes up much of the first basket has the competitors getting their hands dirty from the start. A regional dough and a convenience store staple are part of the pizza puzzle in the entree round. And do the final two pizza pros really have to use olives on their dessert pizzas? You bet they do!”
Did someone say dessert pizza? The possibilities are almost endless — from chocolate sauce to gooey caramel to irresistible marshmallow toppings.
The twist, however, is the olives. Savory and sweet can absolutely mix, if you’re creative enough to come up with something that ignites the taste buds in just the right way.
Hopefully our “pizza pros” have what it takes to impress with their savory and sweet pies. Only one can go home victorious, and it’s going to come down to who can create something the judges won’t be able to resist.
Chopped is back tonight at 9 ET on Food Network.