Village Social’s Chef Mogan Anthony on Chopped!

Village Social’s Chef Mogan Anthony takes on all-star Chef Joe Kelly on Chopped!: Did you catch Executive Chef Mogan Anthony”s (Mt. Kisco’s Village Social Kitchen & Bar) impressive showing on the Food Network show Chopped!? Mogan battled stiff competition, including caterer for the stars Chef Roy Handler (comedienne Chelsea Handler’s brother) of Hot Mess Catering in Los Angeles, Chef Lara Paul of Rivals Steakhouse in Austin, TX and all-star Chef Joseph Miller of Michelin star rated Joe’s Place in Venice Beach, CA.

On the show four chefs compete to make restaurant quality appetizers, entrees and desserts from a mystery basket of obscure, mismatched and often unsavory ingredients – in thirty minutes. About the time it takes us to get up from the couch to get a Klondike bar.

Imagine having to transform mashed potato candy, stinky tofu, or rocky mountain oysters (bull calf testicles) into an appetizing dish while preserving their texture or flavor profile. Transforming ingredients is another word for creativity on Chopped! It is one of the criteria the judges use, in addition to plating and execution, to decide who moves on to the next round.

Serve up a flavorful, well plated dish (don’t burn anything) and maybe you move on. Make it through the appetizer and entrée round and you get to make dessert for the Chopped! Championship and a $10,000 prize. But anything can trip you up. Your fish may be too dry. Or the skin isn’t crispy. Your steak could be perfectly charred but your au gratin is runny. Serve up a dish with a hair on the plate and your Chopped!

The appetizer round

Chef Handler bowed out in the appetizer round as Mogan got high marks in creativity for his braised southern cabbage and pickled sausage soffrito, with mâché, a fried egg and blood orange sauce. “It was my strongest dish and I had the most fun with it,” Mogan told WTD. “I needed to tone down the acidity in the pickled sausage and refresh the braised cabbage so I immediately thought – soffrito. It was a perfect restaurant dish, maybe even something I would add to the menu.”

Just how hard is it to compete on Chopped? “It’s the real deal,” said Chef Anthony, “no BS. I had to think in a split second to conceptualize my dish and execute it perfectly which was not easy by far. And the camera in your face the whole time doesn’t make it any easier!”

What to do with gloopy canned lobster bisque

In the entrée round he added crème fraîche to the basket ingredient canned lobster bisque in his Japanese style grilled squid with grilled daiken, baby leeks, celery and dill. “The lobster bisque was disgusting. It was so gloopy. The crème fraîche cut the corn starch and brought out the tangy seafood flavor.” Chef Lara used the lobster bisque straight up over pasta. It did not go over well. “I knew I wasn’t going home after the entrée round.”

Chef Joe did not transform the bisque either, but he took on the challenge of making risotto in just 30 minutes and it got him to the final round with Mogan. What was Mogan thinking when he realized he was going head to head with the ‘Daniel Boulud of the west coast?’ “I thought the competition just got real smoking hot…I’m ready.”

Mogan’s sable Breton is “the real deal”

In the dessert round “I had 3 ingredients that I never work with in a sweet application. And one I never even heard of like the pancake mix that I can’t even recall the name.” Kaiserschmarrn, used to make a carmelized pancake (a traditional Austrian dessert) was paired in the mystery basket with green cerignola olives, honey distilled liqueur and Lady Gala apples.

“I didn’t want to make a pancake, too obvious. I decided to bake a sable Breton with orange liqueur and orange zested whipped cream.” After five minutes in the oven the cookies were still like dough. “I thought, ‘I’m going home.’” Praying the oven would do its job, he turned to deglazing the apples with honey liqueur, cinnamon and clove for a warm compote to fill the cookie. What to do with the olives? “I worked in a Spanish restaurant and know olives love almonds. I boiled them in sugar, chopped them up with salted almonds and used it as a buttery, sweet, crunchy, salty crumble.”

Judge and Iron Chef Alex Guarnaschelli said his French butter cookie was the real deal. “But it really needed ice cream.” Ouch!

They all scream for ice cream

Backstage, before the dessert round, both chefs discussed their intention to make ice cream. But there is only one ice cream machine on the set. Mogan deferred to rank and let Chef Joe have it. On the show, the ice cream machine is the ultimate hail mary pass. It can malfunction turning your ice cream into a runny mess or icicle laden disasters. Nail it and it can be the tie breaker. Chef Joe nailed it. “You should have fought for the ice cream machine,” said Alex Guarnaschelli as Mogan was chopped, defeated, perhaps, for his collegiality.

“No regrets,” said Mogan. “I got to meet my idol Marcus Samuelsson.” Chef Samuelsson, the owner of Red Rooster Harlem who was the Executive Chef of Aquavit at the age of 24, offered Mogan his finest accolade on the show when he said “it was impressive how I managed to turn brined olive to sweet & salty almond olive crumbs, a classic pairing in Spanish cuisine for the dessert round.” Yeah, how do you do that?

“What did your wife say when you got home?” we asked. “She said, let’s do it again. Next time I have to make ice cream to win. lol”

Chef Mogan Anthony has been serving his own blend of American bistro with Mediterranean and Latin accents to packed crowds for owner Joe Bueti at Village Social since 2011. His eclectic comfort food menu includes such favorites as Cubano Style Grilled Short Rib, Risotto Fritter and Mexican White Shrimp a La Plancha. Before joining Village Social Mogan worked with Cedric Vongerichten at Michelin star restaurants Perry Street and Spice Market in New York City. His first job as a cook was at The Bedford Post Inn in Bedford.

More stuff for foodies! Check out our What To Eat: Restaurant Guide