Chopped is a reality

Reality television

Reality television is a genre of television programming that presents purportedly unscripted dramatic or humorous situations, documents actual events, and usually features ordinary people instead of professional actors, sometimes in a contest or other situation where a prize is awarded...

 based cooking

Cooking

Cooking is the process of preparing food by use of heat. Cooking techniques and ingredients vary widely across the world, reflecting unique environmental, economic, and cultural traditions. Cooks themselves also vary widely in skill and training...

 television series created by Michael Krupat, produced by Daniel Kay

Daniel Kay

-Movie career:He has produced such shows as Hell's Kitchen, Kitchen Nightmares and Chopped.-References:...

, and hosted by Ted Allen

Ted Allen

Ted Allen is an American writer and television personality. He was the food and wine connoisseur on the American Bravo network's Emmy-winning television program Queer Eye. He now is the host of the prime-time series on Food Network Chopped, a culinary competition in which four chefs per episode...

 that pits four chefs against each other competiting for a chance to win $10,000. New episodes air every Tuesday at 10pm EST on Food Network

Food Network

Food Network is a television specialty channel that airs both one-time and recurring programs about food and cooking. Scripps Networks Interactive owns 70 percent of the network, with Tribune Company controlling the remaining 30 percent....

.

Format

In each episode, four chefs compete. Their challenge is to take a mystery box of ingredients and and turn them into into a dishes that are judged on their originality, presentation, and taste with minimal time to plan and executed within a short time frame. The show is divided into three rounds: "Appetizer", "Entrée

Entrée

An entrée is a dish served before the main course, or between two principal courses of a meal.The disappearance in the early 20th century of a large communal main course such as a roast as a standard part of the meal in the English-speaking world has led to the term being used to describe the main...

", and "Dessert

Dessert

In cultures around the world, dessert is a course that typically comes at the end of a meal, usually consisting of sweet food. The word comes from the French language as dessert and this from Old French desservir, "to clear the table" and "to serve." Common Western desserts include cakes, biscuits,...

". In each round, the chefs are given a basket containing between three and five ingredients, and the dish each competitor prepares must contain each of those ingredients. The ingredients are often ones which are not commonly prepared together. For example, in "Yucca, Watermelon, Tortillas," the episode which originally aired on February 10, 2009, the appetizer course boxes contained watermelon

Watermelon

Watermelon is a vine-like flowering plant originally from southern Africa. Its fruit, which is also called watermelon, is a special kind referred to by botanists as a pepo, a berry which has a thick rind and fleshy center...

, canned sardines

Sardine

Sardines, or pilchards, are several types of small, oily fish related to herrings, family Clupeidae. Sardines are named after the Mediterranean island of Sardinia, around which they were once abundant....

, pepper jack cheese, and zucchini

Zucchini

The zucchini is a summer squash which often grows to nearly a meter in length, but which is usually harvested at half that size or less. It is a hybrid of the cucumber. Along with certain other squashes, it belongs to the species Cucurbita pepo. Zucchini can be dark or light green...

.

The competitors are given access to a pantry

Pantry

A pantry is a room where food, provisions or dishes are stored and served in an ancillary capacity to the kitchen. The derivation of the word is from the same source as the Old French term paneterie; that is from pain, the French form of the Latin panis for bread.In a late medieval hall, there were...

 and refrigerator

Refrigerator

A refrigerator is a common household appliance that consists of a thermally insulated compartment and a heat pump that transfers heat from the inside of the fridge to its external environment so that the inside of the fridge is cooled to a temperature below the ambient temperature of the room...

 stocked with a wide variety of other ingredients. Each round has a time limit: twenty minutes for the Appetizer round (thirty minutes in some season one episodes), and thirty minutes for the Entrée and Dessert rounds (some episodes gave the chefs 40 or 45 in the entrée round to allow them to handle whole large poultry, e.g. turkeys, geese, or ducks; another gave the chefs fifty minutes in the dessert round). The chefs must cook their dishes and complete four platings (one for each judge plus one "beauty plate") before time runs out. After each round, the judges critique the dishes based on presentation, taste, and creativity. The judges then decide which chef is "chopped," who is then eliminated from the competition. Thus, by the dessert round, only two chefs remain. When deciding the winner, the judges consider not only the dessert course, but the entire meal presented by each chef as a whole. The winner receives $10,000.

An episode of Chopped takes 12 to 14 hours to tape, with deliberations after each round taking about 90 minutes. While contestants do not know the ingredients ahead of time, they are given a tour of the kitchen at the start of the day and some preparation, such as pre-heating ovens and bringing water to a boil, are done in advance of each round. According to host Ted Allen, the show "was originally meant to be taped at some guy’s mansion with him and his crazy Chihuahua. A stuffy fellow in a tuxedo

Tuxedo

A tuxedo is a type of semi-formal dress for men.Tuxedo may also refer to:-Places:Canada* Tuxedo, Winnipeg, Manitoba, a city neighborhood** Tuxedo , a provincial electoral district in Manitoba...

 was to host, and the losing chef’s dish was then fed to the dog...it was too much for Food Network."

Chopped Champions

Starting September 8, 2009, and continuing for three additional episodes, Food Network aired the "Chopped Champions Event", wherein 13 past winners returned and faced off against each other (four per episode) to retain their title of Chopped Champion. The winner of an episode in the event earned an additional $10,000, and the winners of the first three episodes moved on to the next episode to face a new set of three previous champions.

Starting August 31, 2010, and continuing for four additional episodes, Food Network aired the "$50,000 Tournament". Sixteen past champions competed. The winners of the first four episodes competed against each other in the "Grand Finale" for the $50,000 prize

Prize

A prize is an award to be given to a person or a group of people to recognise and reward actions or achievements. Official prizes often involve monetary rewards as well as the fame that comes with them...

. The winner was Madison Cowan, Chef and Caterer, Avenue Inc, New York, NY.

Starting March 6, 2011, and continuing for four additional episodes, Food Network aired the "All-Stars Tournament". Sixteen chefs competed. The first four episodes featured four types of chef: The Next Food Network Star

The Next Food Network Star

The Next Food Network Star is a reality television series produced by and aired on the Food Network in the United States that awards the winner his or her own series on the Food Network...

contestants, Food Network celebrities, celebrity chefs, and Chopped judges, respectively. The winners of those four episodes then competed against each other in the "Grand Finale", where the winner received $50,000 to donate to a charity of his or her choice. Nate Appleman, a celebrity chef, won the competition and donated his $50,000 to Kawasaki Disease

Kawasaki disease

Kawasaki disease , also known as Kawasaki syndrome, lymph node syndrome and mucocutaneous lymph node syndrome, is an autoimmune disease in which the medium-sized blood vessels throughout the body become inflamed. It is largely seen in children under five years of age...

 research, a disease from which his son suffered.

Starting August 30, 2011, and continuing for four additional episodes, Food Network aired another "$50,000 Tournament", due to the popularity the first competition had. 16 new past champions competed. The winner was Danielle Saunders, a private chef from New York, NY.

Judges

Judges	Seasons
	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9
Alex Guarnaschelli	♦	♦	♦	♦	♦	♦	♦	♦	♦
Geoffrey Zakarian Geoffrey Zakarian Geoffrey Zakarian is a chef, restaurateur and author.Zakarian began his culinary career at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York...	♦	♦	♦	♦	♦	♦	♦	♦	♦
Marc Murphy Marc Murphy (chef) Marc Murphy is an executive chef, restaurateur and television food personality.-Early career:Murphy attended school at The Institute of Culinary Education and he started as a line cook at Prix Fixe in New York. By the mid 1990s, he was a sous-chef at Layla in New York and in 1996 became the...	♦	♦	♦	♦	♦	♦	♦	♦	♦
Amanda Freitag Amanda Freitag Amanda Freitag is a New York chef and frequent guest on Food Network television programming.-Early career:Following graduation from the Culinary Institute of America in 1993, Freitag took a position at Vong New York working under chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten. In 1994, she left Vong to cook at...	♦	♦	♦	♦	♦	♦	♦	♦	♦
Aarón Sánchez Aarón Sanchez Aarón Sanchez is an American chef, the executive chef and part-owner of the restaurant Centrico. He has appeared on Iron Chef America, and is one of the few chefs whose battles have ended in a draw, tying with Masaharu Morimoto in "Battle Black Bass" in Season 2...	♦	♦	♦	♦	♦	♦	♦	♦	♦
Chris Santos Chris Santos Chris Santos is a renowned New York City chef and the Executive Chef and owner of perennial Lower East Side hotspot and celebrity haunt The Stanton Social. In late 2010, he opened Beauty & Essex, a 250-seat, restaurant in the heart of the lower east side...	♦	♦	♦	♦	♦	♦	♦		♦
Scott Conant Scott Conant Scott Conant is an American chef, restaurateur, food personality, and cookbook author.-Personal history:Conant was born in Waterbury, Connecticut. Scott is of Italian descent on his mother's side. He began cooking at a young age, taking cooking classes at the local community college at age 11...	♦	♦	♦	♦		♦			♦
Jody Williams Jody Williams (chef) Jody Williams is an American chef and television personality.-Early life:Raised in California, Williams came to appreciate food service by assisting customers at her father's hot dog stand in Fisherman's Wharf, San Francisco...		♦	♦	♦
Sue Torres Sue Torres Sue Torres is an American chef and television personality.-Early career:Torres studied at the Culinary Institute of America where upon graduation, she worked as a sous-chef at Arizona 206 under chef Miles Angelo. It was during this time she claims she discovered her love for chiles...			♦		♦
Mark Bittman Mark Bittman Mark Bittman is an American food journalist and author. He is columnist for The New York Times.-Education:Bittman is a graduate of Stuyvesant High School Class of 1967 and of Clark University.-Career:...			♦
Josh Capon			♦
Marcus Samuelsson Marcus Samuelsson Marcus Samuelsson is a Swedish chef and co-owner of Aquavit restaurant in New York City and C-House Restaurant, located in the Affinia Hotel in Chicago.-Early life and career:...				♦	♦	♦			♦
Maneet Chauhan						♦	♦		♦
Ken Oringer							♦
Zakary Pelaccio								♦
Susan Feniger Susan Feniger Susan Feniger is an award-winning American chef, restaurateur, cookbook author, and radio and TV personality considered to be a leading authority on Latin cuisine in the United States.-Restaurants:...									♦
Seamus Mullen									♦
Sam Kass									♦

Series overview

Season		Episodes	Premiere	Finale
	1	13
	2	13
	3	13
	4	13
	5	13
	6	12
	7	10
	8	6
	9	TBA