A competition where a professional chef

and a mom cook head-to-head, preparing the best dish

possible with one super ingredient.

(upbeat rock music)

Our first competitor is Hannah WIlliams.

- I'm Hannah, I'm a mother of two.

I have a three-year-old and a ten-month-old,

and I'm a home cook, I've been cooking my whole life,

but I've never taken a cooking class.

I used to check out recipe books

from the library and bookmark them,

do my nighttime reading, so I'm hoping

that that helps me out in this competition.

I really wanna win today

because I want to make my kids proud.

When I left the house this morning,

my three-year-old told me that I was a very good cookie

and I think that meant "cook."

He might of just meant "cookie"

but if I can come home and tell him that I cooked

something delicious, he's gonna be so proud of me.

- And competing against Hannah

is Professional Chef Steven Fretz.

- What's up, guys?

I'm Chef Steven Fretz, I'm executive chef managing partner

of The Church Key here in Los Angeles, California.

I've been cooking something like 21 years.

I come from a higher-end background.

We take on the world cuisine, which we bring

to America and call it modern American cuisine.

I have nine nieces and nephews, I feel like

I have some sort of ability to cook for children.

What would winning Mom vs. Chef mean to me?

Well, bragging rights with my three older sisters, right?

- Welcome, Hannah, Chef Steven.

Today you're gonna be competing

to make the tastiest dish featuring one secret ingredient.

Let me introduce you to our panel of judges.

- Hi, I'm Kai and I'm six years

old and I like playing my drums.

- I'm Justin and I'm nine years old and I like to do acting.

- And your final judge is me.

I'm Andrew, I'm 25 years old, and I like race cars.

So I think it's time to find out

what the secret ingredient is.

So Chefs, whatever you cook today

has to incorporate this secret ingredient.

It is not going to be easy.

Justin, will you do the honors, please?

(suspenseful orchestral music)

(groans)

Guys know what this is?

- It looks like horse poop.

- So, chefs, today your secret ingredient is spinach.

- I was hopin' not to get something green

like broccoli or spinach or something like that.

- Hannah, how do you feel about spinach?

- Well, I've never met a kid who likes it.

- Oh gosh, I don't want that.

(hums)

Chefs, you have 30 minutes to cook your food.

- And your time starts.

- Now.

- Okay.

- Spinach is one of the hardest things

to get into a child, so I'm thinking,

"How can I incorporate this green color?"

My mind immediately goes to one

of my son's obsessions, which is Minecraft.

So I'm gonna make green Creeper Minecraft pancakes

with an egg frittata that is also green

and I'm gonna turn that into a

pixelated tree with a bacon trunk.

- I've never put spinach in a kid dish.

Generally at the restaurant the big faux pas

is putting anything green on the dish.

So what I think I'm gonna do is I think I'm gonna go

with something cheesy like a cheesy alfredo sauce.

Kids love cheesy, they love pasta,

and I think it's a good way to hide the spinach, right?

- So I get my eggs in, I get about a cup of spinach in,

and I get a little bit of milk.

This is gonna be for the frittata,

and I blend the crud out of it until you

can't really see the spinach is in there.

Hoping that I didn't overblend it and this foam goes down.

If it doesn't I'm just gonna have to scrap this whole idea.

- We'll probably just start off

with sauteing the onions and some garlic.

I don't know if kids like garlic

but they're about to get some.

Reduce that down with a little bit of chicken stock.

I think I found some cream and we'll

just mount that with some cheese.

Cut it with some acid from some lemon,

and then hopefully we'll be able to disguise

the spinach the way we need to for the kids.

All right, I'm gonna have a drink of water.

- So the pancakes come off, taste them,

it's a really overpowering taste of spinach

and it's not supposed to taste that way,

and I'm hoping that the judges are not gonna notice.

- Hey, Chefs.

- You have 15 minutes left, so hurry up.

- [Steven] Uh oh.

- [Hannah] I'm just starting.

- How does that taste?

(spits)

- So what's your favorite food?

- Pasta, salmon, broccoli.

- I think my favorite food is steak.

- Oh, I love steak.

- So I'm lookin' over at Hannah

and I notice she had kids and she understands the mindset

of kids and she's putting together this puzzle of a dish.

I thought to myself, "This is actually really smart."

- I hope that they can translate this

as the tree trunk because this is all banking

on the fact that these kids know what Minecraft is.

Now, for the face on this pancake,

I usually use blueberries to make a face.

I go to the pantry and I don't see 'em.

So I grab the chocolate chips.

They're super hard, I hope that the pancake

is warm enough to melt it a little bit.

I'm just all over the place at this point

but it's too late to change my mind.

- As I'm making my dish, I do think

that the kids are gonna enjoy my dish.

I'm feeling fairly confident that

I might have this under control.

What's up, Kai?

- What are you making?

- I'm making a pasta Alfredo sauce with bacon.

We're gonna have spinach.

- I knew it.

- [Steven] And little bit of lemon

and Parmesan cheese. - [Kai] I was smelling bacon

over there.

- [Steven] Yeah, right?

I love bacon, I put bacon on everything.

- Thanks, Chef.

- [Steven] You're welcome. - [Andrew] Hey, Hannah.

- [Hannah] Hey.

- How's it goin'?

- I'm not quite sure what boys this age are into,

but I've heard a lot about Minecraft.

- You know, I don't really know that much about Minecraft,

so I feel like you shoulda catered

toward my likes a little more.

- I feel like you can appreciate themes.

- We'll see if it works.

(chuckles)

- Hey, Chef.

- You have five minutes left.

- Oh boy, I better start plating.

- Start wrappin' up.

- While I'm cooking, I'm thinking about my kids,

I'm thinking about how much they look up to me,

and I'm hoping still that I can make them proud,

but seeing how things are going,

I'm not feeling so good about myself.

- Constantly I'm stirring the sauce

to make sure it doesn't burn right on the hot plates.

Sometimes that direct contact can burn your cheese.

- Smelling Chef Steven's food is really

putting a damper on everything.

So at this point, whatever it is, however it looks,

however it tastes, I just want it to get on the plate.

- [Andrew] Five, four, three, - [Justin] Five, four, three,

two, one. - [Kai] two, one.

Okay, stop working, Chefs, the competition is over.

We will now judge your dishes.

- [Steven] Whew.

- Hannah, can you please describe your dish?

- What I made for you is a Minecraft breakfast.

When I think of spinach, I think of that

bright green color and when I think

of bright green I think of the Creeper

from Minecraft because my son is obsessed with it.

- Do you guys know what Minecraft is?

- Yep.

- I do.

- I have the game.

- Yes.

So, you have a green Creeper pancake

with chocolate chip face and a green egg

and bacon tree that's also like the trees from the game.

And I don't know what kind of toppings you guys like

on your pancakes so I have some melted butter

and syrup and I hope you enjoy it.

- You love eggs?

- Not really, but with salt. - [Andrew] But it's a

green egg.

(groans)

Wow, there's a lot - [Justin] It's really good.

- [Andrew] of spinach in there.

- It tastes like green kale.

It's really good though.

- Do I have a mustache?

- Yeah, you have a little mustache there.

I don't think you disguised the spinach

as much as you thought you would

in the pancakes, but as a spinach bread

kind of thing, it's actually really nice.

- I like the bacon.

- The only thing I didn't really like

was the chocolate chips.

The chocolate and spinach is a little weird combination.

Thank you, Hannah.

- Thank you.

- Chef Steven, can you please tell us about the dish?

- I went with the cheesy goodness of pasta,

so I made a bacon Alfredo sauce with a little bit of garlic,

some onions, a little bit of lemon,

and then a lot of Parmesan cheese, sour cream, and cream.

And then you have your spinach

just at the end, it was folded in.

Please enjoy.

- What about the spinach in there?

It's not as disguised as Hannah's was.

- I could taste a hint of lemon and it's really good.

- It's very tasty.

Honestly, I wish the spinach

was coming through a little more.

- The spinach is not helping the dish.

- Thanks for everything, Chef and Hannah.

- Thanks, guys.

- Thank you. - [Steven] Thank you.

- [Justin] Chef and Hannah, we need a moment to decide.

- So spinach, huh?

What did you think? - [Hannah] Oh my gosh.

Kids are just unpredictable.

- [Steven] You know, I'm not feelin' really good

about what they thought so far.

- I keep thinking back, I should of put less spinach in it,

it still would of been green, and it wouldn't

of tasted so much like spinach.

It's just so rushed. - [Steven] Your point was

to use spinach, you know?

That's what they gave us to use.

I just wanted to make it cheesy, we'll see what happens.

- [Hannah] I feel like it's a total toss-up.

- So who did you think did a better job?

- I think Steve.

- I think Hannah.

Because of the eggs, I didn't really taste

the spinach in it even though I ate it.

- Chef Steven had little bacon bits.

- Yeah, it was very tasty.

- Which one do you think?

- I don't know, they both had good things

and not so good things. - [Kai] I think both.

- [Andrew] Both are good?

- Mmhmm.

- Well, only one can win.

- Let's bring them back in.

- I could see a little bit of hair

sticking out of your nose.