Amanda realizes that disguising soup as soup might not be a great disguise. Alex decided to make a dish that he's never made before. He explains that has been his philosophy all along, and it's worked out. If by "worked out," you mean, he's skated by and gotten lucky, then fine. He only won the one challenge, and Colicchio has convinced me via his blogs that Alex didn't steal the puree, but still. He's hardly been a standout.

Kelly asks Tiffany if the rice cooker will turn off automatically, and Tiffany says that it will. Tiffany has her own shit to worry about, because she's making a fairly simple dish, and she's worried she will screw up one component and throw the whole dish off. Kelly hears her rice cooker start beeping. She tastes the rice, and it's complete mush. She complains to Tiffany. I'm guessing she put in too much liquid? Because it seemed like the timer was preset, and when I've used rice cookers before and had things go wrong, it's usually because my rice/liquid ratio was off. Anyway, she dumps the rice and worries that she won't have enough time to redo it, because she's used to high-altitude cooking, where it takes an hour to make rice. Tiffany advises her to make it on a stovetop, where it won't take as long, and Kelly does just that. This rice works out, and she starts plating.

Tiffany helps Kelly finish her plating, because she has extra time. Tiffany says that she wants to win by beating someone at their best, not because someone made a stupid mistake like running out of time. I like when they help one another out. Kelly and Angelo are serving first. Angelo is still in a tizzy and claims that he's still not sure about his dish. Their food is served to Leon Panetta and his underlings, along with the judges.

Angelo had Beef Wellington, and he made tartlets topped with slivers of beef. Padma asks if anyone can guess what it is, and Director Panetta immediately knows, making a joke about how poor the disguise was. And then he laughs REALLY hard at his own joke, and the underlings all laugh too, because wouldn't you? Who knows what this dude could have done to you? Panetta thought the dish was salty, and the pastry was hard. Ripert points out that Angelo took a shortcut with the pastry, and beef Wellington should be more challenging.

Kelly had kung pao shrimp, and made spicy shrimp broth with rice and Szechuan shrimp tempura. Wylie immediately knows what it's supposed to be, and Panetta doesn't, and they have a good laugh over Wylie knowing something that Panetta doesn't. A couple of people guess that it's pad thai, but Tom says that it's kung pao shrimp. He thinks the flavors are great, and Wylie admires the disguise, although there was a bit much of the broth. One of the underlings loved the flavors.