Lisa immediately runs to the kitchen to grab her proteins while the other three head to the table and start gathering produce. Stephanie interviews that during these challenges, she's always had too many ideas in her head so she's trying to simplify. Antonia feels a little overwhelmed at cooking in an unfamiliar kitchen. Lisa familiarizes us with the traditional tostone, where you take a green plantain, smash it, and then fry it. Since I just read an article that said that plantains are often used like potatoes, this makes a lot of sense, but I never would have thought of it because A) I'm not a chef and B) they look like bananas, so I wouldn't think smashing them would work out so well. Richard creates a giant flame ball while turning on a burner, and asks if they just smelled his eyebrows burn off. Everyone chats and chuckles while they dice and slice - the mood seems fairly upbeat and congenial, at least at this point. The cheftestants plate their food and the timer beeps.

Padma and Wilo toast with their glasses of beer as Stephanie walks up with the first plate. Stephanie made tostones with seared tuna and a pork & shrimp fritter with brown butter, lime and basil. Stephanie admits that she's never made tostones before, and Wilo tells her that they're not bad for a first effort. Antonia is next; she made crispy oysters with cilantro-plantain jam and a fried yellow plantain with spicy slaw. Antonia clarifies for Padma that her first dish doesn't contain any plantain other than the jam. Next, Lisa made tostones with pan-roasted duck and mango-papaya salsa and a sweet plantain, red onion and chorizo fritter with chutney slaw. She explains for Wilo that her chutney slaw has kumquats, oranges, spices, and cucumbers. Seems like kind of an odd combination to me, but what do I know from chutney? Other than that chutney is a funny word. Finally, Richard made pork meatballs with ripe plantain sauce and green plantain chips with ripe plantain salsa. Wilo is surprised that Richard is serving raw plantains at all, since apparently that's usually not done.