Only six chefs remained at the start of Wednesday's “Top Chef: Texas,” and with an even number, you knew we’d see some sort of team aspect.

For the Quickfire, they split into teams of two and had 40 minutes to de-shell and devein two pounds of shrimp, make a pound of fettuccine and shuck a crate (sounds like a precise measurement) of corn. With the remaining time, they had to make a dish using those ingredients, with $10,000 going to the winners.

Sarah and Lindsay finished the mise en place phase first and made pasta with corn milk (who knew?), shrimp and tarragon. Ed and Paul forgot to cook their shrimp, so they got this week’s Beverly Memorial Disqualification Award.

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This week we learned the Restaurant Wars hangover cure: one part Charlize Theron, one part Eric “The Ripper” Ripert, one part Padma in a romper, and a dash of product placement.

For the Quickfire, everyone’s favorite subtitled guest judge told the cheftestants they had 30 minutes to create a dish incorporating three random ingredients from a conveyor belt.

It was a completely absurd premise featuring a bunch of junk food, with a few choice seafood ingredients thrown in. The whole thing would’ve been more entertaining if we had seen the nervous interns behind the curtain swapping items on and off the belt as the Benny Hill music played.

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“Top Chef: Texas” took a week off over the holidays so we could snipe and bicker with our relatives uninterrupted.

So on Wednesday night, it was good to be back alone, watching cheftestants snipe and bicker because zomg IT’S RESTUARANT BBQ PIT WARS!!

But before slathering themselves in the age-old Texas tradition, the chefs had an avant-garde Quickfire. Using modern food techniques, they created dishes for Nathan Myhrvold, who just collaborated on the cooking encyclopedia "Modernist Cuisine." So yeah, he’s not impressed by your faux caviar.

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