Chopped: Volume 2

Famous Food Network cooks Ted Allen, Jeff Mauro, Jet Tila and Chris Santos compete with their moms. The mother-son teams strive to carefully crack quail eggs, cook a large fish and find sweet ways to use blood oranges and walnuts.

The chefs give the grill pans a major workout in this special competition. They start with sausage appetizers and face a diminutive veggie in the entree basket. The finalists grill desserts featuring marshmallows and nuts.

The chefs are faced with a spud of some kind in every basket, starting with two potatoes for their appetizers. Then, the entree round gets wild as chili fries end up in a blender and a whole potato finds its way to the deep fryer.

Four fathers join forces with their kids to make their families proud with collaborative dishes. A cookie in the first basket gets a laugh, but the salmon in the entree basket creates problems for the duos.

The chefs take on seafood and boozy veggies in the first round, goat chops in the second round and then finish off with cheese and vegetables in the dessert round.

The chefs make lamb appetizers that include a trendy toast in the first round, while poultry and snap peas are part of the round two challenge. Then they do their best with fruits and a fermented beverage in the dessert round.

The chefs imagine they're making a memorable meal for a backyard party. Burger fixings, minus the beef, force the competitors to get creative in the entree round. Then, a clever centerpiece meets a crunchy snack for dessert.

Four bold female bakers rise to the challenge and try to clinch a $10,000 victory. Challenges include working with flatbread dough, a strong-tasting melon and a final pastry round with marshmallow fluff and lemon balm.

Four bold chefs enter the Chopped Kitchen to face Alton Brown's challenge for a chance to win $50,000. Alton demonstrates the science behind smoking foods, and the chefs are encouraged to infuse every dish with smoky flavor.

Dehydration is the theme for the second battle in Alton's Challenge series. The chefs must make quick use of instant mashed potatoes and scramble to make dehydrated eggs work in a diabolical dessert basket challenge.

The chefs face Alton's molecular gastronomy challenge where they make transparent ravioli, use a modernist method to cook lamb and get perplexed by a cake that looks and tastes like water.

For the fourth battle of Alton's Challenge, Alton Brown demonstrates the mad science of champagne, and the competitors embrace a fermentation theme. A strange, stringy Japanese specialty is the talk of the entree round.

Four challenge champions return to face the ultimate in brainy, zany baskets from Alton Brown that include small fish, strange condiments, oddly presented proteins and a jar of something stinky.