Chef John revisits the best 11 recipes from Food Wishes in 2024! From comforting classics like Italian Marinated Grilled Cheese and Hot Water Cornbread to innovative twists like Baked Burger Dogs and Cheeseburger Garbage Bread, these recipes are sure to inspire your inner chef. Whether you're craving something savory, sweet, or a bit of both, there's a dish here to make your food wishes come true.
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00:00:00Hello, this is Chef John from foodwishes.com with something extra special for you.
00:00:07It's the best recipes of 2024. That's right, from viral sensations to classics with a twist,
00:00:15these are the recipes that broke the internet and stole our hearts. Or at least that's what
00:00:20this copy says. So grab your aprons and loosen your belts because this year's lineup is tastier
00:00:26than ever. And as always, enjoy. Cheeseburger garbage bread. That's right. We used to call
00:00:34these things stromboli, but apparently that didn't sound appetizing enough. So they changed the name
00:00:40to garbage bread. But no matter what you call this, it is absolutely perfect for when you're
00:00:45having a party and also when you're not having a party. And to get started, we will add some
00:00:50sliced up bacon to a cold dry pan. And then we'll set our heat to medium and we will cook it until
00:00:56that fat renders out and our bacon gets nice and crispy. And a great visual clue to look for is
00:01:02when those pieces of bacon start to look foamy. All right, can you see all those little bubbles
00:01:06on the surface of the meat? That means just about all the fat is rendered out and we're probably
00:01:11close to being done. And once we do decide our bacon's cooked long enough, we will pull that
00:01:16off the heat and pour it on a paper towel lined plate. And we will let that drain and set it aside
00:01:22until we need it later. But do not wipe out the pan since we're going to put that back on medium
00:01:27high heat and we'll transfer in our diced onions along with a nice big pinch of salt. And we will
00:01:33cook those stirring in that little bit of bacon fat for about three or four minutes or until those
00:01:39onions soften up and start to take on a little bit of color. And I'm using red, but you use any color
00:01:45onion you want. And then what we'll do once our onions are looking a little something like this,
00:01:50is stop and add one pound of ground beef. And once that's in there, we'll take the edge of our spatula
00:01:56or in my case, spoonula, and we'll break that meat up into small crumbles, but not too tiny.
00:02:02We do want to preserve a little bit of burgery texture. And besides breaking the meat up, we're
00:02:07also letting it brown a little bit, which is going to help improve the flavor and the appearance.
00:02:12And while that's happening, we can go ahead and season this up with some kosher salt,
00:02:17some freshly ground black pepper, as well as two or three shakes of cayenne. And then we will finish
00:02:23up with a few dashes of Worcestershire sauce. And we'll stir that in. And since salt always draws out
00:02:29moisture, don't be surprised after adding that stuff that this mixture gets a little bit juicy
00:02:34looking. Right, that's totally normal and nothing to worry about since all we need to do is continue
00:02:40to cook this until that moisture evaporates and our pan dries out. And once that happens and our
00:02:46meat mixture looks like this, we will turn off the heat and we will transfer our cooked bacon back in,
00:02:52followed by some classic cheeseburger ingredients, which would be a spoon of Dijon mustard,
00:02:57plus a generous squirt of ketchup. And then last but not least, half our cheddar cheese,
00:03:03which we've grated up ourselves. And with the heat off, we'll go ahead and stir everything together.
00:03:08And I'm using sharp cheddar here, because that's what I like on my cheeseburgers.
00:03:12But if you like a different cheese on yours, put whatever you want. I mean, you are after all the
00:03:17Chef Johnny Cash of this edible trash. Okay, Swiss, American, Monterey Jack would all be fine choices.
00:03:25And that's it. Once everything's been mixed in, we will let that cool down to room temp before we use
00:03:29it. Or if we're making it ahead, we can pop it in the fridge until we need it. Although this is a
00:03:35little harder to work with cold, and you'll have to crumble it up. But either way, once our filling's
00:03:40done, we'll move on to rolling out some pizza dough, which we'll do on a floured surface.
00:03:45And after pressing that out a little bit with our hands, we'll switch to a rolling pin.
00:03:49And we'll attempt to roll this out into a rectangle, or anything close to the shape of a
00:03:54rectangle, that's about 10 by 15 inches. And yes, this works perfectly with ready-to-use pizza dough
00:04:00from the store. Or if you want to make it from scratch, we have about 10 different videos for
00:04:04different versions. And the good news is, no matter which one you choose, it will work perfectly for
00:04:09this. Oh, and don't forget our rolling out pizza dough tip. If it's too elastic, and it keeps shrinking
00:04:15back when you roll it, just let it rest for a few minutes in between rollings. And eventually, it
00:04:20will relax, and you should be able to roll it out nice and thin. And as usual, once we get close to
00:04:26the size we want, we will stop rolling. And we will do the final shaping and stretching with our hands.
00:04:31And of course, I could have got this into a perfect rectangle shape.
00:04:35But I wanted to demo that even if it's not perfect, it's going to work perfectly for this.
00:04:40And then once our pizza dough has been rectangled, we'll go ahead and transfer on our cooled filling.
00:04:45But we don't want to go all the way to the edge. So we'll leave about an inch to an inch and a half
00:04:50on both ends, and the side closest to us. And for the edge furthest away from us, we'll want to
00:04:55leave at least a few inches uncovered. And once we have that transferred on as evenly as possible,
00:05:01we will sprinkle over any of our other optional cheeseburger ingredients. Which for me was some
00:05:06chopped up dill pickles, followed by a scattering of green onions. And then once that's on, we'll
00:05:11finish up with the other half of our cheese. And of course, jokes aside, the real reason this is
00:05:16called garbage bread, is that it's usually made with stuff from the fridge, that would otherwise
00:05:20end up in the garbage. So when you're making one of these, make sure you peek in the fridge
00:05:25to see if there's anything else you might want to use. But regardless of what extras you end up
00:05:29putting on, once we're done with the filling and we've tidied things up, we'll take a little bit
00:05:34of water on the tips of our fingers, and we will moisten that dough all the way along that far edge.
00:05:40And once we've done that, we'll take the excess dough on the sides, and we'll fold that up over.
00:05:45Since we're going to make every effort to prevent our filling from coming out the ends.
00:05:50And that's it. We can now start rolling this up from the bottom. And as we do this, we're
00:05:55concentrating on two things. Okay, we want to roll this up tightly, without having to stretch the dough.
00:06:01Otherwise, it's going to get too thin and basically dissolve. And then the other thing, as we roll,
00:06:07we want to make sure that dough on the sides is staying sealed. So like I said, we don't have any
00:06:11filling coming out. And once we get close to where we're trying to get, it's always good to stop and
00:06:16stretch that dough out with your fingers, so that we're able to get a nice secure seal. And of course,
00:06:22we always want to end up with a seam on the bottom. And then once that's been accomplished,
00:06:27we'll go ahead and clean off our surface, so we don't get too much flour on the bottom of our pan.
00:06:33And then we will very slowly and carefully transfer that onto the sheet pan,
00:06:37which as you can see, has been lined with parchment. And once that's been successfully
00:06:41transferred on, we will double check those ends are nicely sealed, plus any other fine tuning we
00:06:46think we need to do. And then before this goes in the oven, we'll go ahead and brush it with some
00:06:51melted butter, which is going to help this brown up beautifully. Plus, I don't know about you, but I
00:06:57do like my cheeseburgers served on a nice buttery bun. So I think flavor-wise it works as well.
00:07:04And then speaking of burger buns, I decided to finish up by sprinkling over some sesame seeds.
00:07:09Except I forgot one thing. If you want to stick on sesame seeds, you really need to use an egg wash.
00:07:15And you can see exactly why when we try to cut this. So stay tuned for that. But either way,
00:07:22this is now ready to transfer into the center of a 375 degree oven for about 35 minutes,
00:07:28or until it's beautifully browned and it hopefully looks like this. Oh yeah, you know what that
00:07:35doesn't look like? Garbage. And then pretty much as soon as this comes out, I like to transfer it
00:07:40onto a cooling rack where we will let it sit and cool and set up for at least 20 minutes or so.
00:07:47All right, for me the ideal temperature to serve this would be just barely warm or at room temp,
00:07:52which is why it's so perfect for a party. But once that has cooled down, we'll go ahead and grab a
00:07:57knife and slice in. And because we use butter and not an egg wash, those sesame seeds are going to
00:08:04be flying everywhere, which may or may not bother you. And if they don't, great, because the butter
00:08:09is really good. But if they do, go ahead and use an egg wash instead. And if everything goes according
00:08:15to plan, we should be seeing a perfect spiral of filling. And because we took our time and properly
00:08:21browned the meat, we have a very attractive color and not some ugly pale gray. And as you can see,
00:08:27if you've cooked it long enough, that bottom should be nicely browned as well. And then I
00:08:32would have no problem eating this as is, but we should probably upgrade with some secret sauce,
00:08:37which is just mayo, mustard and ketchup, with maybe some minced up dill pickles and green
00:08:41onions stirred in. And yes, I'll give you those ingredients in the written recipe.
00:08:46And that my friends, not surprisingly, tastes exactly like a bacon cheeseburger with all the
00:08:51fixins. Italian marinated grilled cheese! That's right, by briefly marinating our cheese and
00:08:58include a few things we might find in an antipasto, we can easily create a new and amazing twist on
00:09:04the classic. And don't worry, even though this is based on a recipe that went viral on social
00:09:09media, it is not stupid. In fact, it's very smart and incredibly delicious. And to get started,
00:09:16of course, we're going to need some cheese. And I'm going to use three kinds. Some Monterey Jack.
00:09:21We'll also do some cheddar, as well as a slice of provolone. Plus, to make things even more
00:09:27interesting, our sandwich will also include some pickled peppers in the form of pepperoncini,
00:09:32which will pair with some roasted red pepper, as well as some beautifully briny pitted green olives.
00:09:38And please double check they're pitted, since the ones with pits make a terrible sandwich.
00:09:43But anyway, that's going to be it for the inside. Now let's get to the outside,
00:09:47which will be a couple nice thick slices of Italian or French bread. And I decided to go
00:09:52with a seeded sourdough, but anything that looks like this and is about this size is going to work
00:09:57beautifully. And as you well know, to get a slightly bigger slice, if you cut the bread at
00:10:01an angle, you're going to get a longer piece. Right, that is just basic geometry. And once we
00:10:07have the inside and the outside to our sandwich prepped, we will whip up a very quick simple
00:10:12Italian dressing, which will start with some freshly minced garlic, followed by a little
00:10:17splash of white wine vinegar, or I think any vinegar would work. We will also, of course,
00:10:21need some olive oil, at which point we'll spice this up with some freshly ground black pepper,
00:10:27some chili flakes, and I used Aleppo instead of Italian, because they don't have any seeds.
00:10:33And then speaking of Italian, I'm going to put a nice big pinch of dry Italian herbs,
00:10:37and that's it. We'll simply take a whisk and give this a mix.
00:10:41And by the way, if you don't have a pre-mixed Italian herb blend, you can just do your own
00:10:45with a pinch of basil, and a pinch of marjoram, and oregano, and rosemary. All right, you know
00:10:51the ones. And then once our dressing is nicely mixed, we can go ahead and start grating in our
00:10:56cheese. Oh yeah, I said grate in, not slice in, which is how it's supposed to be done, according
00:11:02to many social media influencers. But I think by grating it, we're going to be able to do a much
00:11:07faster marination. And also, I think the texture of the final sandwich is far superior. So we will
00:11:13grate in our cheddar and Monterey Jack, which I like to refer to as mozzarella with flavor.
00:11:19And then because the provolone came in a slice, we'll just go ahead and break that up in quarters
00:11:24before we give this all a quick mix, which I like to do before we add our diced veggies,
00:11:29or whatever else we're going to throw in here. All right, there's going to be a little bit of
00:11:32moisture on those things, which might cause the grated cheese to clump up. So let's make sure
00:11:37we have that dressing mixed in nice and evenly before we move on to that step. And that's it.
00:11:41Once we do, we can mix in the rest of the ingredients, at which point if we're starving,
00:11:46we could just go ahead and build our sandwich and grill it. But this is called a marinated
00:11:50grilled cheese after all. So we should probably wrap this and toss it in the fridge for at least
00:11:5515 minutes. Although of course, you can go longer if you want. And in case you're keeping score at
00:12:00home, I refrigerated mine for 30 minutes before I pulled it out and started piling it up on my bread.
00:12:07And we're going to want to start with our sliced provolone first, so that we know we're going to
00:12:11have some nice even distribution. Oh yeah, every bite should have a little bit of provolone.
00:12:17And once that's been placed down, we'll use a spoon to transfer over the rest.
00:12:21And as you can see, I went vegetarian with this one. But if you did want to include some Italian
00:12:25meats, that would be fine. I mean, you are after all the Chef Giovanni of whether to add some
00:12:30salami. But if you do, be careful, because that can and will dominate the flavor profile.
00:12:37But anyway, no matter what you use, once we have everything transferred on and tucked in,
00:12:42we will add a generous amount of olive oil to a skillet, set over medium heat. And then we'll
00:12:47carefully transfer our marinated cheese sandwich in. And then we'll add a little more olive oil
00:12:52to the top. Since really, the only way to screw up a grilled cheese sandwich is to not use enough
00:12:57fat to fry it in. So whether you're going to use olive oil or butter, make sure you use a lot.
00:13:03And then from here, I think most of you know exactly what to do. We will let that first
00:13:07side brown and crustify nicely before we flip it over. Oh, and pro tip, always flip a grilled
00:13:14cheese over towards the flat side. All right, if you flip it over towards the rounded side,
00:13:18quite often those pieces of bread will separate, and cheese will spill out, and you will have what
00:13:23we call in the business a situation. All right, there's a very old saying I just made up.
00:13:29If you want it great, flip it towards the straight. Oh, and if you use a nice open crumb bread like I
00:13:34did, because our cheese mixture has lots of moisture, as our cheese heats up and liquefies,
00:13:39all that goodness kind of melts between the holes and then caramelizes on the surface,
00:13:44which makes an already incredible crust even more incredible. Which reminds me, one of our first
00:13:48viral videos ever was something called Inside Out Grilled Cheese, where we put cheese on the outside
00:13:54of the bread also. Well, this actually kind of reminded me of that. Which believe you me, is a
00:13:59very good thing. But anyway, once we're very happy with how that's been grilled on both sides,
00:14:05we'll go ahead and remove that to a cutting board, and we will slice in. And while I do, let's listen in.
00:14:17Oh yeah, that sounds exactly how we want it to sound. And I know when we were building this,
00:14:22you were thinking that was too much cheese. But as you can now hopefully see here,
00:14:26I believe it was the perfect ratio. But anyway, it looked, felt, and smelled amazing. French fries
00:14:32a la sassina! That's right, we're making Assassin's French fries, which are inspired by one of Italy's
00:14:39most unusual and most delicious pasta recipes. And just like spaghetti a la sassina, these spicy and
00:14:46very addictive baked French fries really are to die for. And to get started, what we'll do is
00:14:52transfer about three tablespoons of tomato paste into a large, very experienced mixing bowl.
00:14:57And pro tip, when you buy tomato paste, look for the tubes and not the little cans,
00:15:02since we almost never use a whole can, and the tube is so much more convenient.
00:15:07And then besides the tomato paste, we're also going to need some olive oil,
00:15:11and a fairly generous amount. And then just like the famous spaghetti, we're going to add a ton of
00:15:16red chili flakes. I know that is a lot, but this is supposed to be really spicy, which is why we're
00:15:23also going to add some cayenne. And then next up, we'll do garlic in two forms. We'll do a good
00:15:28amount of freshly minced garlic, plus a little bit of dried granulated garlic, which is going to add
00:15:34to the savoriness. And of course, that's a very common ingredient in seasoned fries. And then
00:15:40speaking of seasoning, we'll finish up with some freshly ground black pepper, as well as a nice big
00:15:45pinch of salt, at which point we'll take a whisk and mix this enthusiastically for about a minute,
00:15:52or until everything's beautifully combined. And once that's been accomplished, we will stop,
00:15:57and we will add one pound of frozen crinkle-cut french fries, which I think we should add by hand,
00:16:03instead of just dumping the bag in the bowl, since quite often there's a bunch of ice chunks in the
00:16:08bag, which we do not, under any circumstances, want in here. Plus, as we're adding them in like this,
00:16:14we can break up any french fries that are stuck together. And that is definitely something we want
00:16:19to avoid, since what we'll do next is take a spatula, and we will toss these fries until every
00:16:25side of every fry is perfectly and evenly coated. And if we have a bunch that are sticking together,
00:16:31that cannot happen. And we really, really need that to happen. And once we're pretty sure it has,
00:16:38we will stop and grab some parmesan, and we'll use a microplane to grate some into the bowl.
00:16:44And once that surface is nicely dusted, we will take our spatula and mix that in,
00:16:49at which point we'll stop and repeat the whole process, for a grand total of two cheesings.
00:16:54And yes, I do realize taking a piece of cheese and rubbing it against a grater for a few seconds is
00:16:59a tremendous amount of work, but we have to do it. Not just because I want you to use real parmigiano
00:17:05reggiano, but more importantly, the pre-grated parmesan is not nearly fine enough to stick to
00:17:10these fries. So, if you want these to be really great, you have to really grate. And that's it.
00:17:16Once our parmesan has been applied, we will transfer that onto a parchment lined baking
00:17:21sheet, and then we'll use our hands or a pair of tongs to space those out as evenly as we can.
00:17:27Oh, and by the way, if you're offended by the thought of using frozen french fries,
00:17:31and you want to make fries from scratch, go ahead. I mean, you are, after all, the Michael Grady
00:17:36of thinking using frozen fries is shady. But good luck getting those crinkle cuts,
00:17:42which as you'll see, are absolutely perfect for this preparation.
00:17:45And in case you're wondering, Michael Grady is the name of my friend who gave me the idea for this.
00:17:50But anyway, like I said, we'll space those as evenly as possible, and once they're arranged
00:17:54to our liking, we will finish this up with one last dusting of parmesan. And I was going to say
00:18:00this is optional, but it's not. All right, it's not mandatory, but it is not optional.
00:18:06And that's it. Once our fries have gotten that final application of cheese,
00:18:10they're ready to transfer into the center of a 450 degree oven for about 30 to 35 minutes,
00:18:17or until, believe it or not, they're partially charred in spots and look like this. Oh yeah,
00:18:23that is what they're supposed to look like. In fact, if I wasn't filming this and having to
00:18:27take pictures, I might have gotten even a few more minutes, so that they were even darker and
00:18:31more charred and more crustified. But these were looking just about perfect, and I couldn't resist
00:18:37going in for a taste. Although I'll save the nice ones for the plate, and I'll eat some of the small
00:18:42little nubby ones. And if you're wondering why we want to cook these until they're partially charred,
00:18:46as soon as you take that first taste, it will all make sense. Since when we char and caramelize
00:18:51tomato paste, which is already super savory, it gets even more intensely so. And when you
00:18:57combine that with those sweet and sour elements, and of course all that hot pepper, you have
00:19:01something that's just off the charts flavorful. And then for best results, we do want to serve
00:19:06these hot, so I'm going to go ahead and transfer these onto a plate. And then to finish up, I
00:19:10decided to do a little grating of parmesan over the top, followed by a sprinkling of freshly
00:19:15chopped Italian parsley. And that's it, our french fries a la Sassina are ready to enjoy.
00:19:22Greek beef stuffed onions. That's right, I've stuffed a lot of things. Cabbage, peppers, squash,
00:19:30my face, but I've never stuffed onions. And what follows is what I thought was a very delicious
00:19:36first attempt. And to get started, the first thing I did was add half my ground beef to a skillet set
00:19:42over medium-high heat, in which I'd added a generous amount of olive oil. And I had two main goals here.
00:19:49One was to break the meat up into nice small crumbles, and then I also wanted to get a little
00:19:53bit of browning happening on the beef. And the reason I'm doing this with only half my meat,
00:19:58is because I wanted to try something new. Okay, I usually prefer the texture of a stuffing when raw
00:20:02beef is used, but stuffings made with beef that's brown first actually do have more flavor. So I'm
00:20:08always torn between which way to go. So I decided to combine raw and cooked, just to see what would
00:20:14happen. And we will cover that later, but for now, once our beef is browned, we can go ahead
00:20:19and add some diced onion, along with some freshly ground black pepper, some salt of course, followed
00:20:25by a few shakes of cayenne. And what we'll do is cook that stirring for a few minutes, until our
00:20:30onions start to turn translucent, and maybe start to take on a little bit of golden brown color.
00:20:35And once things are looking a little something like this, we can toss in our next set of
00:20:39ingredients, which includes a whole bunch of minced garlic, a generous spoon of dried oregano,
00:20:45followed by a couple tablespoons of tomato paste. And what we want to do is stir all this together,
00:20:50and we will keep stirring until every piece of onion and crumble of beef is coated in that
00:20:54tomato paste. At which point, we'll let it cook for a minute or two, or until our mixture looks
00:20:59like this. And once it does, we will stop and toss in some raw rice, which for me is basmati,
00:21:06but I think any long grain rice would work, or really any rice for that matter. And what we'll
00:21:11do is give that a thorough mix, since we want all those grains of rice to be coated with the olive
00:21:15oil, and that rendered beef fat, and any and all other goodness in the pan. And once we feel that's
00:21:21happened, we will stop and add a splash of red wine vinegar, as well as a cup or so of chicken broth.
00:21:28And we'll reduce our heat to medium, and then we will cook this stirring, until our rice has
00:21:32absorbed all the liquid. And by the way, this part was also an experiment for me.
00:21:37Okay, when I do things like cabbage rolls, I almost always use raw rice, since I wanted to
00:21:42absorb the maximum amount of flavor from the other ingredients. But I noticed most of the other
00:21:46recipes for this called for cooked rice, or at least partially cooked rice. So I decided to give
00:21:52it a little bit of a head start here, which theoretically is going to make our stuffed
00:21:55onions take a little less time in the oven. Although as you'll see in here, they still took
00:22:00a very long time. But anyway, like I said, I cooked that until the liquid was absorbed,
00:22:05at which point I turned off the heat, so I could let this cool before adding it to the rest of the
00:22:09filling ingredients. And while we let that cool, let me go ahead and show you how to prep the
00:22:14onions. And for this, I think the best choice is some nice large yellow onions. And what we'll do
00:22:19is slice about an inch off each end. And once that's been accomplished, we will find the exact
00:22:24center of the onion, and with our point of the knife right there, we'll make one cut straight
00:22:28down. And you'll see very soon why this is one of the keys to the whole operation. And that's it.
00:22:34Once cut, we can pull off that papery outside layer. And then I went ahead and did three more
00:22:38exactly the same way, at which point I transferred those into a pot filled with some nice cold
00:22:43fresh water, which of course I generously seasoned with salt. And what we'll do is bring that to a
00:22:49simmer on high heat, at which point we can back it down to medium low, where we'll maintain a
00:22:54nice steady simmer. And we will cook the onions for about 20 to 30 minutes, depending on the size,
00:23:00or until they soften up enough where we can separate the layers. And since that is going to
00:23:05take a little bit of time, while we're waiting, we might as well finish our filling, which we will
00:23:09start by transferring our now cooled beef and rice mixture into a bowl, to which we will add the rest
00:23:14of our beef in its raw form. I also tossed in a little bit of crumbled Greek feta, which is not
00:23:20traditional, but I figured how is that not going to be good? And then I finished up with a handful
00:23:25of freshly chopped herbs, and I went with the Greek holy trinity of parsley, oregano, and mint,
00:23:31at which point we'll take a spoon and give this a thorough mix. And if you thought rosemary was in
00:23:36the holy trinity of Greek herbs, no, that is actually part of the holy quartet. Although
00:23:41having said that, a little bit of rosemary in here would have been fine. So go ahead and add some if
00:23:45you want. I mean you are, after all, the Zeus of your herb use. But either way, once that's mixed,
00:23:51we'll keep that in the fridge until we need it. And then we'll head back to the stove to check
00:23:56our onions, which like I said, we need soft enough to separate the layers. And I guess you could,
00:24:01if you want, poke these with a knife, or test them with a skewer. But I could see separation happening,
00:24:07and they felt soft enough, so I pulled them out. Oh, and then very important, do not discard the
00:24:12water. Since what we'll do with that is transfer four cups into a saucepan, and along with a few
00:24:17cups of tomato sauce, and maybe some chicken bouillon paste, this will be the liquid we add
00:24:22to our baking dish, in which we're going to be cooking our stuffed onions. And all we need to do
00:24:27to this, is bring it up to a simmer on high, and then reduce our heat to low, and keep it hot until
00:24:33we need it. And that's it. Once our onions are cool enough to handle, we will pull out our filling,
00:24:38and get to stuffing. And of course the pieces in the center are probably going to be too small for
00:24:43this, but we can save that stuff to use in like a hundred other things. And then instinctively,
00:24:48I figured I should use the longest biggest pieces, which in hindsight might have been a mistake,
00:24:53because once I eventually transferred in a couple heaping tablespoons of our filling,
00:24:57and then rolled it up, because it overlapped itself, I ended up with like a double layer of
00:25:02onion, which I guess wasn't a big problem. But I do think that's a reason these took longer to
00:25:07cook than I thought. But also, and maybe more importantly, if you use nice big onions like I did,
00:25:12those big outer layers are going to be more fibrous. And even after cooking these for a really
00:25:17long time, after everything was tender, the surface of those outside pieces, believe it or not,
00:25:22actually retained a little bit of firmness. So what I'm trying to say is, you only need enough
00:25:27onion to cover the filling. And to do that, we're probably better off using the middle pieces,
00:25:32which are going to be plenty long enough, and probably a little more tender.
00:25:36But anyway, like I said, this was my first time, so I knew going in I was going to learn a few things.
00:25:42And by learn a few things, I mean make a few mistakes. But anyway, eventually I ran out of
00:25:47filling after rolling up 18, at which point I transferred those into my largest baking dish.
00:25:53And yes, as you can see, I ended up tearing up those inside pieces, and laying those in the
00:25:57bottom for a little extra onion action. And that's it, we'll transfer in our cooking liquid that we
00:26:02put together earlier, which I probably could have just poured in instead of ladling. But as usual,
00:26:08I was scared to mess up my perfect rows and columns. And then for whatever reason, I decided
00:26:12to transfer this onto a sheet pan, just in case anything bubbles over. And then after that, I
00:26:18placed over a piece of foil, since I think we want to cook this covered for at least the first hour.
00:26:24And that's it, I went ahead and transferred that into the center of a 375 degree oven,
00:26:29where we will cook until our rice is perfectly tender. And like I said, I did the first hour
00:26:34covered, and then pulled out the foil. And I was thinking it would only take me like another 30
00:26:39minutes uncovered, but I wasn't even close. Okay, my rice was not actually tender until after the
00:26:45two hour mark, at which point it looked like this. Which I thought was totally worth the wait,
00:26:51since if you're asking me, these things are gorgeous. But to make them even more beautiful,
00:26:56and to give them a little bit of a glisten, I went ahead and drizzled these with olive oil,
00:27:00and then eventually finished them off with another pinch of herb. And after letting them rest for
00:27:05about 10 minutes, which was not easy, I went ahead and served one up and sliced in for the
00:27:09official taste. And yes, my 20 year old steak knife is super dull, but also as I mentioned earlier,
00:27:15the outside surface still retains a little bit of firmness, which didn't ruin anything. It just
00:27:21prevented me from getting that perfect slicing shot, where the knife goes through like a hot
00:27:25blade through butter. But anyway, 99% of the onion was sweet and tender, and very, very delicious,
00:27:32and the filling was absolutely outstanding. Okay, I think my trick of browning half the
00:27:37meat really worked, which by the way is not really even an extra step, since we have to
00:27:42saute the onions and pre-cook the rice a little bit anyway. Speaking of which, to cut some cooking
00:27:47time down, next time I'll probably add more stock to the rice when we pre-cook it, so that it's
00:27:52actually starting to get tender when it goes into the stuffing. Since while these really were
00:27:56phenomenal, two plus hours cooking time is a little much. But anyway, that's it. My take on Salon Turmasi.
00:28:04Chicken Lisone! That's right, this creamy Cajun spice chicken dish has to be one of the easiest
00:28:11recipes we've ever posted. Okay, there's no slicing, there's no dicing, or any actual prep at all,
00:28:17but despite being so simple, this really is incredibly delicious, and seems kind of fancy.
00:28:23Plus, never underestimate the power of a fun-to-say recipe name. So with that, let's go ahead and get
00:28:28started by mixing up our Cajun spice blend, which for me is going to include some smoked paprika,
00:28:34or regular paprika. We will also do some chili powder. Plus, to warm things up, a little bit of
00:28:41cayenne. And then we'll finish up with some freshly ground black pepper, as well as some
00:28:46onion powder. And then last but not least, some garlic powder. And once everything's in there,
00:28:52we'll take a spoon and give this a mix. And no, we did not forget the salt. Since after this is
00:28:58mixed, we're going to apply that directly to our boneless skinless chicken breasts, which I have
00:29:03four of right here. And what we'll do is salt this generously on both sides, before we apply our spice
00:29:09blend. And the reason I prefer this technique, is because we can see and feel exactly how much
00:29:14salt's getting onto the meat. Whereas if we mix it into the spice blend, sometimes it's harder to
00:29:19control. So I prefer to season the chicken like this first, and then once sufficiently salted,
00:29:25we can go ahead and apply our spices to both sides. But we are only going to use about half
00:29:29the amount we mixed up, which is still going to be plenty to give us a generous coating.
00:29:35And then what we'll do is save the other half to use when we make our sauce. And then once our
00:29:39breasts are salted and seasoned, we can start cooking right away. But for something a little
00:29:44more flavorful, I do like to wrap this and pop it in the fridge for a few hours, just to give our
00:29:49chicken a little bit of time to absorb all that goodness. Which if we wanted, we could do as long
00:29:54as overnight. But generally, I think just an hour or two is fine. So I did pop mine in the fridge
00:30:00until I was ready to cook. And then once we are, what we'll do is pan fry that on both sides,
00:30:06in a little bit of vegetable oil, set over medium-high heat. And you don't have to,
00:30:12but I find a nonstick pan is a little safer bet here. And what we'll do is give that first side
00:30:17about four minutes, before we go ahead and turn those over. And then we'll give the other side
00:30:22about the same. And contrary to what some folks will tell you, boneless skinless chicken breasts
00:30:27cook pretty fast. So after about four minutes per side, our chicken's going to be almost, but not
00:30:32quite cooked all the way through. Which is perfect, because what we'll do is finish it by simmering it
00:30:38in the sauce that we're just about to make. So what we'll do once that second side has been seared,
00:30:43is turn off the heat, and we'll remove that chicken to a plate for a few minutes, while we build our
00:30:49sauce. And that will start by dumping the rest of our spices into the pan. And we'll give that a
00:30:54quick stir, and let it cook for about 30 seconds, just to sort of wake up those flavors a little bit.
00:31:01And yes, even though the pan was off, it's still very, very hot. So we're only going to cook that
00:31:06for about 30 seconds, before we squeeze in the juice of half a lemon. Which, by the way, is not
00:31:11in the original recipe, but I really do think it helps balance the richness of the sauce. And at
00:31:17this point, we can turn our heat back on to medium-high, and we can add our cream. Plus, we'll
00:31:22rinse out the cup we used for that, with about a third of a cup of water, and we will add that in
00:31:27as well. And while our sauce comes back to a simmer, we'll take a spoon, and we'll give everything a
00:31:32nice stir, making sure we're scraping any caramelized goodness off the bottom of the pan.
00:31:38And we'll check for final seasoning later, but I do like to stir in a pinch of salt now.
00:31:43And then once our sauce is simmering, we can reduce our heat to medium-low,
00:31:47and we will transfer our chicken back in, along with, of course, any accumulated juices.
00:31:53Right, don't forget those! In fact, in New Orleans, where this recipe is from, it is actually illegal
00:31:59to throw those away. Or so I assume. And then all we have to do to finish this shockingly simple
00:32:05recipe, is simply simmer these breasts gently in the sauce for a few more minutes per side,
00:32:10or until they're safely cooked through. And how long exactly that's going to take, depends on
00:32:15how big your chicken breasts were, and how far they cook when you seared both sides. But it's
00:32:21probably going to happen faster than you think, so I would start checking after a few minutes per side.
00:32:26And by the way, if your sauce looks like it's getting too thick as you're doing this,
00:32:30don't be afraid to add a little splash of water or chicken broth. Or cream, I guess,
00:32:34if you want this extra rich. So keep an eye on that, and adjust if need be. I mean, you are,
00:32:40after all, the Gandalf of making this as good as Chef LaZone Randolph, who yes, invented this dish,
00:32:47hence the name. But anyway, once our chickens cook long enough, we will reduce our heat to low,
00:32:53and we will toss in some freshly sliced green onions, trying to get those mostly into the sauce.
00:32:59And then you will never guess how we're going to finish this dish, unless of course you've been to
00:33:03New Orleans, in which case it's very easy to guess. And that would be by stirring in some
00:33:08chunks of butter. And what we'll do is use a spoon, along with giving the pan the old shake-a-shake-a.
00:33:15And we will blend that butter in, and baste it over our chicken. Oh, and as I do that, I want
00:33:22to tell you about a very interesting optical illusion you're going to see here. All right,
00:33:25as you can see, the sauce is a very beautiful sort of creamy rust color. But if you let that sit,
00:33:31that vegetable oil that we seared the chicken in will actually come to the surface, and give
00:33:36everything a deeper redder color, which disappears as soon as you stir things in.
00:33:41So it's not like a problem, but I did want to call your attention to it, just so you don't
00:33:45think you did anything wrong. But anyway, once our sauce has been buttered, and our chicken's been
00:33:50basted, we can turn off the heat, since this is now ready to serve. Although of course, we really
00:33:56do want to taste for seasoning. And if yours is good, and mine was, we can pull that off the heat,
00:34:03and then finish very simply, with another scattering of freshly sliced green onions
00:34:07over the top. And that's it! Our chicken lisone is ready to enjoy. Oh, and as I grab some tongs
00:34:14to serve one of these chicken breasts up, you will get a great look at what I was just talking about,
00:34:19regarding this taking on a beautiful brick red color, which really is gorgeous. But like I said,
00:34:25it's kind of a mirage, and we can see that true sauce color below. But anyway, like I said,
00:34:31just give it a stir before you spoon it over, and you'll be fine. And I'm going to do exactly
00:34:36that, and spoon some over this chicken, so I can grab a fork and knife, and go in for the official
00:34:41taste. And that my friends, for something that took such little effort, and like zero prep,
00:34:48and no knife work, is so rich, and satisfying, and intensely delicious, that if you're new to
00:34:53cooking, you're going to be shocked you made it. Amish beef and noodles! That's right, as a little
00:35:00kid, I always got excited when I heard the grown-ups talking about traveling to Amish country,
00:35:05since I knew that meant they'd be bringing back all kinds of amazing pies and breads.
00:35:09But what I wish they had brought back is this. And if you're looking for a bowl of comforting,
00:35:14satisfying goodness, this should be the next thing you make. And to get started, we'll cut up some
00:35:19beef chuck, which comes from the shoulder, and is perfect because it has lots of connective tissue,
00:35:24which makes it perfect for braising and stewing. And what we'll do is cut this up into pieces,
00:35:29ideally somewhere between one and two inches in size. All right, you pick, but no matter the exact
00:35:35size, try to get them as uniform as you can. And we definitely don't have to trim the fat off,
00:35:41but if I do get to a large solid piece of fat, I generally will remove it. But I would probably
00:35:46err on the side of not trimming enough, versus trimming too much. And once our beef is cut up,
00:35:52we'll go ahead and season it by sprinkling over a mixture of kosher salt, and some freshly ground
00:35:57black pepper. And we'll give that a thorough tossing, and a little bit of a massage on the
00:36:02cutting board. And by the way, my rule of thumb for something like this is one teaspoon of kosher
00:36:07salt per pound of meat. And while we'll definitely taste and adjust later, that's going to get us
00:36:12very close to the perfect amount. And then once that's set, we can head to the stove, where we
00:36:17have a dutch oven placed over high heat, in which we've drizzled a little bit of vegetable oil.
00:36:22And what we need to do here is brown this meat very well, which is why I'm going to do it in
00:36:26two batches, so as not to crowd it. And we want to make sure we don't turn that meat until it has
00:36:32a very nice brown crust on it. Alright, whenever we're doing simple recipes like this, that only
00:36:37include a few ingredients, it is absolutely critical that we use the proper techniques.
00:36:42And getting a beautiful brown crust on these pieces of beef is one of those techniques. And
00:36:47if everything's gone according to plan, we should have a beautiful fond on the bottom of our dutch
00:36:52oven, which as you probably know is all that caramelized goodness created when we browned meat.
00:36:57So like I said, I did that in two batches. And once the second side of the second batch is done,
00:37:03we'll turn off the heat, and we'll set that beef aside and reserve it until needed.
00:37:08And what we'll do is toss in a chunk of butter, and we'll turn our heat back on to medium high,
00:37:12and we will toss in a very generous amount of sliced onions, along with another pinch of salt.
00:37:18And we will cook this stirring for about five minutes or so, or until the onions soften up and
00:37:23start to turn golden. And once we feel like that's happened, we'll toss in a couple tablespoons of
00:37:28flour, and we will cook that stirring for a couple minutes. And while this amount of flour is really
00:37:34not going to make for a thick sauce, it will add a little bit of body to the broth. And by the time
00:37:39we're done, as you'll see, we should have a perfect, not too thick, not too thin texture.
00:37:44And that's it. Once we've cooked our flour for a few minutes, we will stop and toss in some garlic
00:37:49powder, as well as one generous spoon of beef bouillon paste. And then we'll finish up by
00:37:54pouring in the best beef broth, or beef bone broth we can find. And we will give that a stir,
00:38:01and then wait for it to come to a boil, at which point we'll transfer our beef in, along with any
00:38:06accumulated juices. And if you're wondering when we're going to put in all the other ingredients,
00:38:11we're not. Right, this really is a ridiculously simple dish, which as I'll discuss later, is kind
00:38:17of the secret. But anyway, once our beef is transferred in, we will reduce our heat to low,
00:38:22and cover this. And then let it simmer gently for a couple hours, or until the meat is very,
00:38:28very tender, but not quite falling apart. And of course, the exact time will depend on how small
00:38:34you cut your beef, but don't go by time, go by testing. And once we've tested it, and determined
00:38:40our beef is tender enough, we'll go ahead and use a slotted spoon, or one of these spider web strainers,
00:38:46and we'll remove the beef to a bowl, since our next step is to boil egg noodles right in this broth.
00:38:52And generally, it's not a great idea to boil beef that's already perfectly cooked.
00:38:57So let's go ahead and turn our heat up to high, and because our noodles are going to absorb a lot
00:39:01of this broth, it's probably not a bad idea to add a little more in. So we'll pour that in, and wait
00:39:07for this to come up to a boil on high heat. And once it does, we will add our noodles, and give
00:39:12this a stir. And it probably wouldn't be a bad idea to cover this as the noodles cook, but I don't,
00:39:18and I think if you keep stirring, you're going to be fine. And depending on the brand, this is going
00:39:23to take about seven minutes to cook tender. And it's fine if you go the full time, but when I
00:39:28think this is about 30 seconds away from perfection, what we'll do is add our beef back in, and give
00:39:33everything a stir, and then reduce our heat to low. And that's it. Once we have everything stirred
00:39:39together, and we've given that probably still warm beef a minute to heat through, we are definitely
00:39:44going to want to give it a taste. To not just double check our noodles are tender, but since
00:39:48we added some extra broth, we might need to season it up again. But I'm happy to report mine was
00:39:54perfect, so I went ahead and served up. And as far as garnishing goes, my Amish culinary sources tell
00:40:01me a generous sprinkling of freshly ground black pepper is traditional, but I was in kind of a
00:40:06reckless flamboyant mood, so I also added a few freshly sliced green onions. And that's it, my
00:40:12take on Amish beef and noodles was ready to enjoy. Baked burger dogs! That's right, the cookout got
00:40:20rained out, and now you're all stuck inside. But it's all right, because I'm going to show you how
00:40:25to make hot dog shaped burgers that we bake in the oven, which I think are really going to impress
00:40:30your guests, as well as probably confuse your kids. And to get started, we're going to take the finest
00:40:35freshest ground beef you can find, and we're going to season it with some salt, as well as some
00:40:40freshly ground black pepper, plus a little pinch of garlic powder. No, not garlic salt, garlic powder.
00:40:48And we'll also add a few dashes of Worcestershire sauce, which has been making beef taste beefier
00:40:54since 1837. And no, I was not paid to say that, although I like to be. And then we'll finish up
00:41:00with three things I love to have with my burgers, which would be some red onion, some pickle, both of
00:41:06which have been diced up nice and small. And then finally, a generous handful of grated cheddar cheese,
00:41:13which yes, we will grate ourselves, since we're not big fans of cellulose powder that coats the
00:41:18stuff pre-grated at the store. So unless you're part termite, do it yourself. And once everything's
00:41:24in the bowl, we'll take a fork and give that a thorough mixing. And while it might take an extra
00:41:29minute, I like this method because there's less chance of overworking the meat, which might cause
00:41:33it to be tough and rubbery. But no matter how you combine everything together, once we're sure
00:41:38everything's been thoroughly and evenly mixed, we will head over and start stuffing eight standard
00:41:42hot dog buns. All right, just the good old-fashioned white bread kind. All right, we don't want anything
00:41:48nutritious or high fiber. We have to eat that stuff the rest of the year. And what we'll do is dampen
00:41:53our hands with a little bit of water, so the meat doesn't stick to our fingers. And we'll divide our
00:41:58ground beef into eight portions, and we will shape that on the bottom half of the bun. And we're
00:42:04trying to work the meat the minimum amount possible to get the shape we want, which simply means
00:42:09something uniform that covers the bread. And we definitely want to try to get all the way to the
00:42:13ends, since there will be shrinkage. And then what we'll do once our bun's been beefed, is pick it up
00:42:19and give it a little bit of a squeeze, at which point we're going to transfer that into a generously
00:42:24oiled casserole dish. And we want to arrange these with the meat facing straight up, and the seam
00:42:29between the two sides of our bun straight down. And if you use one of these large deep baking dishes,
00:42:35which are normally around 15 by 10 inches, we'll be able to snuggle together eight of these nice
00:42:40and cozy. Oh, and it might seem like an odd choice to put the seam of the bun on the bottom,
00:42:45since that part has the least amount of bread. And the bottom of the pan is where most of the
00:42:48juices are going to accumulate. And it might seem like we're asking for trouble, since that part
00:42:52might get soggy. Well, you know what? That's what I was hoping for. Since these kind of buns usually
00:42:57fall apart if you just breathe on them, I figured that thin seam part was going to get soggy anyway.
00:43:02So, I was hoping by placing that at the bottom, the other 90% of the bun would toast up beautifully.
00:43:08Which is pretty much what happened. In part, thanks to this next step, where we brush the
00:43:12buns with a little bit of oil or melted butter. And once we've brushed that on any and all exposed
00:43:17areas of the bun, we will top these with a relatively light scattering of grated cheese.
00:43:22Mostly for appearances, I think, since we put plenty of cheese in the meat mix.
00:43:27So, I don't think we need too much here. But of course, you decide. I mean, you are after all
00:43:32the Jay Wellington wimpy of whether this much cheese is a little skimpy. But I thought it ended
00:43:37up being the perfect amount. And that's it. Once these are cheesed, they are ready to transfer into
00:43:43the center of a 450 degree oven for about 25 minutes, or until our buns are golden brown and
00:43:49they look like this. Oh yeah, now those are some nice looking baked burger dogs. And that's it.
00:43:56In real life, just start passing these out, attempting to explain exactly what they are.
00:44:01But since I always have to take a few pictures first, I decided to garnish with a little bit
00:44:05of mustard. Yellow, of course. And then after the mustard, I ketchuped. And of course, if we do a
00:44:12straight line of mustard, we have to top that with a curvy line of ketchup, since they should not and
00:44:18cannot be the same. Right, it is just not done. And then I finished up with a little bit of sliced
00:44:24green onion, just for a little extra spot of color. And that's it. Our big burger dogs are ready to
00:44:30enjoy. Chicken pot pie pasta. That's right, I'm making one of my all-time favorite comfort foods,
00:44:37which is a baked pasta casserole, that tastes like one of my other favorite comfort foods,
00:44:42chicken pot pie. And for a first attempt, this came out incredibly well. And no matter how relaxed
00:44:48and happy you already are, after you eat this, you're going to feel even better. And to get
00:44:52started, the first thing we'll do is pull the meat off a roasted chicken, which could be home roasted,
00:44:58or we can just grab a rotisserie chicken from the market. And we don't need to pull off all the
00:45:02meat. We are only going to pull off what I like to call the easy meat, which is basically those large
00:45:08chunks of breast meat, plus the easy to pull off meat around the thighs and leg. And sure, we could
00:45:14spend an extra 5 or 10 minutes getting every last little scrap, but we don't want to, because once
00:45:19we spend a couple minutes pulling off those nice big pieces, we will simply transfer that into the
00:45:23fridge until we need it. And then we'll take the bones and whatever meat is left in all those nooks
00:45:28and crannies, and we will transfer that into some nice cold fresh water. And besides a bay leaf,
00:45:33we don't need to add anything else. Oh, and a quick tip. Before you add the bones to the water,
00:45:39it's probably a good idea to break that carcass apart a little bit. Okay, since I didn't do that,
00:45:43I had to use the tongs once it was in, which did eventually work, but it's also a really good way
00:45:49to get splashed in the face with cold chicken water, which unless you're into that kind of
00:45:53thing, is not recommended. But anyway, once everything is submerged, we will bring that to a
00:45:58simmer on high heat, at which point we can reduce our heat to low. And then we'll simmer this gently
00:46:03for a couple hours, after which we will have a beautiful homemade chicken broth, which we'll use
00:46:08to form the base of our sauce. And yes, technically this is optional, and you could just use some
00:46:13broth from a carton, but this is so easy, and we already have the bones, so why not? But anyway,
00:46:19our stock is done, and we'll simply turn that off and let it cool before we strain it. And we can
00:46:24move on to what's going to basically be a chicken pot pie filling, which we'll start by melting an
00:46:29entire stick of butter over medium-high heat in a pot, to which we will add our diced onion,
00:46:34as well as some cut up carrot and celery. And besides tossing in our salt, what we'll do is
00:46:40cook this stirring for about five minutes or so, or until our onions start to soften and turn
00:46:44translucent. And once it looks like that started to happen, we can season this up with some freshly
00:46:50ground black pepper, a little bit of dry thyme, some garlic powder, and then last but not least,
00:46:56a few shakes of cayenne, just to help ward off the evil spirits. And once we stir that in and let it
00:47:02cook for another minute or so, we will transfer in some all-purpose flour, and we'll go ahead and stir
00:47:08that in, and we'll cook what's basically a roux, R-O-U-X, for I'd say about three or four minutes,
00:47:15or until that flour starts sticking and kind of toasting to the bottom of the pan.
00:47:19And it's totally fine if it gets a little bit golden brown, but we don't want it to get too dark,
00:47:24which can cause an off flavor if it goes too far. So we will keep an eye on that. And once we have
00:47:30cooked our roux-coated vegetables for a few minutes, we can go ahead and add in six cups of our reserve
00:47:35broth, and we will stir that in, making sure we're scraping off any of that goodness from the bottom
00:47:40of the pan. And what we'll do is raise our heat to high, since we want this to come up to a simmer.
00:47:46And while we wait, we're going to sneak in one secret ingredient, which is a nice heaping spoon
00:47:51of chicken bouillon paste, and that's just going to give us a little deeper flavor. Since we're not
00:47:56just eating this stuff straight, we're going to be using it to flavor an entire pound of pasta,
00:48:01so we do need this to be very flavorful and highly seasoned at this point.
00:48:05So we'll go ahead and stir that in, and wait for this to start to simmer. And when it does,
00:48:10as with all roux-based sauces, you will see this start to thicken up. And once this mixture does
00:48:15start to simmer, we can lower our heat to medium, and we can toss in some nice fresh English peas,
00:48:21or some thawed frozen peas, which will work fine. And we will also toss in a small splash of cream,
00:48:27and we'll give that one more stir, before letting this cook on medium, stirring occasionally,
00:48:33for about 10 minutes. So that's what I did, and about 10 minutes later, it looked like this.
00:48:39And no, it's not going to be very thick, which is good, since again, we're going to bake this
00:48:43with a pound of pasta. And then to finish this off, we will chop up our reserved chicken into
00:48:49about a half inch to one inch size pieces, and we will stir that in, and we'll cook this for
00:48:54another five minutes or so. At which point, besides giving it a taste for seasoning,
00:48:58our chicken pot pie mixture is pretty much ready to use. And we can just reserve that for a few
00:49:03minutes, while we move on to cook our pasta, which as usual, we'll do in some very well-salted boiling
00:49:09water, for one minute less than the package directions. And I decided to go with a pound
00:49:14of shell-shaped pasta, for two very, very good reasons. First of all, this shape is going to
00:49:20be perfect, to catch and hold on to all that sauce, and bits of vegetable, and pieces of chicken.
00:49:25But also, because chicken come from shells. Oh yeah, it's true, look it up. But really,
00:49:31a pound of any kind of open-shaped pasta will work, so if you feel like using something else,
00:49:36go ahead. I mean, you are, after all, the ray gun of how this should be done. And speaking of
00:49:41busting a move, while we wait for the pasta to cook, we can go ahead and mix up our buttered
00:49:46bread crumbs. And all we need to do for that, is add a little bit of salt to our bread crumbs,
00:49:52along with lots of melted butter. And then we'll simply stir that together, until we assume every
00:49:57single bread crumb is coated with butter. And I do prefer to use the panko style crumbs,
00:50:02since they're just larger, and will bake up a little crunchier. And then once that's mixed,
00:50:07we'll just set it aside, and we'll go back and check our pasta. And like I said, we'll cook one
00:50:12minute less than the package directions. And then what we'll do, is drain those very, very well,
00:50:17and then transfer it into our chicken pot pie mixture. And we'll stir everything together,
00:50:21until evenly combined. And I realize this looks very soupy now, but that's exactly how we want
00:50:27it. Because by the time this bakes, that pasta is going to absorb a lot of moisture, and we're
00:50:32eventually going to end up with what I think is the perfect texture. And that's it. Once mixed,
00:50:38we can transfer this into a nice large four and a half quart casserole dish.
00:50:42And I'm going to use a ladle to do this, so I don't splash it everywhere.
00:50:46Okay, in a restaurant, I would have just poured that in with reckless abandon.
00:50:49Not caring too much about making a mess. But at home, unfortunately, I have to be a little more
00:50:54careful. But anyway, once we have almost everything transferred in, and we've used a spoon to
00:51:00distribute all the ingredients as evenly as we can, we'll go ahead and top that with our buttered
00:51:04bread crumbs. And once we do have those transferred on top, I think we should take the tip of the
00:51:09spoon, and give the surface the old polka polka, just to push a little bit of that crumb into the
00:51:15surface. All right, for these kind of crumb toppings, I always think it's a good idea if
00:51:20the top's not too smooth. And that's it. This is now ready to transfer into the center of a 375
00:51:27degree oven, for about 45 to 60 minutes, or until our casserole is bubbling around the edge,
00:51:33and our crumb topping is golden brown. And it looks like this. Old-fashioned fried hot water
00:51:40cornbread. That's right, when I started researching this recipe, I saw people calling it the most
00:51:46southern of all the southern cornbreads, which I didn't really understand. But then I started
00:51:51making it, and it actually made sense. And it is definitely my favorite new way to eat cornbread.
00:51:58And to get started, we will mix up our dry ingredients, which of course will include
00:52:02some cornmeal. And we're supposed to use finely ground, but after some testing, I decided I
00:52:07preferred the texture of the medium grind, but either works. And then to that, we will add some
00:52:13all-purpose flour, a little bit of sugar, some salt of course, and then we'll finish up with
00:52:19some baking powder, which is definitely not the same thing as baking soda. So double check you
00:52:25got the right one. And that's it. Once everything's in, we'll take a whisk, and we will whisk,
00:52:31and we will keep whisking until everything's thoroughly combined, at which point we'll stop
00:52:35and pour in the star of the show, some very, very hot water, as in water I've brought to a simmer
00:52:41in a tea kettle. And for two cups of cornmeal, I find about a cup and a half of water to be perfect,
00:52:48although this really does vary recipe to recipe. All right, some use less for a stiffer dough,
00:52:53whereas some use a lot more, and they actually have to spoon this into the hot oil like a batter.
00:52:58But either way, we'll go ahead and take a spoon and carefully mix this all together,
00:53:02starting very slowly at first, so you don't splash out the water and burn yourself,
00:53:07and also throw off your measurements. And once we do have this all thoroughly and thoughtfully mixed,
00:53:13while this is still warm, we'll toss in the last ingredient, which is an optional chunk of butter,
00:53:18and we'll go ahead and mix that until it disappears. And no, not everybody likes to add
00:53:23fat to this dough, or if they do, they'll use something like bacon grease, or lard, or if you're
00:53:29one of these bearded hipster chefs, maybe some duck fat. But anyway, you decide. I mean, you are
00:53:35after all the valeries of making this with more calories, but either way, once we have everything
00:53:41mixed up, we'll go ahead and divide this into eight equal portions. And for that, I like to use
00:53:46this ice cream scoop, which is fast and easy, and a good way to keep these all nice and uniform,
00:53:53plus since we're already starting with a nice round shape, it's going to give us a head start,
00:53:57as we eventually form these into patties. Oh, and that parchment paper you see on the pan,
00:54:02is not just to make cleanup easier. As you'll see, that's going to make it easier to pick these up
00:54:06once they're chilled. But before we pop these in the fridge, we'll go ahead and give them their
00:54:10final shape. And to do that, we simply lay a piece of plastic over the top, and then we'll lightly
00:54:16press these down until they're about three quarters to an inch thick. And then the final
00:54:20step here would be to smooth out the tops, just so these fry nice and evenly, and have a little
00:54:26more of a uniform look. So that's exactly what I did, before I popped them in the fridge for about
00:54:31an hour, which is going to allow them to firm up a little bit. Although I should mention, you can
00:54:36transfer the dough right from the bowl to the fryer, which is how a lot of people do it. But
00:54:40I've tried it both ways, and find this works out a little bit better. And that's it. With the help
00:54:45of the parchment paper, we will flip these over onto our hand, and then we'll head to the stove
00:54:50and transfer this into some 350 degree oil. But not directly, that's too dangerous. I recommend we
00:54:57use a spatula to lower that into the hot fat, which I probably should have oiled first to make
00:55:01it slide off easier. But anyway, no matter what method you use, as long as you don't burn yourself,
00:55:07you did it right. And unless you lay these on top of each other, you should not have a problem with
00:55:12them sticking together. But to hedge our bets, we can always poke around with the edge of the spatula
00:55:16to make sure. And that's it. We'll simply fry these for about three minutes per side,
00:55:21or until they've cooked through and browned up beautifully. And yes, of course, because I'm
00:55:26filming, one of them decided to puff up, due to some kind of air pocket in the middle, which did
00:55:32not happen to any of the other ones, or in any of the test batches. But anyway, I can't even pretend
00:55:38to be concerned. Oh, and in case you're wondering, yes, you can totally shallow fry these in like
00:55:43just a half inch of oil, which I did for one batch and it worked out fine. But any time we deep fry,
00:55:49the more oil we have, the easier things are going to be. And that's it. After giving the second side
00:55:54about three minutes, I went ahead and transferred those onto a rack, at which point I fried up the
00:55:59other four. And as you can see, every single one is the exact same shape and size, except for those
00:56:06couple that aren't. But as they probably say in the South, close enough for cornbread. And then it
00:56:12wasn't easy, but I let those cool for about 10 minutes, before I broke one open to go in for the
00:56:18official taste. And yes, I picked the puffy one, which was still perfectly fine and had a beautiful
00:56:24crumb. And that my friends, is a very memorable cornbread experience. Okay, the taste is very
00:56:31familiar, but having that crusty, sort of crispy exterior surrounding the cornbread, makes for
00:56:36something that's new and exciting. Korean Spicy Chicken Rice Noodle Bake. That's right, this isn't
00:56:43just my favorite new spicy chicken recipe, it's also my new favorite way to cook rice noodles.
00:56:49Or should I say, not cook rice noodles. Since that was the key here, which might sound a little
00:56:54confusing, but all will be revealed. And all you need to understand for now, is that this was
00:57:00incredibly delicious and very easy. And to get started, what we'll do is add some minced ginger
00:57:06and some finely minced or crushed garlic to a mixing bowl, over which I'm going to pour some
00:57:10rice vinegar. And when we start these marinades, I like the acid from the vinegar to touch the ginger,
00:57:16since it deactivates an enzyme that can make your meat mushy. So we'll pour that in and let it sit
00:57:21for a few seconds, while we go grab some soy sauce, and we'll pour some of that in. And then we'll also
00:57:28need to add a little bit of salt, as well as some brown sugar, but not too much, because the next
00:57:34ingredient is a little bit sweet. And that would be some good old-fashioned American ketchup,
00:57:39or as the Italian server in Rome described it to me, American sauce. And then once that's been
00:57:45transferred in, we'll also want to add some sesame oil, followed by the star of the show,
00:57:50two or three tablespoons of Korean chili paste, also known as gochujang. And by the way, this
00:57:56brand was kind of medium spicy. Okay, some are mild, and some are insanely hot, so you may want to give
00:58:02it a taste first, before you decide how much to put in. I mean, you are after all the Chef John,
00:58:08of how much gochujang. And of course, you can always add more and adjust later. But anyway, once our
00:58:14marinade ingredients are in there, we'll take a whisk and give this a mix. And once we have that
00:58:19thoroughly combined, we will stop, and we will transfer in our pieces of chicken, which for me
00:58:24are going to be some boneless, skinless chicken thighs, which are by far the best choice for this.
00:58:30Okay, we can use breast, but those are so much easier to accidentally dry out and overcook.
00:58:36And please notice, we're adding these in, we're giving them a good toss back and forth,
00:58:40to make sure that marinade is getting into every nook and cranny. Since as you know,
00:58:44boneless chicken thighs are famous for their nooks and crannies. And that's it. Once our chicken's
00:58:49been summarily slathered, I like to put a piece of plastic over the top, and transfer this into
00:58:54the fridge, so we can let it marinate anywhere between one and eight hours. Okay, we can leave
00:59:00this overnight, but a short marinade seems to work out just as well. And if you're keeping
00:59:05score at home, I only did mine for one hour. But no matter how long we go, once we're ready,
00:59:11we will prep our baking dish by pouring in a little bit of sesame oil, and we will brush
00:59:15that all over the bottom, before we transfer in eight ounces of dry, uncooked rice vermicelli
00:59:23noodles, which are also sometimes sold as angel hair. And make sure you're using the rice noodles
00:59:29for this, and not a wheat-based noodle, since with this technique they're going to have a completely
00:59:33different texture. And what we'll do is kind of pull those apart, and break off pieces if need be,
00:59:39so we can pretty much cover the bottom as evenly as we can. Okay, it is tempting to just lay those
00:59:45in, and not do the breaking and separating, since as you work with this, little pieces of dry rice
00:59:50noodle are going to be flying all over. But I do think it's worth the extra effort, and that little
00:59:55bit of a mess, to create a nice even uniform base for our chicken. But before we chicken, we're gonna
01:00:02mushroom. And I'm going to be using these maitake mushrooms, which speaking of chicken, are
01:00:07coincidentally called hen-of-the-woods. Okay, apparently whoever discovered these, thought they
01:00:12looked like a hen sitting on a nest, which makes you wonder if maybe they were on another kind of
01:00:16mushroom. But anyway, we'll break those up, and scatter them over. And yes, of course just some
01:00:22regular sliced mushrooms will work. And then after the mushrooms, we'll do the exact same thing with
01:00:27some sliced fresno chilies, or of course the sweet or hot peppers of your choice. And then after the
01:00:33chilies, we'll do the same thing with some freshly sliced green onions. And besides the marinade for
01:00:38our chicken, it's the moisture in these mushrooms, and onions, and peppers, that are going to hydrate
01:00:43these dry noodles when they bake. And besides giving us a perfect texture, they are going to be
01:00:49way, way more flavorful than rice noodles that have just absorbed water, which is what happens if you
01:00:54boil them first. And that's it. Once whatever else we're using has been scattered over, we'll go ahead
01:00:59and transfer over our chicken, which I like to do with the smooth side up. And you'll also notice as
01:01:05I'm placing these on, any thinner and or ragged edges have been folded underneath. And that's so
01:01:11these thighs cook nice and evenly. Not to mention probably look better. But having said that, you
01:01:17could place those on any which way you want, and this is still going to come out amazingly well.
01:01:22And then once our chicken's been placed down as shown, we'll go ahead and spoon over any of that
01:01:26extra marinade from the bowl. And we'll apply that as evenly as we can over the top of each piece.
01:01:32And a spoon is going to do a pretty good job of getting most of that marinade out of the bowl.
01:01:36But it's not going to get all of it, and we really, really want all of it.
01:01:40So what we'll do, since we were going to add it anyway, we will pour some chicken broth into the
01:01:45bowl. And then we'll grab a whisk or spoon, and we'll give that a stir, so that we're getting
01:01:49everything off the sides. And then once that's been accomplished, we will pour that into the
01:01:54bottom of our dish, being very careful to avoid the chicken pieces, so that we don't rinse off
01:02:00that marinade that's sitting on top of the thighs. And I did a really good job of that, until the last
01:02:06second, when I lost my concentration. And you can see what happens, which is really not a big deal.
01:02:12Just don't do that to all of them. But anyway, we will finish up with one more generous sprinkling
01:02:18of green onions over the top, at which point this is ready to transfer into the center of a 425
01:02:24degree oven, for about 30 to 35 minutes, or until our chicken is cooked through. And it looks like
01:02:31this! I know, that does look like one of the most delicious things you've ever seen. But let's go
01:02:37ahead and make it look even more beautiful, by sprinkling down some toasted sesame seeds, followed
01:02:43by a few more freshly sliced green onions. And in a few moments, I'm going to show you how to finish
01:02:48this properly, by dressing this with a little bit of rice vinegar and sesame oil, and giving it a
01:02:53toss. But this looked and smelled so good, I had to go in for a little taste first. And as incredibly
01:02:59tasty and flavorful as that chicken is, our now perfectly cooked rice noodles are just as amazing.
01:03:05But I know what you're thinking. Those look kind of dry. I would want more sauce. Well, you actually
01:03:11don't. I'm going to explain all that in a few minutes. But for now, what we want to do, once this
01:03:16comes out of the oven, is remove the chicken to a plate, at which point we'll use some tongs, with maybe
01:03:22the help of a fork, and we will toss our rice noodles with everything else left in the dish.
01:03:28And once we do, I like to address this very simply, with a generous splash of rice vinegar,
01:03:33and or if we wanted, we could do some citrus juice. Okay, some lemon and lime would definitely work in
01:03:38this. And then besides the vinegar, we'll also want to do a generous drizzle of sesame oil,
01:03:44at which point we'll give everything one final thorough tossing. Oh, and if you were just thinking,
01:03:49I would have doubled the marinade ingredients, and doubled the amount of chicken broth,
01:03:53so that we'd have something much saucier. Well, you could do that, but the noodles would not come
01:03:58out as good. All right, I did a bunch of tests, and the less moisture you use, the better the noodles
01:04:03come out. And even though maybe it doesn't look like it, the noodles are not dry at all, and they
01:04:09are extremely, extremely flavorful. And that's it. Once we're happy with our noodles, we'll go ahead
01:04:15and plate some up, and we'll top that with a piece of chicken, with maybe a few more sesame seeds,
01:04:20and green onions. And that, my friends, despite not being all saucy, is so intensely delicious,
01:04:27and flavorful, and satisfying, that any thoughts you had before you serve this, that it might need
01:04:32more of this, or more of that, will totally fade away. And you'll realize, this is exactly how
01:04:38you're supposed to eat it. The ultimate cowboy caviar! That's right, caviar doesn't always come
01:04:45from fish. Sometimes it comes from Texas. But fair warning, this gorgeous crab pleaser is very
01:04:52addictive, and once you start eating, it's hard to stop. In fact, I've seen people at a party look at
01:04:57a bowl of this, and say, I wish I knew how to quit you. But you know what, they can't. It's too good.
01:05:05So with that, let's go ahead and get started with our dressing, which for me includes some avocado
01:05:09oil, to which I'm going to add some rice vinegar, plus the juice of one large lime. And I think
01:05:16avocado oil is a great choice here, but any neutral vegetable oil will work. And yes, it is true that
01:05:22most cowboy caviar recipes just tell you to toss in some store-bought Italian dressing. But we're
01:05:27doing the ultimate cowboy caviar. So we're going to take a couple extra minutes, and make this from
01:05:32scratch. So we can add things like freshly minced garlic, plus a little bit of garlic powder. Oh
01:05:38yeah, garlic in two forms. One for fresh intensity, and one for that subtle savoriness. And then we'll
01:05:45season this up with some salt, as well as a little touch of sugar, followed by some ground cumin,
01:05:51some smoked paprika, and then last but not least, a little bit of ground chipotle,
01:05:56for that irresistible smoky heat. And that's going to be pretty much it for this very simple dressing.
01:06:03And sure, if you just like the people coming over to eat this, some bottled Italian salad dressing
01:06:07from the store is probably fine. But if you love them, a custom-designed dressing like this is
01:06:12going to be so, so much better. And once we have that mixed up, we can start adding our caviar
01:06:18ingredients, beginning with the peppers. And besides the dressing, another reason we're calling this the
01:06:24ultimate cowboy caviar, is because we're using peppers in three different forms. Okay, I like to
01:06:29combine fresh peppers, like this anaheim and beautiful bells, as well as some roasted peppers,
01:06:36plus some kind of pickled peppers, which I have here in the form of jalapeno. And before we toss
01:06:42those in the bowl, let me give you a great time-saving tip for cutting your peppers.
01:06:46If you cut off the ends like this, and set those aside, and then you simply stand the pepper up on
01:06:51its end, and cut straight down, just slicing off the good parts, everything is going to be simpler.
01:06:58And what we're doing here is creating these nice flat square pieces of pepper, which are then very
01:07:02simple and easy to cut into strips, and then turn and cut into a nice neat dice. Okay, what takes
01:07:08people without great knife skills the most time, is cutting all those curvaceous parts. So what I do
01:07:13is not cut those. You know what I do with those? I eat them. Those make a delicious, refreshing,
01:07:19and pretty good-for-you snack as you work. All right, if you want to take the extra time and
01:07:23slice those parts up too, feel free. I mean, you are, after all, the Jake Gyllenhaal of this cowboy
01:07:29caviar, y'all. So do it how you want, but that's my system. But anyway, like I said, I'm going to toss in
01:07:37some diced fresh bell pepper, and a little bit of anaheim, plus those sharp, acidic, slightly spicy
01:07:42jalapeno rings, along with those beautiful, soft, bittersweet, roasted red peppers. And then we'll
01:07:48also add some diced red onion, that we should rinse under cold water to remove a lot of the sharpness.
01:07:54And then, as far as I'm concerned, this must include some black beans,
01:07:57plus some black-eyed peas, and both of those have been drained and rinsed. And by the way,
01:08:03if you've never had black-eyed peas, this is the recipe to try them in. And then we'll finish up
01:08:08with some frozen sweet corn, or fresh if you have it. Plus, last but not least, some diced tomato.
01:08:15And that's it. We'll take a spoon and give this a very thorough mix. And you don't have to, but I
01:08:21did take the extra five minutes and slice up some fresh tomato. Alright, most recipes just call for
01:08:26canned, but again, if we're doing the ultimate cowboy caviar, I think we really want to go fresh
01:08:32here, since it will definitely make this taste better. But anyway, what we'll do is give that
01:08:37a very thorough mix, before we wrap it and pop it in the fridge for a few hours. Alright, you can
01:08:43serve this right away if you want, but it's always better if you give those flavors time to mingle,
01:08:48and eventually marry. So, I did pop mine in the fridge for about two hours. And you can, if you
01:08:54want, go as long as overnight. And then, once we pull that out to finish it off, I'm going to dump
01:08:59in a whole bunch of freshly chopped cilantro. And then we'll give that a toss and a taste,
01:09:04since it might be perfect, but it probably won't be. And after sampling, I almost always add
01:09:10another pinch of salt. Oh, and some people do like to add some diced avocado to this,
01:09:15which would be fine, but I feel like they kind of get lost in this.
01:09:19So, I'd probably prefer to save that for guacamole. And that's it. Once that's looking and tasting
01:09:24exactly how we want, we'll go ahead and serve it up in some type of cowboy caviar appropriate bowl.
01:09:31And some folks say to drain this first, since it is going to be very juicy. But I don't. I want
01:09:36those juices in the bowl. Since you're smarter dippers, we'll dig down in and enjoy that element
01:09:42as well. And obviously, we're going to want a lot of crispy corn chips to serve with it.
01:09:47And that's it. What I'm calling the ultimate cowboy caviar, was ready to enjoy!