June 5, 2023 • 51 mins
The fan questions keep rolling in and they’re so good we couldn’t let them simmer! Find out what feels he needs to work on in the kitchen. What’s Tyler really like when he’s cooking? All that and more! Plus, Tyler shares an amazing recipe! Come hungry!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's Two Dudes in a Kitchen with Tyler Florence.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
And Wells Adams, an iHeartRadio podcast. All right, everyone, hope
you're hungry. It's time for another episode of Two Dudes
in a Kitchen. I'm Wells Adams alongside Tyler Florence. How
are you, man, I'm good, buddy, how are you? I'm
really good. I'm excited for today's episode because we've done
one like this before and it's done well, and it's
one of these episodes where I feel like I learn
(00:24):
the most at the end of the day is how
all we're really trying to do is make me happy,
and today's episode is going to make me very happy.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
We have so many amazing fans since we started the podcast,
and everybody chimes in with questions, and man do we
love it because we want to give our listeners exactly
what they want to know from Two Dudes in a
Kitchen and sometimes, you know, there's the bells and whistles,
we have really great guests, and then there's the nuts
and the bolts, and that's when people just really want
(00:55):
to know what's going on in the kitchen and then
what can they do to be a better cook? Tonight.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Now, I want to say, I think it was last
episode of the episode before you were talking about grilling
vegetables on the grill but needing a good grill basket.
So I went online bought one, and the other night
we were making tacos, so I threw a bunch of onions
and tomatoes and garlic in that grill basket and then
(01:22):
charred those up, threw those in the blender, made this
kind of salsa yeah, that we put over the top.
Oh my god. Anyways, thank you. See right there, that
was like this little thing that I didn't know about,
that you told me about. That has completely changed my
grilling game.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
And it is it's grilling season. Oh yeah, it's smoking season.
So I think anything in that world, dude, if you
want to know about it, let's jump into it. You know, Wedg,
we did just finish my seventeenth cookbook called American Grill,
so we are locked and loaded with lots of new
techniques and new tricks to up your grill game this summer.
(02:00):
So let the questions fly. But I'm so glad you
got that one, because I think the grill basket using
your grill outside not just sort of necessarily as like
a caveman would like meat and fire, but to be
able to use it as a level of refinement, to
just cook outside because the weather's nice, and if it's
sunset and you got a cold beer or you've got
(02:21):
a really gray glass of wine and you're getting caramelization
and char and aroma and vibe and people are just
loving it. There's so many ways to cook on a
hot grill surface that doesn't, you know, let all your
onions and your tomatoes slip through the cracks of the grates.
So I think you seek grilled baskets. And also using
like cast iron still flattops as a plancha to me,
(02:46):
I way more enjoy that from a flavor perspective because
you still get the aroma you look at the fire
without the flare ups too, which is another really big
important part. So we use a lot of flattops. Lodge
makes some really amazing grill accessories, and also we love
using cast iron pans outside on the grill as well.
And then that way you're going to get that really
(03:07):
amazing Millard reaction, which is that caramelization where the proteins
and the amino acids melt and make that beautiful, really
delicious crust on the outside of a really good steak
or a pork chop or shrimp or whatever it is.
So that high hot, hard heat is not necessarily the greats, right.
That can actually just be like a shelf that you
cook stuff on, which is cool.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
When you cook a steak on the grill, is do
you throw it on the grill to get the grill
marks and then put it in the cast iron pan
in there so you can baste or do you just
use cast iron?
Speaker 1 (03:42):
Well, you know what really depends, right, So my Big
Green Egg is probably my go to, right, So my
Big Green Egg is if you guys aren't really familiar
with it, it's a ceramic dome that I think has
the most control for a heat. And listen, I have
what has been and affectionately called my grill park outside
(04:03):
of the kitchen. I have no joke. I have six
grills plus a word burning oven kind of like locked
and loaded. So whatever I want to, you know, however,
I want to approach it tonight for dinner. I've got
lots of choices. I've got a really expensive eight thousand
dollars Heston gas grill, which I just absolutely love, and
my wife really loves that one as well, because you
can just walk outside, hit the button, and the flame
(04:23):
just pops on. To me, I like to kind of
get a little more kind of handsy with it, So
I like hard fuel, I like charcoal, So I like
actually kind of using more rudimentary, you know, because I
think you're going to get more flavor out of it
as well. Yeah, So to answer your question, I think
it really kind of depends. So I think it's a
little passe from a technique standpoint to start thinking about
(04:46):
I'm going to grill those perfect hash marks, right, So
you kind of grill it on one side, you get lines,
and then you turn it forty five degrees to get
the opposite, so you get this grid pattern. I don't
think people really grill like that anymore. It's really more
about the caramelization and even coding on top of that.
First and foremost, I think about, Okay, how am I
going to keep my flare ups to a minimum. So
(05:08):
if I've got a really well marbled steak and I've
got a hot grill, the most important thing is to
make sure that you're using the radiant temperature, not the
direct heat contact. So if I'm using charcoal or if
I'm using wood, I want to make sure that I've
got it stacked up on one side of the grill,
so you've got a real hot side and then you've
got a cooler side, so you can kind of play
(05:29):
in between going for a little more color, going for
a little more flavor, going for a little more of
a temperature if you're going from medium rare to medium
or rare to medium, and then to move it over
to a cooler side so you can roast it right.
So I think that's really important too. But if I've
got a real like super fatty steak that I know
it's just going to blow up on me. I really
again kind of going back to that cast iron pan,
(05:50):
which is really really nice, and then that way you're
not going to get the drips down on top of
the grates, on top of the you're not going to
start a fire, which is super important, and then you
you can you can get the caramelization, the flavor versus
just going for hashbags.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
Mm hmm. Okay, that was my question. That was my
fan question to you. I want to I want to
put a pin in this idea because coming up Memorial
days around the corner and my brother and myself every
year we do a crawfish boil and a crab boil
(06:26):
and a shrimp boil, and we actually get like the
crawfish sent over from Louisiana. And maybe in a upcoming episode,
I'd like to hear, especially a guy from South Carolina.
I like to hear your like boil techniques, because I
feel like you've got a lot of good ones.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
I do bro and then and so, I like, you
can take the boy out of the South, but you
can't the south of the boy. I smash these things.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
If you want like regional southern cooking, dude, I will
make you cry. This stuff is so good. I love it.
Like last night for the basketball game, I smoked barbecue ribs,
I made potato salad. We made a sheet cake. I'm like,
if you want like down and dirty Southern, I smash
the stuff. Okay, you want you right boil, bring it?
Speaker 2 (07:12):
Okay, coming up on two dudes in a case, and
we're gonna do it. We're gonna do a crawfish boil
or just a boil episode in general, because I love
like a blue crab boil, and that's the best to meat.
So that's coming up. But let's get into today's episode,
which is two Dudes in a Kitchen Fan Questions. I'll
ask them, Tyler, you answer them. We're gonna take a
(07:34):
quick break when we come back. All the things you
guys have been wanting to know right here on Two
Dudes in the Kitchen. All right, welcome back to two
Dudes in a Kitchen's Wells and Tyler hanging out with you.
This is a fan question episode. These are our favorite
ones because this is where I learned the most and
we get to really showcase how smart our resident chef
(07:57):
Tyler Florin Shirley is. The first one comes from Marie Tyler.
As a chef, do you feel like you need to
be strict and bossy in the kitchen?
Speaker 1 (08:06):
Well, you know, it's very different right when I'm cooking
at home. No, because like nobody wants an asshole in
the kitchen. They just you know what I mean, Like,
like you know, when when if I'm like cooking dinner
for the family and people want to hop in, you know,
like it, you know, it's up to me. I think
the most important thing to kind of control your attitude
in the kitchen is to make sure you give yourself
(08:27):
plenty of time for a dinner party, because if you're
if you're rushing yourself and you feel like, you know,
you're kind of out of control, which does happen you
didn't give yourself enough time to really enjoy the process.
And then when people roll in the kitchen, you know
when your guests kind of roll on, Let's say they
get there fifteen twenty minutes early, and it always happens
and you're kind of like right in the middle of something,
(08:48):
or you've got, you know, stuff on your face or
or you know what I mean, are you your kitchen's
kind of dirty? You need to take a deep breath, right,
and then when they walk in the kitchen, you need
to embrace them, say hello, and their first question is like, hey,
can I help? What can I do to help? Have
something ready for them to do because they feel like
they got involved and they feel like they did something cool.
(09:10):
So what I will have like a little uh, I'm
really good at this actually, and I'm thinking about this
in real time and I've never really thought about why
I do it, but this is why I do it.
I'll have a project for them, and that's putting together
a cheese platter. So I'll have a nice big log
of goat cheese. I'll have some fig jam, I'll have
some Christina, I'll set up Rainey rock and roll, I'll
(09:31):
have some salumi. That's like kind of pre slice if
I got up from a really spectacular delicatestin or something,
and I'll just have them put together a really great
cheese trade and then that way they got involved. And
then that way, you know, everybody's kind of jumping in
and you kind of did something great. So that's how
you kind of keep your cool. It's just be prepared
and then just don't sort of like, you know, just
have a good attitude because people just want to vibe
(09:53):
and you know, be part of your world. And now
professionally it's a whole different thing, okay, And now professionally
in the kitchen, I think you do have to be bossy,
but I think you have to be bossy from a
position of strength and love of what you're doing, and
that is satisfying people's desire for a really great hospitality experience.
(10:14):
And so so it's not a democracy, right, I mean,
so so all these recipes that come out of the
kitchen are our mind in collaboration with our executive chefs
and our chef to cuisines. So there's a hierarchy. And
then and then what we do is we we uh
we funnel as a unit the way a beehive funnels
(10:36):
as an organism, right, Like we are there to uh
really kind of celebrate the hospitality of the restaurant and
give people a spectacular experience. And that's got to be
one thought, right, and that's got to be well sort
of you know, manicured and positioned and executed on a
real high level. So sometimes you have to be bossy,
(10:56):
but it's not bossy being like, you know, dogmatic. It's
being bossy because you're expressing a desired level of excellence
that once you get a really good team in that
thought process, it just sorts a flow naturally. But there
has to be insistence on top of that.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
You said two things there that I wanted to ask
you about. You said, you have an executive chef and
a chef de cuisine. What are those and how are
they different?
Speaker 1 (11:24):
So the executive chef is the executive that runs that department,
which is incredibly vital from you know, obviously from a
revenue generation. Standpoint, restaurants serve food and we sell it
as a business. So the executive is really kind of
responsible for the entire department. And that's millions and millions
and millions of dollars worth of sales that that person
(11:46):
is ultimately responsible for it, and they're responsible for the
the kind of human resources, right, so that's managing all
of our associates, and that's managing forty five fifty five people,
and that's a very organic thing to make sure that
you know, everybody is happy and well heard and well
(12:07):
looked after and we're well cared for and promoted when
need be. And so that's the executive who's responsible for
that part of the of the business. Okay, so it's
an executive position, sea level executive position. The chef de
cuisine is the best cook in the house. The chef
de cuisine is the monster like baller who has all
(12:31):
the technique. Well, the executive chef is a great cook,
I mean, first and foremost, but the chef cuisine is
the person who's responsible for the food. So so every
bit of like the the the policy that kind of
goes into kind of setting up like like how do
you need the purchasing, the manufacturing or the fabrication of
(12:53):
like meat cuts right, which is really important, scale and
weight and a very very holy ceremony. We have the
restaurant called line checks every night, so the chef the
cuisine goes to every single station, garmage, meet entramat, pastry,
tastes everything. So it's like about twenty till five. It
(13:13):
spoons up, right, and so that means the chef cuisine.
And you know that that scene in Jurassic Park where
they were hiding in the lab and you could see
the glass of water vibrate because the velociraptor was coming. Yeah,
that is what spoons up is for us in the restaurant.
(13:34):
The chef cuisine is coming right. He is coming to
see every every knife cut, to taste every sauce, to
make sure the rotation is happening properly, to make sure
that all the cooks are buttoned up and they've got
like nice press chef's coats and that kind of stuff.
So the chef to cuisine is the best cook in
the house, and the executive chef is the executive who
(13:56):
is responsible for the entire department of the kitchen.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
It next question comes from Kyle. This was actually coming
to me. Actually, Wells, what is the one thing you
would like to work on as a chef? Well, I'm
a cook. I tell you what. The after the last episode,
I want to be better at baking. We did an
episode with Duffy's dough and Patrick Duffy and and like
(14:23):
I was like, oh man, I want a sour dough start.
I want to be good at that. I love sandwiches
and I've always said that, like, you know, what makes
the great sandwich places is the bread that they use.
And so I want to get really good at that.
I think that would be I think that would be
really funny. Think that's my next my next venture.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
And that's that's a lifelong journey too, by the way,
And that's a life journey just kind of jump into
bread and and getting really good at that. I love it.
And you know what I really love about it because
I don't eat every loaf that my wife makes, and
she makes a lot of bread. I love the way
it smells. Yeah, I love the way that the house
just smells like a bakery all the time. It's so
much fun.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Yeah, Jenny asks for some reason every time I make
bread and chicken, the breading falls off. How do I
get the breading to stick?
Speaker 1 (15:09):
So when you're putting together breading, you have to create
like three layers of glue, right, So it's a dry, wet,
dry breading process that starts off with flour. That's gonna
be the first dry, and then the wet is going
to be eggs cracked and mixed together, and that's either
diluted with a little bit of milk or a little
bit of water, mostly water. And then the last one
(15:31):
is going to be some sort of coating bread coating
on the outside, and that's either pancoa or fine bread crumbs,
or sometimes we have stale breadth the house, I'll grind
it down and a blender to make a really super
fine bread crumb, and I'll make my own sort of
Italian bread crumb mix. And so the moisture from the
(15:51):
chicken itself will will cling onto the flour, okay, So
that's the first layer of glue on. The second layer
glue is going to be the egg wash, okay, and
then the third layer of glue, which is really going
to be the breading, and collectively that makes a coating. Okay,
So dry flour wet eggs, dry bread crumb, okay, and
(16:14):
then of course those are seasoned, right, so the flour seasoned,
the bread crumb is seasoned. And then the next thing
you want to do is you want to let it.
You want you want to make sure it's nice and
evenly coated, so it's not thick on one side and
invisible on the other, so it's could be nice and
even all the way across. And then you want to
let it dry, So I'll put it onto a sheet
pan with a wire rack and kind of let it
(16:35):
air dry for a little bit. So that's gonna ensure
it's gonna get really, really nice and crispy. And now
the next thing you want to do is make sure
that you preheat your pan and preheat your oil, because
you're not putting it into a cold pan with cold oil.
That's the fastest way to blow your crust off is
to not cook it and see it immediately, because if
you're going to put it into a lukewarm or a
cool pan with cool oil, it's gonna steam on the inside,
(16:58):
and the steam was going to blow the crust off
versus the crust getting nice and crispy. And then the
chicken cooking all the way through, all right, So I
think there's a couple of steps to make sure you
get that right. There's tons and tons of videos online
about how to do a perfect breading, and if you
go on YouTube there's tons. So again, it's dry, wet, dry,
three layers of glue, let the crumb crust dry out
(17:19):
a little bit, and then a nice wide saute pan.
Don't overcrowd your pan too, because sometimes what they call
it's like, it's called temperature displacement. So if I put
four breaded chicken thighs and a pan that's clearly not
big enough to hold four chicken thighs, it's gonna take
the ambient temperature of the pan and then bring it
(17:39):
down to the point where it's too not hot enough
to sere, and then all the crumb is just gonna
wash off, right for sure, for sure, So nice big pan,
good to preheat it nice hot oil and then make
sure you just kind of see it and it's nice
and even flip it over. Golden crust, golden crust on
either side, and that's how you make a good crust,
and not twll you keep it on?
Speaker 2 (17:59):
Should you temper your chicken. If you're going to be
frying it.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
Well, I think chicken for the most part, if you're
going to deep fry, or what do we make? Are
we making like a well.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
I think that she's talking about fried chicken. He's talking about, right, Like,
that's what I think she's talking about. And if you're
making fried chicken, should you temper your chicken or does
it matter?
Speaker 1 (18:18):
Well, I think you never want to try to put
something refrigerator cold into hot oil. Then that's for sure. Now,
if we're talking about fried chicken, and I apologize Jenny
if I misread that because I heard breading, and when
I think about breading, I'm always thinking about a cutlet, right,
So the coating on the outside, because you don't really
(18:38):
coat fried chicken with bread, So a breading coat is
a coating with bread on top of it. So it's
usually sort of a pancochrome or something like that. But
if we're talking about fried chicken, which you know, some
people say, my fried chicken is a big deal. Some
people I've heard you say that. Some people say it's
a big deal. You definitely want to make sure that
your chicken is obviously not room temperature because you don't
want to leave it out too long. But it's not
(19:00):
refrigerator cold. So so that's gonna be chicken that is
marinating in u in buttermilk that has a little bit
of hot sauce, a little bit of sugar, a little
bit of salt, so it's kind of like nice and complex.
You're gonna get the tartness from the buttermilk, that little
kind of warm you know, balance out from the heat,
not spicy, but just sort of like just you know, mouthwatering,
(19:23):
and then a little bit of salt, a little bit
of pepper, and then you know, and that's going to
be the first glue, right because when you we're talking
about breading, it's three layers of glue, but when we
talk about fried chicken is only two. So that's going
to be from the buttermilk mixture into the seasoned flour itself,
and then I like to really pack it on. And
another way that I ensure like a really super crispy
crust with fried chicken is to take some of the
(19:44):
buttermilk and I you either do this my fingers or
do it with a spoon, but take a big spoonful
of the seasoned buttermilk mixture and then sort of zig
zag it across your flour mixture and then kind of
work that in so you're kind of creating these little
crummy pieces that stick onto the fried chicken. They get
really frisby when they fry. That's that's pro level. That's
a pro level tip rin and then and then and
(20:06):
then take the chicken pieces out of the buttermilk, and
then throw it into the flour and make sure you
just pack it on really really tight, because that's definitely
part of the experience. Shake off any access and again
put it onto a sheet pan with a wire rack,
let it air dry for a little bit. And then
with frying chicken, you want to make sure that your
deep frying oil it's about twenty five degrees hotter than
(20:30):
you're gonna need to cook it. So we want to
cook it around three fifty, but with temperature displacement because
you know better, because if you drop cool chicken into
hot oil, it's gonna bring the temperature down to the
point where it could potentially blow off the crust. So
three seventy five to start, and when you put your
fried chicken into the oil, it's gonna level out at
about three fifty and then you're frying at a really
(20:52):
really good temperature. Just start a little higher than you
think you're gonna need. And then when you got to
get that sweet spot, it takes about, you know, eight
to twelve minutes, it floats, it's done, right, take it
out again and let it, you know, a season when
it's really nice and hot, and enjoy your fried chicken.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
Jinny, damn, Okay, that's not a good Josh asks, I
love everything but the bagel seasoning at Trader Joe's. My
wife does too. Do you have a recipe that I
can make using it?
Speaker 1 (21:19):
Well? Did you see asking for a recipe to make
that specifically or a recipe to use his pre bought
season mix? What do you think it says?
Speaker 2 (21:27):
I think what he's saying. You know how you have
like the everything bagel seasoning and you can just put
it on whatever. Yeah, I think he's asking. I love
that seasoning. What would this go well with if I
was cooking something?
Speaker 1 (21:40):
I think it tastes really great with like cream, cheese,
fatty stuff. Right, So if I wanted to make like
like a spinach artichoke dip, and I think if you
dusted that with everything bagel spice. I think that's really great.
I like adding almost like a fukarak soka like sort
of mixture with like a Japanese sort of spice mix
with nori and a little bit of chili flake on
(22:01):
top of that. I think that could be really interesting.
I actually I like that a lot. I think it's delicious,
and so I think it kind of feels like something
that would be you know, I don't know, we could
almost kind of throw one on anything. To be honest
with you, and I'm thinking about this out loud right now.
If you wanted to, like everything bagel spice a chicken breast,
I would just be really careful because the dehydrated garlic
(22:23):
and onion could have a tendency to burn pretty quickly.
So I definitely wouldn't cook with it. I would finish
with it. But I think it's a really really nice
I like everything bagel spice some of my scrambled eggs.
To be honest with you, I think that's kind of nice.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
Yeah, that in on avocada toast is very good.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
Avocada toast is fabulous on avocado soast, that's a great one.
On top of brat the cheese Ooh, that's really nice too.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
Yeah, Jeff asks, do you clean as you go or
throw everything in the sink and leave leave it out
until the meal is over to start doing the dishes.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
I try to clean as I go, But what happens
is it starts to stack up a little bit, right,
So if in maintaining that's another way to really kind
of keep your head clean, right, so you don't kind
of lose control of the kitchen, which I think is
a valuable part of having a really great dinner party
and cooking at home is because when people walk in
the kitchen, they don't want to see you out of control.
(23:16):
They don't want to see you kind of losing your
shit a little bit, right, And so I think making
sure that you have your mes and plus tight. And
you know about mes and plus, my friend, don't you?
Speaker 2 (23:25):
I do?
Speaker 1 (23:25):
Yeah? So you know, keep your MEAs and plus tight.
And that means everything in its place. I mean, you've
got you're not necessarily pulling stuff out of the grocery
bag and then chopping it as you need it. You
pre chop it and get the recipe together and then
you just sort of execute everything in little balls. Okay,
that's really important now clean as you go. I think
(23:47):
it's really important that you keep your counter clean, so
you keep your cutting board clean, you keep what's kind
of your what's in your immediate surface around you as
organized as possible so you're not getting cluttered. And then
when it comes to cleaning, because like most often, and
I'm sure this is like this in your household, but
in our household, like I do, I cook and then
(24:08):
my wife cleans up, right, So I don't want to
bomb her with my colossal mess, which I do from
time to time. But if I'm but when I cook
at home, I'm cooking for like fifteen twenty people, I'm
not cooking for four, right, So when like last night,
we had fifteen people over the house, right, and I
(24:30):
made a little bit of a mess, but I was
trying to be really really conscious about trying to clean
as I go and not make a sink full of
you know, dirty stuff for something else to clean up.
So it's really important to make sure you at least
rent everything out that you could stack it up, but
don't leave it in there. Like if it's like a
you know, a bowl of aoli that you're putting together,
or a bowl of something creamy, just wash it out
(24:51):
and at least kind of do that first step. Speak
of that.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
And by the way, I am the cook and the
cleaning lady at my house. You've got to you've got
a very nice gig going. I got a convince there
of this somehow.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
Well, you know it's it's listen, I think everybody has.
If that's your agreement in the house, be it. Yeah,
that's the way it rolls.
Speaker 2 (25:16):
Happy wife, happy life.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
Right there you go. Thanks actly? Uh.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
Annalie asks, uh, can doe be made ahead of time,
pressed into the pan and frozen to be baked at
a later date.
Speaker 1 (25:29):
Yes? And I read that question and I was thinking, Okay,
obviously there's different kinds of pie. There's different dough, right,
there's pie dough, there's bread dough, there's facaca dough. There's
like different types of bread dough. So when you when
you freeze bread, you want to do it before the
final proofing because that you want to you can't like
(25:53):
the final proofing when the cell structure starts to really
develop in the bread. And we covered this last week
with with Duffy's dough. So that so when you cut
open a fresh loaf, of bread right. Let's say it's
a baguette, or if it's sour dough or whatever it is.
The cell structure happens when the yeast develops carbon dioxide
and starts to balloon and blow out the soft glutinous
(26:17):
texture of the soft bread itself right. So you can't
necessarily disrupt that, but you can make the dough right
and then portion out into if you're gonna make dinner
rolls or make a baguette, or if you're gonna make
like a beautiful tray of facaca, you can totally freeze that.
(26:37):
But when you thaw it, you need to save room
for that last proofing and that needs it done. He
needs to be done not only at room temperature, but
a warmer temperature. So leave your dough out, your frozen
dough out for maybe like two or three hours at
room temperature to let it start with thaw. And then
you want to kind of tuck into a corner or
maybe in the sunshine. I usually proof bread in the
sun and just kind of let it start to just
(26:58):
start to blow up a little bit, and that way
when you kind of it's going to be light and airy,
and that's a really great loaf of bread, and that
last part needs to happen in real time. You can't
bake frozen bread.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
It's good to know. I did not know that Lauren asks.
Does searing a steak seal in its juices?
Speaker 1 (27:16):
Well, I mean yes and no. I mean so it
sounds like a really great like selling point for like
a George Foreman grill. Right, you want to steal in
those juices, right, And I think in a lot of
ways that it doesn't really do that at all, right,
because you're still gonna get moisture evaporation. It doesn't seal
in the juices. You can still see steam escape from
from a steak as you start to see it. What
(27:38):
it does do is develop flavor, that's for sure. Right,
So if you've got you can totally see it and
dry out steak all at the same time, which proves
it doesn't seal in the juices. So if you overcook
a steak and hammer it, you're definitely gonna dry it out,
so you're not sealing in anything. So overcooking a steak
is how you're going to dry something out and see
(28:00):
only in the juices. It means you're gonna cook it properly.
To whatever whatever temp you want, right, So if you
like it medium rare. Now, when I'm cooking for a
dinner party, I always think medium is the safe place
to go because, like I'm sure I've said this on
the podcast a couple of times that if you if
you're managing a crowd's expectation, you've got six, seven, ten
people come on for dinner if you if you like
(28:23):
it medium rare, you don't mind it medium. But if
you like it medium, you probably don't like it medium rare.
So I think going medium is always a safe way
to go. So what you want to do to answer
the question here is to make sure you've got a
really really great seer on the outside of the steak,
and that's an even you know temperature, And notice an
(28:43):
even seer, hot hearted seer on the outside. So it's
nice and brown and golden, and that's going to be flavor,
that's going to be taste right, well seasoned, nice salt,
nice pepper on the outside. Uh, maybe an herb. I
sometimes I'll take like a fresh rosemary from the garden
or or you know, a fresh bouquet of herbs, and
I'll keep it like a warm pot of olive oil
(29:04):
with the herbs, and I'll have like a nice sort
of like herb brush on top of the stuff to
really kind of get those herbi notes on top of it.
And then a really really nice rest too, because because
a steak on the inside is kind of like a volcano.
So the natural moisture, which is water, because we're all
made up of mostly water, You're gonna get moisture from
(29:25):
two things, the moisture content water content and the steak,
and then the fat as the fat starts them out,
that's gonna be the unctuousness of what really kind of
tastes delicious. Right, So if you let it, if you
cut it super hot. Let's say you've got a good seer,
you know, you take it off the grill, you think
it's dinner time, and then you're gonna pull a rookie move,
(29:45):
and you're gonna cut it steaming hot, right, all of
those natural that moisture because it's gonna be you know,
let's say the internal temperature is going to be one
hundred and twenty five degrees. You know that's pretty hot, right,
and so those moisture, that moisture is gonna want like
a volcano it's gonna want to escape someplace, right, But
if you let it cool back down on again ninety
(30:06):
degrees eighty five degrees, it's still really really warm. It's
a perfect temperature to serve steak at. Let it cool
down for a little bit, and that's a great way
to retain a lot of fat and a lot of
moisture so it doesn't end up on your cutting board,
all right, which is really really important. So to answer you,
I know that was kind of a loopy explanation, but
they had a couple of because it's sort of true
and sort of not true at the same time. But
(30:28):
the most important thing is to get a really good
hot heart sere cook it to the proper temperature. Medium
is a safe place to go for a dinner party,
and then let it rest so you've got your retaining
as much as those juices as possible. But always always
like seering in the juices. I mean that, I don't
know who came up with that phrase, but I wish
I did it.
Speaker 2 (30:46):
Yeah, be a rich man, Yeah, it wouldn't be needed
to do this podcast. I all often wonder does basting
you know a chicken or steak, you know, in butter
does that make it juicier or is that just a
way to evenly cook something slower?
Speaker 1 (31:04):
So this is a trip, right, So if you take
a look, if you get a hot hard seer, a
really great cross on the outside of something, it could
be anything pork chop, shrimp, a steak. That's definitely a
super sexy slow motion on Instagram when you see a
chef based with garlic and herbs and the buttersol foamy
and he's kind of like with a big spoon, he's
(31:25):
sort of like throwing it on top of the steak
and it kind of starts to drip. Super sexy. Now
what happens, So if you take a look at at
the top of a steak under a microscope, right, it
starts to dehydrate. Again, it gets kind of crispy. It's
a nice texture contrast, right, but it starts to dehydrate,
almost like a dry sponge. Right, so that when you're
(31:47):
throwing fat on top of that, it's going to absorb
one last layer of fat, one last lick of flavor,
fresh fat, because sometimes fat and a hand can get
a little hammered, right, especially when you you know, cook
at a super hot temperature. I always take the steak out,
(32:08):
dump out the fat that I cook the steak in,
put into a relatively dry pan. Now it's got all
the fond and stuff. I didn't clean it out, but
I got rid of the the extinguished, the burnt fat fat.
Yeah exactly. Then you put the steak back in. Then
you mount it with fresh butter, herbs and garlic and
(32:29):
gonna it's gonna start to melt really really quickly, and
then that's gonna start to bubble and get foamy. Then
when you splash that on top of the steak, the
crispy texture on the outside of the steak is absorbing
that fresh layer of garlic and herb infused fat inside
the crevices of the crispy texture. So when you bite
(32:50):
into that, you're biting into crispy steak that's infused with
garlic butter. And that sounds bombed with me.
Speaker 2 (32:56):
Yeah, those sound like the juices I can get it
on board with, I.
Speaker 1 (32:59):
Can get down without.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
Yeah. Benji asks, how do you cook veal? So it's
not tough, like a veal is not that tough, right.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
Yeah, I mean veal is really tender anyway. But I
think I know what he's talking about so with veal,
with most of these questions, there's variants in a lot
of these things, Like it kind of depends, right, So
a veal shank that you make an assabuco out of
that's obviously tough, you know, high contrasting muscle with you know,
(33:33):
with you know, sinew and that kind of stuff that
needs a breakdown into a slow braisee. So that is
going to be tough. Now, if we're talking about veal scallapini, right,
which is top round, which is sort of like the
breast right here, that's kind of a big, huge roast
that if you take a look at it has like
three lobes to it and they're all kind of interer
(33:53):
interconnected with like a little bit of sinew in between
all three of those things. So you can trim that
out and make three really beautiful roasts that syrup really well,
roast beautifully, slice beautifully. Now, if if you want to
slice it to make veal scalapini that's that is buttersoft
and butter tender, then I think it's really great to
(34:16):
get a nice slice and you want to slice it
not straight down but sort of on the bias, so
you're cutting the muscle fiber as thin as possible, and
then you know put it onto you know, a plastic
cutting board that we call the protein board at the house.
So if I want to pound out chicken breast or
pound out veal, I got a very specific board to
(34:37):
do that. And then you cover with plastic wrap and
you take a mallet. Now, do you have a pounding
mallet at your house? Okay, I do too. Not everybody
has one. And if you don't have one, it's okay.
You can use the back of a frying pan, or
you can use a lot of a rolling pin is
really great for that. You can use wine bottle, just
don't get too heavy handed with it, and you can
really sort of flatten it out. And when you're flattening out,
(35:00):
you are also tenderizing and shortening the muscle fibers. Now,
when when it comes to cutting something and making it
specifically tender, the thinner that you can cut the muscle fiber,
the more tender it's going to be. So if you
take something in shave it paper thin, like persciutto like
it's it melts in your mouth. If you cut a
steak of perscuto, it's going to have a little shoe
(35:22):
to it. And even the same thing with a beef tenderloin,
Like if I cut a beef tenderloin going east to
west and cut it, you know, it's it's as tough
as shoelaces. But if I cut it north to south,
and obviously that's what a beef tenderloin looks like steak wise,
it's gonna be really really delicious. So if you if
you shorten the muscle fibers, it's it's as is going
(35:45):
to be more tender. But if you pound it out
really thin, you're gonna you're gonna break those muscle fibers
up even more. Uh. And I think that's a really
great way to get like a really beautiful veal scalopinion,
which I just love when you know, great Italian cooking.
If if you like that kind of thing makes a
great deal parmesan. And that's the same thing with chicken
breast too, so so pound it thin, it's going to
(36:05):
make it more tender.
Speaker 2 (36:07):
Last question about the mallet. Mine is flat on one
side and then like kind of has teeth on the other.
Am I supposed to be using one side or the other?
Or like is one for one thing and the others
for another.
Speaker 1 (36:19):
I don't really like using the teeth because I think
destroys a cut like you're gonna end up with holes
in it, which I don't think are particularly pretty, especially
if you start to bread it. It just kind of looks
like like paper dolls that didn't go very well. Yeah,
but if you use the flat side, and it's and
it's a pound and push, right, so you want to
(36:39):
pound and push and pound and push and pound and push. Yeah,
so you're not pounding straight down. You're pounding and pushing
as you're pushing, right, So you want to try to
flat it out and take a look at it too.
So you may have something that it's kind of uneven
because you want to make sure it cooks evenly and perfect.
So you want to make sure that you pound it,
take a look at it, spin it around if you
need to pound it up on the other side. Uh.
(37:01):
And then also just make sure that you're not going
crazy with how thin you could possibly get it, because
if it gets too thin, it'll just break if you're
trying to bread it like chicken pyard. You know, all right?
Speaker 2 (37:11):
For example, I did not know that good to know
there you go Pharah asks which part of the green
onion scallion is supposed to be used, the green, the
white or both.
Speaker 1 (37:24):
You know, always think about this too, because it really
kind of goes into two different categories, sort of like
general purpose cooking, and I think you use all of it,
and then when it comes to like Asian or Chinese
cooking specifically, they use the white of the onion for
flavor and the green of the onion for garnish. Yeah,
so the white of the onion has it has like
(37:44):
the part that still could have buried underground. That's the reason.
The chlorophyll hasn't touched it yet. So that's the reason's
white not green has a sweeter flavor. The green part
that kind of kisses the sun, so the chlorophyl takes
over this reason s nice and green and tall has
a stronger flavor to it. So I like that as
a punch cut really really thin into tiny circles, or
(38:06):
you know, if you want to get fancy with it,
you can turn on a bias and cut them into
thin ribbons, soilkam and ice water and you get these
old pigtail curls, which really great on top of dishes.
I think those are really nice as well. But the
sweeter the flavor is gonna be the white part, and
the and the more onion note is going to come
from the green part.
Speaker 2 (38:24):
Also, mouthfeel I think is important. The whiter part is
crunchy and the greener part is not as crunchy.
Speaker 1 (38:32):
Yeah, yeah, for sure, without a question. There's a little
bit of like toothinus texture to all of it. But
when I think about it's really the sugar content, so
that the part the root is always going to hold
onto the carbohydrates, so that's the energy source. So it's
going to have like more of a sweeter flavor profile.
And then if you look at most like Chinese recipes,
they'll they'll cook with the white and garnish with the grain.
Speaker 2 (38:53):
Charlie asks if a recipe calls for wine, is the
best to choose a dry wine?
Speaker 1 (39:01):
Well, you know, it really kind of depends too, Like
if you like, if I'm looking for a sweet finish,
like if I'm reducing port wine, or if I'm reducing
you know, an armagnac, or if I'm reducing something that
has a high what they call RS or residual sugar,
like I'm looking for that raisining note I'm looking for that,
(39:22):
you know, pancake syrup kind of like vibe, which I
think is really great. So I'm looking for something, you know,
and a lot of like sweet and heat flavor combinations.
You know, black pepper and sort of a fortified wine
tastes really great together. That's a great flavor combination. But
if a if a recipe calls for a splash of
red wine, specifically, let's say you're making like an old
(39:44):
school Sunday gravy, right, and it calls for a splash
red wine, you're looking for something that on the dryer
side has a lower RS residual sugar and you could
just take a swig of it and tell if it's
like dryer sweeter like, and the dryer wine will have
higher tannin level, so you it'll feel like you kind
of want to pucker up a little bit, and a
sweeter wine will just feel, you know, like kind of
(40:07):
give you pancakes ser vibes, right, not probably not as sweet,
but sweet. And so with a dryer wine, you're gonna
end up with a balance of acidity, right, because it's
kind of what you're going for, and you can get
acid from a bunch of different places. But the red
wine thing has a little complexity to it with a
balance of sugar, because red wine is a combination of fortified, fermented,
(40:30):
you know, alcohol with a berry complex right, so with
a flavor forward from the berries itself. So you're gonna
get like if you added you know, a splash of
red wine to you know, garlic and onions as you
start to cook down before you add the tomatoes, you're
going to get a brighter complexity from the acid and
the alcohol in the wine, and you're gonna get a
little sugar note from the from the the berry grape
(40:53):
flavor itself. So it's really again kind of depends on
what you're going for specifically. I usually I swear to God,
I don't care, like if I if I have wine
that I'm cooking with, it's wine that we didn't drink.
So if we have like a leftover bottle of wine,
I don't throw it out. I'll just cork it, throw
it by the stove, and the next time I need
to splash of red wine, that's kind of what I
(41:15):
use and I don't even notice it. Obviously, port wine's
very very very different. But if it's just like a
you know a brand, oh bottle of peanut or cab
or whatever it is. I don't care.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
And it doesn't matter if if you cork it and
it's you know, you put it in the fridge or
whatever for a week or so, you can still cook
with it and it's not going to be terrible.
Speaker 1 (41:34):
Totally. Yeah, it's not gonna well, I mean, if you
put it in the cabinet and kind of let it
leave it there for three months, it's going to convert
itself to to vinegar. It's gonna see her heart itself
to vinegar. And that actually has you know. Uh, And
my wife is so funny because she doesn't throw anything
out like she she loves to create little science projects
like we have. She's made homemade apple cider vinegar from
(41:56):
apples from our tree and we have a ton of
that land around. We have a lemon vinegar that she
makes from the lemons from our tree, which is also
really nice. So you know, everything has a culinary value,
even things that are kind of moving down the food chain.
So I would throw it out necessarily, but definitely, you know, uh,
keeping the fridge is a good way to preserve it
(42:16):
and then also just used in it I think it's
a great way to to you know, do something with
it too.
Speaker 2 (42:21):
Yeah, yeah, Riley asks, My wife prefers well done steaks.
How do I cook a quality steak to the well
done stage without drawing the meat out?
Speaker 1 (42:35):
All right, Rightley, listen up, this is what you're gonna do.
You're gonna get two steaks. Okay, You're gonna get one
for you, and then you're gonna get one for your wife.
Now you're gonna start your wife's steak a little earlier
than yours because you want them to finish at the
same time, because you don't want hit her cold steak.
Now you're gonna start to see it on the hot
side of the grill, and then you're gonna move it
down to the cooler side of grill, because we've already
(42:55):
discussed this and covered this right hot side for the
myer reaction and the color and the flavor on the
cooler side to roast it all the way through. Halfway
through cooking her steak to perfection, even if it's well done,
you're going to throw yours on because I use sound
like a medium. Are gad to me? And I appreciate that?
So you can never shame anybody for what steak temperature
(43:18):
they like. If they like it, so be it. In
our restaurant, we get all kinds of people who like
all kinds of different like steak temperatures. And if you
like it, we like it because we can still crush it. Now,
a way to make it really really juicy is to
make sure that you've got a well marbled steak, so
marbling and fat content is going to give you that
(43:39):
unctious flavor profile. My favorite steak in the world is Ribbi,
and so you can make a really really nice, well
juicy rib By steak kind of on the medium well
plus well done side that still has lots of marbling
to it and lots of really great flavor profiles. Right,
So get yourself an inser eate thermometer. I don't know
if I have one handy, but an insurreate thermometer. You
(43:59):
can get them on Amazon. They cost about twenty bucks. Uh.
That is going to be your your tool to perfect
your partner's steak preference. And if you're looking for a
well done you're going for about one hundred and forty
one hundred and forty five degree internal temperature. That's going
to give you a really really great well done you know,
(44:24):
very very little pink all the way through, but still
you're not to the point where you're in dehydration land, right,
So when you get the one fifty five, one sixty,
then it starts to turn into a hockey puck. Then
it gets really really super dry, but somewhere between like
one seven, it's totally cooked all the way through, and
you still have some moisture content that you'd be proud of.
And it's it's delicious. I think it's great, all.
Speaker 2 (44:45):
Right, Lisa says, what are some delicious creative recipes to
make with chicken thighs?
Speaker 1 (44:53):
I really like chicken thice. Chicken thighs are so great
again because of the fat content, and then I think
like dark meat has more flavor than white meat. And
a lot of people really love boneless scanless chicken breast,
and I can make a really good one too. They're
super easy to dry out. And so to go back
to the thigh, the combination between the dark meating that
(45:14):
I think has more flavor and then the fat content
makes it juicy. So a lot of people like it.
So skinless chicken thighs, boneless scalless chicken thighs, I think
are the new chicken breast. If you really really want
something great, now, you can cut it really thin and
then you can kind of like marinate it almost like
Chinese style. And I'm thinking this through in real time,
but if you had like a mixture of soy sauce, ginger,
(45:41):
white onion, a little bit of corn starch, a little
bit of mirror, you could kind of make a slurry
out of that. You can make a really beautiful, like
kind of like fried chicken thing that could be great
for a stir fry. That sounds really great too. I
love sort of a mock piega using chicken thighs too.
So you could take chicken squeez, a little bit of
(46:04):
lemon juice on top of it, a little bit of salt,
a little bit of pepper, quick little marinade, add it dry,
kind of get a wide sort of frying pans. I'll
tappan twelve inches or so sere each seer, like what
we call our presentation side. So pick the pretty side
of the chicken thighce, get a really good, beautiful sea
on top of that, take them out, and then you
(46:25):
want to add a little bit of minced onion saut
that down. You kind of make it like a sofrie throw.
This is a mock pie, by the way. Add some
rice to that, give it a little stir to two
to one ratio from rice to liquid. So if you've
got one cup of rice, you got two cups of
liquid on top of that. And then you can add
some really kind of fun flavor profiles. You can add
(46:47):
coconut milk to that, which would be really yummy. You
can add like chicken boolong cubes to that would make
it very chickeny. You can add lots of you can
add a little tomato product to that, so it kind
of has like a dirty rice vibe. You can kind
of make this chicken and rice base thing that you
could spin a lot of different directions and it's a
great one pan meal that goes from the stovetop into
(47:07):
the oven straight to the table. That ho's a little
something for everybody. So I would say the chicken the
rice would probably be your your widest aperture to be
able to create lots of different fun variations out of
that and just kind of riff on it whatever you
got in the house. You can add sausage to that.
You can add, like I said, lots of fun vegetables
to that. You could add seafood to that. You get
(47:28):
you know, you can kind of make it more of
a pie a thing, but that's what I would do.
Speaker 2 (47:31):
Last question mayrsol asks what are some good tips for
cooking in a tiny kitchen?
Speaker 1 (47:39):
Your first apartment? How big was it? Devin hundred squiffeet yep, front,
the whole thing, right.
Speaker 2 (47:45):
Yeah, the whole not the kitchen, No, the whole thing.
Speaker 1 (47:47):
The whole thing mine too. It was really really tiny,
and that's okay, So I think you got to have
fewer better things. You can't be piled up with one
hundred thousand different ways to cook something because you just
you don't have the space for it. So you have
to be really really picky about what you have in
the kitchen for the first part. Right, So you want
(48:08):
to make sure you've got like a good I would
say good ten piece cookwar set. I think it's really important,
and you know a cookwar set that you can expand
to to definitely invest in cookware because cheap cookware is
gonna wear out and you're gonna get disappointed with it
really really quickly. But if you have a you know,
a great set of cookwhere I like Heston. Heston. It's
(48:29):
a you know that's manufacturer in Italy. You can pick
it up on Williams Sonoma. They're a little expensive, but
I think if you're gonna invest in something, you know,
get some good cookwear. When they have tons and tons
of pieces you can always kind of roll out with,
like the bowls and the sheet pans, and you know,
next time it's your birthday or Christmas, people can add
on to that list for you. I think that's important.
The next thing I think is really important is to
(48:50):
have a good twenty four inch cutting board, a big
thick cutting board that will take up a sizeable portion
of your available counter space, and a tiny kitchen because
you want it to be purposeful. You want this to
be where this is the dance floor for all of
(49:11):
your food. This is where it's all going to go down.
And it needs to be wide enough that you can
chop some stuff and still feel like you can control
with the kitchen, so you're not chopping on a chicklet
like a little tiny, little you know, bread sandwich cutting board,
you've got some room to move. I also think having
a nice set of knives in a chopping block that
(49:33):
sits either on top of your fridge if you're at
a counter space already, or if you have another little
nook where you can keep your knives nice and clean
and keep them, you know, don't throw them in a
drawer because they're just gonna get dull, you know, keep them,
or get a magnetic strip that gets mounted to the wall.
That's another place, great place to counter saving opportunity to
keep your knives nice and kind of clean and separated
(49:55):
from everything else. And then I think you might want
to go up right, if there's an opportunity to kind
of mount a pot rack on the ceiling of your
small space. I think that's a really good opportunity to
use some of your space wisely, which is kind of cool.
And then if you had to get like a secondary
like shelving unit to be able to kind of keep
(50:16):
like if you had to put a secondary like pantry
of your spices not that kind of stuff in a
cool little, you know, decorative wire rack thing that you
kind of picked up someplace, I think it's a really
good opportunity just to manage your kitchen really well nice.
Speaker 2 (50:29):
All right, That is all the questions we have for
the question episode of Two Dudes in the Kitchen, but
if you guys want to ask your questions, just head
on over to our Instagram page two Dudes in a Kitchen,
give us a follow and send us a DM with
a year questions. We'll do these, you know, every month
or so, and these are always my favorite episodes, So Tyler,
thank you so much for dropping some wisdom honus and
(50:49):
teaching us how to not be complete idiots in the
kitchen my pleasure.
Speaker 1 (50:53):
I think it's really important to be comfortable in your
own kitchen space and follow us. We have so many
great guests. We cover so many wonderful topics every week,
and you're always gonna learn something and you're gonna be
better prepared the next time you want to throw down
in the kitchen, even if it's making a good girl
cheek sandwich. We've always got great tips for you. And
(51:14):
I love these episodes too.
Speaker 2 (51:16):
Yep, come hungry, We'll see you next week. See you guys,
all right, guys, thanks for listening. Follow us on Instagram
at two Dudes in a Kitchen. Make sure to write
us a review and leave us five stars.
Speaker 1 (51:26):
We'll take that and We'll see you guys next time.
Speaker 2 (51:28):
See you next time.
It's Two Dudes in a Kitchen with Tyler Florence.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
And Wells Adams, an iHeartRadio podcast. All right, everyone, hope
you're hungry. It's time for another episode of Two Dudes
in a Kitchen. I'm Wells Adams alongside Tyler Florence. How
are you, man, I'm good, buddy, how are you? I'm
really good. I'm excited for today's episode because we've done
one like this before and it's done well, and it's
one of these episodes where I feel like I learn
(00:24):
the most at the end of the day is how
all we're really trying to do is make me happy,
and today's episode is going to make me very happy.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
We have so many amazing fans since we started the podcast,
and everybody chimes in with questions, and man do we
love it because we want to give our listeners exactly
what they want to know from Two Dudes in a
Kitchen and sometimes, you know, there's the bells and whistles,
we have really great guests, and then there's the nuts
and the bolts, and that's when people just really want
(00:55):
to know what's going on in the kitchen and then
what can they do to be a better cook? Tonight.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Now, I want to say, I think it was last
episode of the episode before you were talking about grilling
vegetables on the grill but needing a good grill basket.
So I went online bought one, and the other night
we were making tacos, so I threw a bunch of onions
and tomatoes and garlic in that grill basket and then
(01:22):
charred those up, threw those in the blender, made this
kind of salsa yeah, that we put over the top.
Oh my god. Anyways, thank you. See right there, that
was like this little thing that I didn't know about,
that you told me about. That has completely changed my
grilling game.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
And it is it's grilling season. Oh yeah, it's smoking season.
So I think anything in that world, dude, if you
want to know about it, let's jump into it. You know, Wedg,
we did just finish my seventeenth cookbook called American Grill,
so we are locked and loaded with lots of new
techniques and new tricks to up your grill game this summer.
(02:00):
So let the questions fly. But I'm so glad you
got that one, because I think the grill basket using
your grill outside not just sort of necessarily as like
a caveman would like meat and fire, but to be
able to use it as a level of refinement, to
just cook outside because the weather's nice, and if it's
sunset and you got a cold beer or you've got
(02:21):
a really gray glass of wine and you're getting caramelization
and char and aroma and vibe and people are just
loving it. There's so many ways to cook on a
hot grill surface that doesn't, you know, let all your
onions and your tomatoes slip through the cracks of the grates.
So I think you seek grilled baskets. And also using
like cast iron still flattops as a plancha to me,
(02:46):
I way more enjoy that from a flavor perspective because
you still get the aroma you look at the fire
without the flare ups too, which is another really big
important part. So we use a lot of flattops. Lodge
makes some really amazing grill accessories, and also we love
using cast iron pans outside on the grill as well.
And then that way you're going to get that really
(03:07):
amazing Millard reaction, which is that caramelization where the proteins
and the amino acids melt and make that beautiful, really
delicious crust on the outside of a really good steak
or a pork chop or shrimp or whatever it is.
So that high hot, hard heat is not necessarily the greats, right.
That can actually just be like a shelf that you
cook stuff on, which is cool.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
When you cook a steak on the grill, is do
you throw it on the grill to get the grill
marks and then put it in the cast iron pan
in there so you can baste or do you just
use cast iron?
Speaker 1 (03:42):
Well, you know what really depends, right, So my Big
Green Egg is probably my go to, right, So my
Big Green Egg is if you guys aren't really familiar
with it, it's a ceramic dome that I think has
the most control for a heat. And listen, I have
what has been and affectionately called my grill park outside
(04:03):
of the kitchen. I have no joke. I have six
grills plus a word burning oven kind of like locked
and loaded. So whatever I want to, you know, however,
I want to approach it tonight for dinner. I've got
lots of choices. I've got a really expensive eight thousand
dollars Heston gas grill, which I just absolutely love, and
my wife really loves that one as well, because you
can just walk outside, hit the button, and the flame
(04:23):
just pops on. To me, I like to kind of
get a little more kind of handsy with it, So
I like hard fuel, I like charcoal, So I like
actually kind of using more rudimentary, you know, because I
think you're going to get more flavor out of it
as well. Yeah, So to answer your question, I think
it really kind of depends. So I think it's a
little passe from a technique standpoint to start thinking about
(04:46):
I'm going to grill those perfect hash marks, right, So
you kind of grill it on one side, you get lines,
and then you turn it forty five degrees to get
the opposite, so you get this grid pattern. I don't
think people really grill like that anymore. It's really more
about the caramelization and even coding on top of that.
First and foremost, I think about, Okay, how am I
going to keep my flare ups to a minimum. So
(05:08):
if I've got a really well marbled steak and I've
got a hot grill, the most important thing is to
make sure that you're using the radiant temperature, not the
direct heat contact. So if I'm using charcoal or if
I'm using wood, I want to make sure that I've
got it stacked up on one side of the grill,
so you've got a real hot side and then you've
got a cooler side, so you can kind of play
(05:29):
in between going for a little more color, going for
a little more flavor, going for a little more of
a temperature if you're going from medium rare to medium
or rare to medium, and then to move it over
to a cooler side so you can roast it right.
So I think that's really important too. But if I've
got a real like super fatty steak that I know
it's just going to blow up on me. I really
again kind of going back to that cast iron pan,
(05:50):
which is really really nice, and then that way you're
not going to get the drips down on top of
the grates, on top of the you're not going to
start a fire, which is super important, and then you
you can you can get the caramelization, the flavor versus
just going for hashbags.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
Mm hmm. Okay, that was my question. That was my
fan question to you. I want to I want to
put a pin in this idea because coming up Memorial
days around the corner and my brother and myself every
year we do a crawfish boil and a crab boil
(06:26):
and a shrimp boil, and we actually get like the
crawfish sent over from Louisiana. And maybe in a upcoming episode,
I'd like to hear, especially a guy from South Carolina.
I like to hear your like boil techniques, because I
feel like you've got a lot of good ones.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
I do bro and then and so, I like, you
can take the boy out of the South, but you
can't the south of the boy. I smash these things.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
If you want like regional southern cooking, dude, I will
make you cry. This stuff is so good. I love it.
Like last night for the basketball game, I smoked barbecue ribs,
I made potato salad. We made a sheet cake. I'm like,
if you want like down and dirty Southern, I smash
the stuff. Okay, you want you right boil, bring it?
Speaker 2 (07:12):
Okay, coming up on two dudes in a case, and
we're gonna do it. We're gonna do a crawfish boil
or just a boil episode in general, because I love
like a blue crab boil, and that's the best to meat.
So that's coming up. But let's get into today's episode,
which is two Dudes in a Kitchen Fan Questions. I'll
ask them, Tyler, you answer them. We're gonna take a
(07:34):
quick break when we come back. All the things you
guys have been wanting to know right here on Two
Dudes in the Kitchen. All right, welcome back to two
Dudes in a Kitchen's Wells and Tyler hanging out with you.
This is a fan question episode. These are our favorite
ones because this is where I learned the most and
we get to really showcase how smart our resident chef
(07:57):
Tyler Florin Shirley is. The first one comes from Marie Tyler.
As a chef, do you feel like you need to
be strict and bossy in the kitchen?
Speaker 1 (08:06):
Well, you know, it's very different right when I'm cooking
at home. No, because like nobody wants an asshole in
the kitchen. They just you know what I mean, Like,
like you know, when when if I'm like cooking dinner
for the family and people want to hop in, you know,
like it, you know, it's up to me. I think
the most important thing to kind of control your attitude
in the kitchen is to make sure you give yourself
(08:27):
plenty of time for a dinner party, because if you're
if you're rushing yourself and you feel like, you know,
you're kind of out of control, which does happen you
didn't give yourself enough time to really enjoy the process.
And then when people roll in the kitchen, you know
when your guests kind of roll on, Let's say they
get there fifteen twenty minutes early, and it always happens
and you're kind of like right in the middle of something,
(08:48):
or you've got, you know, stuff on your face or
or you know what I mean, are you your kitchen's
kind of dirty? You need to take a deep breath, right,
and then when they walk in the kitchen, you need
to embrace them, say hello, and their first question is like, hey,
can I help? What can I do to help? Have
something ready for them to do because they feel like
they got involved and they feel like they did something cool.
(09:10):
So what I will have like a little uh, I'm
really good at this actually, and I'm thinking about this
in real time and I've never really thought about why
I do it, but this is why I do it.
I'll have a project for them, and that's putting together
a cheese platter. So I'll have a nice big log
of goat cheese. I'll have some fig jam, I'll have
some Christina, I'll set up Rainey rock and roll, I'll
(09:31):
have some salumi. That's like kind of pre slice if
I got up from a really spectacular delicatestin or something,
and I'll just have them put together a really great
cheese trade and then that way they got involved. And
then that way, you know, everybody's kind of jumping in
and you kind of did something great. So that's how
you kind of keep your cool. It's just be prepared
and then just don't sort of like, you know, just
have a good attitude because people just want to vibe
(09:53):
and you know, be part of your world. And now
professionally it's a whole different thing, okay, And now professionally
in the kitchen, I think you do have to be bossy,
but I think you have to be bossy from a
position of strength and love of what you're doing, and
that is satisfying people's desire for a really great hospitality experience.
(10:14):
And so so it's not a democracy, right, I mean,
so so all these recipes that come out of the
kitchen are our mind in collaboration with our executive chefs
and our chef to cuisines. So there's a hierarchy. And
then and then what we do is we we uh
we funnel as a unit the way a beehive funnels
(10:36):
as an organism, right, Like we are there to uh
really kind of celebrate the hospitality of the restaurant and
give people a spectacular experience. And that's got to be
one thought, right, and that's got to be well sort
of you know, manicured and positioned and executed on a
real high level. So sometimes you have to be bossy,
(10:56):
but it's not bossy being like, you know, dogmatic. It's
being bossy because you're expressing a desired level of excellence
that once you get a really good team in that
thought process, it just sorts a flow naturally. But there
has to be insistence on top of that.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
You said two things there that I wanted to ask
you about. You said, you have an executive chef and
a chef de cuisine. What are those and how are
they different?
Speaker 1 (11:24):
So the executive chef is the executive that runs that department,
which is incredibly vital from you know, obviously from a
revenue generation. Standpoint, restaurants serve food and we sell it
as a business. So the executive is really kind of
responsible for the entire department. And that's millions and millions
and millions of dollars worth of sales that that person
(11:46):
is ultimately responsible for it, and they're responsible for the
the kind of human resources, right, so that's managing all
of our associates, and that's managing forty five fifty five people,
and that's a very organic thing to make sure that
you know, everybody is happy and well heard and well
(12:07):
looked after and we're well cared for and promoted when
need be. And so that's the executive who's responsible for
that part of the of the business. Okay, so it's
an executive position, sea level executive position. The chef de
cuisine is the best cook in the house. The chef
de cuisine is the monster like baller who has all
(12:31):
the technique. Well, the executive chef is a great cook,
I mean, first and foremost, but the chef cuisine is
the person who's responsible for the food. So so every
bit of like the the the policy that kind of
goes into kind of setting up like like how do
you need the purchasing, the manufacturing or the fabrication of
(12:53):
like meat cuts right, which is really important, scale and
weight and a very very holy ceremony. We have the
restaurant called line checks every night, so the chef the
cuisine goes to every single station, garmage, meet entramat, pastry,
tastes everything. So it's like about twenty till five. It
(13:13):
spoons up, right, and so that means the chef cuisine.
And you know that that scene in Jurassic Park where
they were hiding in the lab and you could see
the glass of water vibrate because the velociraptor was coming. Yeah,
that is what spoons up is for us in the restaurant.
(13:34):
The chef cuisine is coming right. He is coming to
see every every knife cut, to taste every sauce, to
make sure the rotation is happening properly, to make sure
that all the cooks are buttoned up and they've got
like nice press chef's coats and that kind of stuff.
So the chef to cuisine is the best cook in
the house, and the executive chef is the executive who
(13:56):
is responsible for the entire department of the kitchen.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
It next question comes from Kyle. This was actually coming
to me. Actually, Wells, what is the one thing you
would like to work on as a chef? Well, I'm
a cook. I tell you what. The after the last episode,
I want to be better at baking. We did an
episode with Duffy's dough and Patrick Duffy and and like
(14:23):
I was like, oh man, I want a sour dough start.
I want to be good at that. I love sandwiches
and I've always said that, like, you know, what makes
the great sandwich places is the bread that they use.
And so I want to get really good at that.
I think that would be I think that would be
really funny. Think that's my next my next venture.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
And that's that's a lifelong journey too, by the way,
And that's a life journey just kind of jump into
bread and and getting really good at that. I love it.
And you know what I really love about it because
I don't eat every loaf that my wife makes, and
she makes a lot of bread. I love the way
it smells. Yeah, I love the way that the house
just smells like a bakery all the time. It's so
much fun.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Yeah, Jenny asks for some reason every time I make
bread and chicken, the breading falls off. How do I
get the breading to stick?
Speaker 1 (15:09):
So when you're putting together breading, you have to create
like three layers of glue, right, So it's a dry, wet,
dry breading process that starts off with flour. That's gonna
be the first dry, and then the wet is going
to be eggs cracked and mixed together, and that's either
diluted with a little bit of milk or a little
bit of water, mostly water. And then the last one
(15:31):
is going to be some sort of coating bread coating
on the outside, and that's either pancoa or fine bread crumbs,
or sometimes we have stale breadth the house, I'll grind
it down and a blender to make a really super
fine bread crumb, and I'll make my own sort of
Italian bread crumb mix. And so the moisture from the
(15:51):
chicken itself will will cling onto the flour, okay, So
that's the first layer of glue on. The second layer
glue is going to be the egg wash, okay, and
then the third layer of glue, which is really going
to be the breading, and collectively that makes a coating. Okay,
So dry flour wet eggs, dry bread crumb, okay, and
(16:14):
then of course those are seasoned, right, so the flour seasoned,
the bread crumb is seasoned. And then the next thing
you want to do is you want to let it.
You want you want to make sure it's nice and
evenly coated, so it's not thick on one side and
invisible on the other, so it's could be nice and
even all the way across. And then you want to
let it dry, So I'll put it onto a sheet
pan with a wire rack and kind of let it
(16:35):
air dry for a little bit. So that's gonna ensure
it's gonna get really, really nice and crispy. And now
the next thing you want to do is make sure
that you preheat your pan and preheat your oil, because
you're not putting it into a cold pan with cold oil.
That's the fastest way to blow your crust off is
to not cook it and see it immediately, because if
you're going to put it into a lukewarm or a
cool pan with cool oil, it's gonna steam on the inside,
(16:58):
and the steam was going to blow the crust off
versus the crust getting nice and crispy. And then the
chicken cooking all the way through, all right, So I
think there's a couple of steps to make sure you
get that right. There's tons and tons of videos online
about how to do a perfect breading, and if you
go on YouTube there's tons. So again, it's dry, wet, dry,
three layers of glue, let the crumb crust dry out
(17:19):
a little bit, and then a nice wide saute pan.
Don't overcrowd your pan too, because sometimes what they call
it's like, it's called temperature displacement. So if I put
four breaded chicken thighs and a pan that's clearly not
big enough to hold four chicken thighs, it's gonna take
the ambient temperature of the pan and then bring it
(17:39):
down to the point where it's too not hot enough
to sere, and then all the crumb is just gonna
wash off, right for sure, for sure, So nice big pan,
good to preheat it nice hot oil and then make
sure you just kind of see it and it's nice
and even flip it over. Golden crust, golden crust on
either side, and that's how you make a good crust,
and not twll you keep it on?
Speaker 2 (17:59):
Should you temper your chicken. If you're going to be
frying it.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
Well, I think chicken for the most part, if you're
going to deep fry, or what do we make? Are
we making like a well.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
I think that she's talking about fried chicken. He's talking about, right, Like,
that's what I think she's talking about. And if you're
making fried chicken, should you temper your chicken or does
it matter?
Speaker 1 (18:18):
Well, I think you never want to try to put
something refrigerator cold into hot oil. Then that's for sure. Now,
if we're talking about fried chicken, and I apologize Jenny
if I misread that because I heard breading, and when
I think about breading, I'm always thinking about a cutlet, right,
So the coating on the outside, because you don't really
(18:38):
coat fried chicken with bread, So a breading coat is
a coating with bread on top of it. So it's
usually sort of a pancochrome or something like that. But
if we're talking about fried chicken, which you know, some
people say, my fried chicken is a big deal. Some
people I've heard you say that. Some people say it's
a big deal. You definitely want to make sure that
your chicken is obviously not room temperature because you don't
want to leave it out too long. But it's not
(19:00):
refrigerator cold. So so that's gonna be chicken that is
marinating in u in buttermilk that has a little bit
of hot sauce, a little bit of sugar, a little
bit of salt, so it's kind of like nice and complex.
You're gonna get the tartness from the buttermilk, that little
kind of warm you know, balance out from the heat,
not spicy, but just sort of like just you know, mouthwatering,
(19:23):
and then a little bit of salt, a little bit
of pepper, and then you know, and that's going to
be the first glue, right because when you we're talking
about breading, it's three layers of glue, but when we
talk about fried chicken is only two. So that's going
to be from the buttermilk mixture into the seasoned flour itself,
and then I like to really pack it on. And
another way that I ensure like a really super crispy
crust with fried chicken is to take some of the
(19:44):
buttermilk and I you either do this my fingers or
do it with a spoon, but take a big spoonful
of the seasoned buttermilk mixture and then sort of zig
zag it across your flour mixture and then kind of
work that in so you're kind of creating these little
crummy pieces that stick onto the fried chicken. They get
really frisby when they fry. That's that's pro level. That's
a pro level tip rin and then and then and
(20:06):
then take the chicken pieces out of the buttermilk, and
then throw it into the flour and make sure you
just pack it on really really tight, because that's definitely
part of the experience. Shake off any access and again
put it onto a sheet pan with a wire rack,
let it air dry for a little bit. And then
with frying chicken, you want to make sure that your
deep frying oil it's about twenty five degrees hotter than
(20:30):
you're gonna need to cook it. So we want to
cook it around three fifty, but with temperature displacement because
you know better, because if you drop cool chicken into
hot oil, it's gonna bring the temperature down to the
point where it could potentially blow off the crust. So
three seventy five to start, and when you put your
fried chicken into the oil, it's gonna level out at
about three fifty and then you're frying at a really
(20:52):
really good temperature. Just start a little higher than you
think you're gonna need. And then when you got to
get that sweet spot, it takes about, you know, eight
to twelve minutes, it floats, it's done, right, take it
out again and let it, you know, a season when
it's really nice and hot, and enjoy your fried chicken.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
Jinny, damn, Okay, that's not a good Josh asks, I
love everything but the bagel seasoning at Trader Joe's. My
wife does too. Do you have a recipe that I
can make using it?
Speaker 1 (21:19):
Well? Did you see asking for a recipe to make
that specifically or a recipe to use his pre bought
season mix? What do you think it says?
Speaker 2 (21:27):
I think what he's saying. You know how you have
like the everything bagel seasoning and you can just put
it on whatever. Yeah, I think he's asking. I love
that seasoning. What would this go well with if I
was cooking something?
Speaker 1 (21:40):
I think it tastes really great with like cream, cheese,
fatty stuff. Right, So if I wanted to make like
like a spinach artichoke dip, and I think if you
dusted that with everything bagel spice. I think that's really great.
I like adding almost like a fukarak soka like sort
of mixture with like a Japanese sort of spice mix
with nori and a little bit of chili flake on
(22:01):
top of that. I think that could be really interesting.
I actually I like that a lot. I think it's delicious,
and so I think it kind of feels like something
that would be you know, I don't know, we could
almost kind of throw one on anything. To be honest
with you, and I'm thinking about this out loud right now.
If you wanted to, like everything bagel spice a chicken breast,
I would just be really careful because the dehydrated garlic
(22:23):
and onion could have a tendency to burn pretty quickly.
So I definitely wouldn't cook with it. I would finish
with it. But I think it's a really really nice
I like everything bagel spice some of my scrambled eggs.
To be honest with you, I think that's kind of nice.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
Yeah, that in on avocada toast is very good.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
Avocada toast is fabulous on avocado soast, that's a great one.
On top of brat the cheese Ooh, that's really nice too.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
Yeah, Jeff asks, do you clean as you go or
throw everything in the sink and leave leave it out
until the meal is over to start doing the dishes.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
I try to clean as I go, But what happens
is it starts to stack up a little bit, right,
So if in maintaining that's another way to really kind
of keep your head clean, right, so you don't kind
of lose control of the kitchen, which I think is
a valuable part of having a really great dinner party
and cooking at home is because when people walk in
the kitchen, they don't want to see you out of control.
(23:16):
They don't want to see you kind of losing your
shit a little bit, right, And so I think making
sure that you have your mes and plus tight. And
you know about mes and plus, my friend, don't you?
Speaker 2 (23:25):
I do?
Speaker 1 (23:25):
Yeah? So you know, keep your MEAs and plus tight.
And that means everything in its place. I mean, you've
got you're not necessarily pulling stuff out of the grocery
bag and then chopping it as you need it. You
pre chop it and get the recipe together and then
you just sort of execute everything in little balls. Okay,
that's really important now clean as you go. I think
(23:47):
it's really important that you keep your counter clean, so
you keep your cutting board clean, you keep what's kind
of your what's in your immediate surface around you as
organized as possible so you're not getting cluttered. And then
when it comes to cleaning, because like most often, and
I'm sure this is like this in your household, but
in our household, like I do, I cook and then
(24:08):
my wife cleans up, right, So I don't want to
bomb her with my colossal mess, which I do from
time to time. But if I'm but when I cook
at home, I'm cooking for like fifteen twenty people, I'm
not cooking for four, right, So when like last night,
we had fifteen people over the house, right, and I
(24:30):
made a little bit of a mess, but I was
trying to be really really conscious about trying to clean
as I go and not make a sink full of
you know, dirty stuff for something else to clean up.
So it's really important to make sure you at least
rent everything out that you could stack it up, but
don't leave it in there. Like if it's like a
you know, a bowl of aoli that you're putting together,
or a bowl of something creamy, just wash it out
(24:51):
and at least kind of do that first step. Speak
of that.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
And by the way, I am the cook and the
cleaning lady at my house. You've got to you've got
a very nice gig going. I got a convince there
of this somehow.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
Well, you know it's it's listen, I think everybody has.
If that's your agreement in the house, be it. Yeah,
that's the way it rolls.
Speaker 2 (25:16):
Happy wife, happy life.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
Right there you go. Thanks actly? Uh.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
Annalie asks, uh, can doe be made ahead of time,
pressed into the pan and frozen to be baked at
a later date.
Speaker 1 (25:29):
Yes? And I read that question and I was thinking, Okay,
obviously there's different kinds of pie. There's different dough, right,
there's pie dough, there's bread dough, there's facaca dough. There's
like different types of bread dough. So when you when
you freeze bread, you want to do it before the
final proofing because that you want to you can't like
(25:53):
the final proofing when the cell structure starts to really
develop in the bread. And we covered this last week
with with Duffy's dough. So that so when you cut
open a fresh loaf, of bread right. Let's say it's
a baguette, or if it's sour dough or whatever it is.
The cell structure happens when the yeast develops carbon dioxide
and starts to balloon and blow out the soft glutinous
(26:17):
texture of the soft bread itself right. So you can't
necessarily disrupt that, but you can make the dough right
and then portion out into if you're gonna make dinner
rolls or make a baguette, or if you're gonna make
like a beautiful tray of facaca, you can totally freeze that.
(26:37):
But when you thaw it, you need to save room
for that last proofing and that needs it done. He
needs to be done not only at room temperature, but
a warmer temperature. So leave your dough out, your frozen
dough out for maybe like two or three hours at
room temperature to let it start with thaw. And then
you want to kind of tuck into a corner or
maybe in the sunshine. I usually proof bread in the
sun and just kind of let it start to just
(26:58):
start to blow up a little bit, and that way
when you kind of it's going to be light and airy,
and that's a really great loaf of bread, and that
last part needs to happen in real time. You can't
bake frozen bread.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
It's good to know. I did not know that Lauren asks.
Does searing a steak seal in its juices?
Speaker 1 (27:16):
Well, I mean yes and no. I mean so it
sounds like a really great like selling point for like
a George Foreman grill. Right, you want to steal in
those juices, right, And I think in a lot of
ways that it doesn't really do that at all, right,
because you're still gonna get moisture evaporation. It doesn't seal
in the juices. You can still see steam escape from
from a steak as you start to see it. What
(27:38):
it does do is develop flavor, that's for sure. Right,
So if you've got you can totally see it and
dry out steak all at the same time, which proves
it doesn't seal in the juices. So if you overcook
a steak and hammer it, you're definitely gonna dry it out,
so you're not sealing in anything. So overcooking a steak
is how you're going to dry something out and see
(28:00):
only in the juices. It means you're gonna cook it properly.
To whatever whatever temp you want, right, So if you
like it medium rare. Now, when I'm cooking for a
dinner party, I always think medium is the safe place
to go because, like I'm sure I've said this on
the podcast a couple of times that if you if
you're managing a crowd's expectation, you've got six, seven, ten
people come on for dinner if you if you like
(28:23):
it medium rare, you don't mind it medium. But if
you like it medium, you probably don't like it medium rare.
So I think going medium is always a safe way
to go. So what you want to do to answer
the question here is to make sure you've got a
really really great seer on the outside of the steak,
and that's an even you know temperature, And notice an
(28:43):
even seer, hot hearted seer on the outside. So it's
nice and brown and golden, and that's going to be flavor,
that's going to be taste right, well seasoned, nice salt,
nice pepper on the outside. Uh, maybe an herb. I
sometimes I'll take like a fresh rosemary from the garden
or or you know, a fresh bouquet of herbs, and
I'll keep it like a warm pot of olive oil
(29:04):
with the herbs, and I'll have like a nice sort
of like herb brush on top of the stuff to
really kind of get those herbi notes on top of it.
And then a really really nice rest too, because because
a steak on the inside is kind of like a volcano.
So the natural moisture, which is water, because we're all
made up of mostly water, You're gonna get moisture from
(29:25):
two things, the moisture content water content and the steak,
and then the fat as the fat starts them out,
that's gonna be the unctuousness of what really kind of
tastes delicious. Right, So if you let it, if you
cut it super hot. Let's say you've got a good seer,
you know, you take it off the grill, you think
it's dinner time, and then you're gonna pull a rookie move,
(29:45):
and you're gonna cut it steaming hot, right, all of
those natural that moisture because it's gonna be you know,
let's say the internal temperature is going to be one
hundred and twenty five degrees. You know that's pretty hot, right,
and so those moisture, that moisture is gonna want like
a volcano it's gonna want to escape someplace, right, But
if you let it cool back down on again ninety
(30:06):
degrees eighty five degrees, it's still really really warm. It's
a perfect temperature to serve steak at. Let it cool
down for a little bit, and that's a great way
to retain a lot of fat and a lot of
moisture so it doesn't end up on your cutting board,
all right, which is really really important. So to answer you,
I know that was kind of a loopy explanation, but
they had a couple of because it's sort of true
and sort of not true at the same time. But
(30:28):
the most important thing is to get a really good
hot heart sere cook it to the proper temperature. Medium
is a safe place to go for a dinner party,
and then let it rest so you've got your retaining
as much as those juices as possible. But always always
like seering in the juices. I mean that, I don't
know who came up with that phrase, but I wish
I did it.
Speaker 2 (30:46):
Yeah, be a rich man, Yeah, it wouldn't be needed
to do this podcast. I all often wonder does basting
you know a chicken or steak, you know, in butter
does that make it juicier or is that just a
way to evenly cook something slower?
Speaker 1 (31:04):
So this is a trip, right, So if you take
a look, if you get a hot hard seer, a
really great cross on the outside of something, it could
be anything pork chop, shrimp, a steak. That's definitely a
super sexy slow motion on Instagram when you see a
chef based with garlic and herbs and the buttersol foamy
and he's kind of like with a big spoon, he's
(31:25):
sort of like throwing it on top of the steak
and it kind of starts to drip. Super sexy. Now
what happens, So if you take a look at at
the top of a steak under a microscope, right, it
starts to dehydrate. Again, it gets kind of crispy. It's
a nice texture contrast, right, but it starts to dehydrate,
almost like a dry sponge. Right, so that when you're
(31:47):
throwing fat on top of that, it's going to absorb
one last layer of fat, one last lick of flavor,
fresh fat, because sometimes fat and a hand can get
a little hammered, right, especially when you you know, cook
at a super hot temperature. I always take the steak out,
(32:08):
dump out the fat that I cook the steak in,
put into a relatively dry pan. Now it's got all
the fond and stuff. I didn't clean it out, but
I got rid of the the extinguished, the burnt fat fat.
Yeah exactly. Then you put the steak back in. Then
you mount it with fresh butter, herbs and garlic and
(32:29):
gonna it's gonna start to melt really really quickly, and
then that's gonna start to bubble and get foamy. Then
when you splash that on top of the steak, the
crispy texture on the outside of the steak is absorbing
that fresh layer of garlic and herb infused fat inside
the crevices of the crispy texture. So when you bite
(32:50):
into that, you're biting into crispy steak that's infused with
garlic butter. And that sounds bombed with me.
Speaker 2 (32:56):
Yeah, those sound like the juices I can get it
on board with, I.
Speaker 1 (32:59):
Can get down without.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
Yeah. Benji asks, how do you cook veal? So it's
not tough, like a veal is not that tough, right.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
Yeah, I mean veal is really tender anyway. But I
think I know what he's talking about so with veal,
with most of these questions, there's variants in a lot
of these things, Like it kind of depends, right, So
a veal shank that you make an assabuco out of
that's obviously tough, you know, high contrasting muscle with you know,
(33:33):
with you know, sinew and that kind of stuff that
needs a breakdown into a slow braisee. So that is
going to be tough. Now, if we're talking about veal scallapini, right,
which is top round, which is sort of like the
breast right here, that's kind of a big, huge roast
that if you take a look at it has like
three lobes to it and they're all kind of interer
(33:53):
interconnected with like a little bit of sinew in between
all three of those things. So you can trim that
out and make three really beautiful roasts that syrup really well,
roast beautifully, slice beautifully. Now, if if you want to
slice it to make veal scalapini that's that is buttersoft
and butter tender, then I think it's really great to
(34:16):
get a nice slice and you want to slice it
not straight down but sort of on the bias, so
you're cutting the muscle fiber as thin as possible, and
then you know put it onto you know, a plastic
cutting board that we call the protein board at the house.
So if I want to pound out chicken breast or
pound out veal, I got a very specific board to
(34:37):
do that. And then you cover with plastic wrap and
you take a mallet. Now, do you have a pounding
mallet at your house? Okay, I do too. Not everybody
has one. And if you don't have one, it's okay.
You can use the back of a frying pan, or
you can use a lot of a rolling pin is
really great for that. You can use wine bottle, just
don't get too heavy handed with it, and you can
really sort of flatten it out. And when you're flattening out,
(35:00):
you are also tenderizing and shortening the muscle fibers. Now,
when when it comes to cutting something and making it
specifically tender, the thinner that you can cut the muscle fiber,
the more tender it's going to be. So if you
take something in shave it paper thin, like persciutto like
it's it melts in your mouth. If you cut a
steak of perscuto, it's going to have a little shoe
(35:22):
to it. And even the same thing with a beef tenderloin,
Like if I cut a beef tenderloin going east to
west and cut it, you know, it's it's as tough
as shoelaces. But if I cut it north to south,
and obviously that's what a beef tenderloin looks like steak wise,
it's gonna be really really delicious. So if you if
you shorten the muscle fibers, it's it's as is going
(35:45):
to be more tender. But if you pound it out
really thin, you're gonna you're gonna break those muscle fibers
up even more. Uh. And I think that's a really
great way to get like a really beautiful veal scalopinion,
which I just love when you know, great Italian cooking.
If if you like that kind of thing makes a
great deal parmesan. And that's the same thing with chicken
breast too, so so pound it thin, it's going to
(36:05):
make it more tender.
Speaker 2 (36:07):
Last question about the mallet. Mine is flat on one
side and then like kind of has teeth on the other.
Am I supposed to be using one side or the other?
Or like is one for one thing and the others
for another.
Speaker 1 (36:19):
I don't really like using the teeth because I think
destroys a cut like you're gonna end up with holes
in it, which I don't think are particularly pretty, especially
if you start to bread it. It just kind of looks
like like paper dolls that didn't go very well. Yeah,
but if you use the flat side, and it's and
it's a pound and push, right, so you want to
(36:39):
pound and push and pound and push and pound and push. Yeah,
so you're not pounding straight down. You're pounding and pushing
as you're pushing, right, So you want to try to
flat it out and take a look at it too.
So you may have something that it's kind of uneven
because you want to make sure it cooks evenly and perfect.
So you want to make sure that you pound it,
take a look at it, spin it around if you
need to pound it up on the other side. Uh.
(37:01):
And then also just make sure that you're not going
crazy with how thin you could possibly get it, because
if it gets too thin, it'll just break if you're
trying to bread it like chicken pyard. You know, all right?
Speaker 2 (37:11):
For example, I did not know that good to know
there you go Pharah asks which part of the green
onion scallion is supposed to be used, the green, the
white or both.
Speaker 1 (37:24):
You know, always think about this too, because it really
kind of goes into two different categories, sort of like
general purpose cooking, and I think you use all of it,
and then when it comes to like Asian or Chinese
cooking specifically, they use the white of the onion for
flavor and the green of the onion for garnish. Yeah,
so the white of the onion has it has like
(37:44):
the part that still could have buried underground. That's the reason.
The chlorophyll hasn't touched it yet. So that's the reason's
white not green has a sweeter flavor. The green part
that kind of kisses the sun, so the chlorophyl takes
over this reason s nice and green and tall has
a stronger flavor to it. So I like that as
a punch cut really really thin into tiny circles, or
(38:06):
you know, if you want to get fancy with it,
you can turn on a bias and cut them into
thin ribbons, soilkam and ice water and you get these
old pigtail curls, which really great on top of dishes.
I think those are really nice as well. But the
sweeter the flavor is gonna be the white part, and
the and the more onion note is going to come
from the green part.
Speaker 2 (38:24):
Also, mouthfeel I think is important. The whiter part is
crunchy and the greener part is not as crunchy.
Speaker 1 (38:32):
Yeah, yeah, for sure, without a question. There's a little
bit of like toothinus texture to all of it. But
when I think about it's really the sugar content, so
that the part the root is always going to hold
onto the carbohydrates, so that's the energy source. So it's
going to have like more of a sweeter flavor profile.
And then if you look at most like Chinese recipes,
they'll they'll cook with the white and garnish with the grain.
Speaker 2 (38:53):
Charlie asks if a recipe calls for wine, is the
best to choose a dry wine?
Speaker 1 (39:01):
Well, you know, it really kind of depends too, Like
if you like, if I'm looking for a sweet finish,
like if I'm reducing port wine, or if I'm reducing
you know, an armagnac, or if I'm reducing something that
has a high what they call RS or residual sugar,
like I'm looking for that raisining note I'm looking for that,
(39:22):
you know, pancake syrup kind of like vibe, which I
think is really great. So I'm looking for something, you know,
and a lot of like sweet and heat flavor combinations.
You know, black pepper and sort of a fortified wine
tastes really great together. That's a great flavor combination. But
if a if a recipe calls for a splash of
red wine, specifically, let's say you're making like an old
(39:44):
school Sunday gravy, right, and it calls for a splash
red wine, you're looking for something that on the dryer
side has a lower RS residual sugar and you could
just take a swig of it and tell if it's
like dryer sweeter like, and the dryer wine will have
higher tannin level, so you it'll feel like you kind
of want to pucker up a little bit, and a
sweeter wine will just feel, you know, like kind of
(40:07):
give you pancakes ser vibes, right, not probably not as sweet,
but sweet. And so with a dryer wine, you're gonna
end up with a balance of acidity, right, because it's
kind of what you're going for, and you can get
acid from a bunch of different places. But the red
wine thing has a little complexity to it with a
balance of sugar, because red wine is a combination of fortified, fermented,
(40:30):
you know, alcohol with a berry complex right, so with
a flavor forward from the berries itself. So you're gonna
get like if you added you know, a splash of
red wine to you know, garlic and onions as you
start to cook down before you add the tomatoes, you're
going to get a brighter complexity from the acid and
the alcohol in the wine, and you're gonna get a
little sugar note from the from the the berry grape
(40:53):
flavor itself. So it's really again kind of depends on
what you're going for specifically. I usually I swear to God,
I don't care, like if I if I have wine
that I'm cooking with, it's wine that we didn't drink.
So if we have like a leftover bottle of wine,
I don't throw it out. I'll just cork it, throw
it by the stove, and the next time I need
to splash of red wine, that's kind of what I
(41:15):
use and I don't even notice it. Obviously, port wine's
very very very different. But if it's just like a
you know a brand, oh bottle of peanut or cab
or whatever it is. I don't care.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
And it doesn't matter if if you cork it and
it's you know, you put it in the fridge or
whatever for a week or so, you can still cook
with it and it's not going to be terrible.
Speaker 1 (41:34):
Totally. Yeah, it's not gonna well, I mean, if you
put it in the cabinet and kind of let it
leave it there for three months, it's going to convert
itself to to vinegar. It's gonna see her heart itself
to vinegar. And that actually has you know. Uh, And
my wife is so funny because she doesn't throw anything
out like she she loves to create little science projects
like we have. She's made homemade apple cider vinegar from
(41:56):
apples from our tree and we have a ton of
that land around. We have a lemon vinegar that she
makes from the lemons from our tree, which is also
really nice. So you know, everything has a culinary value,
even things that are kind of moving down the food chain.
So I would throw it out necessarily, but definitely, you know, uh,
keeping the fridge is a good way to preserve it
(42:16):
and then also just used in it I think it's
a great way to to you know, do something with
it too.
Speaker 2 (42:21):
Yeah, yeah, Riley asks, My wife prefers well done steaks.
How do I cook a quality steak to the well
done stage without drawing the meat out?
Speaker 1 (42:35):
All right, Rightley, listen up, this is what you're gonna do.
You're gonna get two steaks. Okay, You're gonna get one
for you, and then you're gonna get one for your wife.
Now you're gonna start your wife's steak a little earlier
than yours because you want them to finish at the
same time, because you don't want hit her cold steak.
Now you're gonna start to see it on the hot
side of the grill, and then you're gonna move it
down to the cooler side of grill, because we've already
(42:55):
discussed this and covered this right hot side for the
myer reaction and the color and the flavor on the
cooler side to roast it all the way through. Halfway
through cooking her steak to perfection, even if it's well done,
you're going to throw yours on because I use sound
like a medium. Are gad to me? And I appreciate that?
So you can never shame anybody for what steak temperature
(43:18):
they like. If they like it, so be it. In
our restaurant, we get all kinds of people who like
all kinds of different like steak temperatures. And if you
like it, we like it because we can still crush it. Now,
a way to make it really really juicy is to
make sure that you've got a well marbled steak, so
marbling and fat content is going to give you that
(43:39):
unctious flavor profile. My favorite steak in the world is Ribbi,
and so you can make a really really nice, well
juicy rib By steak kind of on the medium well
plus well done side that still has lots of marbling
to it and lots of really great flavor profiles. Right,
So get yourself an inser eate thermometer. I don't know
if I have one handy, but an insurreate thermometer. You
(43:59):
can get them on Amazon. They cost about twenty bucks. Uh.
That is going to be your your tool to perfect
your partner's steak preference. And if you're looking for a
well done you're going for about one hundred and forty
one hundred and forty five degree internal temperature. That's going
to give you a really really great well done you know,
(44:24):
very very little pink all the way through, but still
you're not to the point where you're in dehydration land, right,
So when you get the one fifty five, one sixty,
then it starts to turn into a hockey puck. Then
it gets really really super dry, but somewhere between like
one seven, it's totally cooked all the way through, and
you still have some moisture content that you'd be proud of.
And it's it's delicious. I think it's great, all.
Speaker 2 (44:45):
Right, Lisa says, what are some delicious creative recipes to
make with chicken thighs?
Speaker 1 (44:53):
I really like chicken thice. Chicken thighs are so great
again because of the fat content, and then I think
like dark meat has more flavor than white meat. And
a lot of people really love boneless scanless chicken breast,
and I can make a really good one too. They're
super easy to dry out. And so to go back
to the thigh, the combination between the dark meating that
(45:14):
I think has more flavor and then the fat content
makes it juicy. So a lot of people like it.
So skinless chicken thighs, boneless scalless chicken thighs, I think
are the new chicken breast. If you really really want
something great, now, you can cut it really thin and
then you can kind of like marinate it almost like
Chinese style. And I'm thinking this through in real time,
but if you had like a mixture of soy sauce, ginger,
(45:41):
white onion, a little bit of corn starch, a little
bit of mirror, you could kind of make a slurry
out of that. You can make a really beautiful, like
kind of like fried chicken thing that could be great
for a stir fry. That sounds really great too. I
love sort of a mock piega using chicken thighs too.
So you could take chicken squeez, a little bit of
(46:04):
lemon juice on top of it, a little bit of salt,
a little bit of pepper, quick little marinade, add it dry,
kind of get a wide sort of frying pans. I'll
tappan twelve inches or so sere each seer, like what
we call our presentation side. So pick the pretty side
of the chicken thighce, get a really good, beautiful sea
on top of that, take them out, and then you
(46:25):
want to add a little bit of minced onion saut
that down. You kind of make it like a sofrie throw.
This is a mock pie, by the way. Add some
rice to that, give it a little stir to two
to one ratio from rice to liquid. So if you've
got one cup of rice, you got two cups of
liquid on top of that. And then you can add
some really kind of fun flavor profiles. You can add
(46:47):
coconut milk to that, which would be really yummy. You
can add like chicken boolong cubes to that would make
it very chickeny. You can add lots of you can
add a little tomato product to that, so it kind
of has like a dirty rice vibe. You can kind
of make this chicken and rice base thing that you
could spin a lot of different directions and it's a
great one pan meal that goes from the stovetop into
(47:07):
the oven straight to the table. That ho's a little
something for everybody. So I would say the chicken the
rice would probably be your your widest aperture to be
able to create lots of different fun variations out of
that and just kind of riff on it whatever you
got in the house. You can add sausage to that.
You can add, like I said, lots of fun vegetables
to that. You could add seafood to that. You get
(47:28):
you know, you can kind of make it more of
a pie a thing, but that's what I would do.
Speaker 2 (47:31):
Last question mayrsol asks what are some good tips for
cooking in a tiny kitchen?
Speaker 1 (47:39):
Your first apartment? How big was it? Devin hundred squiffeet yep, front,
the whole thing, right.
Speaker 2 (47:45):
Yeah, the whole not the kitchen, No, the whole thing.
Speaker 1 (47:47):
The whole thing mine too. It was really really tiny,
and that's okay, So I think you got to have
fewer better things. You can't be piled up with one
hundred thousand different ways to cook something because you just
you don't have the space for it. So you have
to be really really picky about what you have in
the kitchen for the first part. Right, So you want
(48:08):
to make sure you've got like a good I would
say good ten piece cookwar set. I think it's really important,
and you know a cookwar set that you can expand
to to definitely invest in cookware because cheap cookware is
gonna wear out and you're gonna get disappointed with it
really really quickly. But if you have a you know,
a great set of cookwhere I like Heston. Heston. It's
(48:29):
a you know that's manufacturer in Italy. You can pick
it up on Williams Sonoma. They're a little expensive, but
I think if you're gonna invest in something, you know,
get some good cookwear. When they have tons and tons
of pieces you can always kind of roll out with,
like the bowls and the sheet pans, and you know,
next time it's your birthday or Christmas, people can add
on to that list for you. I think that's important.
The next thing I think is really important is to
(48:50):
have a good twenty four inch cutting board, a big
thick cutting board that will take up a sizeable portion
of your available counter space, and a tiny kitchen because
you want it to be purposeful. You want this to
be where this is the dance floor for all of
(49:11):
your food. This is where it's all going to go down.
And it needs to be wide enough that you can
chop some stuff and still feel like you can control
with the kitchen, so you're not chopping on a chicklet
like a little tiny, little you know, bread sandwich cutting board,
you've got some room to move. I also think having
a nice set of knives in a chopping block that
(49:33):
sits either on top of your fridge if you're at
a counter space already, or if you have another little
nook where you can keep your knives nice and clean
and keep them, you know, don't throw them in a
drawer because they're just gonna get dull, you know, keep them,
or get a magnetic strip that gets mounted to the wall.
That's another place, great place to counter saving opportunity to
keep your knives nice and kind of clean and separated
(49:55):
from everything else. And then I think you might want
to go up right, if there's an opportunity to kind
of mount a pot rack on the ceiling of your
small space. I think that's a really good opportunity to
use some of your space wisely, which is kind of cool.
And then if you had to get like a secondary
like shelving unit to be able to kind of keep
(50:16):
like if you had to put a secondary like pantry
of your spices not that kind of stuff in a
cool little, you know, decorative wire rack thing that you
kind of picked up someplace, I think it's a really
good opportunity just to manage your kitchen really well nice.
Speaker 2 (50:29):
All right, That is all the questions we have for
the question episode of Two Dudes in the Kitchen, but
if you guys want to ask your questions, just head
on over to our Instagram page two Dudes in a Kitchen,
give us a follow and send us a DM with
a year questions. We'll do these, you know, every month
or so, and these are always my favorite episodes, So Tyler,
thank you so much for dropping some wisdom honus and
(50:49):
teaching us how to not be complete idiots in the
kitchen my pleasure.
Speaker 1 (50:53):
I think it's really important to be comfortable in your
own kitchen space and follow us. We have so many
great guests. We cover so many wonderful topics every week,
and you're always gonna learn something and you're gonna be
better prepared the next time you want to throw down
in the kitchen, even if it's making a good girl
cheek sandwich. We've always got great tips for you. And
(51:14):
I love these episodes too.
Speaker 2 (51:16):
Yep, come hungry, We'll see you next week. See you guys,
all right, guys, thanks for listening. Follow us on Instagram
at two Dudes in a Kitchen. Make sure to write
us a review and leave us five stars.
Speaker 1 (51:26):
We'll take that and We'll see you guys next time.
Speaker 2 (51:28):
See you next time.
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