Cooking With Cloudflare
Presented by: Chaat Butsunturn, Andrew Quellmalz
Originally aired on July 29, 2020 @ 8:30 PM - 9:30 PM EDT
The Internet has never been this tasty! Join us for adventures combining cooking with discussions of the tech that makes the web tick.
English
Cooking
Transcript (Beta)
It is 5 30 in California. My name is Chaat Butsunturn and this is Cooking with Cloudflare.
My guest today, Andrew. Hi Andrew. Hey Chaat, how's it going? Good, good.
I don't know how to pronounce your last name. It's okay, nobody does. Okay, we're in the same boat.
We'll just go by Chaat and Andrew. All right, that sounds good with me.
All right, great. So Andrew, I appreciate you're joining me today. And just a little background.
One of the reasons why I invited Andrew is I heard he worked in the food industry and at some great restaurants in San Francisco.
So what's your foodie connection here?
Well, actually not San Francisco, down in Orange County.
So prior to moving back up here and finishing up school, I was working at the St.
Regis in Dana Point, which is South Orange County. Did banquet cooking there.
So it was pretty interesting. We'd like cater weddings, corporate events or parties for like upwards of 500 people.
So you get really good at doing the same thing over and over again.
Right. Very skilled at chopping an onion after that experience.
Skills, right? Yeah, yeah. And like from there, gain the skills and the know-how to kind of start applying it towards some other restaurants.
So I applied to work for the Mina group.
And Michael Mina has like his flagship restaurant here in San Francisco.
So he had another one down in Dana Point at the time.
And that's kind of where I gained a lot of my culinary skills, like really honed them in.
Like pretty shortly after that, it's a lot of a grind. Fine dining is definitely not easy.
Should always cater to waiters. I started a little catering company and I was working for several families down there.
We're doing kind of dinners like we're going to do tonight.
That is great. I'm very excited. What is on the menu?
So we're going to do chicken parmesan, fried panko breadcrumbs, and then an arugula heirloom tomato salad.
Great. All right. Excellent. Well, you've asked me to preheat the oven at four, what?
450. 450. Okay. So my oven is pre -warming.
And also on the menu, I understand besides the chicken parm, we've got?
Oh, heirloom tomato, burrata salad. I love that stuff. Oh, and asparagus. Can't forget the asparagus.
Asparagus. Oh, that is a nice, well-rounded meal. And you know what I totally forgot to put on my shopping list is pasta.
We talked about putting, yes, sir.
Did you? I have something in my bag. I'm going to check in here and see.
I know we need flour, so I have to get that anyway. Right. Let me see.
Here's my flour. And I do have some pasta. I don't know if I have a noodle pasta, but I like the idea of putting.
The thin spaghetti? Let me see what I got here.
I'm too short to reach the top. So let's see what I got. I don't think I have any.
I have pasta.
Do I have a long noodle pasta? I have lasagna. I have lasagna noodles.
I don't have any long noodle pastas. Oh, well. I might just serve it with garlic bread or something.
All right. So we've got an hour to do all this. So let's get cracking.
What's first? Right. Absolutely. So first things first, we're going to take the chicken out.
We're going to get that ready to be fried. Chicken. All right.
So got mine right here. See if I can readjust the camera view. Who are you feeding tonight?
My lucky roommates, whoever's home. Right. I got enough to feed at least four.
So, you know, they're just going to have to make do with rations.
Yeah, I got I have a lot of chicken here. I don't know how much how much of this way here.
I got three pounds of chicken. Oh, wow. That is a lot. I think I got a little over a pound and a half.
So that still should be good. So do you you mentioned we're going to be we're going to do some pounding, huh?
Exactly. So, you know, you said that you have your knuckles, so that's good.
You know, you can use your knuckles.
I'm going to take a pot like with just a flat bottom. That's what he uses like a tenderizer.
But first, if you try to fry it right now, it would take forever to cook.
So we're going to cut it in half and try and like cut down that cooking time.
And do you cut before you pound or you pound first?
You cut before you pound. OK, so let's see how we do that.
Yeah. So let me see. Yes. Without getting chicken juice on my computer here. Right now.
All right. All right. So what you're going to do is hold the chicken breast like flat with the palm of your hand like this and then slice like right right down the side of it.
Oh, OK. All right. This one here. It's OK. It doesn't have to be even.
It just kind of has to like essentially half in size. OK, got it. Let's move things over here so you all can see.
Work the blade. Right. I'll flip over this way so you can see what I'm doing.
Wow.
All right. So it just kind of folds open on itself like that. Let me see. That should be good.
OK, how do I do? You see this here? Look at this. That's perfect, Chad.
Yeah, that's exactly what you want. OK, you have all of them. OK. All right.
Off to have a sharp knife.
Yeah, absolutely. So when you were in doing the cooking thing, did you have your own knife or is that what you're expected to do is bring your own?
Yeah. So one of the things that's pretty funny about like chefs when you get in the industry is they're very protective about their knives.
So everyone has like their own set up, their own bag, and they like sharpen them accordingly.
It's your tool chest, essentially.
Sure. So I'm going to wash my hands. This is chicken juice all here.
Yeah, that's not a bad idea. We're going to have leftovers tonight.
I just said four chicken breasts.
So, you know, these are massive breasts. Yeah, those look really big.
All right. It'll be great to have that much. So I'm sure this will make really good leftovers.
There we go.
OK, I don't even know if they need pounded yet. They're already cut now. Yeah, they should be like probably a pound and a half.
I want to say like an eighth to a quarter of an inch thick.
So if you don't need to pound them out, then that's perfect.
I mean, I might just do it just to make it even. Right. Yeah, just try it out.
Never know you might like it. I'm just going to spread out my chicken on here.
Yeah, you know, one of the nice things about getting married was getting kitchenwares.
Right. And yeah, that was. We got really good knives, pots and pans, and, you know, I suppose there's some people who get the stuff and they don't use it, but we're we're a cooking family, which is nice.
You know, I'm hoping that my son, when he grows up, he remembers fondly these meals.
So, son, you remember when I made you the chicken parm? And if he doesn't, I'll just say, well, I got in the archives.
Check this out off our TV. So I'm sure.
Yeah, that's like that's one of the things that's been good about COVID.
One of the blessings is everyone's cooking more at home, you know, just like try and do things out.
Yeah, I'm doing my washing my hands too here. We do a fair amount of cooking.
And something I'll put on top of here.
And I am going to have going to beat this up a little bit.
All right. I'll wait for you. It's going to be allowed. Okay, ready? All right.
321. All right.
Yeah, that's pretty good. All right.
I'll do. I'll do. Nice and flat.
Nice and flat. Yeah, it's good. All right. Next step for us is going to be two eggs into a shallow bowl or a shallow dish.
And then we're going to beat them.
So that's going to be the liquid that's going to hold the flour onto the chicken before we drop it in the frying pan.
Oh, but first a little wine.
Yeah, I'm going to have a little wine. What do I have open here? Vino Verde.
Oh, some Portuguese wine. Is that right? Yeah. Oh, you're familiar. All right.
I actually am a big fan. I love that. All right. Well, cheers. Here's to you.
Cheers. I'll get myself a glass as well. I can't let you drink alone in your chat.
Yeah, I appreciate that. Oven's up to 450 now. What was the next thing I need?
You said bowl of eggs. Yeah, so two eggs. And then we're just going to like beat them in like a shallow bowl or like really whatever bowl you have available.
So I've got a little cabs out here from Sonoma.
All right. We martini. Great. Cheers.
That one's yours, Jeff. Okay, so I get a shallow bowl for the eggs.
Right. I'm going to do two, but you might want to do three considering that you have like double the amount of meat that I do.
Oh, yeah. What does the recipe say? It says to do two, but just to be on the safe side.
Yeah, it's interesting because, you know, four breasts could be, you know, who knows how big that's going to be.
All right. Yeah. Who knows? Some of these super chickens, you know, it would show the action of that.
Yeah, absolutely. I'll show you the crock trick.
Okay. I'm watching. How's this?
Hey, there you go, Chad. That was perfect. I've seen a lot worse. And, you know, I am going to do that third egg because I have a lot of chickens.
So I think that's smart.
Yeah. I spoke too soon. I have a little piece of eggshell. Got it out.
Oh, no. So occupational hazard, you know. So I'm just going to take like a regular fork and just, you know, scramble these like you make scrambled eggs.
Break the yolks up. And then just, you know, turn it into a homogenous mixture.
All right.
So my eggs are beaten. Did you, I can't remember, did you get panko, Chad? I did.
Awesome. Okay. So we're going to do a similar to what I did with this flour. So I put some flour in a shallow bowl, and I'm going to put the panko in another, another bowl as well.
All right. Okay. So shallow bowls. Or, you know, a plate will work just as fine.
You might just need to pour a little bit more. These are about good, right?
Those are, those are perfect. So one for flour and one for, one for the panko breadcrumbs.
It's time. We're breaking it out. I keep wanting to wipe stuff on myself and this just makes it easier.
And I don't need a napkin.
Oh yeah, definitely. I have an apron somewhere, but I need to just track it down.
I should have done that for this afternoon. How much flour do I need? Pardon?
How much flour do I need? I put about a little over a cup. A little over a cup.
We're just going to, have you ever, we're just going to dredge the chicken in it.
So before we put it in the eggs, we're going to give it a lightly coated, coated, coat of flour.
I could always add more if I need, I guess.
Yeah, that looks good. And the panko, put that in another one, right?
Yeah, I kind of, I put a little bit heavy on the panko just because you never really use it.
So true. You know, I mean like, Not really something that you like would save and use time and time again.
Yeah, because you know, by the time you get it, use it again.
It's, it's stale. Yeah, exactly.
That's what I found. You're good to get into the panko industry. That's why I ended up buying another one of these.
Yeah. Because it was stale. Right. Panko. There it is.
I think I have a Now panko is what they use for tempura, right? Yeah, exactly.
So it's like, it's a Japanese breadcrumb. I believe it's a base, like it's a rice flour.
Who knew? Which makes it like fry a little bit crispier. Okay, so are you ready?
Ready for the dipping? Oh, is that where, okay, we, but when we dip after that, where does it go?
Okay, so I'll run you through it. So the first thing we're going to do is we're going to take the chicken breast and we're going to dredge it through the flour.
Okay. And then the next step is we're going to dip it in the egg.
So it's going to get a little bit of an egg wash on it. Okay. And we're going to, we're going to like roll it around the panko.
So it has an even like crust of panko breadcrumbing on it.
Okay. And then what? And then we're going to just set those aside on a tray and we're going to heat up some oil in a frying pan.
And we're going to just fry them on each side for about two minutes. Got it.
All right. And so I know where to put this stuff after I, after I do this. That's, that's a very good idea.
Actually, I'm going to do the same all year there. Ah, not my first rodeo.
All right. Let's see how this works here. I feel like my space is like kitchen space.
It's always a tricky thing. Here we go. All right. All right.
So I got my chicken over here. I need like a side table. All right.
I'm going to move my workstation a little bit here.
It looks like you've got a lot of countertops to work with over there, Chad.
It's really great. We, we, when we remodeled the kitchen, we added this island here, which has this nice bamboo grain, right?
So you could, in theory, use it as a, as a, you could, in theory, use it as a chopping board, but then you, you'd mess it all up.
Right.
So. All right.
So now, can everyone see how we go? All right. So I'm going to take a chicken.
So I'm going to start doing it, huh? And you said. Yeah, yeah. We go egg and flour.
Egg. Wait, is it flour, egg, panko or egg flour? Okay.
Flour, egg, panko. I'm sorry. Thank you for correcting me there. Okay. Very important here.
Okay. So flour. Okay. Here's flour, right? Just lightly coated in the flour.
And then? And then dip in the egg. So it gets a nice, nice, even coating there.
Okay. And then into the panko. And then you just kind of roll it around.
So it has a pretty even crust. And it should stick pretty nicely on there. Okay.
Cool. At this point, it should look pretty similar to like a chicken nugget. Oh, I love them.
Yeah. But these are like homemade chicken nuggets. Oh, yeah. Oh, much better, right?
Okay. There we go. Now we're rocking. Now we're cooking with Cloudflare.
Yes. Yes. Now we're cooking with Cloudflare. Hey, babe. I'm making chicken parm.
Cool. All right.
Hi, hon.
So my family just got home. Hi, Claire. Hi. Hey, guys. And here it is.
Oh, good.
All right.
Definitely not the cleanest recipe, but delicious nonetheless. Yeah, there's going to be some clean up tonight.
How are you on the ingredients there, Chad?
Did you pour enough out? Yeah, I think so.
So far, so good. I mean, I probably have more flour than I need. And it looks like I have enough.
I might need another egg. We'll see because those are big chicken, right?
I wish I could give you some of my eggs. I'm going to have some extra over here.
Oh, really? You know what I need is some basil. Oh, that's right.
Okay, I'll help you. I got it. Can you help out, Lou? All right. How much do you need?
How much basil do we need, Andrew? I'd say like four or five sprigs of it.
Like just a handful of leaves. Okay. Are you a big fan of basil?
Maybe like four or five sprigs. Okay. So with a bunch of leaves.
So I don't know. Maybe just like a handful of leaves. All right. Actually, never describe how many.
You know, I find myself.
Wash my hands, period. I know my hands are getting all gummy with this stuff.
Is yours like this? Yeah, it's fun. Here.
So one of our projects during this whole COVID thing was a planter box.
So we did a planter box. And one of my favorite things is, what do you call it?
Pesto. And so we planted a bunch of basil and we got basil. I have thyme.
What's nice about thyme is that with thyme, you know, a lot of recipes call for like two sprigs of thyme.
And like, you know, you always have to buy it by the bunch.
So it's nice when you have your own plant, you can just snip, snip, pick what you want.
Pick what you need. All right.
Exactly. It's like, it's a lot more economical that way too. Feel like you're not wasting as much.
All right.
So I'm going to move this over here. Get a new surface.
Oh, great.
Hey, check it out. Here's our basil. Oh, beautiful. Yeah, it looks great.
Why? I'm guilty of the grocery store right now. What's that again? I'm guilty of just getting it from the grocery store right now.
Smells great, but it's, you know, it's usually a little bit brown.
It's not as fresh. So how does, how does this stuff keep as leftovers?
Like I'm debating, should I, is it easier to just do it all at once and then make leftover and then have leftovers or would I want to repeat this process?
Like, you know, well, you know, if you have more chicken, like the chicken will stay fine just because you cut it doesn't mean it's going to go bad anytime soon.
So you could like use that for another dinner later this week.
If you feel like you have too much and like the breaded, the breasts themselves right now, you could potentially like freeze those maybe, or like, you know, just toss them in your refrigerator and take them out tomorrow and just reheat them in the oven and cook them like, you know, for 20 or 30 minutes and probably make some very delicious chicken nuggets.
You just might want to add some salt.
That would be my one piece of advice. Okay. So, but right now in this part of the recipe, we don't need to salt it.
No. So the next part we're going to do is we're going to put them in a baking sheet or baking tray, pyrex dish, and we're going to put a bunch of cheese on it.
So depending on how sensitive you are to salt, you might want to salt them, but the Parmesan cheese and the mozzarella and the provolone is going to have a lot of that flavor in there.
Let's see. Okay. So this is probably, I think what I'm going to do is, because I have a lot of chicken here, I'm going to make this and I'm going to set aside this chicken.
Okay. And, uh, all right.
So I've got my, got my parm, or I mean, I've got my, uh, my chicken patties.
Now what are we doing? Right. So the next step, we get it'll work.
So we're going to get like a little pyrex dish like this. Okay. It doesn't have to be this big.
This is the only size I have. Um, and we're going to, or actually, you know what?
I'm sorry, chat. We have to, we're going to fry them before we bake them in the oven.
So the next step is to get some olive oil in a pan, get it really hot and, uh, some tongs.
Okay. I've got a lot of chicken here, so I'm going to do it in two pans just to make it more efficient.
Gotcha. And you can also do it in batches, but I, yeah, that's a good idea.
Let's see. So do you heat the pan first?
You put the oil in first. What do you mean? I like to put the oil in first.
You will. You remember this from my previous episodes, right? Our, our, uh, little handy.
Right. I'm still so jealous of that. That's so convenient. It's one of the things from our kitchen.
How much oil am I putting in here? Uh, you want to coat the bottom.
So let's say like a quarter cup. Oh, wow. Kind of a lot, but since we're not frying it entirely there, I think it's a little bit healthier, but I'm no nutritionist.
So don't quote me on that. So this is fun. This is like the, one of the benefits of living in an old house in San Francisco is you have to light your, uh, stove with a barbecue lighter.
Looks like I'm going to need more olive oil.
I got to put it on, on our shopping list here.
I'm no chap. All right. I'm going to put these on here.
Okay.
So I got the heat on like what? Medium high. Medium high is perfect. Yeah. All right.
I, uh, I only have two settings on mine. It's either high, low or off. So I'm just kind of winging it on the high.
Okay. They're going to finish cooking in the oven.
So really like ideally this step of the recipe, this stage is like, just to like brown them, get them like a little bit crispy before we put them in the oven and cover them in sauce and, uh, mozzarella cheese.
So now I've got the, these things are heating up and we should, uh, what's up?
So next step, we're going to take each breast and just lay them down flat.
So I think the oil is probably hot enough to put them in, but I'm going to do a little test.
Okay.
And then we're going to do like two minutes on each side. Okay. Great. We might not have time for all of our stuff.
You know, um, might have to skip the heirloom tomato and just do the asparagus because it's faster.
Yeah. No, I'm right there with you, Chad.
We'll see how we are on time. All right. So how do you, I guess this is feeling hot.
Just turn the fan on. There you go. So you just, you know, kind of gauge, gauge the temperature and then just going to take them and like lay it, lay it down in the oil.
Okay. Here we go. So I'll show you, I've got two on here right now.
Yeah. Not frying.
Maybe you want to crank the heat up.
They should look like this. There should be like, you should hear like a little, little bit of a sizzle when you laid them in there.
Got it. Yeah, there's not. I'm just going to let mine heat up more before I do that.
Okay. Do you use non-sticks or no? Yourself personally. Oh, I use both.
I'm a really, I'm a big fan of the cast iron skillet. So I try to use that as much as I can.
But I have some of these great non-stick pans that one of my roommates left here.
There you go.
Now we're starting to see a little bit of bubble action. Right. That's what we're talking about there.
Okay. There you go. You starting to hear them sizzle?
Yeah. Awesome. Amazing. Okay.
Let's check the bottom of them and see where they're at.
Okay.
That's going in for a couple more minutes. So how long is it going to be in the oven for?
They're going to be in the oven for 15 minutes.
Okay. Yeah. That's the next step. We're going to take them, put them in the tray and we'll cover them in the cheese and marinara sauce.
Put them in the oven for 15 minutes.
Take them out. They should be evenly cooked and crispy, ready to go.
So one trick that a friend of mine told me about, that he likes to do, oops, I'm going to bring it over here to, I'll at least aim it at my sink, is that whenever he bakes, what he likes to do, or roast, is he'll use parchment paper.
Oh, okay.
Makes it a little bit less sticky. Yeah, easier to develop for sure. And we use parchment paper for a lot of baking cookies or bacon.
We like to make bacon in the oven, actually.
It gets crispier that way. I'm actually a fan of that myself.
Yeah. All right. So Chad, I just flipped my chicken breasts. I want to show you what they look like.
Yeah. Oh, great. Should be a little crispy and golden on the top.
I'm going to get parchment paper. Thanks. All right, I'm going to flip this.
Oh, you know what?
Some of the panko might come off on my tongs. Can you use tongs to flip these or use a spatula?
I'm using tongs right now. I guess you could use a spatula.
Might have little rubber tips on them. So I guess they're a little bit more gentle.
I'm going to turn my heat down a little bit to medium.
I'm getting ready to flip. I'll show everybody the action here.
Oh, yeah. Oh, look at that.
Oh, perfect. That's what you want to see. Oh, wow.
All right.
So mine are pretty much done for my first batch. I still have more to do.
Wow, look at that. These ones are... Well, I've got two batches going, right? Concurrent batches.
And you'll see that one of them is a little bit more brown. Oh, beautiful.
It's perfect. All right. Oh, those are happening. And then here's my parchment paper I was talking about.
So thanks for that. Now, parchment paper, it's not wax paper.
It's different, right? And this one here, I think it's pre-cut or no?
Nope, it's not. So while these guys are frying, I'm going to get my tray ready as well.
So my tray is ready.
And the three cheeses that we have. So... Yeah, what do we got to do with the cheeses?
So we're going to... I've got a brick of mozzarella... Parmesan here that I'm going to grate.
And then I have some provolone and mozzarella. So essentially, we're going to pour some salt.
We're going to do like a layer. So let me adjust my camera here so it's a little bit more viewable.
So once I have the other batch in here, we're going to do a layer of the pasta sauce over the top.
And then we're going to do some cheese and then some basil.
And then probably a little another drizzle of sauce on top.
Okay. My chickens are probably good, right?
They just need to brown. Oh yeah, definitely. You don't want them to burn, but you want them to be crispy.
Thank you.
All right.
Where are my chickens? You've definitely got your camera angles down to a science here.
Yeah, it's my fifth episode. I got figured out by now, right? Yeah, absolutely.
Okay, so now I need to get my cheeses, right? Right. So which cheese do I start with?
I'd start with the mozzarella. Okay, there's my mozzarella. And do I hand nip it?
Do I shred it? Do I, what do I, what, pull? Well, I got some, I got some shredded, but what you're going to want to do probably is just break it apart with your hands.
Whatever is easiest for you.
If you have a cheese grater and like it's got some big holes on there, you can do that as well.
I can just do it by hand. This is fine. So how much am I putting on?
Can you show me? Yeah, I'll show you. So let me get you guys in the tray.
And like this, I put a layer on that.
Yeah, that's perfect. Yeah, that's exactly what you want to see.
And then you said, are we doing provolone also? So we're going to do three kinds of cheese.
So we're going to start with the mozzarella because it's like, it's pretty creamy.
So I'm going to do a layer on top. I kind of cheated because I bought it pre-shredded.
No, that's actually, you know, I'm kidding.
I call it smart. I mean, look at me, I'm making a mess here.
Oh yeah, I'm sure it's a lot better though. Oh yeah, it's true.
It's like, you know, I grew up getting parmesan in the green container from Kraft, right?
And now I'll only do a brick and I'll shred it. Right. Yeah, it's much better that way.
It's like, you know, definitely quality over quantity for sure. So let me know when you have that.
Yeah, I'm good.
Okay. So this is like kind of the part where we're going to wing it here.
There's kind of like, you know, recipe unclear, user judgment. So I was thinking maybe we could do some basil on top of this layer and then we'll do another layer of cheese on top of that and then hit it.
I'm almost done with my parm, so I'm going to save some for that other chicken.
Okay. I guess with the other cheeses, I'll be fine, right?
Yeah. So here's my basil. Perfect. I'm just doing like one leaf for each breast, like right in the middle.
Okay. I'll pan down in a second, show you guys what that looks like.
So. Perfect, Chad.
Beautiful. Great.
So next step, it's going to take a little of the parmesan and grate it on top.
Okay.
A little quieter in here without some chicken frying, you know? All right, so here's, I want to shut my fan, I'll leave my fan on.
So here, I love this chicken, this parm grater.
Check this out. And I can just put that on. Now, are we putting sauce on top of this first or no?
We're going to put sauce after this step and then we're going to put provolone cheese on top of that.
Oh my goodness. Okay, because like my parm is sliding off of the basil.
Oh, that's all right. It'll sit like underneath.
It'll get nice and crispy because wherever it is, it's just going to melt, you know, and like encompass the whole chicken, like some, you know, crusty parmesan goodness.
It sounds great to me. That's a great shredder right there.
I need to get one of those. Yeah. That's the kind when you go to the restaurant, the guy says, say when, you just never say when.
He's just there making a pile.
Exactly right. And it saves your knuckles too. Oh yeah, for sure. I'm getting my forearm loaded.
Boom. There you go. So that's why, you know, I didn't want to salt the breast before we fried them because like the parmesan is pretty salty and a little bit over encompassing.
You know, there's a lot of flavors going on here.
Okay. And I can see where my chicken's probably reasonably cooked.
So yeah, exactly. So that's why we're going to only put it in the oven for like 15 minutes.
We basically just want to melt the cheese and finish the cooking process.
Got it. So I've got my provolone here, but the first step I need to do is get my sauce out.
Yeah. So I've got my just classic, regular tomato sauce.
I'm probably gonna get a spoon because it'll be a little bit messier than just pouring it on top.
This is a tomato sauce there. And we have previously used, I'm going to use a little ladle here.
Start ladling it on.
Yeah, exactly. Is that homemade sauce, Chet? This is, I can't remember.
We did do a homemade sauce once, but I don't know if this is from that.
It may be. Actually, I think it has it on the... Wife wrote it. It says Rao's Pasta Sock.
Rao? R-A-O-S? Not really sure what that is, but look at this. Oh my goodness.
Wow.
All right. How much sauce are we putting on here?
Are we drenching it or just covering it a little bit?
Or just like use your judgment. That's probably good.
Yeah, you just want to cover it. No judgment. Mine looks a little bit like this at this point, the stage right now.
Oh, yeah. Okay, cool. Yeah.
All right. Let's get the last step.
Let's cover it. I've got some slices of just regular provolone cheese here.
So slicer or shred? I would recommend shredding it. I couldn't find a brick of it, so I got slices.
I'm just going to probably do a... Okay, here we go.
Full thin coating. All right.
So what's the idea, you think, behind the different cheeses? Is it texture?
Is it flavor? Is it... It's definitely a texture and flavor. So mozzarella is really creamy, whereas parmesan is really sharp.
So they kind of just balance the two out.
And then the provolone is a little bit sharp.
It just kind of gives it a different flavor. That's why when you order a cheese pizza, usually there's two or three different kinds of cheese on there.
I'm a big fan of Asiago. Because it's really sharp. Actually, my pesto recipe for a couple of different parms.
There's a parmigiano -reggiano and parmigiano...
Maybe I'll do...
Yeah, I think reggiano is the classic Italian one, you know? Maybe it's Asiago.
Asiago is my one. Oh, right, right. Oh yeah, there's going to definitely be some crusty cheese all around this plate.
So I'm going to take...
I love basil. So I'm going to just like tear a little bit of basil and put it on top of mine.
Totally up to you. Okay. It's not an imperative recipe at all.
Also, I just think it looks nice with more green on there, you know?
Okay, I'm going to maybe put my basil on afterwards. Because I want my cheese to kind of bubble and crust up.
Oh, that's a good idea. I might retract my statement there.
Or you know what? Do both. Let's get crazy with it. There you go.
All right. Wow, this is looking good. It's all coming together. It's like you're there frying the chicken and you're like, we've got 15 minutes to throw it in the oven and see how it turns out.
So let's get it in the oven. Okay, so I'm putting it in the oven.
And in those 15 minutes, I'm going to make a judgment call and say let's do asparagus.
Because I think the burrata... Well, when we already have all this cheese, we can just save the burrata for tomorrow's meal or whatever, right?
Yeah.
The asparagus is just going to be a little bit more quick. I like the executive decision.
I'm on that right there with you. I'm getting good at this hour thing.
I know. Yeah, it's tricky. This has just snuck up on me so quick. Totally.
So you mentioned that you were going to grill the asparagus earlier today.
I am. Still a game plan? That is still the plan. So first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to turn on my grill.
I'm going to start warming it up. I'll walk outside of my grill, all right?
Also, I'll be able to show you the... What is it?
So here's my grill. Weber. Oh, that's a great setup. Yeah, the Weber grill is great.
Because I had another brand before and the thing just broke on me. And then I tried getting replacement parts and it takes forever.
Like at least 15 years and it's still going strong.
And then check this out here. Wow. So that was your COVID project.
You built that whole thing. The COVID project, right? Yeah. So we have here some basil.
I've got some thyme. I decimated it because I used it for a chicken dish.
Got some parsley. It's mostly basil. We had some arugula but we pretty much harvested that thing.
Part of my COVID project. I built this cover on it which I'll keep the rodents out.
And that's pretty cool. But the mesh screen that I put on it turns out is kind of...
It keeps the pollinators out, unfortunately.
But I would in the future, if I were to do it again, use a wider, like chicken wire or something like that, right?
So yeah, yeah, definitely. So what I like to do with the asparagus is super easy.
You got your asparagus, right? And I'm just gonna cut the ends off.
I need to get my workstation all set up again.
I know, right? Wow, those are some big asparagus there, Chet. What's that?
The big asparagus tips. Mine are puny. Oh, you got like one of the pencilies?
Yeah, that's... I don't know what the difference is if they harvest them earlier or what.
But you know, so what I'll typically do...
I just noticed this today or yesterday when I went and bought them. They were actually labeled asparagus tips instead of asparagus.
So I think there might be a difference there.
So here's my asparagus. What I typically do is just drizzle some olive oil on there, right?
I'll do that real quick. So I drizzled some olive oil on my asparagus.
Take a brush. You don't need to do it like this, but I'll...
Oh, fancy. I just do a quick brushing just because like when you drizzle it on with a stream, it's just like you end up using too much or it just gets it in spots.
Make sure I get more olive oil on the tips part, because it's kind of like the head of a broccoli, you know?
It's where all the sponge. Then a little salt and pepper.
Nice. All right. There we go.
I'm gonna take a peek in the oven. Oh, that's looking good. All right. I'm gonna go ahead and set a timer here for...
Let's see. We got to take it out before the end of this session.
So seven minutes. Sounds good. It's about how long it takes the asparagus to cook on the grill on a medium high heat.
So I'm gonna take you outside again.
Becca, would you mind getting that door for me? Thank you. 10 minutes.
This is great. We're gonna be coming closer, Chad. We are. We're doing it.
We're doing it. Okay. So there's the grill. I don't know if you can see, but I'll put it on and I'll show you.
Oh, yeah.
Let's see here. Question from our audience. Andrew looks like an incredible chef.
Hey, it's from Mary Kate Kelmoss. Hey, I wonder if there's a relationship there.
We don't know because we haven't discussed her last names. That's right.
Okay. Look at this. Thank you, Mary. Mary Kate. So here's our asparagus.
Look at that. I'm gonna cover it. I have it on high heat, but I'm gonna turn it down a little bit.
Don't want to cook it too much. So then I'll just turn it once at one point.
So Mary Kate chimed in about 38 minutes ago. Sorry, I hadn't recognized it sooner.
We're so busy trying to stay on schedule. It was a tough recipe to try to fit in an hour.
You know what I thought? I think to do that plus this, the tomato was a little bit aggressive.
But no, that's cool. I guess now I have a moment to enjoy another glass of wine here, right?
Absolutely. While you do that, I'm gonna toss my asparagus in.
Oh, is that the Boda box? Nice. Okay. Does that fit in the same place?
It sure does. It sure does fit in the same place. But it's also, this box serves as my, that's my stand for my computer.
Oh, perfect. The perfect height for that.
Right. Yeah. This is my makeshift standing desk situation going on over here.
Oh, here you go. That's how we do it. Yeah. So I'm gonna just do my asparagus in the saute pan.
So super simple. Our part is getting the burner with it.
And I'm just gonna do pretty much the same thing except in reverse.
Like olive oil, salt and pepper. So I'll heat those up.
Get my pepper cracker out. Looking good. Looking real good.
All right. Gotta clean up the workstation.
My goodness. I have a friend who did a cooking show and I don't know how he does it.
But the kitchen looks immaculate even while he's cooking.
And I'm like, mine by the time it looks like, you know, I fed an army.
I know it's so hard to clean. Like, that's like one of the things that they've always been on me on my case when I was like working in a kitchen is you're supposed to like clean while you work.
If you'd be like so inundated with trying to put dishes together, you wouldn't have time.
And then of course, the chef would come over and yell at you.
Oh, you work like a pig, blah, blah, blah, you know. Right.
Are there any good cooking shows that you like? And my cooking shows, I should say stuff like, I don't know if you've ever seen, is it Chef Table?
Why not?
I love Chef's Table. I love Chef's Table. One of my favorite shows, I essentially grew up watching Anthony Bourdain, like in his shows.
And that's like really what like introduced me to like, you know, all these ethnic cuisines.
You go all over the world to like remote places in Thailand and like the Amazonian rainforest and just like sit down with these different indigenous cultures and like eat food with them.
What a job, huh? He had it. Chef's Table is really cool to watch these like professional chefs bring that like interesting style of cuisine like into the like Western culture and the like fine dining Michelin atmosphere.
Yeah. Yeah, I love that. I haven't seen, there's another one that's out there that I want to see.
What is it? Like salt, sugar, fat, acid. I can't remember all.
I'm blanking on the woman's name.
She has a book. It's salt, salt, acid, salt, fat, acid, heat.
I think it is. There you go. That's what it is. That's what I'm talking about.
Yeah. So that was great. I'm looking at my chicken and it's looking pretty good.
And I'm wondering when we take it out of the oven.
Here, I'll give, let me show you what I got here.
All right, it's looking good, Chad.
So I almost wonder like should I put on the broiler to just crisp up the top and like.
Yeah, that couldn't work. My only concern is I guess you could just pop it back in the oven.
If you're going to do it for aesthetic purposes, you might want to just cut it, cut into it and make sure the chicken's cooked all the way through.
One of the things about cooking it fast, like under a high heat, is it's not going to cook it evenly, you know.
So there's nothing worse than like chicken that's not cooked all the way.
Like you could have your pretty much any other meat medium rare, but not chicken.
Here's our asparagus.
You see, I just, it's all looking good. All right. So I'm going to, I'm going to take off my asparagus here.
Let's say mine is almost ready. A little bit of salt.
We might actually be able to share a bite of our food together.
This is great. Hold my breath though.
So because we are running on time and my laptop battery is also low.
How about that? But I got I think four minutes. I've got the asparagus ready here.
I'm going to put it on a plate, serving plate. It's probably comedically too large for the amount of asparagus that I cut.
That's okay.
All right. That's fine. All right. So now I'm going to take, I'm going to take the chicken out.
Yeah. I'm going to, I'm going to follow your lead here. Look at that, everyone.
Let's take a look.
Ooh, my goodness. Let me see if I can plate that. Oh yeah.
That looks great. Okay. I should give you guys the joy of watching me plate this here.
Is this what it looks like coming out of the oven?
Ooh, nice. Not too bad, right? And we got some of the asparagus here.
Look at that cheese. Oh my goodness. Perfect. All right. And now I'm going to take that asparagus.
Now we had talked about like putting this on a bed of angel hair pasta or capellini or skinny spaghetti or whatever.
And that would be delish. Or because usually I like to balance things out with some kind of a starch.
We're out of time. I also didn't have pasta, but that's something that we could do.
We could also easily make garlic bread or even just buttered toast.
Right? So I think this would go great on a baguette.
Like, or if you just were able to use your leftovers for like a chicken Parmesan sandwich or something like that.
It's a great idea. Yeah. So we got two minutes.
So let's, let's, let's, let's have a bite. I'm going to have dinner with the family, but first I'm going to have a bite with my co-chef and co-host, Andrew.
Thank you so much.
Let me see if I can get this view going. I know this is kind of a hard one.
So here it goes. I'm going to bite into this. Oh, look at that. That looks perfect.
I'm going to do it.
Here it goes. All right, Chad, let me know what you think. It's great.
I've always wanted to make chicken parm. I really have. So I suppose you could kind of do the same thing with eggplant.
Yeah. So you definitely just follow the same steps with the eggplant, except if, you know, when you put it in the oven, you would just take it out when you're ready for your cheese.
Like you have the desired crispiness or whatever.
Because you don't have to worry about the cooking time, really.
Right. The thing about eggplant is I know you generally want to sweat it too.
Right. You put some salt on it before you do anything. Cut it. Also, the skin is going to be a lot.
Well, listen, it's 629. We're going to be off the air here in a minute.
I just want to thank you so much for showing us chicken parm.
Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me, Chad. That was awesome. So I guess we can just hang out and eat.
And then when they take us off the air, we could like, you know, continue hanging out and having our meal together.
Absolutely. Bringing with the family.
I bring in the family. I clean up the kitchen. This is Chad with Cooking with Cloudflare.
My co-host, Andrew. Thank you so much for joining, everyone.
Absolutely.