Avocado Salad, Chicken Pesto, Apple Tartan

Well hi everybody, so glad to see everybody, those smiling faces. I’ll tell you a little bit about myself. I’ve been cooking for 40 years and I’ve had about five restaurants of my own and they call me “The Black Sheep Chef,” as you could see I’m all in black or “The Gypsy Chef” because I’ve traveled all over the country and I’ve been to Paris and I’ve been all over the world actually learning how to cook. And my basic cooking skills I learned, I went to Michigan State, the major hotel and restaurant management and my family had a restaurant in Detroit. You’re from Detroit? So remember the London Champ house in Detroit? Okay that was my family’s restaurant. I grew up in the business and I’ve been going strong ever since. So, hopefully today we’re going to have some fun and we’re going to get a little passion about cooking and learn a little bit and learn some tricks of the trade and get a great tasting. So first of all, we’re going to do it a little bit different. Today, I’m going to make a desert first so I can get in to the oven and by the time when I finish with the –I will sell in the tray then the desert should be ready, it takes about like 15 minutes. So, what I want to make for you today, it’s an Old Italian Desert that I learned years ago and It’s called Apple Tartan, and what It’s basically It’s an Apple Pie in a pan. So you just have to do it in one pan and it’s really easy. Now, we’re going to start out with just a little bit of butter. Well the whole of this together is only a half a pound, so it’s really not a lot. We made this as a quarter to start. Okay, we’re going to melt our butter, and then we have our apples. Now I use Gala apples because I didn’t want it really sweet, and I didn’t want it something to bitter like a Granny Smith, but these are kind of a middle apple. They’re not too sweet and yet they are not to tart. And I marinated them a little bit in orange juice, lemon juice and lime juice. So it kind of keeps the color and they don’t turn brown. And then you want to kind of pour the juice off. And now we’re going to cook our apples. Now, this is just a regular cinnamon. So, we’re going to put a little cinnamon in it about that much, and this is our brown sugar, but I’m going to let the apples cook just a little bit because when you put the brown sugar in it, it kind of get sticky and the apple start cooking. So, cook them just a little bit. This is just vanilla, but always use pure vanilla extract, don’t use imitation vanilla; it does not even taste like vanilla. And the same thing with everything is your herbs. Once you’ve finished with this, it would going to be the product that you started with. So always, you want to use some fresh herbs. If you go through your spice cabinet at home but half of your spices are more than six months old, after six months you might just throw them all the way and start again. Because they loose their portents, so now when you’re making something you said it calls for two teaspoons of this and it’s all old, so you might need to five teaspoons or six. So kind of go throw your spice cabinet and don’t buy the ones in the bottles because they charge you $3.00 for a bottle and a dollar for the spices. Get the kind of spices that come into the plastic packages and fill your own bottles, so for 89 cents your 99 cents, you get the same thing you get for $4.00 in a jar. But every six months, throw all everything away and start again. Now, we’re just going to use a little brown sugar. This is about a cup of brown sugar. My family’s restaurant got kind of famous because Barbara Streisand got her first job working for my father. That is her first gig and funny is got to be friends with her because she was a hippy and she would come to work– my father had her contract with another guy. The two of them have 50% each and my mother kept saying, “Just don’t ever get rid of that contract, this girl has the greatest voice I’ve heard in century,” and my dad say, “Yes sure. She comes to work late every single day. She never wears shoes. She never combs her hair. She is holding all her clothes. She is a hippy where do I want her contract for. For the rest of his life, my father heard it from my mother, I told you about Barbara Streisand. In fact one time, she had to go–remember the “The Jack Paar Show” his name is Johnny Carson her first television appearances on Jack Paar. So, she didn’t have a dress, she didn’t have any shoes, she didn’t have a handbag, so my mother lend her a beauty dress and shoes and have all her clothes just to go on the show. I got to be great friends with her. She was really nice as a hippy, after she grew up it was a little different. I want to have a little more sugar. This tart is real good. Now this is just puff past of dough that you buy at the store. You can make your own dough, but you have to roll an equal amounts of butter and then redo it and then rolled it out again and everything. It’s a lot easier if you just buy your dough already made, and you save your self a lot of work. And it comes out the same. So, let us see if we can do this. I’m going to struggle with this one. I might have to rol it out again. This is what happens when you leave it out too long before you start the show. So, that sticks together. And in emergency we don’t have a rolling pin, we don’t have any dough, but we’re going to make it work. We’re just going to take a little flour on the cutting board. Since we don’t have a rolling pin, I think we’ll use a bottle. I’m going to roll it up, here we go. There’s never an emergency that you can’t solve somehow or other. No matter what, there is a way out of it. You know you have to just think on your feet and be innovative and everything will work out. But if you say oh not I don’t have a rolling pin, oh no the dough or it will work. You just have to make it work. We’re getting there, almost. And it’s about right. So, we’ll put this here. We’ll cut around, now this is fun. We’re going to flip this over. So, what we just patched the little parts and nobody it will know but us. Put this over here, get a nice patch here. There we have it. Now, we’ll put it on the oven at 400 for 15 minutes. Anybody got a watch, they can time it, 15 minutes. In the meantime, I think we have something to eat now. Everybody is probably hungry. So, switch this out. A little trick on your cutting board, so it doesn’t slide on your corner, always put a wet piece of paper towel or wet rug and put it under your cutting board, and that really helps and it doesn’t slide around. Now, we’re going to do our lovely salad. First thing I want to do, these are just mixed greens, and it’s a little bit of radicchio a little bit of prozie and some baby spinach. And this is a trick to a really good salad, it’s organic Arugala. Arugala has a real peppery beautiful flavor to it. So, we’re going to mix maybe half a package. We’re going to mix this in with our greens. And then we’re going to make some salad dressing. Now, the first thing for any salad dressing is a good virgin, extra virgin olive oil. Extra virgin just means that this is the first pressing of the olives, is the first three. If there is two three sitting next to each other and they take the green olives of one three and they’d let the other ones mature and turn brown or black, that’s virgin olive oil. But extra is very first tree, a very first pressing. So, we want like about eight people. We want like a cup or a cup enough of extra virgin of olive oil. I get this Trader Joe it’s a really nice product, they have a really good product wine and all of their stuff is a sugar free, they sweetened their stuff with fruit juices and it’s all kind of healthy, it’s kind of low fat. Balsamic vinegar, the ratio is four parts olive oil, one part vinegar. You can do half and half with it. To me, you need sugar for it’s a little bit vinegary. So, that’s like about four to one. This is a little bit of sesame oil. This is a really good trick. Sesame oil just not a whole lot. Just enough to kick it up a notch. A little bit of soy sauce, not too much. You can use Lea and Perrins Worcestershire sauce to that, it’s really good. And most people have that around the house too. Just a touch of Tabasco, this is cherry wine. So, we’re just going to put a little bit of cherry wine in it. And you need a little mustard. Dijon mustard is preferable to almost anything else. Dijon or honey mustard, some sort of rough mustard. This is cilantro just regular cilantro and you just want to chop it up. Because we’re going to give this kind of an –it’s going to be kind of an Asian vinaigrette and we’re going to put some strawberry preserves in it too and then at the end some fresh strawberries. Now, I’m just going to dice it up. When you dice it up real fine, it’s called Brunoise and if you take your basil. Basil are fine and they’re easy and nice to have in the kitchen, but just roll it up just like this and it’s called –makes a pretty little cut. Now, we’re going to put a little bit of these strawberry preserves in it. And any salad dressing you have to add a little garlic. That is a very important ingredient, just a little garlic. This is a seasoning salt, let’s just season all, it’s called Greek Seasoning. Just put in a little bit of this. And this is Rene Seasoning. This is really a good product. We have it here at the studio. It’s an all purpose seasoning and it has about six different things in. It’s a very nice product. Strawberry preserves is the trick because of the vinegar you put sugar in it, it’s a balance. If it’s too sweet, then you want to put lemon juice in it to cut the sweetness, if it’s too tart, then you put a little sugar in to cut the tartness. So, this is our dressing and this is our salad. But now, I think I like to toss this. You don’t want to make it too wet and I have left over in case anybody wants wet. But you don’t want to be too dry either. It’s kind of 50/50. Some people like it wet, some people like it dry. But cooking is like, it’s fun. it’s like a passion. There is art, music and literature, but cooking is an art form in itself. There is music to cooking, there is a art to cooking, there is a literature, people write about it. It’s for us people who can’t play an instrument and we can’t write a book and we can’t paint a picture and then we can’t draw a pot. We can’t make a last vase, but we can cook. Everybody can cook. So what it is, is you’re expressing your inner self, your inner most feelings. It’s like a path to god, you know what I mean; it really is when you cook because your give yourself up, just surrender to the food and to the cooking and it’s a beautiful experience. So always, you know when it tastes the best, the more love you put in it, the better it taste. No matter what you’re making. The simplest dish are the most difficult. If you put love in it, it’s going to taste good. And your presentation, you eat with your eyes first, then you eat with your mouth. So, we’re eating with our eyes first, so let us make this. So first we got a nice bowl, a clear bowl is nice sometimes. Today, I just felt like using something, just a little bit turquoisey. So, we’re going to put our beautiful greens in here like this. Now, we have to make it look pretty. So, what are we going to do? Well let us see, let us put –there are blanched almonds. Let us put some pretty almonds it. If you get olives, get the greek olives, they’re way the best, better than any other olive. Avocado, I can’t have a salad without an avocado in it. Natures perfect food avocado. It has much protein as a steak. So now, whenever there’s a little brown and it’s a little trick too, you want to get a pit in the middle, just how your knife in it and turn. Again, if there’s any little brown spots, cut them out. These avocados are really nice and ripe. Good little trick, if you over salt any kind of food that you are cooking, if you cut up a potato, peel a potato or raw potato. Cut it in four pieces throw it in your sauce and boil it until it’s soft and take it out and you’ll get about 80% of the salt to come out in the potato. So, the pepper it’s really hard to get it out. And if you burn something, it’s really hard to fix it. I can hardly remember one time that I burned something. I actually saved it. I had a little health food restaurant in the Auburn, Michigan in 1971 and you know we we’re hippies, we went in the morning and everybody went in and they hugs and we go on, they all loving the food. Well I was making cream of cauliflowers soup and it got scourge to it. I mean, the lunch is in 15 minutes, we don’t have a soup what am I going to do? So, I went on, I got an idea, so I went and we got a bunch of caraway seeds and I ground up the caraway seeds and I took five pounds of swiss cheese and the swiss and caraway, swiss and rye and I called it swiss and rye soup and everyday, four or five people are coming and say, why don’t you make that swiss and rye soup again. I couldn’t tell that I burn something again. Well it look better isn’t it? This is gorgonzola cheese. It’s like a blue cheese, but it’s milder and it has a much better taste. So, we’re going to put some nice gorgonzola in here. It’s getting prettier isn’t it? Starting to get little color to it. Now, we’re going to take these lovely strawberries. See, we’ve got the greens. We got a little black and now we get some red in there. We could put tomatoes in it, but I don’t think I’m going to put it in today. I think I’m going to use strawberries for the red instead. And now it’s starting to look pretty right there. And now, mango, did you know that mango is the most wildly eaten food in the world. That more mangoes than any other fruit, and apples and oranges and any other fruit in the world, mangoes is the number one fruit in the world and I don’t know why, if you’ve ever been in Hawaii and pick the mangoes off the trees there and eat, the best of the best of the best. So, let us put lots of mangoes in our mango salad. So we have avocado and mango and strawberries and oh my god, this is going to be good. Do you guys remember Justin Wilson, he use to go and lock the door, I guarantee it’d be good, remember, guarantee, missed him he’s gone. He was a great old guy. Well, now just to make it beautiful. And since we have this gorgeous basil here, let me just take a little bit of basil. Just put this right here in the middle. We have our Gorgonzola Mango Salad. Now, that’s good enough to try doesn’t it, all right, I’ll see what I can do about that We’re going to add basil to the – . But don’t eat the paper, it does not work. Just the basil, and then we have this lovely Parmesan and Romano cheese combined the two of them. I don’t want to leave anybody out. And this is our garlic. So, if you have a real blade you don’t have to do this. It’s only when you don’t. So I chopped it up. Now we’re going to put some ham in it. And we’ll keep adding as we meet it, and some pine nuts. Pine nuts are wonderful; I like to put pine nuts in everything. And then, what we’re going to do is add our olive oil slowly to emulsify it. And the hardest thing is not going to making the sauce, it’s going to be getting it out of here. Because we’re not sure that this is going to come out. That looks good, that looks really good. This is our pesto. Now, this is a little thick, I’m sure it’s up on the screen. If you really want to see, somebody tell me in about three minutes. It’s almost there, the desert. Okay we want to get every last drop of goodness out of here. Now, I’m going to clean this up a little bit. I’m just going to add some whipping cream to it. And we’re going to make a cream, the pesto sauce. See, this cream reduces a little bit it will take a real nice consistency. And to this I’m just going to add a little bit of Tabasco sauce. Going to have my hot sauce and it’s an important ingredient in everything. And a little bit of this. Quick seasoning, that’s plenty of everything. And now, we’re just going to let it reduce, while it’s reducing. Let us make some pasta. Does everybody like the long pasta or the broken in half, nobody cares right. Okay, let’s use the whole pasta, the way the real Italians do it, then you can twirl it on you fork or with your spoon and your fork. No, the reason why I don’t put the oil in the water is, when you put it in the counter, all of this just goes off of it. After you’ve drained it, then you put your oil in it. That’s the way I always do it. While our pasta and our sauce are both working, you can put oil in your water. A lot of people do it, because what it does, it guarantees you and that is not going to stick together at all, but if you just play to it a little bit when you first put it in, it won’t stick together. So, I’m just going to play with this a little bit or I will get it separated. Now, this is a little bit thick. So, you’ve got to learn it, when it’s too thick, you thin it, when it’s to thin, you thicken it. So, I’ve got some organic free range chicken stock. So, I’m just going to put a little bit of chicken stock in it. Better taste it, make sure it’s okay. It worked. This is going to be very good. So, I’m going to turn this down until it simmer, and do the processes one more time. Angel hair doesn’t take long, angel hair takes about 3 to 5 minutes. Depending how much you’re making and how big your pies. And you want it Al Dente, Al Dente means “to the tooth,” so it should just be a little tough when you right in to it. You never want mushy pasta, I mean it happens, but just try not to get it that way. And now, I think we better take our desert out. Let’s see how this work. How is that one? I’m just going to let this sit this a little while, before I turn it over. So, I want to let it rest. It’s really runny right now. So, might even be a better idea just to let it cool. Pasta is almost done. See, you can pick one at all. You want to test your pasta, just take one strand and bite that, to the tooth. It’s still a little chewy. So we’re just going to let it go a little more. But, that is done. Now, we want to make a nice presentation for this. This is kind of odd shape plate. So it will be kind of cool. We’ll use this and I want to get a little basil for a garnish, remember you’re going to eat with your eyes, so you want to make it really pretty. So, we’re just going to roll this up a little bit. And we all have these greens, so I’m going to use a little bit of red to so it gets a little balance. And let’s get a pretty leaves here. How about this one? Right here, okay. This smells good. Okay, it’s done. So I’m going to take this. Now, you really don’t need to rinse your pasta because you really want to keep the starch on it. So, you will just kind of leave it this way and just let it drain. Into the magic door and find a big spoon. Drained pretty good isn’t it? If you just take it, when you get your pasta, if you could turn it a little bit to keep it on the center. Had a really nice amount and now we can use more than that, that looks good. This is our home made pesto sauce, and our mixer. You can see that the blender is from the 60’s, 70’s maybe. So, we’re going to put that just like that. Now, we need to make it beautiful. So, let’s put some tomato around the outside. One thing, tomato, basil, parmesan cheese, they are all great compliments for each other. They all go wonderful together. Now a few pine nuts. A little bit of parmesan cheese, like this. Our – around the plate. And again, we’re going to eat with our eyes first, make it beautiful. Switch that tomato, and then right in the middle. Put a little basil leaf, like that. We have Angel hair, oh you know I want to put some chicken in this, I forgot. I cook some chicken before, so we’re going to have chicken pesto. So, I will put chicken in the sauce, loosen it up a little bit. You guys did not remind me. So, I will put some nice chicken. Okay, chicken pesto.