Cal and Christa DeMercurio
We’re back with another exciting episode of Cooking Like a Pro, featuring your favorite culinary duo, Chef Cal and Christa DeMercurio. This week, we’ve got a treasure trove of tips and tricks that will take your kitchen game to the next level! 🎉
**Perfect Pasta Every Time 🍝**
Christa shares her detailed process for achieving that perfect al dente pasta, with a special method coined “Pasta 123”. Trust us, this one’s a game-changer!
**Poaching Proficiency 🐟**
Chef Cal gives us an in-depth guide on poaching seafood to perfection—gentle, flavorful, and oh-so-delicate. He even compares poaching to steaming, shedding light on when to use each method.
**Picture-Perfect Plating 🍽️**
Ever wonder how the pros make their dishes look so good? Cal and Christa discuss food harmony, color, texture, and presentation techniques to make your plates pop!
**Wine Wisdom 🍷**
Whether you’re a wine novice or an aficionado, Cal’s breakdown on pairing wines with different dishes will have you sipping with confidence. Learn about varietals, tasting notes, and the influence of oak vs. stainless steel.
Timestamp Overview
00:00 Peaches stand out in their own right.
04:32 Fresh spinach, avocado, banana, strawberry, peaches, dressing.
07:45 Boil, chill, peel – easy peach peeling method.
12:01 Cooking skills segment, poaching, sautéing, job prospects.
14:21 Flavorful vegetable broth with aromatic herbs.
18:12 Chicken adapts to various cooking methods well.
19:33 Cedar plank fish baked in paper bag.
25:43 Journey of growth in marriage and cooking.
26:57 Plate now includes protein, veggie, optional starch.
30:34 Consider texture, flavor, harmony and theme.
35:03 Presentation should be visually appealing and evoke emotion.
37:21 Wine recipe and origin influence flavor profile.
41:51 Winemaker is like a chef with grapes.
44:36 Viogniere pairs well, cleanses palate for creamy dishes.
46:19 Napa Valley and France share ideal location.
Transcript
Christa:
Hey food fans, welcome to cooking like a pro with chef Cal and me misses chef, his wife Christa DeMercurio. We’re dishing out culinary intuition, insights and imagination to spice up your meals and make cooking more fun. On today’s episode, my chef, husband and I discuss peaches, poppy seeds, poaching, plating and pairing Chardonnay. Today is brought to you by the letter P. Let’s dig in. Today’s episode was broadcast and recorded live on AM FM radio.
Cal:
Welcome, welcome, welcome back. Welcome back to cooking like a pro with chef Cal and Mrs Chef Christa DeMercurio, my beautiful wife sitting across from me. Hello. Yeah, so cooking like a pro is where you’re at. And thank you for tuning in. We appreciate you keeping us on your, on your dial. We are at KCNR 1460 AM.
Cal:
And again, if you may find us on 96.5 FM. And it’s a live call in show so you can call in and ask a cooking question, anything related to cooking, we will certainly give it our, our best shot. That’s a local number, 530-605-4567 again, 605-4567 so cooking like a pro. So, you know, we’re looking at what’s available out there like we’ve been doing since we started a, a couple weeks ago. And again, we do appreciate your participation as well. But, you know, head down to the, to the farmers market and see what they got. Last week we did, was it cucumbers and tomatoes?
Christa:
Cucumbers and tomatoes. We did a gazpacho.
Cal:
Oh, yeah. Gazpacho is good. It’s hard when you’re a chef to make a little bit. So we’re still eating the last little bit of that. As long as your refrigerator is cold enough, you’re fine on the, on the shelf life on that one. But we’re going to do peaches and strawberries because they’re just so luscious. So if you’d like to ask a question, give us a call again, 530-605-4567 or just listen up and we will be chatting about those. So the fresh update.
Cal:
All right, peaches. So there’s a number of things you can obviously do with peaches. You don’t really want to do a lot with them because they’re just one of those ingredients that really stands out on its own. So if anything, you want to use it not as a component cooking. When we talk about component cooking, we’re talking about adding flavors together that don’t necessarily match. They’re basically different components. What you want to do is you want to come up with something that is going to match something that’s going to marry something that’s going to form a good bond when you come talk about your flavor profile. So that’s one of the things that we’re gonna be chatting about.
Cal:
And I have a couple recipes we’re gonna share also. We will get these onto our webpage. Christa, where do they find. Okay. As I’m rattling off recipes they don’t necessarily need, first off, it’s 05:00 if you’re driving, don’t be writing these down. But where can they go and get those?
Christa:
Our main website is culinarilyyours.net And if you can’t remember that, just remember what our show is called. Cookinglikeapropodcast.net.
Cal:
Oh, and cook. Oh, and you pointed that out to me. Cooking like a pro spells clap. C l a p, clap, clap, clap. Like clapping your hands.
Christa:
That’s how you remember. Cookinglikeapropodcast.net. And you can text us questions from that page.
Cal:
There you go. Well, if you want to go online and do that, please feel free. But yeah, so the peaches, the thing that I’ve noticed is that they stand alone very well by themselves. But you do want to make sure that it’s a list of ingredients which are harmonious. I’m going to start off with a strange one. My aunt Nadaire had given me a recipe. She was a really good cook. Everyone in my family really good cooks, but she gave me this recipe and it’s strange.
Cal:
And I bring it up because I’ve used it so many times. And it’s a wonderful recipe and it’s a great combination of flavors. But it sure doesn’t sound like it would be. But peaches is one of those items that you can put in. It’s a peach spinach salad. Peach spinach salad. So what we’re going to use, and also you can use even we’re going to be talking about strawberries. Strawberries works as well.
Cal:
But let’s go and give the ingredients on that. So what it is is you get your fresh spinach and you have avocado, banana, and strawberry. And then you can replace again the strawberry with peaches. And that gets a poppy seed dressing. Actually, we call that a dressing. It’s an onion poppy seed sugar dressing. It’s a great dressing, but it’s just one of those combinations. And I know we talked about this last week, that there are those flavor combinations that you just want to write down get yourself a pad of paper, write them down.
Cal:
Certain things that you will come across or you’ve already come across, or maybe some you’ll pick up here that will just say, wow, that worked great together.
Christa:
What could you garnish that with? Wouldn’t want to do croutons, would you do almonds?
Cal:
Textural component. You got a great point. Great point. See, that’s my wife. That’s my wife. She’s picking these things up. She’s thinking, wait a minute, there’s no texture there. You got spinach.
Cal:
Avocado is soft. Spinach, of course, is soft. Strawberries, bananas. And then if you’re using peaches in place with strawberries or in addition to the strawberries, either way, those are all soft. So, yeah, having a plus, it adds another protein. So adding some toasted almonds would be nice. You know what I like? If I’m going to use almonds, I like the slivered ones. They look like little sticks.
Christa:
I like the sliced ones.
Cal:
Oh, gosh. Here we go. There we go. All right. Marital therapy on the air. We have sliced almonds versus slivered almonds.
Christa:
Okay, well, if you don’t do almonds, what about, like, those dirky french fried onions? The deep fried onions, would that be a good component on top?
Cal:
You know, there are times I use those, but they usually fall into barbecue. But we keep, you know, one thing we do do is if I, when it comes to croutons or any of those french fried onions, things like that, I always keep those in the freezer. Same with my nuts, because nuts have oil in them. Oil can get rancid. So I keep all those in the freezer. So when we want to top something, put a little garnish on there, it’s just.
Christa:
And they come up to room temp almost immediately.
Cal:
There you go. So that’s a good one. So that’s a spinach salad. And on the peaches, getting back to those quickly, I wanted mentioned a lot of times. The thing that kind of puts me off on a peach is the fur, the furriness, the fuzz, the peach fuzz. Fuzz. Yeah, it’s the peach fuzz. Maybe that’s the guy thing, but I don’t know.
Christa:
So are you supposed to peel the fuzz off or do you leave it on?
Cal:
Well, I mean, a great deal of vitamins and minerals can always be found in the skin. In a potato, it’s like 80% of them.
Christa:
Well, I think, you know, depends upon what is the toughness of it, because, okay, last week we had that really giant, beautiful peach that was we could eat is straight with a knife, no peeling it. And it was so delicious. Then we did that little small one that I bought. It was a tough skin. You had to, you couldn’t even chew it, it was so tough.
Cal:
Well, you know what I think, first off, we do need to be careful whether it’s a nectarine. If it doesn’t have any fur on it, it’s a nectarine. And if it’s furry, then it’s a peach. But peeling them is very easy. And you can peel them the same way you peel almost everything. Same way you peel a tomato. Right. The peel of the tomato is not real good for you.
Cal:
Your body doesn’t digest. It just pretty much starts at one end and works its way through. So same thing with the peach is what we’ll do is we’ll take boiling water, and you’re just going to need some water that’s boiling. So if you need a recipe, all right, call us in the. But then you need a bowl of ice water, and you just drop it in for three to 5 seconds, pull it out, put it in the ice water, cool it down. Once it’s cooled down, you can just peel it off with your finger. I mean, it will peel like a, the skin will come off like a bar of soap. It will just squeeze right off.
Cal:
So whether it’s tomato or a peach, anything you want to get that peel off those things works good. And I know that you have a combination that we do, and we’ve done before on strawberries that I made that you really liked. Do you recall what that one was?
Christa:
Strawberries and balsamic.
Cal:
And balsamic.
Christa:
I remember the first time I made that job I was working at. They thought I was crazy. I’m like, no, no, no, trust me. Balsamic works with strawberries.
Cal:
Yes. You know, and what we do is we just take, it’s three to one. So when we talk about a recipe that’s by number like this, we’re talking about volume, so it can even be weight. But it’s three to one. So it’s three parts. So it’s one quart of, I’m sorry, four to one, one quart of balsamic vinegar to one cup of white granulated sugar. So again, one quart to one cup. You’re just going to put that in a saucepan and reduce it by third.
Cal:
So just kind of take a look at where it is in your small little saucepan and just bring it up to a simmer or even a light boil, let it go down till it’s about a third reduced, meaning two thirds left. Then let that cool and you’re going to end up with this wonderful, wonderful syrup. I’ll tell you, you put that over strawberries and it’s a great dessert. Cause it’s also high acid, so it cleans your throat, your taste buds.
Christa:
If you don’t have the time or the patience or you go a little too far like I have with your balsamic reduction, you can go to the store and get some already made. You can get it from your regular grocery store. And Trader Joe’s Giotto has a wonderful one.
Cal:
Joe’s. But you know, you can’t get poppy seeds. I was reading an article about that. You can’t get poppy seeds in Japan because they’re. I’m sorry, you can’t get poppy seeds because you can’t get. So you can’t get Trader Joe’s everything seasoning because it’s got the poppy seeds in it and then they use it as an opioid. I’m not really sure how long they.
Christa:
Don’T have everything bagels in Japan.
Cal:
Well, they got almost everything bagels.
Christa:
Almost everything.
Cal:
Yeah, almost everything bagels. So anyway, so all right, peaches and strawberries. So we’re going to go and take a quick break and you’ll be back with a Cal and Christa cooking like a pro. Oh, there you go. There you go. Oh, going back a ways for that one. Hank Williams, wasn’t it? Hank Williams junior, the original. All right.
Cal:
Our, our engineer extraordinaire, David, gave me the nod, so I guess I guessed right on that one. My dad would have got it. My dad would have got that. But anyway, we are back. You’ve got us here on cooking like a pro with chef Cal, my wife Christa. Again, you found us on KCNR 1460 AM and 96.5 FM. And again, if you like to call local number 605-4567 or just check in, you can check in and get us on. Where else can they get us?
Christa:
See our webpage and then it’s cookinglikeapropodcast.net. and you can get these recordings on podcast a few days after we do it live.
Cal:
Can they reach out to us on that other stuff? What is it called? Facebook or.
Christa:
I prefer Instagram. If you’re going to dm me, do it on Instagram.
Cal:
Okay. Well, as long as I don’t have to do it on Instagram because remember, I am. I’m not the techie in this, in this pair, I’m not the techie, but anyway, we also have implemented a class or a segment. Why don’t we call it a block, as they call it professionally, I suppose, of cooking skills. And today I want to talk a little bit about poaching. Poaching something that you really don’t see much. Last week we talked about saute. Talked about breading bullfrog and jumping and the beans jump and how to practice sauteing so you can get a job at the local diner.
Cal:
But poaching is. Poaching is not boiling. Okay, so poaching is going to be a cooking method that isn’t really harsh. Boiling would be a harsh. Even simmering would be harsh because you’ve got the agitation of your cooking liquid here. We’re going to just bring it up to where it’s just below a simmer. You can use a temperature gauge and you can get that gauge set. Just pull it.
Cal:
Now, the people, depending on what you’re boiling in, the people might be using a pot that’s really heavy on the bottom. They could be using a pot that’s light. They could be using any number of things. So it’s hard to dictate exactly what temp that’ll always be, but it should be pretty close. But again, just use a temperature gauge. Get it to where it’s just simmering. Just play with the fire until you get it down there and then you’re ready to go. Now, when we poach items in the restaurant business and poaching, very, very healthy way to cook.
Cal:
Very, extremely healthy. You’re not adding any oil at all. That’s basically. Basically. Generally we’re just going to use what’s called the French call a court bouillon. So it’s a bullion. A court bullion. And it’s going to be a kind of a vegetable stock.
Cal:
Usually it has an amount of acid in it. So you have a acidic component, which.
Christa:
Is, what do you put in the water? Is it like a mirepoix, celery on your carrots? What do you use?
Cal:
Do a mirepoix. So maybe you had better tell everybody what a mirepoix is since you just.
Christa:
Threw out a french term, mirepoix, celery onion carrots. Yep, celery, which is the french mirepoix. Now, different countries have different, you know, blends. Some use green bell peppers, but not the French.
Cal:
Yeah. So basically what you’re looking at on your mirepoix is just the standard flavor, vegetable flavors, that you’re going to have. You’re going to have those standard flavors, and then you’re also going to have your aromatics. And your aromatics are going to be, you know, your parsley, your bay leaf, your thyme, perhaps garlic, peppercorns. So you’re making a light water based broth that is just flavored with, you know, a variety of vegetables and spices, fresh herbs and such. And then you’re going to bring that up to just below a simmer. And then you’re just going to lay your product in there. And you don’t need a lot.
Cal:
I would just suggest that you have enough liquid to cover the top of to say you’re going to be doing some halibut. I know I’m going to be doing a video on halibut tomorrow where we’re, where you just drop it into this, into this liquid and it slowly cooks and just want to let it go until it’s. Until it’s firm. The same way you would any other way of cooking it. It’s no longer. What is it? It’s no longer translucent. It’s opaque.
Christa:
Opaque.
Cal:
Opaque. Is it opaque or opaque?
Christa:
Opaque.
Cal:
Opaque.
Christa:
Okay, so how is different than steaming? So steaming the water, you’re not actually in the water?
Cal:
Yeah. Now steaming is going to be enclosed. Steaming is going to be something that’s enclosed. You know, we have a pressure steamer, things that we use at home. So it would have a lid on it. It would also be up to. And once you put a lid on something, it’s going to start boiling really quickly. So keep an eye on that.
Cal:
So, but generally, with, with the poaching just, just below us, a simmer, a steam is going to cook much faster. Steaming is actually the fastest way to cook. It’s also the easiest way to burn yourself. Steam burns are, that’s why they have pressure cookers. So that’s why you can cook short ribs in 45 minutes. It might take you 3 hours doing it in a different method.
Christa:
Now, do you ever put your product in a cold water and bring it up to a poach level or do you do a hot water first?
Cal:
I would bring it up to temp first because you’re going to want to time the amount of time it takes to cook. So, you know, okay, when I do salmon and it’s this big, then it’s seven minutes or whatever the time is. There is a thought. And it’s not so much a thought. It was something that they taught us in french cooking school, was to take the cold water has more derivative properties than hot water. So if you’re making potatoes, for example, if we were going to boil potatoes, we would start potatoes off. Whether you peel them or don’t peel them entirely. Up to you.
Cal:
Like I mentioned, 80% of the nutritional value in a potato is in appeal. So you probably idea. But other than that, if you just want starch, then there you go. But anyway, so when you steam things, it’s going to be an enclosed environment. When you’re going to simmer things, it’s going to be the water being agitated. And again, talking about poaching, it’s going to be just underneath that.
Christa:
So, quick question, what do you poach and why would you choose a poached item?
Cal:
Usually I poach seafood. It’s more gentle. You know, I poach seafood, salmon, halibut, things like that. Shrimp. Most of the time, those are the items you want to go out because it’s going to be a lot more healthy.
Christa:
Would it toughen up chicken?
Cal:
Well, anything will get tough if you overcook it. But no, normally chicken would be something doesn’t have a whole lot of connective tissue to it. So you can go ahead and use a dry cooking method. Poaching is going to fall under the category of wet. Remember, we have dry cooking methods. Saute, charbroil, roast, and we have moist cooking methods. Boil, steam, simmer. So if you have a tender piece of protein, then you want to have a dry cooking method.
Cal:
So that’s why chicken is really good on the char grille. Chicken is really good if you saute it. So it’s a protein that adapts to a variety of different cooking methods. But you’d have a chance of maybe getting it a little bit tough if you wanted to, if you put it in the water. So I probably wouldn’t do that. But the main thing we don’t want to do is we just don’t want to have a lot of poaching liquid because we don’t want the flavor to come out. And the easiest way to explain that is, let’s say I poach a piece of salmon in the broth. I take it out, it’s cooked, it’s ready to go, it’s nice and healthy and delicious.
Cal:
I’m going to add maybe something to it. Maybe I’m going to add a nice peach compote. We’ll put the peach compote on the website so they can get that, because that’d be a great dish, too. But if you were to drink that cooking liquid after the salmon comes out of it, what’s it going to taste like?
Christa:
Salmon.
Cal:
It’s going to taste like salmon. So there’s been a flavor transfer. There’s been flavor that is left to salmon and is no longer in the salmon. It’s in the broth. So when I’m thinking about cooking and I’m walking through the different methods and what they’re, they’re doing to the protein, I always keep that in mind. Always keep that in mind. Am I, am I wasting, you know, flavor by doing something like that? I know we had that cedar plank. Remember the cedar plank? Salmon?
Christa:
We did salmon, yeah.
Cal:
So we take the salmon and you could do any fish. We put it on a little cedar plank, put a little garlic and shallot on top, and then we put it inside a paper bag, a small paper bag, like a little lunch sack. Put a little wood paper clip on there and just bake it in the oven for seven to eight minutes. And when you pull it out, you open. We would open the bag at the table in front of the guest, and they would just get this delicious aroma. Everything that was captured inside there, similar to, like, coating a fish and mayonnaise. I’m not a real big fan of mayonnaise. I like it on my sandwiches maybe, but for cooking, once you cook mayonnaise, it completely changes the texture of it, the flavor of it, and it locks in that flavor.
Cal:
So there’s no chance for a flavor transfer. That salmon or halibut or whatever it is, it’s going to taste like that because it’s encased, no place for it to go.
Christa:
And that’s called en papillote. Right.
Cal:
In papilla would be, the French would use that for paper. Yes. It was wrapped in paper. In papillette. Yeah. Well, they also wrap it in, wrap it in anything. Wrap it in banana leaves. That’s something that’s very popular, especially in the asian culture, where they’ll wrap something in banana leaves.
Cal:
Again, what you’re trying to do is capture as much flavor as you can. I mean, why are you buying it? Why are you spending dollar, 15 a pound for it, $5 a pound for it, $30 a pound for it, and then allowing any of that flavor to leave for the same reason why you wouldn’t want to put a really high flavorful sauce that has a really high flavor profile and put it on filet mignon, you know, because you’re just, well, it’s like putting ketchup on steak. Right? I mean, unless your steak is shoe leather, then you probably, you know, I stay away from the ketchup.
Christa:
I agree. Although your son might agree, he puts ketchup on everything.
Cal:
He used to. He used to, but, yeah, he’s done better. And then also, when you come to this poaching, another thing you can do when we talk about cooking items in a wet cooking method is we have boiling. Boiling. And I just want to throw this out there. And these are some numbers you can write down, but this particular number is, I’ll give it to my wife. I’ll give her credit for it. Pasta 123.
Cal:
And do you remember why I called it that? And then she kind of coined the term. Do you remember that?
Christa:
I do it all the time. I can’t cook my pasta without it. Do you want me to tell them how you do it?
Cal:
Yeah, go ahead.
Christa:
All right, so pasta, one, two, three. Because have you ever had somebody cookie pasta and it’s all stuck together? Then we need to keep stirring. And after the first minute you’ve dropped it in the water, you stir it. You hit your timer for two minutes and then you stir it. Then you hit your timer for three minutes and you stir. And if it’s a really dense pasta or like a whole wheat pasta, I go, four, five and six.
Cal:
There you go. Yep. Either four or five or six minutes after that pasta should be right around between eleven and 13 minutes from start to finish. Now, not if we’re talking about like an angel hair pasta, something super thin, but basically your spaghetti, your rigatoni, your panay, your lasagna noodles, all of those things. We’re pretty much always going to take that time. But I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gone somewhere and the spaghetti is stuck together. And I remember how we used to tell spaghetti was done when I was first starting off, I was probably nine years old, is you take the spaghetti and you throw it onto the ceiling. In the kitchen, we would throw it against the wall.
Cal:
Yeah, well, we threw it in the ceiling. I remember looking up there when I was a kid seeing all kinds of spaghetti stuck to the ceiling. And that’s because the starch comes out of it, or at least some of the starch comes to the surface and it sticks. Once it sticks, it’s done. So anyway, cooking like a pro, instead of tossing spaghetti, we’re going to go and take a break again. You’ve got the KCNR. 1460 am 96.5 FM again, cooking like a pro with chef Cow and Miss Chef. And we keep on fighting till the end.
Cal:
Oh, yeah. We are the champions. Boy, that goes back. I I get asked this a lot. So I went ahead and decided to just bring it up, not get out of the way, but. Because this is part of who I am, as well. But the world food Olympics happen every four years, just like the sporting event, except they don’t leave Europe. They actually don’t leave Germany.
Cal:
Germany coined the term culinary Olympics back in 1900. Even so, they’ve always used that. We have a World cup in Basel. That’s in Switzerland. And then we have a. Also, we have an America’s cup that’s in Chicago every four years. But the Olympics themselves are. Have been going on for.
Cal:
Well, this is my first time was the 24th Olympiad. So that was in 1996. And I bring it up because it helps kind of inclusively put together where it is that I got the information that I’m blessed to have, my understanding of being able to cook and how to put plates together. And it really just goes to being around some of the best in the world. I mean, and I don’t say that lightly. I mean, hands down the best in the world. And I could give you a big, long list of that. But anyway, it’s what I.
Cal:
You know, I remember coming back in 96 after we won our first Olympic gold medal. We were fifth in the world, and I was up here in reading. The rest of my team was down in Los Angeles area. It’s a four person team. And I remember just some real wise words that came from my. The founder of the team and our coach as well, chef Brad Toles. And I went back to talk to him because everybody was kind of going crazy on the airplane. It was kind of nuts because of what we had accomplished.
Cal:
But we were in the right place at the right time. But I remember Brad just saying, cal, you know what you always got to remember? It’s always about the journey, and it’s that journey. And I think a lot about that journey is, like, even with you and me, Christa, as a journey, as a married couple, you know, our cooking is taking a journey, you know, from where you first started off, where you had certain set recipes that you did, where now you can just open up the refrigerator, and I can say, what’s for dinner? And you can figure it out in.
Christa:
Our first fight was about pot roast.
Cal:
Well, not everybody. Not every marriage fights about pot roast. But you have to admit, I was right, because there’s no way that thing would have cooked. I mean, it’s. It’s. We’ve been married 20 years. It still wouldn’t be cooked. I’m.
Cal:
Well, just joking. But, yeah, anyway, so sear it off first. Let’s not get into pot roast discussion. But this. But anyway, so it’s a collection of this information. And one of the things that when I look at a plate, and that is a plate of food. When I look at a plate of food, there’s just a number of things that go through my mind, and all of these things are based around what I want this final product to be like. So let’s go back to a standard plate.
Cal:
So a standard plate is going to have a protein, a starch, and a vegetable. Now, that’s changed a lot. A lot of people are not using starches. You can kind of skip the starch if you want and just go with a larger protein and maybe, just maybe a larger amount of vegetables. But the standard is just as a basic to start with is around 40% protein. So that’s going to be your meat, fish, your beef, your lamb, duck, whatever. So 40%. And then the rest of the 60% left is going to be half starch.
Cal:
Half vegetables. So half starch. I don’t know. Some of your. Some of your favorite starches.
Christa:
My favorite starch is potatoes. My dad was from Idaho.
Cal:
Oh, there you go. Yeah, we have friends back in this. Missouri. No, Michigan. Somewhere over there. Wisconsin maybe. But they grow a lot of potatoes back there. A lot of potatoes.
Christa:
Well, the potato is so versatile. You know, rice, you just gotta cook it in water. Potatoes, you can cook it in water. You can bake them, you can roast them, you can grill them, you can. They’re just so versatile.
Cal:
Yeah. You know, and they take a lot of flavor. You can do a lot with them, you know, loaded potatoes, whipped potatoes. You can throw anything in a whipped potato. I always liked a little chive and goat cheese in my potato. Of course, butter, sour cream, all that stuff that we’re, you know, the doctor tells us, you know, I like to eat a dish that I can. I like to feel my arteries hardened while I’m eating it. Right? So, I mean, I want, you know, something that’s like, it’s got butter, it’s got cream.
Christa:
If you want that, Titanic, if it’s gonna.
Cal:
If it’s gonna need that, okay, if it needs that, then let’s just let it have it. And if I want to eat healthy or something different, I’ll go a different direction. I won’t put a potato on there, but with plating.
Christa:
You’re talking about having meat as your center of the plate.
Cal:
Yeah, center of the plate. A lot of times they used to call it what was it was three, six, nine. Where your vegetables at 03:00 this is the old time cooking back in the seventies. This is kind of how we did it. Where your 03:00 portion of your plate, if you imagine the face of a clock from twelve to three would be your vegetables, from nine to twelve would be your starch, and then your protein would be in front of you.
Christa:
Well, this is something I had to learn from you because most people in todaydeze their food doesn’t touch. And you taught that you start stacking foods, foods that go well together to create height and to give visual appeal.
Cal:
Yeah, I’m not sure. Maybe we can get someone to call in, tell us that, or shoot a message to us on Facebook or Instagram. Because I don’t know why you don’t want your food to touch. Because to me, the whole plate should make sense. The whole plate should come together. If I don’t want creamed spinach to be, you know, served with my, you know, roasted red snapper, then don’t put it on there. Just use something different. Because it’s all going down the same tank, right? You’re picking up with your utensil and it’s all going in the same place.
Cal:
So why wouldn’t you want it to have that harmony of being able to be married together?
Christa:
Well, maybe you’re talking about other dishes that they didn’t go well together. I used to grow up, I would eat just one thing on my plate, then I would move the next thing on my plate. Then I moved the next thing on my plate. I wouldn’t mix them.
Cal:
They’re too organized. You’re too organized.
Christa:
Well, now I just mix it all together.
Cal:
Yeah. Yeah. Well, it’s all good. You know, again, it is one of those things that is just a starting point. We start with that and then we kind of start thinking about, okay, what are the other considerations that we need? One of them, you mentioned earlier, mouth fill. Right. A textural component. When I’m eating something to say, I’m in eating cream, spinach, mashed potatoes and meatloaf.
Cal:
Well, there’s nothing on there that has a textural components that’s going to add any sort of resistance when I eat it. So now maybe this is where your, your, your fried onions might come into play and be a nice garnish. It’d be a nice flavor, but it would add texture to it. So texture component. So we think about that when I eat this dish, how’s it going to fill in my mouth? Is it going to have those different things mentioned, the harmony, also the harmony of the ingredients, they do need to come together. You know, the flavors need to appear well together. Basically, there needs to be a theme. You know, like, for example, if we’re doing barbecue, we have barbecue chicken, we have baked beans, and we have corn on the cob.
Cal:
So we have these basic things that work. They harmonize well together. Those items go well together. That may be more of a historical thing, just simply because that’s kind of how it. Barbecue condiments kind of started with your sides.
Christa:
Well, I go by tonight, I want chicken, or I go two ways. Either I pick my protein first or I pick my ethnicity first. I’m thinking chinese tonight. Okay. So if we’re going the chinese route, you’re going to want chinese ingredients. You’re not going to throw a bunch of mexican in with it, right?
Cal:
True.
Christa:
So that’s how I goes, you know, what ethnic route do I want to take? And then am I feeling fish? Am I feeling chicken? Am I feeling beefed? Am I feeling like dessert?
Cal:
You know, and this is what you need to go back to your culinary notebook. Your culinary notebook. And as we talked about in the first, the first segment, first block, have those items, those flavor components, those flavor items that just go well together that really help each other out. It’s one of those things you really want. You want to write that down in your little notebook, because that is something that you’re looking for as well. Also, the color. Now, color is nothing. Here’s something that I see a lot.
Cal:
Well, people might make a salad and say it needs red, so let’s put a tomato on it. Well, maybe it doesn’t need a tomato because maybe it’s a vinaigrette dressing, so it already has acid. So why would you add a tomato that’s acidic to a salad that’s already going to have a high acid content? So it’s kind of just thinking about. But, and again, this isn’t what we all do. I do it because I was trained this way. But again, these are just when you put together a plate, you put together dinner. These are some of the things that you might want to. Want to consider.
Christa:
Well, give us a taste. Okay. I made meatloaf tonight. Okay. What would you do if I just said we’re having meatloaf? How would you build that plate? What would you put with it?
Cal:
Well, I’d go with items that, first off, that are fresh and seasonal. I’d always look at that. And now you are getting greens. So you’re getting your greens, you know, things that I was raised with, you know, chard, any variety of chards, you know, leafy spinach, a lot of different leafy green vegetables. First off, those are where you’re going to get your. All of your. What is that green stuff? Chlorophyll. Chlorophyll, right.
Cal:
So it’s going to contribute to something that you need. And then again, mashed potatoes or something that goes, well, maybe you add a contextual component to it. Maybe instead of mashed potatoes, how about if we just go with grits? Or instead of using grits, being white cornmeal, use regular cornmeal and make it polenta. So either way, it’s still going to be a starch, and it’s going to give you something that has a little bit of texture to it, too.
Christa:
Then you’re also going to need a sauce.
Cal:
A sauce.
Christa:
And what would you do for garnish?
Cal:
Yeah, well, sauce is just generally going to go with a barbecue sauce of some sort, but you can go with anything. You know, remember our first show a couple weeks back? Look that up. That information is online. Can go online and get that. And I think we named off about ten, maybe ten, nine or ten different barbecue sauces.
Christa:
One of the barbecue sauces is the one that I make using ketchup and salsa, because it’s just, I didn’t have a particular barbecue sauce, and that’s what I threw together. And it toasts up so well on the top of that meatloaf.
Cal:
There you go. Bacon’s always a good one, too. So maybe bacon, some little crispy bacon pieces on top, just to complete your meal and add that texture. Also the size of the ingredients. You know, the workmanship is also something being very precise when you plate your ingredients. We even look at the way it flows. Is something sliced on the plate? Is it flowing towards you like it should, or is it flowing away from you? I see a lot of countries that make that error. That’s a pretty simple one to not do.
Cal:
And it should look. Should look good. The presentation should look good. You should be able to tell whether it’s a hot presentation, whether it’s a cold presentation. Hot bean items are kind of piled together in the middle, where a cold food presentation things have a little bit of a separation to them. And again, does it look like I want to eat it? One of the things that we. I mean, does it evoke emotion? Does it look like it’s going to be flavorful? And one of the things that you’ll hear me say a lot. And this is really going back to the beginning of this segment as far as what made the difference when we were able to win a gold medal in the world cooking Olympics in 96.
Cal:
Do I want to stick a fork in it? You want to stick a fork in it, folks. If you want to stick a fork in it, you’re in the right spot anyway, cooking like a pro. We’ll be right back after this break. KCNR 1460 am 96.5 FM yogurt have some more spam. It doesn’t matter if it’s her. Can just eat it. Eat it. Don’t you make me repeat it.
Christa:
Tomatoes, lamb.
Cal:
Lamb. No cheese. Greens.
Christa:
Potatoes.
Cal:
Tomatoes, chicken. Chicken. Well, there you go. All right. That sounded like some serious food preaching right there.
Christa:
That could go good with that meatloaf.
Cal:
There you go. Hey, so this last segment, this block, we want to spend some time with you. And again, we appreciate those who are listening out there. We want to spend some time during wine on this segment. I know we talked a little bit about that last couple weeks as well. We like to cover a different varietal because there’s a lot of them out there and more and more every day. But varietal is simply the type of grape, and the laws change a little bit here and there. They’re different, different places of the world, different places, even of the state, the different areas that they have that they grow the grapes in, but they are a little bit different as far as the amount of that varietal that needs to be in that bottle in order for it to be called that varietal.
Cal:
And I’ll explain that, that if it’s Cabernet Sauvignon from Napa Valley, then 80% of it, or whatever that percentage is now, 80%, it has to be Cabernet and it has to be from Napa Valley. The other 20% can be anything that they want. And there’s, wine is very recipe based. It’s going to be based on its ingredient, first off and foremost. But then after that, depending on what the growing season was, if we had nice, long, warm summer evenings and those grapes really had a chance to develop and to just become more and more flavorful, as far as the varietal that they are. And in this case, I want to talk about Chardonnay. So you got these wonderful, beautiful grapes that have been growing, then they get picked, and then you have to look at, okay, how much of this Chardonnay am I going to use? How many much percentage of these grapes am I going to use in there. And if I even want to call it that, because if you see a bottle of wine on the shelf, and, for example, it’s a white wine, it says California or red wine, for that matter, but it says, like, the state Oregon, then that means that those grapes could have came from anywhere in that state.
Cal:
So if you want a wine that’s a little more higher quality of that varietal flavor, then you’re going to want to pick one that has that varietal. So there’s a lot of ways to get information they didn’t have, you know, the Internet, when I first started, you know, doing wine, because, remember, I’m italian, so we started a little bit earlier than most people. But there’s a lot of places you can get information on wine. And where’s one of the first places you look, Christa? Because you, you actually go and shop for wine, to be honest, more than.
Christa:
I do, the first thing I do is I look at the price tag.
Cal:
There we go. Price tag. Well, the price is going to make a difference. I mean, a three dollar ball of wine is not going to be as good as a $15 ball of wine.
Christa:
Well, okay, so when you’re standing in the grocery store line, where I like to go trader just a lot, they have a great selection. The cheapest is usually on the bottom. The most expensive is on the top, top shelf. Right. So I usually go middle shelf. And so from there, you know, am I thinking red? Am I thinking white after I’m looking at price? And then what type of varietal do I want specifically? Do I want something drier? Do I want something sweeter, something lighter, something stronger?
Cal:
So when you’re standing there at Trader Joe’s and you’re staring at the wall and you’re looking at the wines, what’s something that you want to, to get information out? Because remember, sometimes they’ll have a little tag there, says, you know, goes great with beef, you know, flavors of raspberry and boysenberry.
Christa:
And once you get past the label, you can turn it around and look at, are there tasting notes? You know, some of the best wines will have a tasting note that the winemaker has determined what should you be tasting in that particular bottle that they have prepared for you?
Cal:
Very good. Yeah, well, if they can’t get it right, then probably no one can. So if you get a white wine, a steakhouse, the back of the bottle says you should be able to get pineapple and other types of citrus. Or maybe it says you should be getting some butter or maybe some toastiness. The toastiness in wines comes from the inside of the barrel that the wine is stored in. A lot of wine, especially the lesser expensive wines, of course, are those are aged or at least produced out of stainless steel. If a wine is seen any time in a barrel, then it’s seen, it’s had time for the inside flavors of that toast off the barrel. And that also depends on the wood.
Cal:
French oak is going to be better than american oak. And, you know, I probably get a, you know, a barrel guy to argue that with me. But. But again, you get what you pay for. And when you use a barrel and you take the staves and you re toast it for a new wine, you’re gonna get more and more of that toast off of that.
Christa:
Well, let’s talk about Chardonnay. So a lot of whites are done in stainless steel Chardonnay. You talk about being an oak. Do they ever switch it to stainless steel or is it always an oak?
Cal:
Oh, yeah. Well, again, and they might be using some Chardonnay and then something else. Maybe the chardonnay is, maybe they use my lactic fermentation, which is going to give a lactate a real buttery flavor. So they want to add a little more fruit to it. So maybe they are going to add a little bit of sauvignon blanc to maybe make it a little more on the spicier side. Or maybe they are going to add some Riesling or gewurst demeanor to add maybe some tree fruit to it. So it kind of depends on what the winemaker. The winemaker is the chef.
Cal:
So if you look at it that way, the winemaker is the chef. He’s in the field. He’s going to produce what he produces. But again, they always can change and add different ingredients. Some people might say that’s kind of bastardizing the process, but, yeah, it depends on what they want as a final product. If they’re just going to use that varietal that’s grown, that’s produced, that’s smashed, that’s juice bottled at some point, then, you know, they’re, they’re saying that it was a good, well, at least, hopefully it was a very good growing year. So the grapes had a chance to develop just like a tomato picking. We get a tomato, you get a tomato that comes from Mexico, and you can look on the box.
Cal:
They have to tell you where this stuff comes from, folks. You get a tomato from Mexico and it probably tastes a lot like the cardboard box that was shipped in. Right. Okay. But if I go over to mom and dad’s house and I get a tomato right off the vine. Or I pick one when ours finally start turning red, it’s completely different.
Christa:
It tastes like the vine.
Cal:
Yeah, it’s night, day, night and day. So that’s the best way to look at your wines. Also, it’s, you know, garbage in, garbage out. I mean, you get what you start with. You’re not going to be able to take really lousy ingredients and get something sensational out of it.
Christa:
Now, talking about Chardonnay, Chardonnay is not, I mean, I am a white wine drinker, but Chardonnay is not in the top of my list because it’s so dry. Can be a touch bitter. What did you pair that with to make it a little bit more enjoyable for people like me?
Cal:
Well, you know, it’s going to depend on which type of Chardonnay that you have. I mean, if you have one that’s going to be a little bit drier, then maybe you want to go with, you know, I mean, when you say dry, dry as in, you know, toastiness from the oak, that would probably where that kind of flavor would come from. And then I’d either want to do contrast or similarity. I’d want to match that with the food that it would go well with. Let’s say I had a food that I wanted to cleanse my palate with. So every time I take a bite of this, this fresh grilled halibut, then I take a little sip of that wine and I get that nice little marriage together. So it’s going to go well together. Or if it’s a contrast, then it would be the opposite.
Cal:
Again, we mentioned last week going with a sweeter wine for a more spicy dish.
Christa:
How would like a chicken picado go with a chardonnay?
Cal:
It’d go well. I mean, chicken bacata, first off, is a cream sauce. Okay? And bacata is gonna have capers in it that’s gonna add some, an acid component, but it’s a lemon cream sauce when you’re making, if you’re making it in traditional french style. So you got that creaminess. So if you want to cut through that, then a sauvignon blanc, a wine that’s higher in acid, a viognier, would be a good choice as well.
Christa:
That’s my favorite.
Cal:
I know you like the viogniere, so, but that via that high acid wine, is going to cut through that cream of the picada, and it’s going to cleanse your palate. So you’re going to be able to enjoy every bite, as opposed to just having literally so much cream. You can’t taste anything because, remember, cream is. That’s why wine and cheese can be a little bit difficult, because dairy coats your tongue. So as soon as you take a bite of something with cream sauce, maybe in this case, a chicken picotta, and you get that nice creamy sauce in there, your tongue’s coated, so you need something to clean that off. In a sauvignon blanc, a viognier chin blanc, which would be like a fume blanc. Robert Madhavi, who is no longer with us, he signed a wonderful picture for me. I have to get that at home.
Cal:
Yeah. But just a wonderful man. Wonderful man. But literally just a pioneer. Pioneer in Napa Valley for winemaking of all types.
Christa:
Well, something that also helps me grow in a flavor is to have a blend. And we do have a local winery that makes a chardonnay viogniere. And so it’s kind of helping me lean towards Chardonnay, even though Chardonnay is not one of my favorite.
Cal:
Well, we have a bunch of local wineries. We really do. I highly would recommend going out and looking at some of those. I know we have moselies that we’ve been at numerous times. You just went to Matson vineyards. They have a lot of wines as well. But there are local. I think there’s within the Appalachian.
Cal:
I think we’ve got. Well, we’ve got a lot. I want to say there’s like 30 or something or 40 just up here. You know, people think about the wine country being, you know, the Napa Sonoma area, but, you know, Oregon for Pinot Washington.
Christa:
Former Lowe’s Casa Robles is really becoming a hot spot for wine, too.
Cal:
Very good. And if you. If you put your finger on Napa Valley on a globe and you spin the globe, you’re going to go right through the middle of France, actually, brown burgundy. So you can see this just a good growing region because of its longitude and its latitude, you know, and when we have a dear friend of ours that actually makes wine up in Jingletown, and so you can. You can make it. We got grapes growing all over our property. But I don’t think.
Christa:
Yeah, I don’t think we’re getting any.
Cal:
Wine out of it. I don’t think we’re getting wine out of it. I’m not sure. I think the chickens are going to. Gonna eat it all. But anyway, so a chardonnay, you want to look at either a similar food or contrast in food. Make notes, take notes. As my wife mentioned, the label tells you a lot.
Cal:
They put a lot of work, a lot of effort, and a lot of cost. The making of the label costs more than the bottle, and the bottle costs more than the grapes. Okay. Or the juice, rather. So, you know, there should be pretty correct information on the, on the bottle.
Christa:
But we need to not forget we actually have a wine pairing guide on culinarily yours.
Cal:
Oh, we do? Yeah. They can get that for free, huh?
Christa:
Yeah, they can get that for free.
Cal:
All right. So they can go to cookinglikeapropodcast.net, and you can get the, again, there’s a food and wine pairing guide that we put together to help answer some of your questions on there. But then again, there’s a breath of information now that they, somebody invented the Internet, something called the Internet. You can kind of look up, and.
Christa:
If you don’t have taste notes on the back of your bottle, very often they will have those online on their particular wipes for the winery. Thank you so much for spending time with us. Until next time, we hope you’ll be cooking up a storm in the kitchen. So we’ll be with you again next week with food, flavor and fun right here on cooking like a pro podcast.
