Cal and Christa DeMercurio
Join Chef Cal and Christa DeMercurio for an insightful episode discussing Caesar salads, holiday preparations, and the latest trends in flavored butters. Perfect for culinary enthusiasts looking to elevate their cooking game this season.
- The secret to perfect homemade croutons for Caesar salads.
- A dive into the 100th anniversary of Caesar salad and the 200th anniversary of A1 steak sauce.
- Tips for Thanksgiving turkey preparation and alternative side dishes.
- The versatility and benefits of compound butters, including trending recipes.
- Seasonal fall vegetables and how to make the most of them in your cooking.
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Timestamp Overview
00:00 Join Cooking Like a Pro podcast weekly.
04:07 Check seasonal produce on iPhone before shopping.
09:26 Seasonal cooking: more leafy greens, creamed.
10:20 Clean, saute, and braise leafy greens properly.
14:00 Key to Caesar salad: homemade dressing with anchovies.
18:19 Use sourdough for ideal warm crunchy croutons.
23:06 Acidic tomato enhances meat marinades.
24:23 Whipped butter, flavor melts into the protein.
27:19 Ensure proper freezer storage to maintain quality.
30:15 Let meat rest to retain juices and flavor.
33:21 Half a turkey’s weight is inedible waste.
36:40 Dark meat takes longer to cook.
39:36 Stuffing is inside; dressing if baked separately.
42:10 Freeze produce if cooking; expect texture change.
Transcript
Christa DeMercurio:
Hey food fans. Welcome to Cooking Like a Pro with Chef Cal and me, Mrs. 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 fall vegetables coming into season, celebrating 100 years of the Caesar salad and 200 years of A1 sauce. And it’s time to get ready for Thanksgiving. Now let’s dig in. Today’s episode was broadcast and recorded live on AM FM radio.
Chef Cal:
Welcome, welcome, welcome to Cooking Like a Pro. You are here with Chef Cal and Mrs. Chef Christa and we appreciate you. Hello.
Christa DeMercurio:
Hello.
Chef Cal:
I appreciate you tuning in to hear what’s going on in the food world. And again, you can send questions anytime you want to. Cooking like a pro podcast.net if I was to make a just a suggestion, just maybe write that down on a little post it and stick it somewhere in your, in your kitchen. And then if you ever have this situation where you’re like, you know, I’m not sure what to do about this, then just send the question in and we will get to it. Every Wednesday. Every Wednesday here. Cooking Like a pro. But we, there are some things that we are sad about.
Chef Cal:
We are sad about just, just the seasonality of, you know, vegetables mainly because most other things are, you know, proteins or farm raised. They’re available year round. But you know, vegetables, when they go out of season, they really lose their flavor. Especially tomatoes. When you order tomatoes from, you know, out of the, out of the country and they taste like the box that they were.
Christa DeMercurio:
Yeah, they taste like cardboard, what they were shipped in. Yeah, they look like cardboard.
Chef Cal:
Yeah. I talked to mom and dad. They said that they had their last blt. I know that we’ve had our last BLT with fresh tomato. I mean, it’s just.
Christa DeMercurio:
Well, you were getting ready to pull the plants. Was there any tomatoes left to pull off?
Chef Cal:
There’s a few cherries in there that the deer haven’t gotten yet.
Christa DeMercurio:
None of the beef steak were left?
Chef Cal:
No, I, looks like, I don’t know, it might have been the wind. Something took, something might have took them out. It was looking pretty slim. So it’s time to feed the leftover plants. We’ll feed those to the, the neighboring sheep.
Christa DeMercurio:
Yeah.
Chef Cal:
And then, but I gotta say, I.
Christa DeMercurio:
Mean, I’m sad, but I don’t, I don’t have to water them anymore. I don’t take care of him anymore. But I did get my 1, what, 23 tomato. I think I Estimated by the time I, the water, the dirt, the time and the fertilizer to make that one tomato.
Chef Cal:
You know, you can’t tell me it wasn’t worth it though.
Christa DeMercurio:
It was, it was, it was the most expensive homegrown tomato in the history.
Chef Cal:
And it was a great blt. It probably, you know, worked out to, oh, I don’t know, 15, $20 a bite.
Christa DeMercurio:
Yeah. But, but as for anybody that has not turned up their garden, if you do have green tomatoes, pick them, set them in a location where they can still ripen. They will ripen. You can pull your tomatoes in November and still get red tomatoes in December.
Chef Cal:
You know you can. But then again there’s, there’s fried green tomatoes too. Just remember that that acid hasn’t had a chance to turn into much, you know, natural sugar yet. So it’s going to be highly acidic. So if you’re going to fry green tomatoes, kind of, I would treat. If you’re doing green tomatoes, folks, just kind of treat it like you would eggplant. Like if you’re doing a fried eggplant, parmesan, the only difference, maybe flour, buttermilk and cornmeal, something like that would be a nice, nice option. But remember that the finished product is gonna have a lot more acid in it.
Chef Cal:
So you may want to go with a sauce, maybe a, I don’t know, some kind of sauce that doesn’t.
Christa DeMercurio:
Is something more creamy because they are more acidic.
Chef Cal:
Yeah. Or something maybe with, you know, tomato, but not as much acid, you know, in the tomato. Tomato.
Christa DeMercurio:
What about a cheese sauce?
Chef Cal:
Yeah, cheese sauce would work.
Christa DeMercurio:
Okay.
Chef Cal:
I think sauce would work. But, but anyway, so stuff that’s going out of season, we have tomatoes, which again are right, right there at the, at the very end. And then. And bell peppers. I know our bell peppers are done. Yeah, mom and dad, they got, they got their last bell peppers.
Christa DeMercurio:
BasiCally anything that’s the soft skinned.
Chef Cal:
Yeah, cucumbers, eggplant, all your squash, your zucchini, your, your summer squash, your patty pan, crookneck, all that stuff is pretty much gone. So, you know, think about these things when you go to the store and you know, be mindful that if you want to get items that are the most flavorful, what do you do? You go in there and first off, you see what’s in season. And now they have this wonderful thing that I just, I’m just getting used to. It’s Called. Is it an iPhone? Yeah. So you can go on your iPhone and you can see what’s in season and what’s not, you know, so, so maybe just think about that. Keep that in mind. See what’s in season, but then also see where it came from.
Chef Cal:
And do you remember how we, how we find out where it came from?
Christa DeMercurio:
Well, you can look on the label, you can Google it first off. So you can use your iPhone. Yes. You can use your laptop. Anything that’s got Google on it, you can Google it.
Chef Cal:
But yeah, that little tag that’s on there will tell you, you know, where it’s from.
Christa DeMercurio:
I mean, if it’s been avocados from.
Chef Cal:
Mexico, what was the four digits? Was just a regular produced item.
Christa DeMercurio:
Yeah. So you got the produce code on there. So you’re going to have the country of origin where it came from. Then you’re going to have a number code that’s going to tell you whether it’s been conventionally grown, organiCally grown or gmo.
Chef Cal:
There you go. Well, you know, that’s just too much information. Well, no, no, you need folks, you need that information. You need that information. And we are so close. I know we’ve promised this for what we’ve been promising, that it’s in the works, but the. The keeps happening the vegetable, our vegetable booklet which is going to be available on culinarily yours real soon here. Real soon.
Chef Cal:
I would say that we’ll be up and running by the end of this month definitely.
Christa DeMercurio:
It’s, it’s like 97% there. We just need to take another last.
Chef Cal:
Comb through it and it’s got that information as far as the code and how to tell where the, not just where the fruit or vegetable came from, but you know, any other things. Like again, was it genetiCally modified, was it gmo, was it organic? So there’s a lot you can tell from those little tags. So remember that. But you know, things coming into season. One of the things I really enjoy are root vegetables. And a lot of reasons I enjoy them. You know, they’re good for you, they’re hearty. You can do them in soups, you can do them as a side dish.
Chef Cal:
You can even bake them, roast them, stuff them. So you know, we’re talking about things like your squashes, your winter squashes, hard skin winter squash. So you got your root vegetables, you got your winter squashes again on your winter squashes you got your butternut is really become a very popular soup over the last number of years. We no one ever really heard of butternut squash for the most part, when I did it in my restaurant three decades ago. But then again, you know, we started doing the Soup. And then now you can get butternut squash soup right off the. Right off the shelf.
Christa DeMercurio:
Well, and it seems like butternut has become the more the uppity up squash compared to pumpkin. Pumpkin has just become, you know, it’s the Thanksgiving thing. But if it’s a butternut squash, best.
Chef Cal:
There you go.
Christa DeMercurio:
And it’s just, you know, more luxurious because it’s a butternut squash.
Chef Cal:
But again, diced up acorn squash, spaghetti squash. On the different hard squashes. The thing that you do is make sure that the pieces are all about the same size. So when you cook those, they all come up well together. Sulfuric vegetables, always one of my favorites. Cabbage. You know, cabbage is really an unsung hero, but you need to. You don’t need to know a lot to really make a wonderful, wonderful.
Christa DeMercurio:
Okay. What’s the difference between, like a savoy cabbage, a Chinese cabbage, you know, your traditional green and red cabbage? What’s the difference?
Chef Cal:
Well, mainly density. You can look at it just the regular typiCal cabbage, what we Call either green or red in the store. And they’re going to be very, very, you know, fairly tough. It takes a little cooking to break them down. And then. But cauliflower, broccoli, Brussels sprouts. We’re going to get a video on Brussels sprouts. How did.
Chef Cal:
I picked out 20 of the perfect Brussels sprouts for a video. A little short that we can do. Yeah. Because we talked about last week something about brussels sprouts and them not cooking them all the way through.
Christa DeMercurio:
One point we got to make is right now we are coming to the beginning of that season. And so younger vegetables, beginning of the season will be better than older. Later in season, vegetables more tender.
Chef Cal:
More tender. They’re not going to be as woody. But also remember, quite often the stalks can be used, especially in broccoli. Remember the flavor in a broccoli stem. I should say stem or stock. It’s going to be concentrated. So because it’s concentrated, it’s going to be more flavorful than a floret might be. But anyway, so you got things going out, things coming in, all kinds of stuff going on in the produce department.
Christa DeMercurio:
So soft skins out, hard skins in, more potatoey type items. Because we got Thanksgiving right around the corner.
Chef Cal:
Yeah. And we’ll be talking a lot about that. So we’re gonna be taking a quick break. This is cooking like a pro. We’ll be back in just a moment. All right. Welcome back, Chef Cal and Mrs. Chef Christa.
Chef Cal:
Cooking like a pro. And finished. Not quite finished up but talking about just seasonality and the last thing I really wanted to mention is you got a lot more leafy greens coming in. And one of the things that I was raised on that you really don’t see next to anywhere, certainly not in a, you know, in a restaurant. And that’s charred, you know, Swiss chard, spinach, you know, being cooked and creamed. Sometimes they do that for the holidays.
Christa DeMercurio:
Is that a rainbow chard too?
Chef Cal:
Yeah, yeah. And. And we were just, we were raised on the stuff. So that rutabaga, well, probably more in the South.
Christa DeMercurio:
I mean, greens is more of a Southern.
Chef Cal:
Well, yeah, well, yeah. But I mean, look at, I mean, super high in fiber, of course, dietary fiber and vitamins, minerals and all that other stuff that you need your leafy greens for. But.
Christa DeMercurio:
Okay, so how would you prepare them? Because usually they’re kind of bitter, right?
Chef Cal:
Yes, bitter. I just cut the cores out, make sure that they’re clean. Remember, Remember, one of the things I guess to mention to you is to consider how the plant grows. And when you got leafy greens, it’s similar to something like romaine. They grow standing up. So once the rain starts, you got a real good chance of finding dirt down that gets splatted in there through the rain. So you want to make sure you clean it really good and then you just saute it up and braise it down until it’s tender. Salt, pepper, sometimes a lot of vinegar.
Chef Cal:
You can use a little cream. A lot of different things you can do, but really cook it down until it’s tender.
Christa DeMercurio:
Do you leave the stem on or do you cut the stem off?
Chef Cal:
I try to cut the stems out. At least some of them. Just take the leaf, fold the leaf in half lengthwise and then just cut, you know, cut most, most have a.
Christa DeMercurio:
Little triangle off of it.
Chef Cal:
Yeah, yeah. You know, but it’s so good for you. Again, you can flavor however you want. Some fresh garlic, shallots, bacon. Yeah. Little lemon juice, bacon.
Christa DeMercurio:
Let’s do some healthy collard greens and bacon in it.
Chef Cal:
Well, I mean, we didn’t say they couldn’t taste good, so. But anyway, so I know that the, you know, I noticed that the 100 year anniversary of the. The Caesar salad is coming up. Is that. No, it’s got to be longer than 100 years. I think it’s been around forever.
Christa DeMercurio:
No. Okay, so I checked Escoffier. No, Scoffy did not have it in his book written in the 1800s. 1924, July 4th. So we’ve techniCally passed past the 100 year anniversary.
Chef Cal:
But, you know, that’s a, you know. Well, it’s like everything else France did with our food, right? They. They sold it, right? I mean, they really take credit for the. You go into a French restaurant and you might have that, or even Italian restaurant for that matter. They’ll have that table side Caesar. That’s just beautiful.
Christa DeMercurio:
So the French have no claim to the Caesar salad. Okay, so is it Italian? Is it hail Caesar. This is a little trivia for you. Is it Italian for me? No, I’m asking you, is Caesar salad Italian?
Chef Cal:
I think it can be. I think it can be. I’m Italian.
Christa DeMercurio:
Okay, well, techniCally it is. It was an Italian immigrant that was in Mexico.
Chef Cal:
Oh, now you’re just kidding. You know, now you’re splitting hairs. Now you’re splitting romaine.
Christa DeMercurio:
So techniCally, it was developed in Mexico, location wise. But do you know why?
Chef Cal:
No, but, sweetheart, you’re busting my croutons over here. I mean, I’m not sure what. Okay, what are we getting at?
Christa DeMercurio:
We’re getting at that.
Chef Cal:
What’s the why?
Christa DeMercurio:
So during prohibition, so the United States said, no more alcohol. Can’t drink.
Chef Cal:
Okay?
Christa DeMercurio:
People were crossing the border, they were going down to Mexico, and there was a place Called Caesars. And Guy Caesar developed a salad because everybody’s come over the border and it was hot and they wanted to do something fresh and use the ingredients he had on hand. And he developed it for the July 4th weekend of 20 or 19, 24. 100 years ago. Celebrate.
Chef Cal:
100 years ago. Well. Well, you know, the thing about a Caesar is it’s simple. But what makes the Caesar better and is. And, folks, it’s not very difficult, matter of fact, especially with the different ingredients that we have today, because, you know, you can use anchovy paste, you know, instead of using an anchovy if you want, and still get that salty, you know, flavor that you’re looking for.
Christa DeMercurio:
Okay, I got another quiz question for you. Did the original Caesar salad dressing have anchovies in it?
Chef Cal:
I have no idea. I was going with the whole egg yolk. Again. I’m on the Italian.
Christa DeMercurio:
No, there was no anchovies in the original Caesar salad.
Chef Cal:
Okay, well. Well, whoever added them did a good job.
Christa DeMercurio:
Yeah. So it has become part of it.
Chef Cal:
Well, the French, they. I think they wrote it down. I’m gonna talk to Julia Child, but she’s not with us anymore.
Christa DeMercurio:
And Julia Child had it as a 12 year old. She went down there. She tried it as a little girl.
Chef Cal:
But you know what I think is key? There’s some keys to a good Caesar salad. Again, making the dressing from scratch. Starting off with your egg yolk, make sure you got some good eggs, you know, pasteurized eggs. Make sure you’re good. And then add in, you know, your oil and your shallots and your garlic and your, you know, be careful on adding any salt because, of course, anchovies or anchovy paste, whatever you’re using. And we used to press that in with the back of a spoon. We do it table side in my first restaurant, and we’d press it in there and smash it really, really fine, and then mix it up and then toss it. But here’s some of the things that really make a Caesar salad worthwhile to me.
Chef Cal:
One is the lettuce has to be crisp, you know, and I know we got a video on that, and we need to make sure that that’s edited and up and running before too long, because the. Having crisp lettuce is the key to a Caesar as far as I’m. I mean, yes, you want a good dressing, and yes, you want warm, tender croutons. And that would probably be the second thing. And you also want a good cheese Parmesan or Reggiano, something that’s been. That’s been grated. It’s got. That’s going to add that nutty flavor.
Chef Cal:
But, yeah, just, you know, toss it together. But again, you always want to make sure that you drain all the water off your lettuce, but shock it, you know, get it ice cold. In fact, if you’re able to clean your lettuce and do it the day before, by far, best way to do it.
Christa DeMercurio:
So the shape of the lettuce, so the original one, the leaves were not cut. They were not torn. They were served whole originally. But there’s different ways. You know, we’ve done it as a little wrap, leaving the leaf whole and then putting the ingredients down the middle of it and then wrapping it up, making a Caesar wrap. And then you can also cut the lettuce smaller. What takes do you have on how you should treat the lettuce?
Chef Cal:
You know, again, if it’s chilled, I think you’re fine. I think anytime you cut something that’s delicate, like lettuce, you’re always taking that opportunity or that chance, rather, to bruise the lettuce itself. And you don’t want to bruise it. So that’s why sometimes they’ll say, carefully tear it, or they’ll say, use a really sharp knife.
Christa DeMercurio:
Quick, sharp cuts.
Chef Cal:
Yeah, just a quick, sharp cut. So you don’t have that bruising. Because lettuce, of course, is, you know, anywhere between, you know, 85 and 95 or 98% water.
Christa DeMercurio:
Okay, so what if you want to do a grilled Caesar salad? Can you do that? Can you grill the lettuce? Because you’re getting away from your crispy, cold, chalked lettuce.
Chef Cal:
Well, not really, because I know that we. One of my restaurants, we did a, like a grilled wedge, and we actually grilled the iceberg lettuce, which is even more, you know, perishable. But you just have the lettuce cut clean, get your fire nice and hot. Again, if you’re not sure exactly how to prepare your barbecue, go on to culinary yours.
Christa DeMercurio:
Yeah. And on the barbecue, the free barbecue.
Chef Cal:
Under the barbecue, free barbecue download.
Christa DeMercurio:
But if you don’t have a barbecue, can you just put it on a pan on the oven or the stovetop?
Chef Cal:
Well, you can do whatever you want, but whatever you do, you’re going to want to make sure that it’s, you know, not going to stick. And you’re going to do it really quickly because the lettuce is going to break down.
Christa DeMercurio:
So would you put it on a dry or unoiled pan?
Chef Cal:
I would spray the lettuce, spray the lettuce down or rub it down with a little bit of oil. But you’d want to have, I mean, the whole idea is to have this crisp, nice salad. So if you’re going to grill it, which we’ve done before, then you’re going to want to. The reason and purpose for doing that is going to be to just add that charred or seared flavor, which is just nice because you, obviously, you wouldn’t have that in a normal salad. So it adds that, that, that component. So no Caesar salads, but I know we’ve, you know, done them table side. You know, get first off, you know, high quality and, you know, get again, freshly grated Parmesan. Ideally, you know, grate it up yourself.
Chef Cal:
Always a little bit of Worcestershire, you know, a little bit of good, good oil, good olive oil, you know, also, I would suggest making your own croutons. The croutons, they have croutons for next to nothing, you know, in the store. But they’re also just save the ends of your bread. A lot of people don’t eat heels. My grandma used to love to eat the heels, but a lot of people don’t eat heels.
Christa DeMercurio:
What type of bread would be best for croutons? Can you do a brioche or a croissant? Or do you just need to do.
Chef Cal:
White bread or again, you can do whatever you want, right? You can do whatever you want because you want to. Sometimes that’s how we make things unique. But traditionally, you would want to use some sort of a French bread. And if it had some sour to it, you know, a sour dough, then that’d be. Well, I think the challenge is when you’re making a crouton is you want a nice warm crouton and soft in the middle and just crunchy outside. The croutons that you get, they’re just dried in the store that come in, you know, wrapped in plastic or, you know, I mean, you gotta be careful. You could, you know, damage the roof of your mouth on that. But anyway, so you got your croutons, you got your lettuce.
Chef Cal:
Again, anchovy paste is going to give it that extra depth of flavor. And I would serve it immediately. Again, this is a salad. A Caesar salad is something that you want chilled. You want it. The colder it is, the better. And quite often cleaning it, rinsing it, preparing it, and then setting it in your fridge for later on that evening or maybe even the next day. Keep it covered with a damp paper towel.
Christa DeMercurio:
But don’t put the croutons on, because the croutons will get soft.
Chef Cal:
Yeah, don’t put the croutons on. Keep those nice and fresh.
Christa DeMercurio:
Okay, one more question about croutons. Little itty bitty croutons. Or what about. Sometimes restaurants will do a big, giant, single crouton that you’ve got to eat like a piece of bread.
Chef Cal:
Oh, you know, I don’t know. I think it kind of depends on what you’re. What you’re after for a final product. But, you know, most things, you want bite size. I mean, you want something that’s going to fit inside your mouth if the idea is that they’re going to pick it up and eat it like an apple. And that’s a little different. But also, the Caesar salad is great to just turn into an entree, Add, you know, any kind of protein, whether it’s grilled shrimp or chicken, salmon. There’s a lot of different things.
Chef Cal:
Make a real nice meal out of it. And also, we’ve had before the kale Caesar salad. Kale Caesar salad is always very nice, too. And then, of course, vegetarian Caesar. So there’s a bunch of different things you can do with Caesar salad. And since we’re celebrating the 100th year. Yeah, let’s just do it. We’ll do Caesar throughout the holidays.
Chef Cal:
How about that? All right. So anyway, Chef Cal and Mrs. Chef Christa, back in just a moment. Cooking Like a Pro. Well, welcome back. You were here at Cooking Like a Pro, and we’re talking about what’s in season and what’s not in season. And, of course, the Caesar salad. Just a wonderful salad that you can do so many.
Chef Cal:
So many really cool things, too. And. And you had told me something else, honey, about the. What was it? A1. A1 is. You said, what, 200 years.
Christa DeMercurio:
Not only is the Caesar salad 100 years old, 200 years old this year is A1 sauce.
Chef Cal:
Did you get a Calendar with all this stuff on it, or.
Christa DeMercurio:
No, I’ve been doing research for different things. I just came across these dates.
Chef Cal:
So steak sauce. And that’s interesting because steak sauce is something that you was widely used. Widely used. Now you really don’t see it other than maybe a steakhouse. Yeah, that’s about the only place you see it. But it’s. I don’t know if it had to do with maybe that they felt that meat needed to be, you know, spruced up a little bit for flavor. But.
Christa DeMercurio:
So do you know the history? Do you know how A1 came to be about.
Chef Cal:
No, you.
Christa DeMercurio:
Okay, so A1 was developed 200 years ago by Henderson William Brand, and he did it for Chef. He was the Chef to King George IV in the uk so he did this for the Chef. And. Why do I keep saying the shape? The Chef did this for the king, and the king loved it so much that he Called it A1. A1 is a reference to the ships. It was the top ships.
Chef Cal:
Oh, really?
Christa DeMercurio:
The Lloyds of London register would register the top ships for being the strongest and the best Chefs. And he says, this is A one. And so that’s how it became known as.
Chef Cal:
Well, honey, you’re A one also. Thanks for looking that up. But, you know, steak sauce, it’s kind of like when I was first coming up in this industry, it was back in the. In the late 70s and the 80s, and you’ve seen steak sauce just about everywhere. And people would put it. They put it, and it’s kind of like putting. I don’t know, it’s kind of like putting tartar sauce in your abalone or. Or ketchup with your, you know, your filet mignon.
Chef Cal:
It’s just.
Christa DeMercurio:
I know you’ve always had kind of an issue with A one, but I grew up with A one. I love A one.
Chef Cal:
Well, I like it as an ingredient, but that isn’t all. I. And if I. If I’m buying meat and I’m buying a higher quality meat. Then, you know, I want to taste the meat. And A1 is a very strong sauce. It’s a, you know, dominant ingredient, has got to be vinegar in there. I’ve never looked at this.
Christa DeMercurio:
It’s considered, it’s a tomato based sauce and it’s got raisins and oranges and onions and garlic and celery and vinegar.
Chef Cal:
That’s way more than I wanted to know.
Christa DeMercurio:
But I think it’s the acidity, you know, just, you know, like a lot of people put ketchup on things. This was a very fancy ketchup, so to speak. It’s a tomato based, you know, acidic. And if you got a heavy fatty meat made, that little bit of zing of acid and citrus and onions and then you can use. I grew up that you would put A one had a lot of recipes for making marinades. You would use it as an ingredient with oil to make a marinade.
Chef Cal:
It’s something that, again, like I, like I mentioned, I’m used to seeing it as a condiment, you know, for protein, but for the most part, really using it as a, as an ingredient to, you know, in a recipe.
Christa DeMercurio:
But now it is an ingredient. Okay, so this came out over the wire. They have made an A1 steak sauce butter. A steak butter with A1 in it. And they add a bunch of herbs, garlic to it with the A1. And so now they have a compound butter available that will be in the dairy section.
Chef Cal:
You know, my first champ, my first thought on that, just as a Chef would be it’s so hard to get water. I mean, water and oil don’t mix. So if you’re trying to get a liquid base mixed in with the butter, then you’re going to have to do something to it to cause it to be able to absorb in there.
Christa DeMercurio:
So that would be my salt gets whipped, I would imagine.
Chef Cal:
Yeah, it’s whipped, but it’s still gonna, it’s still very likely gonna come out. But you did mention compound butters. And really when we made compound butters, they were just garlic, maybe some minced shallots and some parsley, a little salt and pepper. You do a whipped butter and then you would. Once it. But the butter got soft and flavored, we would just take a pastry bag, like you’re maybe decorating a cupcake or something, and you just kind of run a bead, run a bead along the parchment paper and then just roll it up and then we would just cut that. And as the steaks came off the broiler before we sent them out to the guests. We would just put a little disc on there, maybe a little quarter to half ounce disc, and then it would just melt and all that flavor would just melt right into your protein.
Christa DeMercurio:
Well, actually using that kind of idea. So we use the air fryer a lot and I’ll do our frozen hamburgers for quick dinners during the week. And I have started taking the frozen burger and spreading butter over the top of it with the seasoning. And as it cooks in the air fryer, letting that butter melt over the top of the burger to give it more flavor.
Chef Cal:
Yeah, I mean, that’s definitely going to add more flavor. I mean, you know, one of the things with butter is first off, the quality. I know that you buy some pretty, some pretty high end butters that we just keep on, on, on hand because the shelf life on butter is pretty substantial. And just to have something on hand to be able to use in a different application when you’re cooking something, maybe you’re going to saute up some spinach like we talked about earlier, or a different vegetable. And you don’t want that just regular butter or unsalted butter. You want something that’s going to add a little zing to it, a little difference. The flavor.
Christa DeMercurio:
Yeah, there’s different, there’s Irish butter and you know, grass fed butter. The grass fed, once you get in Costco, completely different flavor. It is a very different flavor profile than just your standard cubed butter on the market shelf.
Chef Cal:
Yeah, I had it the other day. I put it on my English muffin. It was, it was all right. It was. It didn’t have the sodium that I was expecting. But you know, I don’t know. I mean, back in the day when we were kids, you know, we had to churn our own butter, right. Because, you know, be down in the dungeon churning butter to, I mean, all is cream.
Chef Cal:
And you sit there, I mean, and it’s really easy to do. Go ahead and Google it. But, but it’s just, you know, it’s nice. I mean, when you’re looking at a fresh product that you’re making, not something that has any type of, you know, preservatives or, you know, anything else in it. So. Yeah.
Christa DeMercurio:
All right, so I wanted to find out what you think I’m. I even didn’t give any heads up on this. Okay, so there’s a compound butter Called Calboy butter. Now it’s going crazy on TikTok. That’s where I think it’s crazy right so this compound butter has parsley and chives and thyme and garlic, but then she lemon juice and Dijon paprika and Worcestershire and chili flakes. Do you think that that would be a good combination?
Chef Cal:
Oh, yeah, I think that’d be a great combination. And again, you freeze it. And the life, shelf life is, you know, the butter will last in the freezer as long as your freezer lasts or is plugged in. More PG&E, you know, shuts our power off. But when you roll it up, you just want to make sure that it is completely covered and it’s freezer proof because, you know, freezers work by, you know, sucking the moisture out of things. That’s kind of the, you know, the way that they just work. And you gotta, gotta be careful because they can dry out or they can get, you know, different flavors from other things that are hanging out in the freezer.
Christa DeMercurio:
But now when you make a compound butter and you are going to freeze it, should you go ahead and make it into its little discs, little individual portions, and wrap them individually so that you’re just pulling one out when you need it.
Chef Cal:
You can, you can. I don’t think it really matters. I mean, I. We’ve done it before where we’ve actually done a little dollop, what we Call a dollop or a rose with a pastry bag with a star tip. And you got this little, you know, this little disc of butter that. And. And then you just, you know, throw those in the freezer and pop them out when you need them. But it’s a little more decorative.
Chef Cal:
Decorative that way. But we used to actually Call it maitre d, hotel butter. Okay. So that’s what the French Called it. That’s what I was. When I was first being brought up in my French apprenticeship, every steak got maitre d, hotel butter, you know, and the maitre d was the person that, you know, met you, you know, at the door. I know. I don’t know if it was.
Chef Cal:
If the history was that the maitre d would actually put the butter on. I don’t know, maybe. I’m not really sure. But you know, maitre d, hotel butter. And again, like you mentioned the Calboy butter. I mean, you could do any kind of flavored butter you want, mince up some rosemary and put it in there. The thing is, just remember that the flavor components, or maybe I should say the flavor profile of that butter needs to kind of match. I mean, if you did something that’s, you know, had to say a rosemary butter, like I mentioned, then maybe that Goes over some chicken because you’re not really.
Chef Cal:
I mean, everything tastes like chicken, right? I mean, that’s just how they, how.
Christa DeMercurio:
We taste like chicken.
Chef Cal:
Well, that’s how we kind of, you know, pick flavor profiles because it’s just neutral.
Christa DeMercurio:
Yeah.
Chef Cal:
You know, so, so you can do something like rosemary. But. But if you took a really nice piece of salmon or something and put did a rosemary butter, then you gotta be careful because maybe there’s more rosemary than salmon. And you know, the rosemary is dirt cheap. Matter of fact, we have it grown all over our backyard. And then now this beautiful piece of salmon that you want to taste, you can’t taste because it’s overpowered by, by the rosemary.
Christa DeMercurio:
So using compound butter, should it be room temp or cold?
Chef Cal:
Well, it’s going on something hot. So yeah, I would put it, I would pull it right out of the freezer. You know, put it on there. It’s going to melt because you pull something hot maybe, you know, while your meat is resting. Remember when we cook meat, think of it this way. Think about if you’re rubbing your hands together and you’re rubbing your hands together, your hands are getting what, hotter and hotter. That friction. Well, that’s the same thing with this meat.
Chef Cal:
You got all those molecules cooking inside this meat, and the molecules are just going, you know, faster and faster and faster. And that’s cooking your meat. Well, those have to slow down and Calm down before you go and you serve your protein or your beef or your meat in this case. Because if not, as soon as you cut into it, all the juice goes where? On the cutting board? Yeah. So unless you’re going to eat your cutting board, it really makes no sense, you know, so you want to slow down, let that activity inside your protein slow down. And maybe while sitting there, what we Call again, resting, put the butter on there and just let that kind of melt and get that flavor. But it’s, I mean, you’re really adding a lot of really good flavor when you add a compound.
Christa DeMercurio:
So do it as soon as you pull it. As you begin the resting process. Don’t wait until it’s rested and you’re taking out the table.
Chef Cal:
Well, you want to make sure it’s hot, so it should be fairly warm when it, when it goes to the table or when it’s served. But yeah, I’d pull it out and stick it on there while it’s resting and then just let it kind of melt into it.
Christa DeMercurio:
And should you ever melt any to have to dip into?
Chef Cal:
Well, yeah, well, I guess that would depend on what you, what you’re doing. If you’re doing like a, I don’t know, maybe a crustacean, like, you know, shrimp or lobster or something, and you want to dip it into some sort of a flavored butter, like a garlic butter. Yeah, yeah. But anyway, steak butter, you know, maitre d, hotel butter. It’s just another way of adding flavor. And I think that’s the key is when you’re adding flavor and you’re thinking about flavor profiles, always think about balance. If I’m going to taste this item, whatever this item is, I want to make sure that I’m getting all of those flavors. I’m tasting all the different components.
Chef Cal:
Because if you’re not tasting all the ingredients, then you either have to question the amount of the ingredient or whether it even needs to be in there. Right. Because everything’s in there for a purpose. It’s all in there for a reason.
Christa DeMercurio:
Okay, we will get some steak butter and try it out.
Chef Cal:
Well, the steak butter’s not difficult. I know steak’s a little expensive, but, but we’ll see. We’ll jump off that bridge. But anyway, coming back in just a moment here after the break for the last, the last portion here. The. We’re going to be talking about Thanksgiving and we’re talking about that a lot starting in this next segment, but all next week. So if you have any turkey or Thanksgiving questions again, send those in to Cooking like a pro podcast.net Again, cooking like a pro podcast.net we’ll be back in just a moment. Yeah, Chef Cow, Mrs.
Chef Cal:
Chef at Cooking Like a Pro. Welcome back to Cooking Like a Pro. We want to talk a little bit about Thanksgiving. Coming up, the holidays.
Christa DeMercurio:
We have a three week countdown starting now.
Chef Cal:
Is it three weeks?
Christa DeMercurio:
Three weeks. So I have noticed in the store that the turkeys have arrived.
Chef Cal:
Yeah, well, well, the things about turkeys and there’s a lot of different questions on how, I mean, they’re so varied on how you might cook them. I’ve, I’ve cooked them in a barbecue barrel before. I’ve smoked them, I’ve deep fried them, you know, roasted them. Of course, a lot of different ways you can do it. Everything but, you know, butter, microwave. That’s, of course, it’s a hungry man turkey dinner. But yeah, it’s, you know, turkeys. I think the first thing people look at is how much, how big, you know, and usually a pound, pound and a half.
Chef Cal:
A turkey is about half, at least half of the turkey when you buy it. The weight of a Turkey. Let’s say you buy a two pound turkey, or I’m sorry to say a 20 pound turkey, half that weight is going to be bone, it’s going to be carcass skin things you’re not going to be able to eat. So that’s what you kind of. I would consider. And also I’d consider, you know, everyone likes leftovers, right? So about 50% waste air on the, on the heavier side. I would. And once I allow to thaw, I would allow it to thaw for four to five days.
Chef Cal:
You want your turkey to thaw in under refrigeration. And it’s really, it’s going to take a while. It, you know, 40 degrees, 41 degrees, 38 degrees, whatever your refrigerator is. So it’s going to take a while. So give, give it several, several days. It’s fine. If it’s in there thawed out for a couple days, you can rub it down with some oil and some garlic depending on how you’re going to, how you’re going to prepare it. One thing that I remember in the restaurants business, I remember we generally would do, I don’t know, maybe 40.
Chef Cal:
I cook about 40 to 50 turkeys every Thanksgiving. Some of the bigger properties I was at, we cooked a lot more than that. But when a turkey itself gets about 24 pounds, somewhere around the 23, 24 pound area, the carcass quits growing. It quits growing. It’s not going to get much bigger as. So after that your year, you’re going to yield more meat. So you’re always going to have a better deal if you get a Turkey that’s above 24 pounds. So you know, again, so 24 pound.
Christa DeMercurio:
Turkey is kind of what you want to go for or what will fit in an oven too. I mean, well, it’s got to fit.
Chef Cal:
In the oven, but you also got to feed everybody. So I mean, how many people are coming over and that’s one of the things I’d look at.
Christa DeMercurio:
Or what about two smaller turkeys? Is one bigger turkey better? I mean, does the meat get any more older, tougher, the bigger the bird gets?
Chef Cal:
It will get tougher. Everything gets tougher as it gets older. But the reality is if you go with two small birds, then you’re really looking at a much greater waste because of the smaller, the size of the carcass and the smaller yield on the actual meat itself. So I would get it, I would get a bigger one. Make sure you thought out well, figure out how you want to cook it. You know, again we didn’t have iPhones or anything like that. We have computers. I remember when I first started out, we had cookbooks.
Chef Cal:
We have cookbooks.
Christa DeMercurio:
Yes, we had cookbooks.
Chef Cal:
So just, you know, whatever your source is, you know, find a. Find your source and look it up. And, you know, I would say experiment. You know, you can also just use a turkey breast.
Christa DeMercurio:
You know, I’m going to say, what if you don’t want to get the whole bird, you just want it all done for you, all the bones out.
Chef Cal:
Of it, then just get. Then just get turkey breast, and then you can roast it. It doesn’t take very long. Usually they run between maybe three and, you know, eight pounds.
Christa DeMercurio:
Don’t they get them? Or they. They just take the bone out and all the dark meat and the white meats all wrapped up into one.
Chef Cal:
They can do that. They can do that if they eviscerate it. But no, for the most part, you want. If you want white meat, then just get the breast. And that’s kind of the reason to cook a whole turkey, is the getting the. You know, because the breast is going to be your white meat and of course, the.
Christa DeMercurio:
Wings.
Chef Cal:
The wings, yeah. And then your leg and your thigh are going to be your dark meat, which is going to take a little longer to cook. So that’s what you want to want to check. You’re going to want that inside bone. So if you imagine a turkey, you know, like we have turkeys around our house. See a turkey walking. They’re walking on their legs right there in those. In that bottom joint between the leg and the thigh.
Chef Cal:
That’s where you want your temperature gauge to go, and you want that to be 160 as a final temperature. If you. If you’re cooking something really hot and you pull it out at 160, it’s going to keep going. It might even go to 170. Depends on where you put it. You can put. Keeping it in someplace where it’s warm or you can allow it to cool down.
Christa DeMercurio:
So, okay, now breast, white meat and dark meat cook different times, different lengths. So go over that for me.
Chef Cal:
Well, breast side up. Breast side up. You can flip it if you want. A lot of times what they do is we’ll cover a turkey with foil through most of the cooking and then allow it to.
Christa DeMercurio:
So that. But the dark meat takes longer than the white meat, correct?
Chef Cal:
Yeah, but when it’s on the bottom and you’re cooking it and you’re roasting it, they’re. They’re going to be done right about the same time.
Christa DeMercurio:
Because they’re smaller than a lot of the breasts.
Chef Cal:
Quite a bit smaller. Yeah, quite a bit.
Christa DeMercurio:
So they should be done about the same time.
Chef Cal:
And then just make sure. And make sure you always get the. What. What’s on the other side of the turkey. You don’t remember?
Christa DeMercurio:
No.
Chef Cal:
Oh, come on. Come on. The. It’s a. It’s a mollusk. It’s a mollusk. Mo. Oyster.
Chef Cal:
Oh, oyster.
Christa DeMercurio:
What are you talking.
Chef Cal:
The oyster on the other side. I tell you, most people throw away their oysters.
Christa DeMercurio:
I didn’t grow up to eating the oyster. You. You guys and your family fight over the. And I. Oh, oh. Ben has something to say. Okay. You said what was on the other side of the turkey, and it made me.
Chef Cal:
It made me wonder, why did the turkey cross the road? Okay.
Christa DeMercurio:
To go to McDonald’s? No, it was Thanksgiving and he wanted.
Chef Cal:
To get with the other sides. Oh, there you go. I love you guys, too. Well, thanks, Ben. We appreciate you chiming in on that one, but there’s so many different things you can do. And take your turkey and be creative, folks. Be creative. Maybe do a little.
Chef Cal:
Maybe a regular roasted turkey and then maybe play with a breast. Wrap it in something, you know, do a different cooking method on it. Same thing with cranberry sauce. You know, you can get just a regular gelled cranberry sauce. Of course, the old ocean spray. You know what? I seen something. I don’t know why I was looking. I don’t know where it came from.
Chef Cal:
But ocean spray, when they make ocean spray, it’s the only thing, a canned cranberry sauce that when they make it, it goes through the line. It’s always upside down. The can is upside down.
Christa DeMercurio:
And it drives me nuts because I have to put the can upside down in my cabinet. And it just drives me insane.
Chef Cal:
And the reason why is so when you open it up, it slides right out.
Christa DeMercurio:
There you go.
Chef Cal:
Yeah. Those guys that design the cans, I mean, these guys are on top of it.
Christa DeMercurio:
But now, do you stuff a turkey typiCally?
Chef Cal:
Okay, well, now you’re getting into two different things. Okay. Stuffing. The turkey versus is it stuffing or is it dressing? Yeah. So if it’s stuffed inside, then yes, it’s Called stuffing. If it’s baked separately, it’s going to be Called dressing. But if you stuff it, you do want to be careful and make sure that it’s a cold turkey and you’re stuffing it with cold refrigerator temperature stuffing. You never want to stuff a turkey that takes so long to cook with warm because you’re taking a raw protein and stuffing, a warm stuffing in there and the bread and the mixture and the celery and the, you know, carrots and onions, whatever your, your.
Chef Cal:
Your stuffing is. And it’s going to just bring the temperature up on that inside of that turkey and that raw meat.
Christa DeMercurio:
Okay. So for me, I personally can’t stand stuffing because to me, it’s just soggy. What if you just put aromatics and oranges and lemons and herbs inside the cavity just for flavor infusion?
Chef Cal:
Oh, yeah. I mean, you can add anything you want. You know, I agree. You know, but, you know, the stuffing that would generally is going to be a little bit wetter, maybe, you know, a little less. You have the moisture from the inside of the turkey, but maybe a little bit less, you know, moisture in the actual mix. Because basiCally you’re looking at croutons, right? Sauteed onions, celery. And by far the number one thing you want to go make sure you go out and get is poultry seasoning. I’d get it, like in the next week.
Chef Cal:
I’ve definitely been in stores around Thanksgiving and it’s gone. Yeah.
Christa DeMercurio:
So that’s what I’m saying right now. You should start your shopping. And it’s, go ahead and get your frozen turkey now. Go ahead and get your seasonings now. And if you’re going to be doing the croutons for stuff, then get it now or get your regular bread and dry it out now.
Chef Cal:
Well, we got a bunch of actual sage growing outside, so we got sage and oregano, and it’s still looking good. Probably use a little bit of rosemary, make kind of an herb mix, then blend it in. But again, even mentioning being creative, I mean, are you going to use. I mean, I have cranberry sauce recipe that’s exceptional that I got from a friend of mine a long time ago. And it’s actually the cranberries are raw and it’s made with. What is it?
Christa DeMercurio:
Oh, it’s a relish, isn’t it?
Chef Cal:
Yes. It’s got a. What is that? A jello. A jello in it. But then again, you’re going to. A lot of times you cook the cranberries down and then you add your spices again, not seasonings, but spices, your cloves, your nutmeg, your cinnamon, those kind of things.
Christa DeMercurio:
So speaking about what’s coming in and out of season, cranberries are in season, and it’s going to be very brief and you can freeze them. So if you go to the store and buy them and you want to have a mid year Thanksgiving, go ahead and freeze them.
Chef Cal:
If you’re going to cook them, then, yes, no problem. Definitely freeze them because they’ll last forever. But when you freeze a piece of produce, whether a fruit or a vegetable, remember those, the water that’s inside of that is going to expand in size and it’s going to break it down. So when you pull something, you pull your cranberries out of the freezer, be ready for them to already be soft because they’ve broken that structure because of the water that’s inside of it, because it is mostly water. But again, so cranberry sauce, canned, frozen, fresh. Are you going to cook it? Are you not going to cook it? And that goes with everything else, whether it’s your mashed potatoes, whether it’s your, your dressing that we mentioned and, you know, or your pie, your pumpkin pie, your apple pie, your mince pie, whatever it happens to be, be creative and come up with something fun this year because everyone’s kind of used to the same thing on Thanksgiving year after year. So maybe spice it up and try something different.
Christa DeMercurio:
And that’s actually interesting in our family is we didn’t go with a lot of the traditional. We always tried to do something a little different every year. My mom used to make sherry glazed onions over broccoli. And then another thing we did was one year we were able to find mini artichokes. We had artichokes for Thanksgiving. Little mini individual artichokes.
Chef Cal:
I mean, you know, green beans and, you know, Campbell’s cream and mushrooms.
Christa DeMercurio:
No, thank you.
Chef Cal:
You know, that casserole cook was actually invented by an employee.
Christa DeMercurio:
I’m sure it was.
Chef Cal:
It was.
Christa DeMercurio:
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.
