Cal and Christa DeMercurio
Get ready to elevate your culinary skills with insights from Chef Cal and his Mrs. Chef, in today’s episode of “Cooking Like a Pro.” We’ll explore everything from the beginning makings of a charcuterie board to the intricacies of seasoning meats.
- Discover the art of building a perfect charcuterie board and tips from
- Master the seasoning and temperature technique for a juicy filet mignon
- Uncover the differences between New Zealand and Australian lamb
- Learn essential tips for selecting and storing meat
- Get creative with winter citrus in salads and innovative uses for kiwi in marinades
🔉Listen ⤵️
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Timestamp Overview
00:00 Snack board: versatile meal or appetizer option.
05:14 Black Forest experience: home-cooked meal with ham.
09:30 Slow-barbecued meat retains juices by cooling.
12:47 Salt dehydrates and preserves meat, regulates purge.
16:05 Choose cooking method when buy cheaper, tougher meat.
19:22 Marinate briefly, lamb flavor varies by origin.
21:27 Smell and check food before buying.
25:57 Old Bay and citrus enhances fin fish and salmon cooking.
28:27 Be creative, test recipes before holiday gatherings.
30:59 Cut kiwi large for clear identification purpose.
33:18 Freeze fruit before cooking to break cell structures.
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 building charcuterie boards, seasoning and grilling filet mignon and using winter citrus in salads, and kiwi in marinades. Let’s dig in. Today’s episode was broadcast and recorded live on AM FM radio.
Chef Cal:
Welcome. Welcome, one and all. Welcome to Cooking Like a Pro. You have found Chef Cal and Mrs. Chef Christa. Hello.
Christa DeMercurio:
Hello.
Chef Cal:
Yeah, there we go. So, hey, we want to talk about charcuterie. Charcuterie is something that’s been around for a while. It actually was invented in France. You know, the first charcuterie boards were made with cheese and, well, things that would last a while. You know, meats that have been cured or salted. You know, that actually dates way back. I know they usually.
Chef Cal:
They used to use offal. Now, offal is something that you don’t see very often, and we were raised on it. But the offal is the entrails. The offal is the guts. Everything that’s inside. The heart, the liver, maybe not necessarily the guts, but the stomach, the entire inside.
Christa DeMercurio:
I would not want to see that on our charcuterie board. That’s disgusting.
Chef Cal:
Well, it’s. They’ve advanced. They’ve advanced.
Christa DeMercurio:
I hope so.
Chef Cal:
Yeah, so. But I mean, this. There’s such a great. Is it. You know, I. I don’t know. I like to call it snack. Right.
Chef Cal:
It’s a snack board. You know, we talk about finger food and you have people over for, you know, I mean, it can easily replace a meal or it can just be the preface of the meal. But, you know, from the amuse bush. And I know when we competed in training competition, one of the categories they gave us in was the 2004 Olympics, and it was tapas. So we had like, study tapas. And the word tapa means lid. So it’s just a piece of toast on a lid that would sit on. On a beverage.
Chef Cal:
A glass. A glass of wine.
Christa DeMercurio:
Spanish.
Chef Cal:
Then we have some. Some serrano ham or something Cool. Cool on there and then. But a moose bush is one bite. That’s how we used to always decide it and decipher it. And a d’oeuvre is one to two bites. You know, a tapa is usually three to four bites would be in. I put a top in the same category as an appetizer.
Chef Cal:
Appetizer, three to four bites as well. And we used to call appetizers, I mean, you might use them for per sharing also, but we used to use the term knife and fork. When you get to a point where you’re having an appetizer or you’re having a food and you have to begin using a utensil, they call it knife and fork. Then it would be. It no longer be a moose bouche or an. A d’oeuvre or a finger food or a finger sandwich or a canopy or, you know, whatever.
Christa DeMercurio:
So does a charcuterie board fall into these categories? Because they’re kind of make your own type thing. It’s not something that’s presented to you. It’s something that you put together yourself.
Chef Cal:
I think a charcuterie board can be anything you want. That’s. Think that’s the exciting part of it is you can just be, you know, real variant on whether. I mean, I was just looking in and talking to Caitlin and she’s got Cask and Cleaver right around the corner down here in downtown, right around the corner from off of Market street here. And they. I get. They do classes as well. I noticed online they do chocolate boards.
Chef Cal:
Chocolate board, yeah.
Christa DeMercurio:
So what would you do? Okay, so I’m thinking go to someplace like Cask and Cleaver that has a really nice cheese shop to get some really nice cheeses. But you can still go to your loCal supermarket to get your basic breads. So you can balance it, not have everything be super expensive.
Chef Cal:
Well, they use it. They kind of have this range that they call when you’re teaching or training people how to do charcuterie. When I did it, it was always three. Three. Three, three. So it’s three cured meats of some sort. Three cheeses of some sort, three starches, crackers, bread, crostini, and then three either relishes or even fruit. But again, there is no.
Chef Cal:
There’s no limit. You can, you know, do whatever is you want. I. When I was talking to Caitlin, she said they got like 50 to 60 cheeses, you know, and I’m a cheese fanatic, even though I’m lactose intolerant. I love cheese. But yeah, you could make one just all cheese. You could do, you know, if you.
Christa DeMercurio:
Do three cheeses, would you do like a mild cheese, a little bit stronger cheese, and a really strong cheese to kind of COVID the.
Chef Cal:
Yeah, I think you want to get creative. You want to cover all the different, like, flavor profiles. I think that that’s a good Thing to kind of consider because not everyone likes, you know, for example, with me and you, I like spicy. And you not so much, but you still like spicy. Probably spicier than the average person, especially if it’s curry or something, but not as spicy as me. So you have to have a, you know, a variance of a variety.
Christa DeMercurio:
And then what kind of meats. You know, typically you would see salami.
Chef Cal:
Yeah. Dried cured meats. You know, ham can, can go on one. You know, ham is a, is a cured product. You can have ham and eat it raw because. Right out of the package, because technically it’s cured. So it’s cooked. But they haven’t, you know, boiled it yet.
Chef Cal:
I know that when I was in Germany, I went into a person’s home and it was just if they want to cook for you, they just put a sign out in front of their little, you know, village. A frame, you know, grass, hut looking weird thing. And, and you go in, you just sit in their living room and they feed you. And I had never had it, but they called it raw ham. Now, we were in the Black Forest, so it’s. Of course it was Black Forest sand, which, you know, when the pigs in the Black Forest, the trees. Trees are so thick together that the sun doesn’t get down to the foliage. So all the stuff that the pigs eat is really, you know, I mean, very lush and nutritious and good for it.
Chef Cal:
All that truffles. Yeah, yeah. I’m sure they’re getting the share of truffles too. And. But again, good stuff. I mean, you know, but I had never had raw ham. This was just. But it was just ham served on a piece of pumpernickel with some mustard on it.
Chef Cal:
So I think you make things small. The, the. I get the rule that I’ve always used when doing for is I look at the number of bites and it depends on what the. Of course, the occasion is. If you’re going to do an event and you’re planning on having a meal afterwards, then you figure around nine or ten pieces per person and then kind of times that out and kind of figure out what’s going to be popular. And you can make some educated guesses on that. So, yeah. So nine to ten piece.
Chef Cal:
But then if that’s all they’re having, you know, then it goes up to between 22 and 24 and it might. But an average meal, again, remember, is 35 to 36 bites. But that’s coming to you as a core forced meal. Again, this. They’re just, they’re grabbing their own. You’re not. There’s no real control other than, you know, the size of what you cut it, which is, I would think, would be maybe one bite, two bites. No more than that.
Christa DeMercurio:
So, real life story. So we had Thanksgiving. We’ve been talking about Thanksgiving a lot on the, on the show. Last week, one of our family members brought and made a charcuterie board right in front of me. I did not eat dinner. I just had the charcuterie. I love. It was fantastic.
Christa DeMercurio:
Salami.
Chef Cal:
I think she went to Trader Joe’s or something. Yeah, she had some good stuff, too.
Christa DeMercurio:
Oh, the, the persimmons. Yep, persimmons. I just, I gorge on persimmons all afternoon. It was so yummy.
Chef Cal:
Well, and stick around for the final segment because we’re going to be talking about winter fruits and, of course, persimmons are one of the high ones. But, yeah, you can really do almost anything you want. Again, it starts with, you know, a variety of meats, a variety of cheeses, pickles, relishes, veggies. Then, you know, dried fruit.
Christa DeMercurio:
Nuts.
Chef Cal:
Yeah, nuts. I’ve seen nuts on there. I mean, you can really. Taylor, fit it. And I don’t, I don’t know what they do at casting Cleaver. You can call and ask Caitlin, but I think that, you know, they’re pretty flexible. And actually she does classes, so could go down there and learn how to do them, I suppose.
Christa DeMercurio:
Well, I did one last year that we did a mustard. We made our own mustard. We had a jelly. We had a cream. So you could layer different things together, try different combinations.
Chef Cal:
Well, I think that’s it. You want, you want to enjoy as many different flavors and taste sensations. You also have to understand, though, that cheese does coach your palate. So if you have cheese and maybe have some citrus on there, there, so that can kind of cut the palate. So you can. Because now you put cheese in your mouth and coats your tongue, you’re not going to. You’re going to have much less flavor.
Christa DeMercurio:
The dried pineapple we had last year.
Chef Cal:
Last week, dried pineapple is good, too. So, anyway, we’re going to take a quick break. Mrs. Chef Cal and Mrs. Chef Crystal and Cooking Like a Pro will be back in just a moment. Welcome back to Cooking Like a Pro. A little bit of Jimmy Buffett there. Yes.
Chef Cal:
Where’s the beef? You know, I’m talking about beef here. For this segment, my wife has been. Oh, bugging is probably the wrong word.
Christa DeMercurio:
Because showing interest in learning.
Chef Cal:
That’s a Much better way to put it. Much way to better way to put it. Maybe I should be thinking that when you ask me something. But anyway, so we did filet. That’s what dad wanted for his birthday dinner. So I did a bunch of roasted garlic and a bunch of, you know, shouts and this kind of thing. And roast moth came out real good. It was what we had at our first restaurant.
Chef Cal:
Demon Curios, Filet ala Casa. That one’s going to be in the cookbook. That’d be probably the second chapter of the cookbook we’re working on.
Christa DeMercurio:
What temperature did you cook that meat to? Because it was absolutely perfect.
Chef Cal:
- But it cooked it real slow.
Christa DeMercurio:
You talked about that you cooked the filet mignon slow. What do you mean by slow and what would be fast?
Chef Cal:
Well, when you’re looking at high temperature, which would normally be what the. The method that I cooked it, because I did char grill it. I cooked it outside out on the barbecue. Yeah, but I cooked it slow. I turned the heat back down. Once I got a sear, I turned the heat way back down and once got to 125, which is rare, I pulled it off and set it to the side on a platter so it was still sitting there. But it got a chance to cool back down. Because all that activity, once you start cutting into meat that’s really hot, temperature wise, all the juice is going to run out of it.
Christa DeMercurio:
So if you pulled it at 125, that should carry overcooked about 130.
Chef Cal:
That’s what it did.
Christa DeMercurio:
But what kind of timeframe are you talking? 15 minutes on the grill, 5 minutes on the grill?
Chef Cal:
Yeah. I would say it’s always going to depend on the thickness of your meat, the temperature of the grill, the type of grill, a variety of things. But generally speaking, you know, you’re talking no more than three to four minutes on per side for something like a, you know, something that’s going to be in the rare side. And if you’re going to do four flips and that’s even going to be too long.
Christa DeMercurio:
And then if you did. On a barbecue, did you do what they call it, indirect cooking, where the flame was on the outside or directly under.
Chef Cal:
Flame was underneath, underneath what we call char grilling, char broiling. So, you know, char as opposed to. If there wasn’t a grill, then it would be a flat top. And then we use the term griddling. Griddling, like griddling a cook in a pancake.
Christa DeMercurio:
Did you season it beforehand?
Chef Cal:
I seasoned it right beforehand and I Remember we talked a little bit about that.
Christa DeMercurio:
I got the question wrong.
Chef Cal:
Yep, I got the gar. Yeah, I got the. I think I might even ask you. I was doing it kind of as a class. It was just me and her, and there’s me showing her how to do a cut down a tenderloin. And from a tenderloin. When you cut a tenderloin, that’s the primal cut, what we call the butcher’s call, a primal cut. It’s whole.
Chef Cal:
When you cut a tenderloin into steaks across the grain, then you have what’s called a filet mignon, which most people heard of that you cut a strip loin, you have a New York. A lot of people have heard of that. You know, a top sirloin. You know, for a top sirloin steak that’s cut out of the. Out of the sirloin, if you keep those piece meats, two pieces of meat, those primal cuts together with the bone, and you cut it at the thin side, what are you going to get?
Christa DeMercurio:
Okay, so we’ve got the New York and the filet. You’ve either got a T bone or a porterhouse.
Chef Cal:
At the thinner part you have a T bone, and at the thicker part of the filet, you have. Have a porterhouse. And it’s good to know that, folks, if you go out, you’re going to pay a lot more money for a porterhouse than you will a T bone. And the difference is go to the inside round of where the fillet is touching the bone, and it has to measure to the across. The diameter of that fillet has to be at least one and a half. No, no. One and a quarter. One and a quarter inches wide.
Chef Cal:
If it’s any thinner than that, it’s a T bone. It’s any thicker than that, you got a porterhouse. So porterhouse has more filet. But we were talking about meat. So we got into conversation about meat, taking notes about meat. And when it came to seasoning them, one of the things that I was. That I make sure I never put on until right before I cook it. You learned, which is what?
Christa DeMercurio:
Salt.
Chef Cal:
Salt. Salt. And because why do you wait till the end of a salt on salt.
Christa DeMercurio:
Pulls out the moisture.
Chef Cal:
And a lot of people will salt things way too fast. And when you open up one of these large pieces of meat, and if there’s any blood or juice in the bottom, if there’s juice, it’s blood. That’s what it is. Well, we use the term purge, but you’re still paying the Same price per pound for that. The blood, that’s in there, too. So you don’t want to have a whole bunch in there, but you certainly don’t want a lot of it running out. And salt, that’s what we use to dehydrate things, right? That’s what they used to use to, you know, pack things and preserve salt. Preserve and take them.
Chef Cal:
Make your jerky or. Or, you know, if you’re going to brine something. A lot of people brine things to add flavor back into them. For steaks, though. Yeah.
Christa DeMercurio:
You wait to put salt on.
Chef Cal:
You can put everything else on there.
Christa DeMercurio:
Pretty much avoid a seasoned salt. Do other herbs and seasons and then add your salt.
Chef Cal:
No. Yeah, yeah. Season it with whatever you want. Just don’t put any salt on there. And if you’re going to use something like Lowry, so hit that right before you cook it and then put that on right before you cook it. That would be my recommendation. So you don’t want to pull any moisture out of it. But there’s a ton of.
Chef Cal:
You know, I think that when you first look at the meat and when you’re thinking about from a. For a meat purchase, you know, look at one of the things, fat content. I ran into this lady at. She was buying some New York steaks right next to where I was buying the filet down at Costco. So we had fairly long conversation. I gave her one of your cards and. But anyway, it was about, you know, the fat, the marbling, and she was getting New York’s. And when you’re cutting New York steaks off of a strip loin, there’s a nerve in that drops down.
Chef Cal:
And you really don’t want to get those because that just. That’s going to be a really, really tough piece to get through where that, that nerve end comes down. So I was just kind of showing her how to find that.
Christa DeMercurio:
And you just cut that out now.
Chef Cal:
That, that, you know, you buy one. Buy some steaks that don’t have it in it.
Christa DeMercurio:
But if that’s all you can get is that. Would you cut it out?
Chef Cal:
Well, you. No, if I cut it out, I’d be turning into stew meat. You can’t just put an invention in it. Because if you’ve ever had a steak that balled up when you cooked it, it kind of balled up like, you know, Jiffy Pop. Popcorn shrinks. Yeah, it shrinks. So if you cut it sear, you know, just break that. Break that around maybe five or six times.
Chef Cal:
It’s not going to, you know, curl on you, but you’re not taking it out of there. But then again, if you want a steak that’s well done, most of that’s going to. The toughness is going to cook out, but you don’t want the ball. But she made a comment about the fat in there. She says, oh, I don’t want the fat in there. I said, well, you do want the fat in there. That’s the marbling, the fat that’s on the outside, the exterior of your steak or your roast. Remember, you’re paying the same amount of weight per pound for that, so you want some to protect it.
Chef Cal:
But you don’t need a lot on the outside. But the marbling on the inside is really what you pay for. Now, remember, I back in my apprenticeship, there are six different grades of meat and they went all the way down to utility, which was for making dog food. And then a while back, I’d say somewhere in the late 90s, mid late 90s, they changed it from all of these different grades to just being two. It was either choice or prime. Yeah, prime would be set. There was prime. It wasn’t prime.
Chef Cal:
It was just everything else was choice or lower. So you could get a tough cut of meat. Because remember, let’s say the animal. Let’s say the prime rip portion of the animal is beautiful marbling. That doesn’t mean the whole animal is going to be that way. You know, needing to know how you want to cook it is the first thing you need to look for. Are you going to roast it in an oven? Are you going to pressure cook it? Are you going to instapot it? Are you going to crock pot it? Are you going to bake it, roast it, grill it, broil it? You know, whatever you’re going to do, that’s the very first thing you need to know. Because if you’re going to use a cooking method to break down the meat to make it tender, then why not get meat for $7 a pound instead of meat for 16 a pound?
Christa DeMercurio:
And different cuts have preferred cooking methods.
Chef Cal:
Yeah, yeah. Well, I break them down into dry cooking methods and wet cooking methods. A dry is for a piece of meat that’s already going to be naturally tender and that’s going to be quick, searing, sauteing, char, grilling, regular grilling, something like that. And then the heavier meats are going to take longer time to cook. We call those wet muscles. So they’re going to be used using a wet cooking method. But, you know, the liquid, the fat, the waste, we talk about you don’t want any off color, and you don’t want any off odor. And they should also be firm to the touch.
Christa DeMercurio:
What was interesting, when you cut the steaks the other day, they changed color as the air hit them. There was like a blue red, and then there was like a warm red as it changed color over time.
Chef Cal:
Yeah, well, it oxidizes quick. You leave meat out on the counter, and it’s going to change really quick. I mean, not quite as quick as an avocado, but pretty gosh darn close, because that air. That air isn’t doing it any good. That’s why meat is packed, you know, in such a heavy plastic. So it makes sure that it’s, you know, the enzymes are trapped in there. They break down that connective tissue, and then you get a nice tender piece of meat.
Christa DeMercurio:
When do you. When or do you marinate?
Chef Cal:
You can marinate almost any time. It just depends on, you know, I mean, you can do a quick marinade, you can do a thin marinade or a fat, longer marinade. And matter of fact, we’ll talk about that when we come back. For the next segment, The Chef Cow, Mr. Chef Christa, cooking Like a Pro. We will be back in just a moment. All right, welcome back. Again, you found us Cooking Like a pro.
Chef Cal:
You know, you can also send in. You can send in a. A question. You can go to cookinglike a pro podcast.net yes, you can. Cooking Like a Pro podcast.
Christa DeMercurio:
You can text from your phone, and we will not respond to you. We will address it on the next podcast.
Chef Cal:
You asked me the question about marinades, and there’s a variety of ways of doing it. But first off, go back to the original thought of what I said. Think about the cooking process that you’re going to use and think about maybe is there some sort of ethnic direction you want to. But you got to figure that flavor profile. And you have to be careful that you don’t, you know, over. I mean, you don’t want to spend a bunch of money. You don’t want to buy filet mignon and put ketchup on it. You don’t want to, you know, buy lobster and use dip it in margarine.
Christa DeMercurio:
I mean, so you would not marinate a filet mignon. You would let it have its own flavor.
Chef Cal:
No, it’s already tender enough, and the flavor is going to soak too quick. If you did, that would be somewhere where you’d use a quick marinade, maybe have it in there for maybe five or six minutes, and then Go straight to the grill with it. But remember the flavor profile. Like a lot of people will think lamb and it depends on, you know, you are what you eat. So depends on where it comes from. And if I think about lamb from Australia or lamb from New Zealand, which is quite a bit different than lamb in America because it’s raised on grass and seed where normally the American lamb is feed, they’re going to taste you are what you eat. You’re going to taste like what you eat. So they’re going to take on different flavor profiles.
Chef Cal:
But in a place that where they eat, they’re just grazed wild like a New Zealand lamb. You’re going to get lamb that has a, and I’d hate to use this word gamey because I’m not going to, I’m not going to go that direction. Not gamey, but a stronger flavor. It is gamey than it was killed incorrectly.
Christa DeMercurio:
Is Australian or New Zealand lamb stronger?
Chef Cal:
Oh, New Zealand by far. But so I on my restaurants I always had rack of lamb. I always use Australian because they had a bigger eye.
Christa DeMercurio:
But you can get the Australian lamb at Costco. That was the last time we got lamb and it was very. I’m not a lamb person, but it’s a very mild lamb that you can get there.
Chef Cal:
Yeah, yeah, mild lamb and well, that’s the thing. But I still want lamb. If I get American lamb, sometimes depending on what they feed it, it almost tastes like beef. You know, it just doesn’t have a distinct enough flavor. And that’s what I want when I get lamb. When I get lamb, I want to taste like lamb. I just, you know, want a good, a good chop. But one of the things I wanted to touch on when it came to, you know, picking out your proteins and some of this will go with, with seafood as well.
Chef Cal:
But most of this is designed for meat proteins. Meat bean, beef, pork, chicken, duck, like that kind of thing. So you don’t want the meat to be bright. You don’t want any discoloring. You certainly don’t want anything slimy. Okay, some slimy or off smelling. Just don’t do it if you’re not sure. It looks a little off colored.
Chef Cal:
You know, I poke a hole in it and smell it before you buy it. Now if you do that and you end up, well, whether you want it or not, take it back to the butcher and ask them if they can, you know, rewrap it for you or especially if you’re going to put it back on the counter, you know, make sure that they get Rewrapped. But there’s nothing wrong with, you know, kicking the tires before you buy the car. And that brings it to things like sell by dates. You know, a sell by date. They say by law a sell by date should be at least 10 days after you sell it. But I’m not buying chicken and then eating it. Letting it sell 10 days later.
Chef Cal:
Yeah, you know, so I think you have to just look for these factors. But the sell by date should give you some sort of an idea. Used by date means either use it when you buy it, you use it or freeze it. And remember, a freezer is not a hospital. Okay? Freezers, not a hospital, folks. If something’s not quite good, throwing it in the freezer is not going to make it better. Okay. It’s just going to maintain where the badness it has.
Christa DeMercurio:
So when we shop at holiday market, they have a bin where things are marked down because they are closer to the sell by date. Like next day. Yeah, but they are still good for how long?
Chef Cal:
Of course for up to 10 days. They say up to 10 days when you open it up and it’s been in the fridge for a period of time and you’re maybe not sure. But first off, date it. Date everything. You know, open up my refrigerator. There’s nothing in my refrigerator that Christa hasn’t put blue tape on.
Christa DeMercurio:
And the date when I open it, I definitely date it. So I know that the date that the error started getting to it.
Chef Cal:
Yep. Well, that’s oxidation. Anytime the air. The air is. I’m trying to think if there’s ever a time where air is going to be your friend when it comes to the kitchen. I mean, maybe when it’s hot, but anyway, but see how 10 days, the, you know, USDA says certain things like odor, texture, color, the appearance. I mean, first off, I tell all my students and I tell everybody this. I said if it doesn’t look like something that you would eat, throw it away.
Chef Cal:
It’s never worth taking the chance.
Christa DeMercurio:
I’m thinking of gray hamburger.
Chef Cal:
Throw it away.
Christa DeMercurio:
Does ground beef have a shorter shelf life because it has been opened up and exposed to air with all the different.
Chef Cal:
Exactly, exactly why? That’s exactly why. Because it’s been exposed to air, it’s got more surface area exposing its air. And that’s one of the things that you want to look for when you’re buying it. But I think that the ten day thing might kind of fall back into that. Don’t believe everything on the Internet.
Christa DeMercurio:
I wouldn’t go that far. I wouldn’t go three to five days.
Chef Cal:
I would be. I would with beef, but, I mean, not ground beef, but I would with. With a roast, definitely. Or a steak. But also, how well is it sealed? You know, is air actually getting in there? That plastic is not blocking the air. The plastic you have over your. Your steak and chicken in a grocery store is not thick enough. It’s.
Chef Cal:
It’s still going to be.
Christa DeMercurio:
No, it’s just like if you put chips in a Ziploc bag, they get soft because they still get exposed to moisture. Even if it’s in a sealed Ziploc bag. And it does not airtight ever.
Chef Cal:
Don’t have all that chip air. That’s what the chip air. I want to know who invented the chip air. The person that’s getting credit for half of a bag that’s empty of chips. I don’t know where that came from. But anyway, we’re going to be back for our last segment. Chef cow and Mr. Chef Christa.
Chef Cal:
Back in a sec. Oh, tutti frutti. Tutti frutti it is. Welcome back. For the final segment for this week’s show in Cooking Like a Pro, let’s go ahead and go to the phone lines. We have Ron. Ron, welcome to the show. Yes.
Chef Cal:
Could I change the subject a little bit? Oh, sure. Anything about food or something food related? Yes, it is. I’ve got a question. What kind of seasoning or spices would you use for salmon? Oh, salmons are good last week, but I think you’re talking about the Thanksgiving and stuff, so I held off. Salmon is one of those things. There’s some beautiful seasonings out there, but salmon, as far as the fin fish, is one of the ones that are the fish that I would say has a stronger flavor to it. Anyone that doesn’t like salmon, maybe they didn’t have it when it was good and fresh.
Christa DeMercurio:
That’s due to the fat and the oil in the fish, correct?
Chef Cal:
Yeah, the omegas. But I go with a really nice, easy lemon pepper. And there’s a lot of different, you know, lemon type seasonings that are out there. But lemon pepper is a good one. And something else that a lot of seafood that people use is the little yellow can with the red lid on it.
Christa DeMercurio:
Old Bay.
Chef Cal:
Old Bay seasoning. Old Bay is a good bait, a good one for fin fish and for seasoning as well. How are you going to cook your salmon, Ron? Have you figured that one out? I have a toaster When you buy through any affiliate links on our site (i.e. Amazon), we may earn an affiliate commission. Happy shopping! oven that has a broaster, a top heating element, a broiler, sometimes I could even cook it on the barbecue. Oh, yeah, anything like that, anything citrus, even a citrus salad dressing, you know, just brush it with and then you could baste it with that as you’re going. But what I was going to say is also you put a piece of aluminum foil down if you’re going to have open flame and that can help continue to capture some of that oil because the fat in the salmon is really. If you really like salmon, then that’s what you want.
Christa DeMercurio:
Now, should salmon be seasoned far in advance or just before?
Chef Cal:
Oh, I season it right before you throw it on there. You definitely don’t want to pull any moisture out of that, but yeah. Any other questions for us there, Ron? Hit that. Any other questions? No, that’s it. Well, hey, appreciate you calling in and maybe give us a call back and let us know how that salmon turned out. Okay, I will. All right. Oh, another thing is dill.
Chef Cal:
Dill always goes real good with salmon. Fresh dill. Sprinkle some on there. All right. Well, we appreciate Ron calling in. And so anyway, winter fruits, we’re not going to get through this. We’ll talk about it next week. Okay.
Chef Cal:
But pomegranates, we talked about that before. Just beautiful. Lovely. I just picked the last of them last week and they’re just so juicy. The ones we have. I have a really chicken’s like pomegranate.
Christa DeMercurio:
Really, really good salad that I found a recipe for last year. And it takes an orange, an apple, avocado, red bell pepper, English cucumber, and some green onion. And it’s all tossed together like a poppy seed or a honey mustard type dressing. It is so yummy with the avocado, the creamy avocado and the crisp vegetables and fruit. I love it.
Chef Cal:
I love that idea and especially the concept, because the concept is in a French terminology, we would call that a boundary salad. It’s bound. It’s not a lettuce salad. It’s bound. It’s held together with something. And most French bound salads are held together with mayonnaise. You know, you have things like potato salad and coleslaw and, you know, chicken salad, those kind of things. Potato salad, but so those are bound together.
Chef Cal:
Pasta salad, but using something light, like a nice light dressing. Make it nice and refreshing, certainly keep it, you know, keep it light.
Christa DeMercurio:
But yeah, I mean, the actual recipe called for like a lemon and ginger and cilantro type dressing.
Chef Cal:
So what you want to think about on that when you’re putting something like that together is think about when maybe when you’re sitting there at the store, think about what’s that going to taste like and what would go good with that? You know, you’re looking at this. You know what? I bet sunflower seeds would go good in that. Or I bet. How about dried blueberries or whatever it is that you’re doing and get creative and have fun. Also, if you’re going to make something and you’re bringing it over to someone’s house for the holidays, practice at first. I would, you know, make sure you practice it first and maybe even test it out on somebody, you know. So because, you know, the holidays are here, we want to keep the holiday cheer going the right direction.
Christa DeMercurio:
And don’t put your croutons on too early because they will get soggy on any salad that you bring to an event.
Chef Cal:
And I think you really just need to go nuts, you know, I mean, there’s such a higher protein and as opposed to croutons. And again, pomegranate seeds are great. Another one is kiwi. And kiwi has a lot of acid. When I was competing, I was training out of Hollywood Racetrack park and Casino down there. Oh, kind of south east, inland from Santa Monica. And they had this Galby meat marinated. It was a short rib.
Chef Cal:
And they had like, I think they had like 15 or 20 restaurants in this place. And we were working out of this one kitchen and we were doing, you know, fundraising and then also training and practice and everything under the sun. And this thing was so good. And I finally was able to steal the recipe. I had to steal that one. But it was onion, honey, sugar, a little bit of vinegar. But the main item was kiwi in this marinade. In this marinade.
Chef Cal:
And it just such an amazing flavor. And that’s. And what. It’s what they call a Galby. I’ve seen it spelled in a lot of different ways. I’ve always spelled it in my restaurants. G A, L, B I. Some people spell.
Christa DeMercurio:
Yeah, Galbi means. The galbi means rib in Korean. But they had a special kiwi sauce that they marinated.
Chef Cal:
We marinated kiwi marinate. And then they just, you know, and so there’s so much sugar in it once you throw it on the, you know. And a short rib is cut across the grain, of course, and it’s super, super thin, you know, when they. The way they do it. So it just soaks up all this flavor and you hit it on there and you get all this, you know, smoke and coming up and. Oh, man, it was, it was literally one of. One of the top handful of things that I was always excited about.
Christa DeMercurio:
Let’s say you go to the store and you get a kiwi. How would you turn that into like a marinade or a salad dressing?
Chef Cal:
I just peeled, cut the core out and. And do just a chop on it. I think just be a rough chop. If you’re going to do it in something where you want the piece to be identifiable, that’s really probably. Are you using it for a flavor additive? Or ask yourself the question. If you’re using it where you want people to know there’s kiwi in there. If so, then it needs to be identifiable. It’s kind of like when you’re making a pizza, you don’t cut the mushrooms like super small and thin because then they look like chewed up pieces of gum on the pizza.
Chef Cal:
You don’t want them to look like a mushroom. So think about. It’s cut a little bit thicker. Same idea.
Christa DeMercurio:
So, you know, can they be pureed into a sauce?
Chef Cal:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I would puree if. Puree it. Fine dice it. I was again, what you’re going to use it for? I would do a fine dice on it if I was going to use it for maybe a relish or something like that. But if I was going to put it in a salad, I’d want it to be identifiable. So maybe I peel it and quarter it.
Christa DeMercurio:
So circling back around to the charcuterie board, what do you think of kiwi on a charcuterie board?
Chef Cal:
Of course. Of course. Yeah. I think that, you know, maybe there’s no one that says charcuterie can’t be a fruit coutery or something. You know, I mean, I don’t know. I think I may have just invented something. I did just see the sea coutery. So we’ll talk about next week as I look into that.
Chef Cal:
But pears, great. You know, adding winter spices to pears. It makes a wonderful compote, especially for lamb, duck, even turkey, even some of your white meats. So pears are out there.
Christa DeMercurio:
Speaking of pears, we make a blue cheesecake. Cheesecake with blue cheese in it and then a pear and onion compost that goes across the top of it. So it’s a savory cheesecake that can be used as an appetizer.
Chef Cal:
Yeah, that was an appetizer on. I can’t remember which restaurant it might have been. A couple of the restaurants I’ve had, it’s. I’ve started looking through the recipes for the cookbook and we have 1200 of them and I got a. Get it down to 80 and it’s. Again, I’ve said this before, but it’s like picking your favorite child. It’s hard to do. But anyway, oranges, grapefruit.
Chef Cal:
It’s a citrus especially, you know, coming up out of the. Out of the warmer areas. Persimmons. My wife mentioned that a couple different kinds of persimmon. Make sure you get the kind you can literally eat like an apple.
Christa DeMercurio:
Is that the Fuju persimmon Fuji F.
Chef Cal:
U F U J I I believe. Well, no, the fuji is an apple.
Christa DeMercurio:
No, I think it’s who you. Because there’s different types. There’s kinds you can eat straight and some that you have to cook.
Chef Cal:
Yeah. And the stuff that you cook, you want to freeze first because you want to break all the cells inside of it. But again, you want your fruit to be firm. You want it to be, you know, ready to use. You know, if you’re buying it, not going to use it right away. Maybe keep that in mind as well.
Christa DeMercurio:
And citrus can hold a really long time. 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.
