Watch or cook along for an interactive cooking demonstration from Wolfgang Puck’s Catering Kitchen in Hollywood with Eric Klein, Executive Chef and Vice President of Culinary, and Garry Larduinat, Regional Executive Pastry Chef to prepare a complete meal for the season. Don’t forget your spatula!
Read below for a full transcript of the conversation.
Bob Thornton - Good morning and excuse me, good afternoon and good evening everybody. My name is Bob Thornton. I'm an Executive Vice President First Republic, and I'm the President of our Wealth Management Business. And thank you all for joining our Savor The Season Cooking Demo. Today I have the great pleasure of introducing our guest chefs, Chef Eric Klein and Pastry Chef Garry Larduinat. They come to you live from the Wolfgang Puck Catering Kitchen in Hollywood California. Chef Eric Klein is the VP and Culinary Leader for Wolfgang Puck Catering. Now, this is no ordinary catering. They serve tremendous food to the Academy Awards and many other major events. For over 30 years, Eric has led an extensive career spanning from France to United States. Most of it is spent working alongside Wolfgang Puck, holding different positions throughout this organization. He's also led his own business enterprises such as Maple Drive Restaurant, which earned him three-stars from the LA Times. And Chef Eric received multiple accolades including being named one of the 10 Best Chefs in America by Food and Wine Magazine. Chef Garry Larduinat is the Regional Executive Pastry Chef for Wolfgang Puck Catering. He began his career at age 14 as an apprentice, at a Michelin two-star restaurant in France. Since moving from France, he has been the Executive Pastry Chef at Francois Payard Bakery in New York and at Hotel Bel-Air in California with the Wolfgang Puck Fine Dining Group. Today, he is one of the best pastry chefs in America with nearly 250,000 followers on Instagram. Before we begin our demonstration, just a quick housekeeping note. You're welcome to submit questions during the demo. To submit a question, please use the Q and A icon located at the bottom of your screen. We'll try and answer as many questions live during the demo. This demo is being recorded and the playback will be available on our website at a later time. We expect this demonstration and answering your questions to last about one hour. And with that, I welcome Chef Eric Klein and Pastry Chef Garry Larduinat. Take it away chefs.
Eric Klein - Thank you so much.
Garry Larduinat - Thank you.
Eric - Thank you Chef Garry. Thank you so much. Thank you for an introduction. Thank you for a partnership. Thank you for so much to having us today. Thank you for welcoming into your home. It's a pleasure Chef Garry. I'm excited to see his wonderful pastry, he's making today. It smells so delicious over here in the kitchen, Chef Garry you have no idea. I wish you guys can smell everything over there. I want to say thank you to Mr. Walker and Valarie to put up such a wonderful event and thank you so much for everything. And I also want to say thank for like the people of the San Francisco Wine Trading sent beautiful wine and taco painters. It's wonderful, delicious tasting. We're going to cook one of our favorite dessert. Chef Garry's going to tell you what he's going to do. I'm going to tell you what I'm going to do. We're going to go back and forth. I hope you guys received the recipes. So any questions you have, we here. We're going to do a couple of stages to make sure we explain all the techniques or anything. So we're here for you. We're going to have a fun time to go show you all these fabulous recipes we sent you and of the food. So Chef Garry, what are you making today?
Garry - Well, we're starting with a delicious corn bread. So we're going to go step-by-step on how to make a corn bread. With different variation eventually I want to talk about that, what we can add to it to make it a little bit more special, a little bit spicier. And then we're going to go with your dish, which is?
Eric - Well, I'm going to make a couple of things, savory things, yes. So, mine generally takes a little bit longer generally, but we came up with a great solution. Chef Garry we're talking about and everyone. We're going to have braised red wine short ribs and we're going to also as well do it with good vegetables, nice garnish on top. And as well, I'm going to do a mushroom polenta. And the best thing of course, you know, Thanksgiving is around the corner. We're going to have a dual butternut squash soup. So I... What we did together, we also already braised some short ribs yesterday. They're coming up the oven right now I'm going to show you a technique, I took serum and prepare the short ribs. And we have already some short ribs prepared where we can show you finish as a glazer. So you understand every technique is very important. Same thing, Chef Garry was ready eating the whole morning already he needs to either have the batter ready, to make some squash soup already. So I just want to show you, I want to go over some technique also after I present it the last minute that you can make it yours, so special for you make sure you guests are so happy. And as well, we're going to cook the mushroom polenta, so I have a pot of humid stock and veg already going. And also chef Garry and all of you guys over there, I'm using a fancy word today.
I think Mr. Walker can explain what mise en place is. And so right I got everything organized and prepared, so we don't have to look for ingredients. So the key of that to having fun in the kitchen is to be prepared. The one thing is the most important I want you to take off of that cooking class today. These dishes we have selected today, besides the polenta, you can make mostly everything the day before. What I'm saying by that is also to understand how to cook it, prepare it. So when you have guests in your home and you're cooking for your friends and family and you're in finishing touch up the dessert, you can have basically a fantastic time that you're enjoying. And you know, I can't wait, I have some wine already. We'll let them open up already. We can't wait to toast to you to good health and good prosperity. To make sure, but am I going to start going cooking So Garry, do you want us--
Garry - Don't forget the dessert first. I also want to make a tiramisu, which your favorite so if you don't talk about it--
Eric - I know.
Garry - I don't make it.
Eric - Absolutely, so we keep some stuff on that. So chef Garry what I'm going to do right now. I'm just going to tell you, meantime, you're going to check on the camera. Guys, what I'm going to do. I'm going to start doing the polenta. You can see the recipe; I'm going to walk you through it real quick over here and I'm going to sear the short ribs. So in the meantime, chef Garry is going to do some stuff the polenta might bring some more water and my stock to boil with salt. I'm going to have to put it in to start cooking it slowly. And in the meantime, I'm going to do, I'm going to take my short ribs out. I'm going to season and flour and sear 'em up. And I'm going to show you and every time Garry has the time I'm going to say hey look there's a new technique I want to show. And then after that, I'm going to cook the thing. So I'm going to start with polenta, you can start with tiramisu? Or you want to go first?
Garry - No, you start with the polenta then--
Eric - You do the bread and tiramisu--
Garry - Yeah.
Eric - Okay, perfect. So great, so everyone right here, guys may have the same, the recipe for you, may have a beautiful package right here we sent. And we took a wonderful time. So it's a mushroom polenta. What a key is with that for the ingredients is very, very straightforward and simple. So we have recipe prepared mise en place, Mr. Walker's going to tell you what all that is. And so we took a pot over here. The most important thing, what it is every time we do cooking at home is to be ready.
Garry - Right.
Eric - You go to the store. You buy what you need. So right here, what I'm going to need I'm going to have different pots for them. One for the polenta, I'm using a pot, a normal pot right here you can see on top. I put my water in my veg stock in there from the recipe. I'm going to bring it to boil, add my salt in there. I'm going to put my polenta in there, okay.
Garry - So is it half and half? I mean, you have the recipe, but it's--
Eric - Well it's basically not, it's three and a half cups of water. It makes a little bit of veg stock. How you make the veg stock. And I'm going to add like basically a little salt in there to just season it. You'll always cook in the beginning with salt. I'm going to bring that to a boil. We have, been working on induction burner over here. I got all my mise en place ready over here. So what are we going to do? And we're going to the stock to come boil add the polenta, cook it slowly. And the meantime, after that, we're going to sauté the mushroom and put it on the side and with the shallots, garlic, butter in there.
Garry - Okay.
Eric - Okay, so in the meantime the pot is going to come to a boil, over here. I'm going to check out my short ribs, right now. So I got beautiful, beautiful short ribs right here. So we have the short ribs slot right here, de-bone boneless. So I'm going to waste, any meat and quantity that you're serving. So what are we going to do on that? I'm going to season salt and pepper and we're going to toss in wheat flour. We're going to take the pot. We're going to sear it up, let me get that going. And I'm going to show you that right now, okay. I'm putting my pot on.
Garry - Let me put this away.
Suzie Shqair - Chef?
Eric - Yeah.
Suzie - Do we have to use the AP flour for the short ribs? Not easy to find nowadays.
Eric - Yes you can. If you don't want to, you don't have to, you don't have to use flour overall. If you don't want to, you can just basically don't use flour. We like is a classical technique we've been using for years and years where basically is a natural thickener. So what I'm going to do also, I'm going to add some oil in the pan to get it nice and warm, okay. And I got all my mise en place too as well. So I'm going to just basically, my stock's come to boil over here, pretty soon. Come on, uh.
Garry - This one chef. Got it.
Eric - Okay, perfect my stock's going to come to boil right here. I've tasted it also to make sure it has enough seasoning there. Beautiful, so I find some kosher salt with me, but chef Wolfgang has this beautiful salt, pepper and checker for me. So he said, use my salt, pepper. So we season nice and heavily, now if you want, you can season the short ribs a day before, put in the refrigerator. But if you don’t have a fresh salt grinder, you basically use kosher salt, Season it like that nice and heavily, okay. Same thing with the black pepper. Fresh ground pepper is the best thing, beautiful flavor, don't be shy it's always the best thing. Beauty. That smells nice, so we need some flour over here, perfect. See my stock has come to a boil, right here, right now. So I'm going to add basically the polenta in there is a half-cup. Mix it right now. And now I'm going to cook it slowly. Soon it comes back to boil I'm going to cook slowly. I'm going to move that on the side so I can focus on a short ribs, okay.
Suzie - Chef, one question with regards to the corn meal, is it fine or stone ground?
Eric - It's fine, yes. And you can see you right here.
Garry - Which I would use it, the stone grind one for the corn bread because I like a little crust like a crust like a thickness in the corn bread myself, but that's personal. They both work I just like the texture of the cross one for the cornbread.
Eric - And you can see it I know my polenta is cooking already, right here slowly. I'm going to turn that down a little bit. Yeah and now I'm going to sanjee it's called the technique in French. It's basically likely…Can you see me right there, right here? Right here we put a little flour, pat it dry a little bit, okay.
Garry - What will the flour do chef?
Eric - It's going to give a good crust, going to sear on that. Then also is going to leave some thick... now let me wash my hand very quick, right here.
Garry - Okay.
Eric - I told chef last time and I said maybe next time we should build a sink inside the Cooking Demo right here. So right here, I prefer sometimes to sear the seared marinade shorts overnight, but it's fine also. So you've taken a nice hot pot and you're going to sear it with a fat thong right here. I'm don't trim nothing off the short ribs. I want to sear it and drain it off and keep all the flavor in here.
Garry - So you keep all the fat?
Eric - Yeah.
Garry - Wow.
Eric- Yeah, perfect, look at that. Okay and I'm going to take that away. I'm going to save I have another pan right here was basically perfect. I'm going to remove that. Perfect, let me take that off right here for a second and give them a little more fire. Perfect, so right here, my polenta is cooking nice and soft. You can see here.
Garry - How long do you cook the polenta for?
Eric - You know--
Garry - About?
Eric - Every recipe is different. You know I cook it till I can always taste it. Yeah it takes a couple hours to cook, but then right here we have like that the smaller one, we just used a smaller one today. But again, just the most important thing you can cook the best with. And you can see right here, looking at the short ribs lift it up make sure the oil goes right in there searing it. Don't be shy to be brown. The flavor is going to go inside the sauce. That is the most important thing, okay. We can see my polenta is cooking. My meat is searing, right here. So one thing is what we're going to do also on the meantime the meat is searing right here, my polenta is cooking, we're going to sauté the mushroom and we're going to make the butternut squash soup. So I want to go to the faster. So chef Garry has plenty time--
Garry - You do, yeah.
Eric - For my favorite dessert.
Garry - Yeah.
Eric - So can you see right here the polenta is cooking, nice and slowly, you cooking it slow it boils a little bit. Very nice, nice and soft.
Garry - Yeah, if you don't mind me, I might put the corn bread in the oven.
Eric - Sure no problem. You should go tell them, yeah.
Garry - So by the time, you're done with demonstration, we might be able to take the corn bread--
Eric - Yeah.
Garry - Fresh out of the oven. So the corn bread--
Suzie - And before we switch one quick question about the meat. Do you bring the meat to room temperature before seasoning and cooking or straight from the fridge?
Eric - That's a very good question. It's not going to make a difference. Where there's a sear you can season it overnight. It depends the recipe, on this recipe right now, right here, it doesn't matter because you're not, it's not like a steak. Your short ribs right here, what we're going to do is basically you're going to sear it, you're going to take it out. You put the vegetables in there. You brown the vegetables. You have the wine; you have the tomato paste and everything in there and you look within it. It's not going to make a huge difference. If you let it temper it because you're not going to cook it, like a steak. A steak, you always have to like temper it. I don't we always say that and in all the steak house were having and the restaurants we have even you're not tied to put the meat back in the refrigerator after it's seared or anything of course you need to have the whole temperature But again if you grill something, you want to have to meat in room temperature because it cooks evenly and you'll not stress out the meat. You can see my polenta ready, gets stuck, sticking out already, even after a couple of minutes already. And you can see the short ribs is nice get in there it smells nice.
Garry - Yeah, it smells delicious.
Eric - Look at that like look at that color right there. And we're going to get a little darker, okay. To give also that rich beautiful flavor inside the sauce, okay.
Garry - I know we say that many times, you know, that that's silly but eventually somebody out there would create an app. Then you connect or you smell what's happening when we do the class, because it's nice. I mean, it's super nice.
Eric - That it is it smells fantastic.
Garry - Imagine if you do it on your computer and you could smell like that would be really good--
Eric - Yeah absolutely.
Garry - Yeah. So do you mind if I come in with my corn bread?
Eric - Go ahead, go ahead, go ahead, go ahead.
Garry- So the corn bread recipe we sent is my favorite and I think chef it's yours too and chef Wolfgang loves it too. The reason is it's very buttery and it's almost like a pound cake, but it has a very strong, nice, flavor of course. And the reason is I use the corn meal and also, I put fresh corn kernels in it. So we really get like corn, to like food is expanded, it's quite delicious. One way I like to do it. And I didn't do it today because I wanted to feed to everybody here when you're going to eat it. To put a roasted jalapeno on it. So you can then go ahead and take some jalapenos and then put them on the grill outside, or just like, at home you can put them in the pan and mix tashido pepper. And then you can add them to your barter at the end and then bake it all together. So the way I want us to do it today, it was just the straight, regular recipe with the corn kernel inside. And you can really use like any utensil you have if you have a pan like I'm doing today. We don't all have like the best equipment at home. So one way for you to be flexible about it is we just use what you have in hand, right. So today I wanted to take a pan. What I like to do too I put butter in the pan and a little bit of sugar. So the sugar actually while it'll be baking will get caramelized together which is very nice at the end too. We're going to make some individual here today as well.
Eric - It's sure fancy chef Garry.
Garry - Well I like an individual one especially when you go to someone's house and you have your own little piece of bread next to your plate.
Eric - Absolutely.
Garry - It's pretty cool with a nice piece of butter. So I guess you don't do so much a shame to like take like more slices right, you can eat the whole thing.
Eric - We have that so many costumers come to make something to them, they're like, oh my goodness. So we do a care package we leave at there house. So look right here at perfect. You can see my polenta is nice getting sticky. Garry asked me I just want to give you on the reference note, basically thirty-five minutes it takes out more or less to cook the polenta. So it's no excuse, you can cook at that. So look, my short ribs nice and brown, look right here can you see that, okay. I'm going to take them off with a pan right here, okay. See that, beautiful. Now what I'm going to do right here.
Garry - You want me to wash the pan?
Eric - No, no, no, no, no the best flavor's inside.
Garry - Okay I won't.
Eric - Right here, perfect, I got my other stuff right here. I got everything organized. You can see right here, I got my wine, I got my onions, my carrots, I got mirepoix right here, carrots, onions, celery. I'm going to put that in there with the recipe is I'm going to put my smash clove, garlic in there, okay. And now all the beautiful flavors in the bottom of the meat right here in the pan is going to caramelize, okay. Beautiful, look at that it smells so delicious. Beautiful I have fresh herbs over here. Always try to use fresh herbs is my favorite. Chef Wolfgang always use fresh herbs. Over here on a recipe I have prepared red wine and port wine as well, I'm having a chicken stock, I got some veal demi. Veal demi is something very unique. If you don't have veal demi you can maybe buy in the best grocery store, but the method is so easy. Few bones you roast it, the nice and caramelized vegetable, a little wine, cook it on a stove. You get up in the morning it's nice and reduced you strain it you have veal demi, technically.
Garry - You make it is very easy, I don't even know how to make veal demi but-
Eric - So look right here look at these onions we're going to caramelize a little bit. Look at the beautiful flavor in the bottom right here it goes. You see that you Garry?
Garry - Yeah.
Eric - You guys see that, this is where the flavor comes in over here, all the natural flavor, nice and roasted and caramelized, okay. Okay, now a people say, hey chef, why do you not tie it on the short ribs. Well, you know what? I let them cook over here is no bones to fall off, so I don't have to tie them down. So right here you may have this, now we have like the tomato paste we have prepared for you also. We're going to bloom the tomato paste. It's more like a sauce espagnole if we think about it it's like the basic things, okay. And then we're going to take my spoon right here. The polenta is cooking perfectly I'm very happy with it. Soon we'll put the short ribs in there we're going to make sauté the mushroom and the squash soup. Look at that right here we're blooming the tomato so that means, what is blooming tomato? Blooming tomato is getting basically opening the flavor, cooking the tomato bringing everything wonderful. And then what we're going to do, we're going to have the bay leaves in there. We're going to add the red wine and the port wine. Listen to that, you heard that? Now a lot of people make a mistake. When you braise short ribs, a lot of people reduce the wine. We're not making a sauce, we're braising. You know chef Garry what breaks down the meat acidity. So if you reduce the wine too much, you will lose the flavor and acidity and the short ribs will not braise. So right now I'm going to go and wait a couple of seconds to bring that to boil. I'm going to mix my polenta right here.
Okay, perfect it's cooking right here, and I have my squash soup packed right here, perfect. And you see this come to boil and what's going to happen, right now, I'm going to bring that to boil, just to simmer. Now there many techniques you can do, and you take over. I don't want to confuse everybody. You can take the wine, the vegetables, soak the short ribs overnight is basically more like a bourguignon style. You drain your short ribs you season the same style I did, drain the vegetables, drain the wine, bring the wine to boil separately. Sear everything put everything on top and do the same style. You have more bourguignon style short ribs for that. Now as soon as it comes to boil. I'm going to add my stock in here, right here, chicken stock, okay. And now I'm going to add my veal demi. I'm going to add my fresh herbs, the thyme And my fresh herbs right here. I'm going to bring that to the boil again.
Garry - It smells so delicious.
Eric - Yeah, right here. You see the thing is the secret of cooking. Look at it, it's so much fun. It takes a little time to prepare, but look, everything is organized, everything is done. And you know what? We don't do anything different in the kitchen for a catering for a sprout we do the same thing everywhere. We're going to bring that to boil chef Garry.
Garry - Nice.
Eric - Let me check on my polenta, perfect. It's the key also in the polenta guys, early Valerie asked me and she said, Eric, what kind of pot are you using? We're using the Wolfgang Puck Stainless Steel pot, and a double on the bottom so that the heat diffuses perfectly. So the key of also to not only cook great food is having great equipment. And I think is very important when you have great equipment, like things it diffuses heat temperature perfectly. So right here you can see my polenta look at it already you see chef Garry how thick it gets already.
Garry - Yeah.
Eric - Right here we're going to finish cooking it. So the goal is to basically open the pot of the polenta and cook it down basically and reduce the stock. And basically after that, having all the herbs in there to mascarpone anything. One thing I did bring today, because I know you like it. I bought some truffle oil also as well to give a little kick on there. I want to show a recipe is just a guideline. So like the stock is almost coming to boil right here I'm going to bring it to boil. Then we're going to add the short ribs. I'm going to put the lid, I'm going to put it then in the oven and we're going to braise the short ribs.
Garry - Nice.
Suzie - Chef.
Chef - But I'm going to have summer ready, yes.
Suzie - Why not use beef broth instead of the chicken?
Eric - You know what that's a very good question. It's preference, e on the kitchen blog line all over the place. It's fascinated anything in the bank you always need a pencil and a calculator on the notebook. We on the kitchen may have salt, pepper, and chicken stock. A base sauce is all made while I have a chicken stock. You can use beef broth if you have it. You know, like the veal demi what I have is basically a bone, where it has a lot of flavor and also a lot of starch in there. So you can use the beef broth if you like to, you can use vegetable broth, you can use water, if you like to, if you don't have it. But I think we always have a flavor of layers; you know what I mean. But it's a good way to use the product if you have. Can you see, look at my polenta. I'm going to taste in the sauce also to make sure because the keynote also, the thing is going to braise my short ribs. I'm going to put that generally it takes three hours to braise the short ribs and they're slow thing. So you can definitely do that soon as done don't worry. Just let it cold off. When you do it the day before putting it in the fridge the next day, I'm going to show you what we're going to do. Okay so right here, let me test the sauce, delicious. I'm going to put like that couple of pinches of salt.
Garry - Those are a couple of pinches? Those are chef pinches; you know it's like.
Eric - You want the things to be seasoned, to make sure it's flavored. Because anything you put in there, it's going to take the flavor of it, perfect. You want to test that Garry?
Garry - Yup.
Eric - Now you're going to ask me and you going to say, it's very brothy yes, of course. The natural starch and natural flavor of the short ribs is going to go inside the broth. So right here, turn it off chef Garry, perfect. Look at that, I put my short ribs in here. It's nice and seared and guess what's going to happen. It's going to go in the stove right now, inside in the oven. Now a lot of cook it like 350, not cook it slow. I have a lid in here.
Garry - 350 for how long?
Eric - Let me see the recipe and I think, it depends on how long you have. I generally say a guideline three hours. Three hours. And you like convection or bake better. You know what it doesn't mean matter if you have the convention, it diffuse the heat, I like it low and slow.
Garry - Okay.
Eric - Okay, so let me open that, right here.
Garry - Let me open that oven for you.
Eric - Be careful always use two hands kind of heavy, okay. Right here on the bottom.
Garry - The bottom oven?
Eric - In the bottom one. Yeah perfect. And its 350, yeah perfect. Is there any questions so far for the short ribs?
Suzie - I do have that shoe on about the short ribs. They said they purchased the one they're following, right now with us. They did purchase the short ribs with bones. Is that the same recipe or different?
Eric - You know what? You can have bones and I'll say is also for a beautiful way to present something on the plate. I'm going to be honest with you. When we cook for the Oscars, when we cook for so many parties, we choose to buy the short ribs on the bone on it, and always when we do parties. Everybody when you present something with a bone, they want the bone on to do anything. And some people say, well, I don't want the bone. How can I eat it? So we always looking for a way to set in to answer your question, cooking with bone without bone of course I love the bone. It gives great flavor and it gets the beefy flavor is great. It's cool, I'm in a presentation even can remove them bring to boil and clean them up and it use as a nice garnish. Some restaurants do the fancy stuff like that, but I think it would not change anything. You can use the same thing.
Garry - I like the bone often because when you have friends it's easy to say like look how tender it is. You just pull the bone out of the meat.
Eric - Absolutely, you know it's funny my hurley from Cox and the restaurant, they'd like some wagyu beef, short ribs, braised dry. I mean he seasoned them do anything like that he threw them in the convey oven. And it's always very important to have nice equipment to use these things. But again, it's fascinating that you right to say that the fact that they're looking say, hey, look, is this off the bones tender.
Garry - Like it’s just right out of the oven for three hours.
Eric - Yes, perfect. So you can see my polenta I got my pan over here ready to go. And the one thing I want to do, right now. Why I'm sautéing my mushroom right now and my polenta are you seeing my pan right here. Perfect put a sign in the center right here. Look at that. I put in my mushroom here because I want to roast a little bit, okay. Perfect, let's turn that one off too Garry.
Garry - Yep.
Eric - When Garry and I we start working together. It's a funny story. His wonderful wife say peaches and cream. We worked so well together. We complement each other. My thing is this, as a team, we need to find out where the sweet and the salty. I got my sweet I'm the salty, I hope.
Garry - Yeah, yeah.
Eric - But I think it's very important as a team to work together on pastries and anything. And is a work for so many years in the restaurant business. You can tell how important that is. So right here my polenta still cooking. Now I'm going to make the soup. Let me get all my mise en place for my soup The short ribs are braising, look at that. Now what is the most important thing to make a really good soup? So I made some soup already because I was just want to make sure you can see it. And I want to go with some thickener. Whatsoever, I'm going to show you how to make the soup from scratch, okay. So you take a pot and I send you a recipe right here. Let me make sure I follow up with you guys to make sure we see the same thing. We have approximately three pounds of butternut squash. We're going to put some oils you can put some butter if you like, I like some butter too. And we're going to put a squash. I'm going to sweat it nice, beautifully. With the onion first of course, then I'm going to season the squash. Now we discovered different ways. Some of the you are more adventurous or some of them are less adventurous making squash. I preferably technically take a whole butternut squash cut it in half, season it, roast it the oven and scoop out the puree. But the second thing is also, some of you may be in off enough time reports to do and you still want to have a home meal cooked. You can go to the stores like any grocery store you like more there's a season, they have, you can buy like the dice, butternut squash or anything like that makes it easy for you to do that. So I thought, you that will be easy for you because you guys are always busy. So what I would like to do I put my all of my butter will be here, I'm going to have to diced butternut squash. We're going to sweat the onions, stay nice and translate with the butternut squash season, sweating too, as well, season it with that squash spice. And I'm going to show you in a minute what's in there. Look at my mushroom, I need it to get nice and colored over here. Okay, look at my polenta. Look at it Garry, look at that.
Garry - That looks delicious, what kind of mushroom is that?
Eric - This is white and brown clamshells I called you know they are organic. You can buy at the grocery store of course, if you have different mushrooms, you always can buy in by that kidneys, button mushroom. If you have chanterelle or porcini please, I love it. Some of you have truffles, why not. So right here, I have to pot on the way here. What I'm going to add, I'm going to add like two tablespoons of olive oil in there. One, two perfect. The most important thing, look at that that's perfect right here. I'm going to turn that off right now. In the meantime, let me just show you something. You see, let me just say is anybody know what a stove is called in French? If you know it's going to be end celery on after cooking. Okay, so now what I'm going to do, I'm going to add my butter right here, okay. Well of course I'm going to add salt and pepper a little bit. Look at that, this smells so nice. Garry, I think we're going to have a good lunch today. I think some people from come first even if they are coming over.
Garry - Well, late lunch but that's good, we can get some wine.
Eric - Perfect.
Garry - Wait, thinking about wine, which wine would you recommend we actually with the dessert.
Eric - So you know what? On that fact and I have two wine, a red and a white wine. Let's talk about the white one really quick.
Garry - Yep.
Eric - So I'm going to say thank you again to Wine Trading Company. They've sent a wonderful selection of white wine. It is delicious. So what's been happening on the--
Garry - Yes chef.
Eric - So look at that. I think these people are fermenting in a comfy and a wine barrel. It smells pretty good. Hmm it smells so good. I think the spice is going to go well. Look at my mushroom right now right here, shallots, garlic. I'm going to turn them off. The one thing I saved, a little bit early, I saved a little mushroom stock right here, vegetable stock apologized. And I put it in there and I'm going to turn them off. And I make a ragout Look at that, look at beautiful. I'm going to turn them off, put them over here. Let us focus on the squash soup. So let's put, medium high heat. We're going to put the sautéed onions in there, okay. And the secret of that, I'm going to tell you something, you aren't buttering them. Why? Because if the pot is too high, your butter is going to turn Brown. So why we turn the butter in there? So it's going to be basically perfect temperature, so it does not turn Brown. Okay. So you can see it right here, look at that. We diced the onion, so we're here. Again, if you're not comfortable with next time Valarie we can do a cooking class. So I have to show at the cut and knife. So anything on that. So perfect, look at that. The short ribs, I smell it already, they smell so delicious already. Look at my polenta right here. I constantly mix it. And you see it having a good pot right here conduct the heat, so it does not burn. And you see my whisk is kind of rigid. So it goes right in the corner and you mix it properly, you can make it very, very creamy, okay. One thing I'm going to do though, I'm going to taste my polenta to make sure there's enough salt in there. Because if you don't cook enough salt in the beginning, you're going to add a lot of salt in the end. It's going to be strong in your mouth, but it's not going to have balance. I need more salt in there. One more pinch. Perfect. Mushrooms are ready, everything is ready. Perfect, look at that. Garry, what do you think that trains loaded enough? What do you think?
Garry - Yep.
Eric - You see you guys? Look at that. Beautiful, nice, translucent. Over here now, what am I going to do it right here, on this low heat, I'm going to add the butternut squash diced, okay. Look at that, oh and it's skipping. Perfect. So we're going to sauté it. So what is sautéing? Sautéing is basically bringing everything to temperature. Sautéing is also opening the pore of the vegetate. Sautéing is also making the vegetable sweat so it released the flavor inside the pot. So on the soup right here, it's very, very important, what you do. I'm going to sauté it gently. You're going to season, take your time because everything, what you do right now, you'll taste later on. So on one thing is I have, I have a little bit of Sage leaf. Let’s add it on. It's not in the recipe. And now, I'm going to put one also inside, sage leaf inside the polenta. Okay, just to aroma.
Garry - I'm going to just interrupt you for a second chef.
Eric - Chef, go ahead.
Garry - The cornbread is baking, and I know I did not precise for how long and what temperature, but today I'm doing 330. And the small ones that I did earlier are about to be done. So I'm going to take them out. But I think we can shoot like for the pan I made I think we can shoot for about 20 to 25 minutes. And what I like to do at the end, as soon as they go out of the oven, you can brush it with honey or maple syrup, if we put sea salt on top, which I like a lot, that's very nice.
Eric - Chef, you're making me hungry right here. Chef Wolfgang told me I have to lose weight over the holiday, and I say chef, I'm not going to count my calories through the holiday. Perfect, look at that, the vegetable is coming in place it's sweating Now you can roast the veg and squash if you don't have enough time and you have a lot of things, you can roast the vegetables inside the oven if you'd like to. But you know we like to concentrate the flavor. Perfect. Now I have prepared a special mixture. And the mixture I've prepared is cardamom, clove, ginger, and nutmeg. And I'll send you a recipe. Let me just stop you for a second. When you start seeing the polenta and stuff spreading all over the place, we're getting close to the polenta to make sure there's enough liquid left in that. So you can see right now. So I'm going to turn that heat on that low, okay. Because I don't want to splatter the place but it's telling me it's almost there.
So I did clove, cardamom and ginger. I would suggest do fresh spices, but the clove and the cardamom and the ginger product I would buy ground. And the nutmeg, take a nutmeg and a micro plane and plane it in there. This is basically a squash spice. I gave you the recipe in there. It's basically quarter teaspoon of cardamom, quarter teaspoon of ginger, eighth of a teaspoon of nutmeg, and eighth of a teaspoon of clove. You can season that as a good squash spice feeling seasoning, okay. And I'm going to put that in there and you can smell how beautiful that is. Look at that. Now some of you may be perhaps a vegetarian, some of you are maybe vegan. So you can do that soup right here with just adding cream or no cream. So you can change your recipe. You can make it more exotic. You can just add the cream. You can use coconut milk if you'd like to. Or almond milk, you feel like it nuttier. Or you just don't put any cream. Or you just put vegetable stock or water if you want, okay. And I got my vegetable stock already over here and heat it up right here you can see. Perfect. Okay. I'm going to add a sprig of thyme in there. I'm going to have to pinch of sugar to also as well. Perfect. Don't forget, when after you blend that, you puree it, if you don't want to puree it, it's up to you, you're going to have to remove the sage and the thyme, if you don't want to add some flavor, okay. Now I'm going to add my stock in here. You always cover above the vegetable approximately two fingers of the vegetables, okay. And now what we're going to do, we're going to bring it to simmer. I'm going to taste it. We don't to have salt. We should have plenty of time to make the soup from scratch, you know, Garry.
Garry - Yeah, it's nice to know. I mean, especially if you--
Eric - This just takes not long
Garry - I know with that seasoning now, it's perfect. I mean, even in that butternut squash soup.
Eric - Do me a favor, guys. Don't never cook your utensils besides something metal inside the pot. We're not here to cook a vegetable with the wood spoons or anything. So you always put on the side, put a plate on the side, put on the corner. If you have a glass burner, I would suggest you put on the side. Better to cook, Now, I'm going to bring that to boil. We're going to cook it after as soon as it comes to boil. At least check the seasoning and then we're going to cook it. And then when it's almost done, we're going to take a blender, we're going to, before we puree it, we're going to add some cream for basically nice and richness. We're going to puree it, put it in the pot again, re-season it and then the soup should be ready to go. And then I'm going to show you a little secret, how to plate it, okay. Let me put down the side over here. Here we go. So our polenta is cooking. Garry, have you tried the wine yet? Cheers.
Garry - I did, it's delicious.
Eric - Let's taste it.
Garry - Yup. Cheers
Eric - Cheers to you. Cheers to you to good health. And make sure we stay safe, all of you. And you know what? Without you we're nothing. So thank you so much to all to give us an opportunity
Garry - Thank you, happy to be here too.
Carolyn Carranza - Chefs some questions. If you don't use cream, how do you adjust the amount of liquid?
Eric - Well, the thing is this, cooking is like driving a car. You're on the steering wheel, you turn left, you turn right, cooking's the same way. If you have too much stock in there, the secret of a soup, you always cannot later on lead along. A lot of people sometimes when you have thick the cream is not about liquid. The cream is about to make it richer and that we call it in French.
Garry - Could you substitute the cream for example, for coconut cream?
Eric - Yes, I did, I said that, yeah. So the stock, if the soup is too soupy, you ever heard me somebody, you go, ah, what's happening when your mash potato? Like my soup is too thin because it's too much liquid in it A soup, it depends, if you want nice and rich, the one thing I'm going to give you a little secret, when you cook your soup and it's not like diced like that, you always can drain the stock out in the blender and add the stock in them to make it the perfect, consistent. So like answering to you you'd be on the steering wheel. You're driving, you tell me left and right. So you're always constantly in control. You see like same thing I'm cooking my polenta right now. It took me years and years to find out how to make sure that perfect recipe to give you a polenta. You know, same thing with Mac and cheese. Everybody asks me chef, how many tablespoons of salt for half a gallon of water, you put of salt for parmesan and pasta? You that book to me, two tablespoons it tastes like the ocean. But if you don't know that it takes years and years to understand constantly where to go. You cook always a pasta with flavor. So seasons go yet the flavor comes to an end. And you see right here I'm going to say something to answer your question also in a different way, not only for the soup, but again the most important cooking the polenta. I may not say, Oh yeah, that looks great.
I'm anxious, I want to cook it, I want to make it perfect. But look for me, I'm looking at right now and I'm thinking I'm going to add the mascarpone, I'm going to add the parmesan, I'm going to add a little more butter in there to make sure it's nice and rich. That may be too loose. But again, don't forget, you may cook right now, and your friends are coming in we'll say, okay, today it's two o'clock you're cooking, your friends come in at four o'clock. You make everything ready. The polenta is a natural starch, it will suck all the water in there. So the one thing I would suggest, cook the polenta, turn it off right here. Put down the side right now. Have a glass of wine. Go get ready. Get in the shower. Your friends are coming. Have a cocktail and say, Hey, you need help in the kitchen. No, not at all. One thing you just need to do you now add the butter and the cream and you always can add a little water in there to thin it out. So you're again driving. Cooking is all about adjusting. Can you see the soup right now over here? It's cooking, it smells beautiful. But you know what guys, let's check our short ribs real quick, okay. So. Let me get this right first. I wish you can bring the camera in the oven, but it's okay. Bring that out. So see right now. So right here, you can see my short ribs is already, cooking. Look at that, look how beautiful that looks, okay.
Garry - I don't know if you could come over here.
Eric - Right here? Take your pan, chef, thank you.
Garry - There you go.
Eric - You guys can see that? Look how beautiful that looks. Do you see that Valerie? Walker, you see that? Okay. That looks beautiful. And so that'd be cooking right now. So we're going to continue to cook that for a couple of more hours and that's going to be beautiful. But I'm going to show you right now. I did cook some ahead because I want to show you the technique, okay. Hold on a second.
Garry - Now, how do you know when it's perfectly cooked chef?
Eric - What? That I'm going to show you right now.
Garry - Okay, because it's easy to say, Oh, it's in there for two hours, but then how do you actually--
-Eric - Absolutely chef. This is great. It's a great question, chef.Let me get you a... Oh yeah, perfect. So right here, I done that the short ribs this morning. So right here you can see my lid, look over here it was brazing right here still. Always turn the lid, not like this, always upside down because you don't want to make anything, okay. Let me turn that. And also what we've done, you can see, look at the sauce. Look the sauce how rich it got, okay.
Garry - It's like concentrated.
Eric - It is. It is. And it's almost like, you know what? There's so many applications you can do with that. If you want to eat your short ribs you want to shave a thing and make a French dip you can do anything with that, it's up to you. But you asked me a question, chef Garry. How can you see? Can you give me that paring knife over here please?
Garry - Yes chef.
Eric - Perfect. Now you're cooking, you don't know how long the short ribs has been cooking, about three hours, approximately. How do you know that they're done? You look right here. You take a knife, or you take a skewer and you go through right here and it falls off right automatically. Look at that.
Garry - Very tender.
Eric - Very tender. And look is also as well, with this I did not trim anything on the short ribs. If I take a piece of meat, look at that. Look at this.
Garry - It just falls apart.
Eric - Falls apart. Okay.
Garry - Very nice. So do you have to like flip them?
Eric - No, no, I'm going to show you what I'm going to do. So I'm going to taste a piece right here. I'm going to hold that right here. Let me put that over here. Watch this is hot, okay. I'm going to walk this guy's a little bit on the side right now It's nice and hot. This one perfectly we're cooking for three and a half hours, 375, 350. And then I turn off the oven. Let 'em sit a little bit in 200-degree oven to keep them nice to make sure the temperature is even. Let me put down aside over here for a second, okay. Soup is cooking still. Let me put that over here. Perfect, my polenta is doing well. Look at how nice, and thick it is. Let me move my towel right here. Okay, so. The soup is cooking. Polenta is done, the mushroom. Let me test the short ribs right here. Perfect. Look it chef Garry.
Garry - That looks delicious.
Eric - Hmm. You can have a spoon over here.
Garry - Yup.
Eric - Perfect, it is delicious right here. For you chef Garry.
Garry - Thank you.
Eric - Perfect. So the soup is cooking. The polenta is still cooking a little bit, but almost done. Okay. So the one thing I've done right now, I have a pan over here.
Garry - Really good.
Eric - Okay. Perfect. Look at the polenta right here, see. Beautiful, soup is cooking okay.
Garry - I'm going to take out the corn bread chef.
Eric - Yep, I'm going to taste a soup right near the base. A little salt in there. Polenta is almost ready. Let me turn it low. Perfect. So now I'm going to show you something just sec. Look at what I have over here. I hope you guys can see it. So, in the restaurant world, in the smaller catering party we're doing now in our home, we always have to figure out because when you will go the kitchen, you don't want, you don't want, basically to be in, I would say, go in the kitchen and not being ready. So when we do a catering event or we go towards somebody VIP or in the house, we don't want the house to be smelling. So most lately what we do because now with the COVID or anything, we try to make sure we prepare everything at holiday in Ireland and a catering kitchen and make sure we're doing the right thing. So the thing is with that is we're using techniques, new techniques. So what I have done over here, I took the short ribs. Now imagine the short ribs have been refrigerated overnight. You trim them, you just cut basically, cut them in four, cut them in three. The two pieces you got basically cut him in each three. So six pieces, basically, you have planning, you have leftover. And then what I did, I took out, their vacuum machine in a vacuum duct after the cold and put the sauce in it. And I can like wish to basically be, I would call it smart. And I'm not trying to tap of myself on the shoulder, but use the new technology to help you to make sure you drop up. So what we did, we put the sauce in there. We heat 'em up. So then we dry up in the oven and the sauces in there. And I'm going to put in the pot, and put in the oven and you glaze them. So if you do a party in your home, imagine you have short ribs ready like that. You take them out, heat up in the pot. You put it on the stove.
You base them maybe put a little butter. You have the beautiful glazed, short ribs. And you're not spending the whole entire time in the kitchen the day your friends are coming over. So I'm going to open that back, put in the pan and we're going to start glazing. And then we're going to go the vegetable, finish your soup. And then chef Garry you're going to go next with the dessert. Hey chef can you give me one more pot like that? Like this one. That wine is delicious. Perfect. I wanted to show you technique. One of the most important things is it's constantly not only to be true to yourself, but as well, evolving. To evolving, with a new technique. Okay I just want a couple of minutes. Okay, is that one on? Perfect. So, not here? So technical, all these electronics. So what I'm saying, we try to constantly evolve with new techniques, new equipment we can use to make sure we never lose the quality, okay. So on that, I'm going to open that and I'm going to put that in the pan, just like that.
Garry - Meanwhile, I'm going to unmount our corn bread right here. So because we put the butter and the sugar on it, it should be easy to unmount.
Carolyn - Chef Question. Does the cornbread still need to be baked on a sheet pan?
Garry - Oh, you mean it can be baked on the sheet pan. I like to make it in something like some type of container. So it looks like pretty cool when it comes out of the oven. And then you can all get a piece and put it in the center of the table. Like I said earlier, I'll put some honey or maple syrup and then a little bit of salt, and that'll do the job. But yes, we can make it on the pan and make it like a flat rectangle too. And meanwhile, chef Eric if you don't mind, because the clock is ticking, I'm going to start doing the tiramisu.
Eric - Absolutely. The soup is still cooking. So we're going to be in perfect timing right here. You can see also as well, you can see on the corner of your eyes, my short ribs looking nice and soft. They are tender. They are being reheated right here. Look at that. I'm going to put them in the pot. I'm going to put my braising juice where they're heating off right there. Put that a little bit in the pot. I want to show it with you and share with your different techniques where it's very, very important for you to enjoy yourself. Cooking has turned into a profession for a lot of us, but also there's a wanting of each family in America and around the world, they constantly enjoy their self. Spending time cracking bread around the table is the most important thing. I turned that up right here, right now. I'm going to put like a knob of butter in here. Okay. And I'm going to call that basting. And I'm going to see that right here. I'm going to put that in here. You put the sauce right here on top. Look at that, right here. We're going to put this feels beautiful in the oven, and what's going to, the sauce is going to caramelize around the short ribs. The sauce is going to reduce, it's going to make it so rich, okay. Perfect. So my soup is cooking. Chef Garry, wow, my goodness. What are you doing? This looks great.
Garry - I'm soaking the lady fingers. So I made those this morning, but you can very well buy them at the store. They're super common, and affordable and they're delicious. They're great for kids. And I like them because they are usually super dry. So I'm soaking them in coffee. And I'm going to tell you my secret and it's not really a secret. It's just the way I also like it, and most people are like the tiramisu. You want to taste coffee when you get your tiramisu. And the story behind it is because actually back in the days, I guess that's what I heard. Maybe there's other stories behind tiramisu. But the way I heard, is that when Italian Moms used to be pregnant, they would have like that kind of crush in the afternoon and get tired. So they would either take a nap or just kind of like be sleepy the whole day. And their mom would make them a tiramisu, with a strong coffee to make them like eat it and also getting the caffeine going to like, to give them a little boost in the afternoon.
Eric - So you're putting your liqueur in there too.
Garry - So I put a little liqueur. Not for the pregnant woman of course. But I do put liqueur in it because chef Wolf Love's the liqueur. So we put a little bit of Kahlua. And in that little pot right there, there's at least like 15 espressos. So it's very strong and tastes like coffee.
Eric - No wonder we had no espresso this morning in the kitchen.
Garry - I know they were all in my recipe. So then you stack your cake, your lady fingers, and you want to make sure that when you touch them, they are nice and tender right here. And also too, when you cut through it, you pretty much don't want to see any white. You want to make sure the whole lady finger is soaked in the syrup. And to me, that's very important because there's nothing worse than getting into a tiramisu and then the lady fingers off this dry ish. Right? You don't want that. So you want to make sure that you, soak them. And if you're not certain about how well soaked they are, you can always add a little bit of coffee syrup on top. Just to give it a little extra flavor.
Eric - I think first, maybe big Mac is not too far. I hope they're going to come over, chef.
Garry - Yep.
Eric - The meeting can wait. Perfect. Meantime you talking about looking at my polenta right here. It's getting nice and thick. It's almost there. My mushrooms are ready. The one thing I'm going to have to do is now host my vegetable. Put the mascarpone, the butter, the parmesan, the herbs. The mushroom inside, I can save some to put on top. I'm going to show you that. The soup is almost like one minute away to be blended. I'm going to show you that. As your season, a little bit more salt. My short ribs are in the oven. I think we're going to be closed, Chef Garry. Okay. I'm going to put my vegetables. So now the one thing roasted vegetable, what is the key of roasted vegetables? The veggie table is to make sure you always use fresh vegetables. Hot skillet, and I turned my oven on. Basically I want to glaze my short ribs in there 400 degrees. And I'm going to roast it on one side, put 'em in the oven and let the oven do the job. Comes out, seasoned salt, pepper, a little bit of honey on top. And I can use that to garnish to my short ribs. Okay. I've used Brussel sprouts, celery roots and carrots today. I have two different kinds of carrots, one bale or bless. So I put my brussell sprout in there. And you can see, look at that, the stock caramelizing, put the face down right here. And I'm going to blanche my brussell sprout because along with their beautiful flavor, their nice roasted flavor. Okay. I'm going to put my celery over here on the corner, right here. And I'm going to put my carrots. Right now, look at that. Perfect. Let 'em get color there, then I'm going to season them, okay. I think my polenta is almost there. My mushrooms are here, my vegetables, my soup. I'm going to make some space to chop parsley over here.
Carolyn - Hi, chefs a question. Everybody is dying to know. Do you guys prefer cooking on electric stove tops or gas burners?
Eric - Well, today we are using inductions. The reason we're here in the demo kitchen for here for chef Wolfgang, so we receive them at induction. It's all what you put there. I mean, quite frankly, when cooking anything I think it still makes a difference, yes. But I think, it make a huge difference having induction normal thing. So but again, it's a good thing to have.
Garry - So as I did my first layer of cake sorry, we're going back and forth, but I hope you guys are keeping up with the pace I'm sure you are. I'm just layering my mascarpone cream and vanilla in each layer of within the stuff ladyfingers and the cream and it looks like it's ready.
Eric - Perfect, it looks amazing. Look at that color of the blossoms squash nice and caramelized I turned them over right now, because this is what I wanted. You don't have vegetables, with no color. You always want to make sure they have nice and roasted. The natural flavor of the blossom squash. Nice and sharp right here. You're going to put that and now before I put it in the oven. I'm going to put nice little pinch of salt on top, a little bit of black pepper. Now a lot of people sometimes add butter first. I am not doing that because if I could put down in the oven going to caramelize too much that butter's going to burn. I want to finish the bottom into honey and the thyme a little bit, okay. Perfect I'm going to show my short ribs really quick look at the short ribs right here. You can see, look at the dot bubbling right here look at the glaze on the short ribs, look at that. I put the bottom on top. I mean, this is going to be delicious. I'm going to put it back inside the oven. Perfect, so now my soup is almost ready. I think my polenta is ready, look at that. I'm going to show you where I can see my polenta is ready. Take my whisk out, put it on my pan right here. Look at that, I look in the back, look at the consistency of that. You can see and hold itself to the spoon. Okay, I'm going to taste it. Perfect, I'm going to sell more salt in there always taste your food. So now what we're going to do, we're going to add a little bit of the mascarpone over here. I stole something chef Garry, but we won't tell him that.
Garry - I heard that.
Eric - Perfect, okay I'm going to take my whisk back. Look at that creamy it gets, right now. You can how creamy that turns right here, beautiful. I can't wait and now what I'm going to do also as well. I'm going to half off my mushrooms in here. Okay, it look I a save some right here. I'm going to add a little bit of my parsley over here. To make it nice and colored, okay. I'm going to mix it put my spoon over here, taste it. It's delicious a little more salt perfect. Now I'm going to show you something, you asked me earlier, Eric, what do you do if polenta, look how nice and consistent, that is, it looks beautiful. Now my case is going to take it out you going to add little water in there. So one thing I'm going to do, I bought some tofu salt a little bit. I'm going to add some of that, a bottle of it.
Garry - Keep on time.
Eric - Right. Okay and my polenta is done right here. Okay, I'm going to taste the seasoning again. Now my polenta is seasoned. Everything is done now it's two way. I have two kinds of parmesan. You can buy the grated parmesan is a 32-ounce parmesan cheese or one thing you can do. You can have fresh piece of parmesan and use that fancy tool right here called the Michael planer. And you grate some in there. You always add the parmesan in the end because you want to keep that beautiful flavor okay perfect. This is done, our mushrooms are done right here. Now I'm going to make quick the soup and then I may have enough time, yes. I may have enough time, Valerie.
Suzie - Yes, go ahead.
Eric - Okay perfect. Perfect so I have a blender right here. Let me do that. Perfect I may have a blender. Okay so I'm going to to taste my soup right here. Make sure everything is perfect. It is delicious. I have a blender top right here. And you asked me early how to see the perfect consistency is right here, see look at it. You can still see how much liquid is in there. Can you see it? I'm going to take the whole thing right now and put in the blender, okay. We should have added the cream right now, but I want to show you first how the puree that is okay. Right here make sure safety first or was closed the lid. Perfect, look at that, Chef Garry look at it.
Garry - It looks great.
Eric - Look at that, this is no cream in there you can see yourself. Look at that nice and rich, okay. Now I have cream a little bit over here. I'm going to put some in there just to make sure. Take my whisk right here I'm going to add maybe a quarter cup of cream. Look at that, nice it turns. That'll be here, tester spoon. You know what? Perfect, a little more pinch of salt right here. So now I have the soup is ready. Look at the consistency is nice. I have my polenta ready. I'm going to take my short ribs out and I'm going to plate everything for you, okay.
Carolyn - Chef, quick question. What was the in the bottle that you poured into the polenta?
Eric - I put a little bit of truffle oil over here. I saw that today; we did that somebody came over here to the restaurant to H and H Holiday and the Highland. And they start bringing some samples of black truffle you know season starting. So the box on black truffle So I thought that, let me bring some, let me cook something for you guys. So it's always an opportunity to teach something. You can cook something in there. So look at my short ribs right here. Look at nice a glaze they are, you see that. They look, you see that chef Garry.
Garry - They're beautiful,
Eric - Nice and rich, okay. I glazed it all right here. Look at that, okay. Now I have my short ribs right here. Let me get my veg.
Carolyn - Chef, another question. What stops cream from curdling when adding it to the hot soup?
Eric - Well cream generally doesn’t curdle if you have not too much acidity. The only time something curdles is that basically the water content and fat content are too rich. So the one thing is the most important thing is when you add milk in a soup or anything, soup milk generally curdles with something else, you need a binder. So generally cream does not curdle. Cream will only curdle if it goes bad it shouldn't. Look at my vegetables that came out the oven. I'm going to test one, two as well. Mm hmm, Garry.
Garry - Yeah they look good.
Eric - You make dessert, I make savory. I can't wait to taste yours.
Garry - I know, I can't wait to taste the savory.
Eric - Look at that, I put a little honey on top right here. I have some herbs left. Look at that, but this looks delicious. So let's put that everything on a plate, yes.
Garry - Okay.
Eric - Let me take that away right here. Make some space for you. Perfect, so may I have to polenta right here and I can look at me like I know I just take that off. the oven everything is like ready. It's like the gold time. Okay, let me move that over here, perfect. My short ribs are nice and glazed, look at that. So now to start with the soup, mm hmm. I have a nice ladle okay, perfect. And so for the soup I told you, I'm going to show you two things. You're going to do the soup right here, look at that. Look how nice and rich hat is okay put two ladles. Now, if you want to serve some, a little bit on a small, like in an, your aperitif, you can do that constantly too as well. Put that over here, okay. And you can basically do some nice coborns too as well. So I bought something. I bought some pumpkin seed oil also for garnish and I bought, so I have to basically can fresh a little bit. The cardamom spice, the same amount, a little bit of honey, the same ingredients of the soup just add a little honey. And then basically I can use that as a cardamom cream right here for a garnish. Look at that and then put a little bit pumpkin seed oil. Now be careful, pumpkin seed oil is extremely rich, put a little spoon right here and you drizzle a little bit like that, and it gets the beautiful flavor on it, okay. This is for the soup, okay. Now you have two different style of soup, right here prepared, okay. And now I'm going to show you how to plate the short ribs. Okay so we're going to take the polenta, right here. You can put that as a side dish, if you want or anything. I tasted it I mean, listen, I need to taste it again. Because this thing tastes so good, hmm. The truffle in there I think we'll to change the recipe. You put a little bit of polenta on the side, right here. Look how nice, that looks okay put that over here.
This right here I'm going to put my short rips on top. Look at that, look how nice that is. Put nice my short ribs on top, okay. Mix the sauce a little bit. You see what I'm doing right here? Right here, put a little sauce on top, okay. And now to make sure you know all this wonderful food; I have two things. You remember early I told you I save some mushrooms, put some mushrooms on a corner right here. Look at that right here. And then I'm going to take the pasta swirl. Put it nice in the garnish. But like some little, most of carrot make it look pretty to put a pasta swirl bottom of the plate. Put a little bit of dice of that celery root over here or any favorite root vegetable you have. A little more carrots right here. And right here you have the root vegetables, the polenta, the short ribs, look at that. And to not finish chef Garry's going to play that, but I'm going to show you something else also very quick. What makes it so delicious? We all eat with our eyes we eat our nose as well. But imagine right now you take a little bit; you take a little bit of the chopped pasta you have left. You take a little bit of orange zest, sprinkle on top and put a little bit of chopped parsley on top. Not only are your guests eat and you're going to walk off. You're going to bring the food to your guests, and you need to for yourself that aroma of a fresh orange just and fresh pasta on top is delicious.
Garry - Just like in your cocktail, right?
Eric - Absolutely when you have negroni or old fashion? It always the aroma is fantastic. So I just gained weight and off for chef Garry's dessert.
Garry - Well now the tiramisu.
Valerie Ulrich - Chef, how is that red wine with that entree that you just prepared and then also hoping chef Garry tastes that sweet, lovely dessert one for the tiramisu.
Garry - I know so I'm going to give chef Eric a little bit of the Colorado, right? Red wine to go with the savory.
Eric - Yeah again San Francisco Wine Trading, thank you so much. I appreciate it to sending that and for the support.
Garry - Look at that color it's beautiful to go with desert. So I think this tiramisu--
Eric - It's delicious.
Garry - And it's great, right.
Eric - Listen I mean, just not to say that, but the combination of the pastas swirl, the mushroom the polenta, the cheese, you even putting the hint of orange on that. Oh yeah that's. Wow, and the white wine also I mean, I tested the soup right here. Now I taste the white wine early, right in the money. How do you like the dessert wine chef?
Garry - The dessert wine I haven't tasted yet, but my tiramisu is getting ready. And it's nice to make the tiramisu, like for example, early in the morning, if you have friends coming over at night. I mean, of course you can do it in the afternoon, but it's nice with all the flavor of macerated all together and don't get me wrong. It's tiramisu is supposed to look messy on the plate, even though you have your own individual one and it's perfect and beautiful. Now, if it's family style and you're going to share it, it's going to look messy. So don't be ashamed about it. That's actually the reason why it's so good. It's just, it's a family dessert, right? With some Coca-Cola and then you can take a block of chocolate and then a vegetable peeler and then just go along the chocolate bring some chocolate at the top. And that it you have a great tiramisu. And then now you can have a great meal, right? I'm going to have some wine for the dessert, that's perfect.
Eric - You give me some over that I want to try that.
Garry - You want to try this one too.
Eric - The red wine is delicious, I mean, with everything Valarie did you make the choices of that.
Valerie - Well, I had some guidance.
Eric - Oh, wonderful, but you did a great job on it. I mean, whatever, give you a guidance. So he did right on the note. Cheers, to you chef.
Garry - Cheers.
Eric - Cheers to you too.
Garry - Cheers.
Valerie - Here's to both of you, thank you.
Eric - Oh my goodness, can I have a taste right here?
Garry - Please.
Eric - This is delicious with that. This is delicious. Wow.
Garry - That was great.
Eric - Perfect while we're checking a little bit more time, it was normal. The best only for you. What want us to thank you again for all of you guys. I may have any questions to anybody find out what's the name of our stove in French.
Valerie - No we haven't, do you want to tell us?
Eric - So a stove in French is called piano, so we always play music, cooking food. So start with French piano. And mise en place I don't know if anybody answered that mise en place is basically a fancy word to be organized and have everything ready. I think, it was definitely very important for you to see the technique. But before we guys leave, I want to show you still the short ribs braising so you can see, we have shown different techniques. How from building something from scratch, making you soup from scratch, costing the vegetable, making a polenta from scratch. I know I may not be enough time to show you short ribs, but I didn't want to do shortcuts. I want to show you the real deal because it means a lot for me to show you from you to our kitchen your kitchen, sorry. And you can see, Oh my goodness, this thing smells so nice Garry
Garry - Okay.
Eric - Be careful, very very hot. Look at that way here, you ready? All wards, let me show you a trick, never opened the pot towards you, always open and leave the lady like this. So all the liquids fall back in the pot and look at that a brazing right here, you see that. So basically it's going to take much more longer, two more hours basically to brace, but you see what may have the shorter it's is brazing is cooking very slowly, the sauces in there, we're going to put it back in the stove inside the oven. Perfect, so yes, we took a little extra time, but only the best for you. I appreciated the kindness. I appreciate all of you, it was a pleasure to cook for you, it was a pleasure to be in your home or your office. If you're not too far from Sandra seedy come over fast because there's, that's going to go fast. And I look forward Mrs. Valerie, back to you.
Valerie - Thanks Chef, and happy Thanksgiving to everybody. We sure enjoyed your beautiful demonstration for a beautiful fall meal. And we love seeing you again and being with you and tell Wolfgang, we were so grateful that he came by earlier.
Eric - Thank you, yes. I mean use always in-laws, you know, listen, the one thing is Valerie and all your team, I'm going to say something, we're doing cooking demos, with Wolfgang, chef Garry, and I will always do our classic called The Chicken Pot Pie and on and on dishes. And you'll always pops into the last minute and you always comes, and he is amazing. It's like the candle on top of the cake, but it's a great thing. No where’s makes me remember. And one thing is the most important Wolfgang Mitchell, Garry. We're a team, we worked together. We’re tied to the present. The company will always sacrifice so much for everyone. Hospitality is key. I know it's a tough time. I know, but to get them, but look at us as people, we always try to figure out a chef Carey and all you guys and your team would try to get together, celebrate beyond unreachable demo. I'm pretty sure your business has, has to be hard too. And, but together we cannot complete anything. So I want to say thank you from chef Garry, from myself, from Mrs. Christina does all the camera over here. I want to say thank you to everyone. And we'll look forward to the next one, please let us know, send us questions, emails, anything you need. And I appreciate all your support and your partnership to all of you.
Valerie - Thanks so much. And we thank everybody who participated today, and we will be following up with a letter and the desserts, all the recipes that we will share with you.
Eric - I forgot something, a personal thanks to Megan, also Genevieve, who helped us to put everything together with you. And it was the communication. So I want to say thank you to her too, so thank you.
Valerie - Thanks Megan and happy Thanksgiving to everybody.
Garry - Thank you, happy Thanksgiving
Eric - Thank you, happy Thanksgiving, be safe.
