Get ready to unleash your inner carnivore as Food Network stars Duff, Michael Symon, Ted Allen and Cat Cora bring on the meat! Leg of beast, roast suckling pig, lamb shank, even a tri-tip sandwich ... It's meat that can't be beat!
Get ready to unleash your inner carnivore as Food Network stars Duff, Michael Symon, Ted Allen and Cat Cora bring on the meat! Leg of beast, roast suckling pig, lamb shank, even a tri-tip sandwich ... It's meat that can't be beat!
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Find episode transcript here: https://the-best-thing-i-ever-ate.simplecast.com/episodes/meat-fest-ft-cat-cora-duff-goldman-and-ted-allen
[MUSIC PLAYING] SPEAKER 1: People ask me all the time.
SPEAKER 2: Where do you like to eat?
SPEAKER 3: What's your favorite food?
SPEAKER 4: What's the best thing you've ever eaten?
SPEAKER 1: That's why we're here now.
SPEAKER 2: Not only to tell you what we love to eat.
SPEAKER 3: But where you can go get it.
SPEAKER 4: We're all talking about meat. Big meat fest.
SPEAKER 5: Let's get primal.
SPEAKER 6: When I need big meat, do I need big meat.
SPEAKER 7: This is not meat 101. This is not for the rookies. It brings the whole expression tastes like chicken to a whole new level.
SPEAKER 1: When all that's on your mind is start to finish meat. It's as good as it gets.
SPEAKER 8: Welcome to a carnivorous heaven. When it comes to beef, I think of one guy, and one guy only, my partner in Chefs vs. City, Chris Cosentino. On his menu, that Encanto in San Francisco, leg of beast. This is caveman eating. No holds barred. Let's get dirty. Let's get primal. Moomoo, beef, beef. This is the best beef dish I've ever had. This is a big cut of meat. I'm talking hunk of brontosaurus meat. This is the beef shank. Where is the shank? It's a logical question people ask all the time. If I could show you on my leg where it would be on a cow. Half calf down to below the ankle.
SPEAKER 9: You're going to get the most tender cut of meat, if you treat it with lots of love and lots of flavor.
SPEAKER 10: He actually sears the outside of the shank and then adds onions, carrots, celery, red wine, all these vegetables break down, and really infuse themselves in the broth that's actually the shank is sitting in. You're taking the essence of beef and you're really bringing it all out by slow cooking.
SPEAKER 11: So check this out, six hours later, we've got a 20 pound beef shank. The whole goal for this leg of beef is to consume the whole leg.
SPEAKER 9: Chris Cosentino, a man dedicated to the preservation of offal, the off cut of the animal.
SPEAKER 10: What we have here, actually, is marrow bones. Bone marrow is what we like to call God's butter.
SPEAKER 9: Nothing is getting unused. It's all with one theme in mind, and that's your love and appreciation for meat. Oh, man.
SPEAKER 12: Wow.
SPEAKER 9: Chris, this is a thing of beauty. The aroma is intoxicating. It just essence of beef wafting in the air.
SPEAKER 10: Come on what are you guys lollygagging around here.
SPEAKER 9: Let's get primal. Everything that you want and suck in a beef, right here. It's just braised, tender falling off the bone. It's just awesome. To take some of that marrow, spread it on some toasted bread, a couple slices of that wonderful braised beef, oh, it's nothing better.
SPEAKER 13: I am a carnivore, definitely. I can go the veggie route for a couple of days, but then I'm jonesing for a big hunk of meat. Cold Spring Tavern is this great biker bar up in the mountains above Santa Barbara, California. And they've got this incredible tri tip sandwich. This is the yummiest, delicious sandwich you'll ever take a bite of. Every single ingredient with this tri tip sandwich rocks. They've got the salsa set up. They have the barbecue sauce. They've got the meats right there. They have toasting the bread. I mean, everything is done on this gigantic grill right outside.
SPEAKER 14: They will serve our sandwiches with a lot of energy.
SPEAKER 13: It's the simplest sandwich you'll ever eat, but it's one of the best.
SPEAKER 14: Pretty much a biker-friendly. It's a Sunday ride location.
SPEAKER 13: You just got all kinds of people that just converge, but it's mostly you'll see the bikers. The Harleys are lined up. There's a band playing. You're outside. They've got this giant grill. And they've got these huge slabs. It's the best way to spend a Sunday. All right, I got my cold beer. I got my ticket. I'm going over to the grill, and I'm going to wait for my sandwich. You're standing in line, and you walk up, and he slices a meat right there for you. All right, Tom, hook me up. And it is absolutely off the hook.
SPEAKER 14: Going your route.
SPEAKER 13: Awesome. Thanks, man. The barbecue sauce and the sauce are both homemade. You don't expect that from a roadside tavern. You got to have a strategy to the sandwich. I mean, you can see how huge it is. I'm going to scoop some of my salsa there. And I'm going to take the first bite and we go. So awesome. The flavors are just this really meaty goodness with the tanginess and the acidity from the salsa that are balancing with the sweetness and the smokiness of the barbecue sauce. It's tender. And it just fulfills that meat craving.
SPEAKER 14: Come down and try the sandwich.
SPEAKER 13: With a great bread, a great barbecue sauce, great salsa, great meat. Four components that just work. And it's simple. It's easy. And it's delicious. It's the best tri tip sandwich I've ever eaten.
SPEAKER 15: How can anything else compare to having an entire beast roasted for you and your pleasure. If I want to think about one dish that really speaks to my inner carnivore, pound for pound, it's the roast suckling pig at a modern restaurant in Philadelphia. And when all that's on your mind is start to finish meat, it's as good as it gets. There's just something great and primal about that carnivorous sensation of getting down on some whole hog. I mean, you could just walk around just that crackling is so good. You need at least four people to start on the pig. Otherwise, you're asking for trouble.
SPEAKER 16: If you order a suckling pig from a Sierra de Amada you get the whole thing, tail to snout.
SPEAKER 15: Jose Garces is a master chef. So we're about to have the cochinillo asado. I discovered this dish because I actually used to work at Amada as a server for a couple of years. You actually have to order this two days in advance. So it's like a big deal.
SPEAKER 16: We brine it in a saltwater and sugar brine for about two days.
SPEAKER 15: So the pig is seasoned inside and out. And then he goes and sits in an oven for a good probably three or four hours.
SPEAKER 16: And now, what that does is give you a nice, succulent, juicy pig.
SPEAKER 15: You'll be having a conversation. And everybody kind of does this, and they turn around in the room. And here we are. Look at that. You take a little pile of the shredded pork. And you put a little bit of the chicharrones on top, a little bit of olive oil goes on, a little bit of salt. That's it. Ends up. We'll get the crack, crunch, crunch, crunch, and then soft, unctuous, delicious meat. This is going to be the most delicious bite of meat that one could put in their mouth. Blast off. It's this incredibly moist meat under this impossibly crisp skin. And it seems to defy all logic. It's perfect.
SPEAKER 17: Any meat head can grill a tenderloin. The kind of meat that I like takes some skill to cook. We're all talking about the meat. It's a big meat fest. Everybody talking about meat. How about a braised lamb shank at Sardinia in Miami, Florida. I was in Miami at the South Beach Food Wine Festival, and I'm with Guy. And Guy was like, hey, I got this fantastic place. Let's go. I was like, cool, man, let's go. We actually ended up with this amazing restaurant. I like lamb. And Sardinia has this wonderful, amazing braised lamb shank.
SPEAKER 18: Today's lamb shank is the very popular Sardinian dish.
SPEAKER 17: I think the whole staff is Sardinian.
SPEAKER 18: No, I'm the only Sardinian working over here.
SPEAKER 17: It's the same.
SPEAKER 18: This is a fresh ingredients. Very simple.
SPEAKER 17: The way that they do it, it's got rosemary, and juniper berries, and tomatoes, and they braise it forever.
SPEAKER 18: We'll cook this slowly, and then it'll be a great lunch.
SPEAKER 17: And what happens is, the meat kind of sucks up all that juice and gets really, really, really tender. So it comes out, and it's like this stew with herbs and really soft carrots. And the meat, it's just falling off the bone. It's so perfect. And you have a knife, but you don't need it. It is tender. It's juicy. It just comes off and it's so good. My favorite thing about this lamb shank is that it's a very flavorful but gentle meat. It's not something where you eat this thing like a dingo. You know what I mean? These guys know what they're doing, for real. It's perfect.
SPEAKER 6: What do I love about meat? There's just so many things. So when I'm in that meating mood, I have to say, the first thing I always think of are these spicy Tuscan spare ribs at Salumeria Rosi in New York City. When I need big meat, do I need big meat. Ribs, in general, are one of those things that we usually just think about barbecue. And these are so not barbecue. These are just something so completely different.
SPEAKER 19: I like that.
SPEAKER 6: Starts off maybe the same as a barbecue, dry rubbed and left to marinate overnight, and then they're slow roasted. But then when you think that you've cooked these ribs for so long, we take them and we cook them in a lovely, spicy tomato sauce, which makes the meat so flavorful and moist, and tender, and succulent. And every bite is an explosion of flavor in your mouth.
SPEAKER 20: The ribs there was a roasted in the oven. Now you want a braise with a tomato.
SPEAKER 6: It's sort of like a spare rib Jacuzzi, which has a super special spice mix that he calls the droga. You know, like the drug.
SPEAKER 20: A droga it's what every butcher in Italy for make a salami. In this case, we have 17 different spices.
SPEAKER 6: These spareribs are I'm hot. I'm spicy. And the more you eat it, you're like, you know. And it makes you want to use a lot of napkins and lick your lips, and really get in there, and experience these ribs. I know I'm supposed to be a good girl and use my knife and fork with this, but, man, this is big meat. And I'm getting right in there with my fingers. What I love so much about a spare rib is that it's not the best table manners, but it certainly makes eating far more enjoyable. I'm going right back in for more bites. Cesare takes spare ribs and makes them his own. These truly are one of the best meat dishes I've ever eaten.
SPEAKER 21: I have a lot of respect for vegetarians. I really do. Tinged with a note of pity. What I want to talk about is the chicken dish at number seven restaurant in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. Chicken, it sounds really ordinary, doesn't it? This is the most unforgettable chicken dish I have ever tasted. This is chicken squared. Chicken to the 10th power. Super chicken. That's what they should call it. They should call it super chicken.
I perhaps rambled a little bit there. But this is a dish that is so flavorful, and so filling, and rich, and soulful. American guys might say, give me a steak. What we're here for is chicken. It's about using almost every part of the chicken. You have white meat, dark meat. It uses the skin to make a crackling. And he uses the bones to make a stock. Hungry, hungry.
SPEAKER 22: In any way that we've served chicken here, I always take all the bones out and it's always rolled into something that doesn't really resemble a chicken anymore.
SPEAKER 21: He takes the dark meat off the bones, and he grinds it.
SPEAKER 22: And the livers get ground in there too.
SPEAKER 21: He takes some Jasmine rice and combines it with the ground dark meat, forms it around the white meat.
SPEAKER 22: All right, and the breast inside. And then it's like making a burrito.
SPEAKER 21: Wraps that in Napa cabbage. Wraps that in plastic wrap. The chicken itself is actually cooked by poaching.
SPEAKER 22: Carefully unwrap this because nobody enjoys eating plastic.
SPEAKER 21: And it comes swimming in a little pool of homemade chicken stock that's infused with a little bit of ginger along with baby bok choy, lemon, and a little bit of bacon down onions and chicken skin. It's a heck of a combination. It sounds complicated. And it is complicated for the chef. For the customer, all you have to do is just slice it up and eat it. So good.
Tyler's chicken is so moist, and so soft, and so succulent. It's amazing. You can just see it. It's not always easy to get a chicken breast to do that. There's so much flavor. The other great thing about chicken is crispy chicken skin, almost like a potato chip made out of chicken skin, which is delicious. The crispy, salty, I think that's the best part. It brings the whole expression taste like chicken to a whole new level. It's just an incredible dish. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. Done.
SPEAKER 23: I'm a barbecue man. The food groups to me are beef, pork, chicken, and maybe lamb. I'm not going to be getting called for the salad fest show. You might think that Dr. Barbecue and meat fest would automatically go to ribs or brisket. But for me, that's not it. There's one thing that I think of. And it's the Italian beef and sausage combo at Joe Boston's in Chicago. This thing is meat fest drama. It's two different kinds of meat. You got the whole Italian sausage, and then you've got a big pile of Italian beef on top of it.
This is the food of the streets in Chicago. People think we're all eating those deep dish pizzas, but that's for the tourists. We're eating Italian beef and sausage combo. This is what Chicago truck drivers eat. I know. I was one for a lot of years. Boston's is the best in the city. It's all about the meat.
SPEAKER 24: You get the sirloin butts. And you make this juice, this gravy that it goes in. It's good.
SPEAKER 25: Our recipe is basically salt, pepper, oregano, and onions.
SPEAKER 24: And they put it in there for the right amount of time. So they pick up the flavor.
SPEAKER 25: And it makes the whole neighborhood smell good.
SPEAKER 24: The key to good Italian beef is slicing it real thin. You can't be lazy on that. The Italian sausage has got a lot of fennel in it, a little bit of spice, not too much, kind of salty. And they grill it. It's real nice. They go together beautifully. I mean, I'm getting in my Chicago frame of mind. Man, I'm ready to go eat one. You need to know how to order it properly. I'm going I have a beef and sausage combo dipped with a little bit of hot peppers. You really want to live it up. You get a combo dipped with hot pepper. It's what we call jardiniere.
I don't have the sweet peppers. There's no reason to have extra green stuff on your sandwich. But I like a little bit of the jardiniere to spice that sandwich up. And if you have a dip, it's going to be a lot more flavor because you're going to have all this meat juice on it. Man, it's the greatest. It's perfect.
SPEAKER 25: That's just what it's supposed to look like. Getting it started is hard because there's two sandwiches in one.
SPEAKER 24: You bite down on the bottom, you get a lot of the Italian sausage. Oh, that's good. But then if you bite up on top, oh, the juicy, spiciness of the beef, man, you're in heaven. This is going to be a good day. Look at that juicy bread. The sausage is trying to get away. You can't eat this while you're driving. I love this sandwich. There's been times when I've had three in a day. I might be lying about that, though.
SPEAKER 7: This is not meat 101. This is advanced. This is not for the rookies. This is what meat fest is all about, the large format feast at Resto in New York City. You heard me right. The large format feast. This is meat on meat on meat. Perfect. You call ahead of time and pick an animal. You could do suckling pig. You can do lamb. But the one that I really love is the goat. And you eat the whole animal. Bring eight or 12 of your friends, I usually kick out six, so there's a little bit more goat for me.
My mother is half Greek. So when I was a kid, we would eat goat on the spit. She used to tell us it was lamb, but it was goat. To me, it's like a really great lamb. It's a little sweeter. It has a little bit more gaminess to it. The thing that I love the way that they do, the whole animal at Resto is they don't just spit roast a whole goat. They actually break it down and use every part of it perfectly.
SPEAKER 26: We're going to be preparing eight different dishes, eight different preparations.
SPEAKER 7: You could have some chops, goat tacos. They grind shoulders for sausages.
SPEAKER 26: But here we have a goat roulade that's made from the back leg stuffed with sausage, a little bit of garlic, rosemary, and time.
SPEAKER 7: They braise the head for a soup.
SPEAKER 26: One of the larger cuts that we're doing is a goat rib jerk spiced with some Aunt's and Mill's grits, and chicory, and heart salad. There's a little piece of the heart that has a really meaty flavor. It's amazingly tender.
SPEAKER 7: They make a great one that they call the GLT, where they take the leg of the goat and they slow cook it in olive oil and spices. Then they put some tomatoes in mayonnaise on a great Pullman loaf. It's the best. Who needs the bacon? When the goat starts to hit the table, it thrills all your senses. First, visually, it blows your mind. You're looking around where do I go first? And then I get the biggest fork and knife I could find, and fend off anybody else.
And finally, you put it in your mouth. You have a little slice of heaven right there or a large slice of heaven, in this case. It doesn't get any better than this. You share. You pass. You laugh. This is how we are meant to eat. The meat, the goat, Resto, can't beat it. Meat equals happy. Meat is fabulous. Meat gives you a shiny coat.
SPEAKER 27: I know what you did there.
SPEAKER 7: Yes, you will. Look like a blurb coming out of my head.
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