With layers upon layers stacked with flavor and ingredients, these favorite dishes seem too good to be true.
With layers upon layers stacked with flavor and ingredients, these favorite dishes seem too good to be true.
Episode content:
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Find episode transcript here: https://the-best-thing-i-ever-ate.simplecast.com/episodes/stacked-ft-wolfgang-puck-marc-murphy-and-katie-lee
SPEAKER 1: Who doesn't love great food?
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SPEAKER 2: It's more than just eating, it's an experience. Do you have any more?
SPEAKER 3: This is the best thing I ever ate.
SPEAKER 1: If you go to a restaurant in Santa Monica, California called Cassia, you get the most amazing stock dish. Next to the Eiffel Tower, this seafood tower is the most beautiful tower, except the Eiffel Tower you cannot eat so this is my favorite. There are many restaurants in America who make seafood towers. Everywhere you go it all taste the same from the top to the bottom. But when I saw this I said, wow, finally somebody put some life, some flavor, some excitement into the seafood tower. Chef Brian reinvented and put a Vietnamese flair to it. Each layer is different so you get lobster, you get oysters on the bottom, snow crab claws, a marinated scallops, the salmon dip, and what I love since I love spicy food, my favorite part is the shrimp.
SPEAKER 4: So we're making the grilled and chilled prawns. And in the marinade we have Fresno chilies, garlic, sugar, fish sauce and canola oil. Blend everything together, put it over the prawns and then we're going to marinate it overnight.
SPEAKER 1: Then they grill it instead of poaching it. If you boil something, it takes out all the flavor. But, if you sear something on a hot grill you're going to have a more concentrated flavor.
SPEAKER 4: And then these are our scallops. The inspiration for the dish is XO sauce. We mix it all together with Kewpie mayo, there's lime juice, corn and some olive oil, and some salt.
SPEAKER 1: They drizzle the scallops with their homemade chili oil and it's really an amazing combination.
SPEAKER 4: Now that we have all our components, we're ready to stack our seafood tower.
SPEAKER 1: You'll get the oysters on the bottom then you get a snow crab claws.
SPEAKER 4: These are the prawns, Wolfgang. I know these are your favorite, scallops.
SPEAKER 1: You'll have the salmon dip.
SPEAKER 4: And I like to put herbs on every level.
SPEAKER 1: And then you'll finished with the king of the ocean, the lobster.
SPEAKER 4: Prior to grilling it, we had a marinade with scallions, garlic and fish sauce.
SPEAKER 1: It is a feast for the eyes. You'll have it in the middle of the table. You already can smell the aroma coming out of it. Just like climbing a mountain, you start on the bottom, go to the first base camp and then you go to the top. The Asian spices thing in your mouth, it's a little spicy, it has acidity, it has a little sweetness to it. It's so amazing, the way you can get all these flavors in one dish, so delicious.
SPEAKER 5: You can't be intimidated when it comes to big stack foods, you got to just own it. You don't try to cut it in half. You don't try to get a little bite of this, a little bite of that, [CHOMP] straight to the face.
SPEAKER 6: Oh, you don't cut it?
SPEAKER 5: No, no,no, no. What am I an amateur? The best thing I've ever eaten that's stacked is the trailer park burger from Winnie's Tavern in Wilmington, North Carolina. You have to like, press it down to get your mouth around it. You have to like, unlock your jaw. When it arrived I thought, this is going to be the greatest thing I accomplish all day and it was.
The trailer park burger is a classic bacon cheeseburger but with pimento cheese, fried green tomatoes. It's everything messy, a little spicy, a little juicy, and a little creamy that you want on a burger. You got like 12 different things, all in one bite. It's like a buffet through your mouth.
SPEAKER 7: First thing's first. We're going to make our jalapeno pimento cheese.
SPEAKER 5: So in a mixer, they combine pimentos, diced jalapenos, cream cheese, cheddar cheese, garlic powder and jalapeno Tabasco sauce. It's little punches of zing. Then they take their half a pound of 80-20.
SPEAKER 7: My grandma always taught me to put the hole in the center. She always said it kept the burger juicier and allowed her to cook a little bit faster.
SPEAKER 5: Season it up with salt and pepper. Throw it down on the grill then they throw down some hickory smoked bacon.
SPEAKER 7: A little more water to get the juices flowing.
SPEAKER 5: It's perfect. They take the breaded sliced green tomatoes, drop them into the fryer. When they come out, they get dusted with Cajun spice. Take the buns, they put the Chipotle Mayo on.
SPEAKER 7: Some iceberg lettuce, yellow onion, bread and butter pickle chips, pimento cheese.
SPEAKER 5: Topped that with the beef patty.
SPEAKER 7: We throw a top bun on and pierce it with a knife.
SPEAKER 5: You want to make sure that you get a bite of everything. [CHOMP] One bite, two hands, all the layers come through. You've got the crispy, the fatty, the juicy, the fried, with a little bit of the crunchy, tangy raw onion. That's what makes it perfect stack sandwich. And stack foods are messy and that's OK. No one's there to judge you. It's perfect, it is so, so perfect.
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SPEAKER 5: If I've got as many things on a plate as physically possible, I'm going to really enjoy that plate of food. Stacked means excess, it means extra. It means Mr. Fries Man, barbecue, bacon, chicken, fries in Gardena California. It is a mountain of food. I've never seen so much food placed on top of fries in my life.
A proper fry is going to be super fluffy in the middle but with a gorgeous crispy outside. And if you stack it right, you're going to keep that crispiness but that softness just soaks in all of the stacked glory. Mr. Fries Man is one of the most eccentric people I've ever met.
SPEAKER 8: I'm called Mr. Fries Man and I'm the lord of fries, king of the fries, and the best to do it, and you do know that.
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SPEAKER 5: Mr. Fries Man's fries are thin and crispy fries, which just creates a great bed for a lot of toppings.
SPEAKER 8: That's why we fry these fries into a nice golden brown until they're crispy.
SPEAKER 5: Next, you're going to add olive oil in a skillet, cook the pastrami.
[SIZZLING SOUND]
SPEAKER 8: Get a nice sear on it, hello. So now the next step is we're about to fry these chicken bites and onion rings.
SPEAKER 5: Then we're going to plate up the fries, top that with cheddar cheese, drizzle barbecue sauce on top.
SPEAKER 8: Chicken bites.
SPEAKER 5: Stack it.
SPEAKER 8: Barbecue.
SPEAKER 5: Stack it.
SPEAKER 8: Ranch.
SPEAKER 5: Stack it.
SPEAKER 8: Onion rings.
SPEAKER 5: Stack it.
SPEAKER 8: Good old grilled pastrami.
SPEAKER 5: Stack it.
SPEAKER 8: You cannot go wrong, never with a little bit of bacon.
SPEAKER 5: I mean, let's just get the whole of the animal kingdom in here.
SPEAKER 8: Oink oink.
SPEAKER 5: And then you're going to pop a fried egg on top, sunny side up. Stack it.
SPEAKER 8: Katie, slow down.
SPEAKER 5: Sorry.
SPEAKER 8: A little parsley on top.
SPEAKER 5: Go on.
SPEAKER 8: Last but not least, we have to have the hello sauce. A nice mixture of our lemon, garlic, and barbecue sauce, hello.
SPEAKER 5: Have you ever heard of a more stacked dish in your life? As soon as you cut into that egg it starts to ooze. So you've got that soft egg, the crispy bacon, the saucy chicken. Every single mouthful is a different meal. If you stick a fork into that stack, you are guaranteed to get at least four layers of ingredients and at least six fries on the bottom as well. Sometimes I think my mouth is too big, and then in moments like this I'm grateful for it.
SPEAKER 9: When you hear about this right here. You want to definitely hold on to your seat and stocking caps. This is an episode about stack. There's nothing more stacked than this southern fried chicken in eggnog waffles. Now the only place you can get this dish is at Melba's Restaurant in Harlem, New York. It's just sitting right there on the corner waiting on you. When I saw on the menu, southern fried chicken in eggnog waffles. I'm like, come on, where do you begin?
SPEAKER 10: The first step is what, the chicken and with that chicken, baby, we got to get to brining. Water, salt, sugar, lemon and fresh herbs, and then I'm going to add one of my favorite things, brown mustard. It adds flavor, it adds spice and it kind of perks things up a little bit. And we're going to pour it over ice.
SPEAKER 9: They're pouring buttermilk.
SPEAKER 10: It's a great time to add our chicken. We're just going to throw these wings in here.
SPEAKER 9: Refrigerate it for two hours.
SPEAKER 10: I'm going to take my five special spice blend, sprinkle it all over my chicken and then I like to get in there with my hands. The chickens are my friend. We're going to put some flour in here.
SPEAKER 9: And they're going to add their seasonings for the chicken.
SPEAKER 10: And then I'm going to do what, I'm going to shake it up, baby. Come on, now. Get a little dance going in here. Now we're going to drop it like it's hot.
SPEAKER 9: It makes you feel like celebrating. My favorite thing about this dish is the waffles, hands down. Who would think of an eggnog waffle? I'm looking around for a mistletoe because it's time for me to kiss the cook.
SPEAKER 10: What about a hug instead? You know you're married, boo.
SPEAKER 9: [LAUGHS]
They take the eggnog batter, pour it into the waffle iron and cook it till they're golden brown and delicious. They top it off with a dollop of that strawberry butter, and serve it alongside some maple syrup. I get the crunchiness from that skin on the fried chicken but on the inside, the flavors are just oozing out of it. And that waffle has that nice beautiful sweet eggnog flavor just resonating through. It just makes you feel good all over.
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SPEAKER 11: So when we were talking about best thing I ever ate that was stacked, the Pork Crackling Nachos at Kingfish in New Orleans. They decided to start stacking pork and then making nachos on top of that. These people are crazy, pork crackling nachos, why didn't I think of this. Well, obviously they did, thank goodness because then I got to try them and they were amazing.
Sometimes I just want to dig into a big plate of nachos. But all of a sudden, somebody made nachos greater. At Kingfish, they took away the actual corn tortillas, they put stack of pork cracklings and then they put a bunch of pulled pork on top of it. It's like pork on pork, now they got my attention.
SPEAKER 11: So for the pulled pork, they take a pork butt, they've got some fennel seeds, smoked paprika, some brown sugar.
SPEAKER 12: Cayenne pepper, salt, black pepper, dried mustard powder, and we rub it down on the pork.
SPEAKER 11: They cover it with pork jus, wrap the whole thing up.
SPEAKER 12: We'll going to slow roast the pork, overnight for roughly nine hours.
SPEAKER 11: So this is super low and slow which is I think what really makes this pork taste really good. You know, the nice thing about these nachos is they do a pimento cheese. They actually make it homemade. It's really actually a classic French technique, they make a roux, they've got cream, they've got milk, they whisk in the cheddar cheese, the cream cheese and the roasted red peppers. They obviously really care about these nachos.
For the few people that don't know what pork cracklings are, it's basically pig skin and when it fries it sort of puffs up, and it becomes this delicious, tasty, crunchy, salty, oh awesome, awesome flavor. Once the cracklings are ready, they start stacking.
SPEAKER 12: Cracklings, pulled pork, cracklings, more pulled pork, tomatoes, our house pickles, jalapeno peppers, poblano peppers, sour cream and a little smoked paprika flakes.
SPEAKER 11: And then that beautiful cheese. You've got a little bit of that smoky pulled pork on there. The sour cream gives a little bit of coolness to it and you get that nice snap from the actual pork crackling. The flavor is just over, over the moon for me. It's like a perfect little ballet of, it's a nacho ballet let's call it. Wow, they'll use that.
SPEAKER 5: These is a really fluffy cream sandwich. I'm just looking at that stacked beautiful tower and it's just perfect, it's outrageous. It's these blackberry bliss pancakes in Chicago. I had never seen anything like it. I don't know who dreamed these up. I want to make something outrageous, I want to make something that has a lot of my cravings into one dish. Like, somebody came up with it.
SPEAKER 13: Good day.
SPEAKER 5: Perfect.
SPEAKER 13: We're here today to make our world famous blackberry bliss cakes.
SPEAKER 5: So, they start by making the cakes.
SPEAKER 13: And one of the key things for us is not to over beat it, we want lumps. This helps give us higher taller pancakes.
SPEAKER 5: It's poured onto the very hot griddle. This is just two pancakes but they're very thick, really fluffy. And they have that really nice golden brown crust.
SPEAKER 13: Now we're getting ready to do our blackberries that we warm up with simple syrup.
SPEAKER 5: Until it becomes chunky blackberry syrup. And then they make their own honey oats granola. Then they just build the sandwich.
SPEAKER 13: We'll start with one on the bottom as a foundation.
SPEAKER 5: Between the pancakes, there's like a thick cream and it tastes a little bit of vanilla, and they binds all of the stacked dish together.
SPEAKER 13: We'll top that with our warm blackberries, make sure we get a nice little squeeze and the cream's coming out. Top with our homemade granola.
SPEAKER 5: Oh, and there's powdered sugar on top too. So it's a feast for the eyes and it's really a feast, like when you eat it. The pancakes have that savory sweet combination. Juices from the BlackBerry kind of tart, kind of sweet, but then you have the mascarpone and cream which is just creamy. And then that crunch from the honey oats, it taste like what something's stacked for breakfast should taste like.
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SPEAKER 5: Some of my friends like to make fun of me that, when I have a big bite it's like my jaw comes unhinged and I can just really go for it [LAUGH]. And that's what happens with a big sandwich. I like a lot of stacked foods but my favorite is the Stacked Surfer Sandwich at Anna's Deli in Siesta Key, Florida. It's a very simple combo, ham, cucumbers, Swiss cheese, turkey and a special sauce. It's so simple but I'm telling you it's [ITALIAN CHEF KISS].
My husband is from Siesta Key and he brought me to Anna's the first time I went home with him. This was his favorite sandwich growing up, he was a little surfer dude. And let me just tell you, the sandwich, I have not stopped thinking about it ever since I had it that first time. It really did live up to all of his childhood memories when I tried it.
SPEAKER 14: The first step for making our surfer sandwich is cutting our Swiss cheese, ham, turkey.
SPEAKER 5: All the meat and cheese is sliced in-house so it's super fresh. The ham and the turkey, they're paper thin, they're luscious, they get this great fold to them, but it's all about that special sauce. And the special sauce, they say that it's just spicy mustard and mayonnaise, I ain't buying it.
SPEAKER 14: Really Katie, it's just mayonnaise and mustard.
SPEAKER 5: OK, If you say so. I mean, I mix mustard and mayonnaise at home and it does not taste like that. There's something else in there. And they've got this great marble rye bread, lather it with some of that special sauce, fresh thinly sliced ham stacked high to the heavens. The higher the meat the closer to God.
SPEAKER 14: Then comes our fresh cucumber slices.
SPEAKER 5: Swiss cheese and a mountain of turkey.
SPEAKER 14: And then Anna's sandwiches are always cut into quarters.
SPEAKER 5: They stack them up. First bite of the sandwich, it's so good. I love the saltiness of the ham and then the creamy, kind of nutty, funky, Swiss cheese. The turkey is a little bit milder. And then the sliced cucumber gives you this wonderful refreshing crunch. And the special sauce, the mayo gives you this wonderful richness and then the spicy mustard gives you a little kick.
And then the next bite, it just keeps getting better and better, and you can't stop and you start to get like some of the special sauce on the corners of your mouth. Seriously guys, come on, be straight with me, what's in the special sauce?
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