Guacamole with sage, blue cheese, and bacon? Ice cream made from prosciutto? A candy bar that's battered and deep fried? These are just a few of the dishes FN stars say they never expected to be the best thing they ever ate!
Guacamole with sage, blue cheese, and bacon? Ice cream made from prosciutto? A candy bar that's battered and deep fried? These are just a few of the dishes FN stars say they never expected to be the best thing they ever ate!
Hungry for more Food Network? Go to discoveryplus.com/bestthing to start your free trial today. Terms apply.
Find episode transcript here: https://the-best-thing-i-ever-ate.simplecast.com/episodes/totally-unexpected-ft-michael-symon-alton-brown-and-cat-cora
[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 5: But where you can go get it.
SPEAKER 6: So you want to talk something unexpected? You need to try this dish.
SPEAKER 7: I love to be surprised.
SPEAKER 8: It's very creamy, and it's smooth, just perfect.
SPEAKER 9: This is so unique on its own. I've never even seen anywhere else.
SPEAKER 10: It's unbelievable. You're just not expecting it.
SPEAKER 11: It tasted freaking good.
SPEAKER 10: Every once in a while, you come across a dish, and there's things in that dish were you just, wh-- what's that doing there? I would have never thought of that, but the flavors are great. They work. You look at a classic dish like guacamole. You don't have crazy expectations, for you know what guacamole is. But then I go to Lopez in Cleveland, Ohio, and I get guacamole with blue cheese and sage.
Oh, blue cheese and sage? That makes complete sense. You're just not expecting it, but it tastes incredible. And when I have this guacamole, it blew my mind.
SPEAKER 12: Guacamole actually originates in Aztec culture. The only key ingredients were really avocados, tomatoes, and salt. Now, look at all this stuff we put in guacamole.
SPEAKER 10: They've taken the dip to a whole new level.
SPEAKER 12: We start by seasoning the avocados themselves with kosher salt, ground cumin, fresh cilantro, and lime juice. Then we fold in the jalapenos, garlic, onions, and tomatoes.
SPEAKER 10: You could just dip in that stuff all day. But then to have it with blue cheese and sage, it's unbelievable. And now I even ask for it with a little bit of bacon.
SPEAKER 12: He's all about pork. We all know that.
SPEAKER 10: It really is good. So look at this. Looks like guacamole, smells like guacamole, doesn't taste like guacamole. It's almost like a Cobb salad guacamole. Saltiness of the bacon with the richness of the avocado, the blue cheese gives a little bit of tartness. Then you have that acid in there from the citrus and the sage. It's magic in the mouth.
SPEAKER 13: You again?
SPEAKER 10: Well, you know.
SPEAKER 13: What to do to get rid of you?
SPEAKER 10: Quit making such great guacamole. Lopez has been in Cleveland for 30 years, so I go there a lot.
SPEAKER 13: We need more bacon.
SPEAKER 10: Now, this is what I'm talking about.
SPEAKER 13: Happy birthday.
SPEAKER 10: Made me the whole slab of bacon.
SPEAKER 13: With a little bit of avocado.
SPEAKER 10: Perfect. It's bacon and bacon with avocado.
SPEAKER 13: Well, this is why you're an Iron Chef.
SPEAKER 10: I think what may have happened with the guacamole is maybe it was an accident. One spills into the other next thing, blue cheese guacamole. But trust me, it works. Who would have thought?
SPEAKER 7: I love to be surprised, especially like the time I walked into assault and battery thinking I was going to have some fish and chips. I ended up getting something fried even better. It was a fried candy bar. Totally unexpected and truly one of the best surprises I've ever had. Thought, I've got to tell the world. I've got to tell everybody. A Salt and Battery in New York, they are geniuses. So good, it's so wrong.
When you think about it, frying a candy bar it's already a candy bar. You know what I mean? But it's just right. It was chocolate. Come on, well, you know I'm chocolate. A Salt and Battery is this place that I just kind of ran into one day when I was really looking for the traditional English meal of fried fish and chips with their French fries.
SPEAKER 14: Chips, no French fries.
SPEAKER 7: Whatever he was going to fry, I was going to eat it. So when I saw the candy bar on the menu, I was stupefied. I've never seen anyone fry it before that. It was one of those things that I had to order because it just didn't seem right not to.
SPEAKER 14: Basically, you got an English Mars Bar, which is same as the American Milky Way. And then you're going to flour it.
SPEAKER 7: Smart. Make the batter stick.
SPEAKER 14: Plaster it and then dip it in the flour, dip into the battery again, and then just fry the thing for about three minutes.
SPEAKER 7: What smells so good? They're doing something right over there.
SPEAKER 14: The only secret thing that we have here is our butter recipe. I could tell you the secret, but I'll have to kill you about two seconds later.
SPEAKER 7: Butter is light and crisp and golden. This is how a candy bar should look. Uh, chocolates. You take a bite. It's hard to describe, but it's like heaven. Am I crying? I feel like I'm crying. It's oozy, chocolatey, sweet, crunchy because the nuts are in there. There's no nuts in here. I just imagined that. Just gooey, caramel coming up, yumminess. Couple that with some crunch, and it's warm at the same time. This is amazing.
SPEAKER 9: OK, deep-fried candy bar. Sounds amazing, I'm going to admit it, but now we're going to go to something a little healthier. Have this egg dish that will knock your socks off. I mean, when I first saw this dish, I didn't think it was going be all that, but it was. When I went to DeAngelo's the first time I had this dish, I was just going to get my ordinary breakfast. I didn't expect it to be this wow moment. The eggs rose. This is so unique on its own I've never even seen it anywhere else.
I've had poached eggs. I've had olive bread. I've had artichokes bread. But I've just never had them together, and I've never had them for breakfast.
SPEAKER 15: The inspiration actually we had some extra artichoke spread, so we had to use it up.
SPEAKER 9: I discovered it because I was pregnant and my partner was pregnant at the same time. I took a bite of that, and I went, oh, my God, this is so good. You need to go back inside and get another one to go. Two pregnant women, true story. I mean, we used to get the olive bread there and take it home for dinner because they make phenomenal bread there.
SPEAKER 15: This is not anything that you can teach somebody. You have to feel it.
SPEAKER 9: But when I saw it with this poached egg and this artichoke spread, I saw it in a whole new light.
SPEAKER 15: So first, we take two slices of the Kalamata olives out of bread. Take the artichoke hearts, combine them with the salt, the pepper, and the lemon juice, put them in the robocup, and then slowly add the olive oil to it. We'll spread the artichoke spread on the toast, finish it up with a poached egg or egg whites.
SPEAKER 9: And then the way I get it and some arugula so it's nice and peppery, and that's it. Simple, absolutely out of this world. Oh, it looks good. You're definitely not pretty when you're eating this, but it doesn't matter because it's good. You're ready for this? I'm ready for this. Just-- there's no easy way to eat it. You just dive in.
Get that crunch of the olive bread and that really great saltiness from the artichoke spread. You get that poached egg, which is nice and soft, a little bit of arugula, and put those combinations together, and it is so delicious. Cheers, boys. If it wasn't for you, we would have never discovered the eggs rose. This is definitely the best unexpectedly delicious dishes I've ever had.
SPEAKER 8: It's difficult to be surprised by food. I think being in the business, we are always looking for that surprise, more so I think than your regular consumer. And that's what makes seeking those things out so much fun. It's like go and get like you never know. I'm going to talk about prosciutto ice cream. To you, it may sound weird, but at Humphry Slocombe in San Francisco, Jake knocks it out the park. Pork and ice cream, is it going to work? It's better than works. It's great. The magic of pig, childlike playfulness of ice cream, don't knock it till you try it.
I go to Humphry Slocombe every Sunday with my family. You've got flavors you're never going to see anywhere else. You could get red wine in Coca-Cola, peanut curry. My whole goal in life has always been complete world pork domination. I've always wanted to incorporate pork into every part of life or soap or cookies. So I brought Jake a prosciutto bone and asked him if he could make a prosciutto ice cream for my restaurant. It just seems like a logical pairing. A lot of sweet things do well with pork. He nailed it. It's absolutely dynamite. I guess he liked it so much that he decided to keep it for himself.
SPEAKER 16: These are the prosciutto burns that Chris Corsentino brings me. I roast them to bring out the richness of the fat. I am going to put the roasted bones into the ice cream base. I put this in the fridge for three to five days, depending on the level of pickiness. A lot of the flavor of prosciutto is in the fat, and we add that back into the liquid. And I then pour it in here. It spins really fast, so really cool in about 15 minutes, and we'll have ice cream.
SPEAKER 8: I came for my fix of prosciutto ice cream. Perfect. It's very creamy, and it's smooth. The texture is just so rich. And you're getting that from the fat. Just enough pig, just enough nuttiness. You're building all these natural flavors that are built into this prosciutto, and you're just transporting them right into an ice cream. Sweet, sugary cold porky goodness. It's just perfect. You want to lick? Psych.
SPEAKER 6: So you want to talk about something unexpected? I have one word, liverwurst. I'm talking about liverwurst at The Modern in the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. And I know it sounds crazy. Oh, my God, the thought of liverwurst. This is disgusting. But it truly is spectacular.
I have to be honest with you I might be a little bit skewed because I do love the liverwurst. But the one at The Modern really just catches you off guard. It's not like liverwurst you're thinking about. It's not the liverwurst that comes in a can. It's not the liverwurst that you get in a deli. This is something special. This is a really talented chef putting together something that he really loves.
SPEAKER 17: It took me years to put that together, and I'm very proud of it.
SPEAKER 6: He's taking it beyond the next level. He's taking it to the next universe.
SPEAKER 17: We have he have pork belly and pork butt. It's going to get blanched in hot water for about 10 minutes.
SPEAKER 6: Liver really is just the sausage. It's really just pork and pork liver.
SPEAKER 17: The difference between my liver and the other liverwursts that you have out there is the use of my liver.
SPEAKER 6: I think that's the key to this dish.
SPEAKER 17: So we have a nice creaminess and a sweetness, and we blend everything together. The caramelized onions, so milk, we add the spices in.
SPEAKER 6: There's definitively juniper and clove and nutmeg.
SPEAKER 17: And the couple of other ones that I usually don't tell everybody. We go with them a black trumpet mushrooms. I put into casing.
SPEAKER 6: It's slowly poached until the terrine has been set, and then they slice it, and they take the casing off, and they put it on the plate. It's perfectly emulsified. There's beautiful specks. It's something that you can't get enough of. This redefines what you're imagining liverwurst is. Without question, one of the best things I've ever eaten in my entire life.
SPEAKER 10: I've had lamb meatballs, but I've never had a lamb meatball like this. These are just naturally flavored tender meatballs. They had a surprising taste and, oh, I love surprises. This Greek restaurant rocks the meatball the right way. I'm talking about the grilled lamb meatballs at Evvio in Palo Alto, California. They caught me off guard.
You know what, I'll always get grilled lamb meatballs every time I go to a Mediterranean spot or a Greek spot, and it's always something wrong with like too much spice, not enough spice, too raw, too tough. I love a meatball, that's right, but I love a meatball that's tight. This meatball was tight and right. Whatever they're doing, they're doing something right.
SPEAKER 18: Today, we'll be making Soutzoukakia.
SPEAKER 10: Sukusaka? Sakasuka? Isaka?
SPEAKER 18: Which is translation into small meatball.
SPEAKER 10: Can we just call it-- can we call it a grilled meatball?
SPEAKER 18: So we're going to grind the meat, spring lamb, and the shoulder of beef.
SPEAKER 10: Some grated onions, some parsley.
SPEAKER 18: Dried Greek oregano,
SPEAKER 10: A hint of breadcrumbs
SPEAKER 18: Toasted cumin,
SPEAKER 10: Some mint
SPEAKER 18: Whole egg, Dijon mustard,
SPEAKER 10: A little salt and pepper.
SPEAKER 18: All that is blended together to create our meatball that we grill over open flame and that we finish in our tomato compote sauce.
SPEAKER 10: The sauce just brought it all together.
SPEAKER 18: The sauce on the meatballs complement each other because you get two distinct flavor, the natural flavors of the spring lamb and the beef, which blend well with the smoky sweet of the tomato compote with the green olives.
SPEAKER 10: The moment I stuck my fork through one of those meatballs, I knew that this was the real deal. It surprised me that you can have that much flavor nothing overpower the other one. And then the softness of the meatball. I mean, tender, juicy, succulent, and it melted in my mouth. It was so flavorful that I might have woofed down that plate in meatballs in like three or four minutes tops. So I ordered a second plate, then the third plate, then I had to order a fourth time, four plates. Bathroom.
I wish I had this non-tray. Would it save me embarrassing myself ordering four plates? The meatballs are amazing.
SPEAKER 7: It looks strange. It looks inviting. It's like curiosity on a spoon. And I just had to take a bite. The dish I'm talking about is the glazed eel with pickled bean sprouts and a soft-boiled quail egg at Monday Room which is inside of public restaurant in New York City. That's a mouthful, but it's a tasty mouthful.
So the first time I went to the Monday Room, I looked at the menu, which only had about 12 or 15 items, and each one is just one bite of food. I decided to order pretty much all of it. But what stood out to me was that glazed eel. I didn't even think it was going to be good. I was just going, oh, it's weird for weird sake. It's not weird, for weird sake. It's incredible.
SPEAKER 19: It's eel that's dressed to impress.
SPEAKER 7: It's got like this gas streak, which is a little bit of sour and sweet but together. It's so inspirational. It can cure my recipe writer's block that sometimes comes along. It's certainly not going to be the same flavor combinations. Those are some odd ones, but they are so good.
SPEAKER 19: The ingredients are the eel itself, which is called unagi.
SPEAKER 7: It's like charcoal smoked.
SPEAKER 19: Glazed in a soy sauce, which is sweetened with spices like cinnamon and star anise.
SPEAKER 7: And then there's pickled bean sprouts.
SPEAKER 19: Pickled with cider vinegar, ginger, and a bit of sugar to balance out that acidity.
SPEAKER 7: It's just incredible.
SPEAKER 19: Some cilantro and some Thai basil.
SPEAKER 7: And then the perfectly soft boiled quail egg on top. Mhm.
SPEAKER 19: I cook the quail eggs for exactly 2 minutes and 18 seconds. You might think that's kind of crazy talk, but that's the way I do it. It's sweet, it's sour, it's salty, and it just glides right down. Immediately all the flavors come together. Oh, you are going to want more bites of it.
The thing about totally unexpected flavors in a dish is that only happens once. The first time you have it. And then you want those flavors again and again, and again then you're in trouble. It is the best-unexpected bite of food.
SPEAKER 11: It may be the most unexpected food delight that I've had in the last decade because it was so simple and because it came out of left field. Of course, in the South, someone would fry a black eye pea. It makes complete sense. But I didn't come across that phenomenon until about a year ago at a restaurant called Relish, where they kind of sprung them on me, and it sounded good the second that I heard it, but I actually had no idea how to put it together in my head what that would taste like. But it tasted freaking good.
Relish used to be a funeral home.
SPEAKER 20: People are dying to get in here.
SPEAKER 11: The room that I usually eat in, I think, was where the maybe they had shown off caskets. It wasn't downstairs if you get my drift. One day I go in, and they plop down this mason jar. It has a spoon stuck into what looks like peanuts. Upon closer examination, I see they are actually deep-fried black-eyed peas, and I thought, my gosh, what brilliance. What conceptual brilliance. I could have eaten a quart.
My wife stopped me, but I would have continued to eat them through the night.
SPEAKER 20: We started with a dried black-eyed pea. We let the beans soak overnight. It helps them cook faster and become tender. The following day, we take the beans, and we allow them to cook with one onion, a few cloves of garlic, poblano pepper, and a jalapeno pepper. Once the beans have cooled, we take them out to the fry station.
SPEAKER 11: And in the frying stage, they become more like fried soybeans, almost, so you got this huge crunch.
SPEAKER 20: Toss them a little bit of old bay, then finally into a little mason jar for presentation.
SPEAKER 11: And I was flabbergasted. I did not know what they would feel like, tastes like, and then whiten your teeth got to it kind of collapsed. It reminded me of stomping on an aluminum camp. I left feeling really jealous. I was kind of bitter. Why didn't I come up with that?
SPEAKER 20: I'm jealous of quite a few of his accomplishments, so maybe we're even.
SPEAKER 11: You're awfully good. Wish I had come up with it. And there's something about this contrast, at least the way they do them at Relish, between the crunchy outside and this kind of almost eerie and ethereal interior. It was like a really good peanut turned to a lemon. I would probably be willing to drive an hour just for those fried black-eyed peas. But I'm certain that I would. And I would be willing to bring my own jar because I've got a big one at home like this.