No utensils required! Food Network stars abandon knives and forks and reach for their favorite hand-sized treats.
No utensils required! Food Network stars abandon knives and forks and reach for their favorite hand-sized treats.
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Find episode transcript here: https://the-best-thing-i-ever-ate.simplecast.com/episodes/with-my-hands-ft-guy-fieri-alex-guarnaschelli-and-aaron-sanchez
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 1: But where you can go get it.
SPEAKER 3: The best thing I've ever eaten with my hands. This is real grubbing.
SPEAKER 2: It is heaven. Mmmm.
SPEAKER 1: I'm not kidding you, crazy chicken.
SPEAKER 3: The most messy, wonderful dish you've ever had.
SPEAKER 4: It is the perfect thing to eat with your hands.
SPEAKER 1: Absolutely spectacular.
SPEAKER 2: Here we go.
SPEAKER 1: Well, yeah, I like to eat everything with my hands. I eat salad with my hands. That's weird. I shouldn't have said that. I'm sorry.
You know, when people think of a place like Memphis, I think the first thing they think is Elvis, and then they think of barbecue. And now, they're going to think right off the bat, Uncle Lou's. It's uncle-licious. The chicken at Uncle Lou's, it's spicy, and it's-- oh, it is-- now, I'm not kidding you. --crazy chicken.
SPEAKER 5: Our slogan is, if the Colonel had Uncle Lou's recipe, he'd have been a general.
SPEAKER 1: I'd put out there, no napkin necessary.
[LAUGHING]
SPEAKER 5: It's a two-part dish actually. The original was created by my great grandmother Rosie Gillespie. She fried chicken, and people from miles around came to try her chicken because of the special ingredients that she used. The very, very, very top secret ingredient, smell that. It smells good, doesn't it? And then the second part was my creation with my sauce, sweet, spicy love.
SPEAKER 1: He takes it and makes the sauce. It's everything sauce.
SPEAKER 5: The sweet, spicy love is, basically, four ingredients, red wine vinegar, Louisiana cajun chef hot sauce, a clove of grade-A honey blend, nectar of the gods, honey.
SPEAKER 1: And then he takes the chicken that he fries, and he dunks it in there, the hot, and sweet, and spicy all at the same time.
SPEAKER 5: And then we top it off by using our special all purpose seasoning, corruption.
SPEAKER 1: Corruption. I said, well, why do they call it corruption? He says--
SPEAKER 5: Once you've tasted it, you've been corrupted.
SPEAKER 1: When you get that from a dude about food, that's when it's off the hook. That's the chicken cooked itself in the sauce, nice crunch. You get the vinegar, backs up with the sweetness.
SPEAKER 5: And just a little heat.
SPEAKER 1: Lou and his team, I'll tell you something, they make chicken taste good.
SPEAKER 3: Now's the time for the fun part, the best thing I've ever eaten with my hands. When I think about eating something out of my hands, it's a panzarotti from the panzarotti pizza king in Camden, New Jersey. You cannot miss it.
Life is tough when you try to compare something to eating a panzarotti. Nah, you can't do it. Panzarotti's in a class of its own. You cannot compare it to anything. You know, a lot of people try to get the calzone mixed up with the panzarotti mixed up with a turnover. For me, its got its own description.
SPEAKER 6: A panzarotti is like a pocket of dough. It comes just like this, just cheese and sauce on the inside.
SPEAKER 3: I found out the secret, that there is a company in New Jersey.
SPEAKER 6: What we do there is that's where we make the dough fresh every day, produce the panzarotti's that we distribute to different pizzerias. That's a special recipe that we make our dough with that nobody else can duplicate.
SPEAKER 3: They pack it any way you want It Get it loaded with hot Italian sausage and extra pepperoni, and they put it in the middle. And they seal it.
SPEAKER 6: And then it is deep-fried to a golden brown.
SPEAKER 3: Panzarotti, boo yeah. You've got some new flavors up there, two with pepperoni sausage and burger. How's the hot chicken sausage?
SPEAKER 7: They're just a treat that you got to have in your hands.
SPEAKER 3: Oh my.
[LAUGHING]
I know I'm a big guy in a small car, but this is love.
SPEAKER 1: Your first bite is just a pocket of steam, and you squeeze it.
SPEAKER 3: Squeeze. And then you get into it, like you should. We letting the love out, baby. You crunch down into it, and just watch that cheese and sauces ooze all over your mouth. Ain't no trick cameras, baby. This is real grubbing, and it's just a crispy pocket of love.
SPEAKER 1: When you think about food that you're eating with your hands, it should be fun, and you know, there's something that's just remarkably comforting about a hamburger. When I'm throwing everything out the door and I just want something that's going to be straight up satisfying, fatty goodness in my mouth with my hands, I'm going to White Manor in New Jersey and order those sliders with the works. Fried beef on this flat skillet with a bunch of onions and cheese melted on it, sign me up, give me some of those, let me have it. I'm going to eat it.
What they do is they're taking an American icon, this hamburger, and they're making it into a slider, little, tiny sliders, little, tiny hockey pucks of joy. They're kind of rolled into these little balls, and they just sit one on top of the other in this pan. Very specific technique on how they cook this.
I'll just throw it down, literally, one after the other, and I'll just throw a bunch of them, maybe 15 or 20. And then I'll smack it down. Then he asks you, onions? You say yes. Pickles and ketchup on it? Just say yes.
Just don't do anything. Just keep saying yes, and let them take care of it. It tastes really good. All of the fat from the burger is kind of just residually sitting on this grill, and then the onions are sweating. They're dripping into the fat that's rolling from the burger, and then the cheese sits on top of that.
And then the bread is sitting on top of that, and everything kind of gets all gooey and sloppy. And then, in one sort of quick motion, he scoops everything up, picks up the top bun, flips the hamburger over, and puts it down. It's like an assembly line. It's crazy. It's an amazing thing to watch. It really, really is.
SPEAKER 8: The bad boys are here.
SPEAKER 1: People walk in there and say, hey, I'll take 50.
SPEAKER 8: We sell about 800 on a busy day.
SPEAKER 1: And people know about it. People blog about it. People YouTube about this thing. It's really amazing.
You're fighting yourself. Because you're saying, man, this is not-- I shouldn't be eating this. I'll have another one, and before you know it, you're eight deep. And that's just how it goes at White Manor.
It's, like, cute to eat with your fingers. It's, like, so good. They're little. They're bite sized. They're perfect, three great toppings, unbelievable. It's a combination that you'll never forget.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
SPEAKER 1: You can always tell a great donut by the aroma that precedes it. We all have our favorite donut, and mine is at Budakon in Philadelphia. Why? It's the size and the sauce.
They're little. They're bite sized. They're perfect, and when you dip them in the sauces, it's a combination that you'll never forget.
I've met the pastry chef. She said, do you like my desserts? And I said, I want to marry you. What's the secret? Why are they so light?
SPEAKER 9: It must be all the butter and mixing that goes into the dough. It's a yeast-based dough. It has fresh grated nutmeg. It gives it a great, fragrant flavor and butter, a lot of butter. So you get that nice, full fat flavor.
SPEAKER 1: They have a flavor all their own. Maybe it's the oil they use. Maybe they put them in and take them out at just the right time. I have no idea.
SPEAKER 9: We fry our-- dip some donuts in soybean oil. Now, we're going to toss the donuts in a cinnamon five spice sugar. This is a mixture of cinnamon, ginger, cloves, star anise, and allspice.
SPEAKER 1: These donuts would be perfect without the dipping sauces, but then there it is in front of you. I defy you to take that donut and eat it without dipping it in one of those sauces and having that combination of flavors.
SPEAKER 9: Our sauces are ginger cream cheese, which is crystallized ginger, cream cheese, and butter, housemade blackberry jam, and dark chocolate ganache.
SPEAKER 1: You can't go wrong with either one. This is like dying and going to heaven. As you lay down that night and dream, you'll be thinking of those beautiful, dipping donuts at Budakon.
SPEAKER 10: What I like, when I eat with my hands, it has to be deviled eggs and devils on horseback. Unusual, I know. They're appetizers that you can find at the Spotted Pig in New York City. Absolutely fantastic, and they're so cute to eat with your fingers. It's like, [SMACKING LIPS], done.
One is an egg with a very nice whipped, tangy center. It's a comfort food with a decadence, and the other is a prune wrapped in bacon. Very traditional, very old school English fodder. But the texture, the flavor, they've reinvented the wheel with it to be absolutely honest.
SPEAKER 11: Our deviled eggs are different, because we just keep it simple. We just make them nice, and bright, and fresh.
SPEAKER 10: When you picture the most perfect boiled egg, they've taken all the yolks out.
SPEAKER 12: You want to put your egg yolks into a sieve. This way, we don't have any chunks. I whipped everything up. The next step is to the mayonnaise, maldon salt, some white wine vinegar.
SPEAKER 10: Once it's done, they pipe it in and chill it down, and I think that's the secret being chilled just to the right consistency. Exceptionally good, exceptionally simple, and then they are the devils on horseback.
SPEAKER 11: Our devils on horseback are really special, because we soak the prunes in a little bit of tea and some armagnac. And we stuff it with a pickled pear. We use a really nice, German, smoky bacon.
SPEAKER 10: Until the bacon is nice and crispy and the sugar is, basically, secreted out.
Thank you very much. I'm a little devil.
It looks rich. It looks devilish.
It's so good. The beautiful jammy outside, and then that bacon just makes it all come together. I mean, look at this. The whipped yolk just looks fluffy, and yellow, and against that white flesh of the egg. When you buy into it, it's that texture, that silkiness.
It's so creamy. It's not eggy. There's a tanginess. It just disintegrates on your tongue. Just beautiful, absolutely beautiful. It is the perfect thing to eat with your hands.
SPEAKER 13: There's always a good time to eat a taco. You just can't help, but fall in love with it.
SPEAKER 2: It is a coconut cake heaven.
SPEAKER 13: I love foods that make me think of home, and what gives me joy in life are simple things. And tacos are definitely one of those. There's always a good time to eat a taco. There's never a bad time to eat a taco. My favorite taco, the best taco I've ever eaten, we have to go back home to my place of birth to El Paso, Texas and a local establishment, an institution that's called Chico's Tacos.
When I get out from the airport at El Paso, Texas, I go straight to Chico's Tacos. Chico's Tacos for me is probably the most unattractive dish you'll ever get, but it's the most wonderful thing you'll ever have. This is not a traditional looking taco. Instead of being folded, like the traditional taco, they're actually rolled and fried.
SPEAKER 14: It's a hand-rolled taco that we do on site. We have the tortillas delivered daily fresh and hot right from the tortilla factory. We average between 1,200 and 1,300 dozen daily.
The filling is chopped ground meat with a little bit of onion, a little bit of seasoning. They're lightly fried. Then they're placed in these boats covered with this beautiful sort of watery tomato, chili sauce.
The sauce is a family secret. It's been in our family for 55 years and the cheapest American shredded cheese you've ever seen shredded very thinly. I've never seen this sort of shredding before. It's very thin almost like snow.
On paper, this dish, it's destined for failure. But you eat it, and the combination of all those elements working together make the most messy, wonderful dish you've ever had. You start to pick one up. You start eating it, and you're just, like, taken back to a very, very special place.
Growing up in El Paso, my father took me to Chico's Tacos. I remember, one summer, his girlfriend at the time had a beautiful niece that I was quite infatuated with, and I remember us going to Chico's Tacos. And I was trying to express my feelings for her, and I think she enjoyed the tacos more than she enjoyed me.
You just can't help, but fall in love with it. Because it's how tacos should taste. It just reminds me of home.
SPEAKER 15: The first time I had one, I thought I was in heaven. I think about them. I crave them. I think, I got to go over there and have one of those. Pupusas, P-U-P-U-S-A, pupusa, the name does not do it justice. Because it doesn't sound that appetizing, but they are really delicious. From Sarita's in Grand Central Market in Downtown Los Angeles, they are incredible.
A pupusa is an El Salvadorian street food. It's, basically, a griddled corn cake with a stuffing in it, and it's made out of corn masa. It has cheese inside. It could have beans. It could have pork.
SPEAKER 16: The ingredients inside, you roll it up into a little ball. You flatten it out. You put it in a pan. It's really simple, but yet, it's a really distinctive taste to it. A lot of people think it's a quesadilla. But when they really come to look at it, it's different. It's not the same thing.
SPEAKER 15: You're in the middle of a giant marketplace just where the freshest food is and the food that people care most about.
SPEAKER 16: Everything is fresh.
SPEAKER 15: I'd like to order a pupusa. My favorite is stuffed with cheese and loroco, which is an herb, kind of lemony flavored flour.
SPEAKER 14: It's a special plant. We get our loroco from a supplier shipped directly from Salvador, so that pretty much tells you everything. It's fresh as it could be, and you can't beat that.
SPEAKER 15: The ladies are standing right there making these pupusas for you. You get them right off the griddle. They give them to you with a little bit of tomato sauce and then something called curtido. It's a cabbage. It's salted. It has a little bit of chilies in it.
It's sour and salty, and it's perfect. You eat it with your hands. You open it up, and the crispiness on the outside just kind of cracks open. And inside, there's this gorgeous cheese that oozes out. It's absolutely irresistible, and I'm not sure what kind of cheese they use. But it is so nice.
SPEAKER 17: [SPEAKING SPANISH].
SPEAKER 13: We don't tell anybody. That's what sets us apart from everybody else.
SPEAKER 15: They're so aromatic, and toasty corn, and so gooey inside, and delicious. I think I'm going to need another one of these. It's so good.
SPEAKER 15: It is homemade. You can tell. Coconut touches every bit of the top the way Santa Claus' house is dripping with snow. Your mouth is starting to water.
SPEAKER 2: To make the perfect, comprehensive finger friendly meal, you need the best cupcake. A cupcake is something you find everywhere. It's so chic. It never goes out of style.
It's timeless. It's cutting edge. It reminds us of our childhood, our future, our present. I've had so many cupcakes, and the best one I ever ate is from Jones On Third in Los Angeles. My personal favorite is the chocolate cupcake with a cream cheese frosting, and it has as a secret weapon, coconut.
It is a coconut cake heaven. When I see those coconut cupcakes, I imagine the person lovingly turning the cupcake and just making sure that coconut touches every bit of the top the way Santa Claus' house is dripping with snow in the most perfect way. It is homemade. You can tell.
SPEAKER 18: It's the way my mother made them. It's the way I make them. We use fresh ingredients, and no preservatives, and everything we do is made with love.
SPEAKER 2: She looks like the kind of person who should make your favorite cupcake covered with a perfectly tangy cream cheese frosting.
SPEAKER 18: It's cream cheese, and confectioners sugar, and softened butter, and vanilla. Put it on, until you think it looks wonderful, I guess.
SPEAKER 2: It's important to have just the right ratio of cake, tangy frosting, and coconut. The coconut they use is sweetened. It has, like, a little bit of a crunchiness to it, but it also has a little bit of chewiness. You can almost feel a little bit of the texture of the sugar on top of the coconut. It's almost crunchy, but in a sort of pleasantly sandy way.
SPEAKER 18: I like the coconut to just feel like it wants to jump on into your mouth actually.
SPEAKER 2: You know what? I think I have one. Hello, cupcake. I'm not yet ready to eat it, but I'm peeling, OK.
SPEAKER 18: Alex, I have one question. How can you have so much self-control around a cupcake? Let me show you how to eat a cupcake. Unwrap, unwrap, unwrap, unwrap, off, take the bottom of the cupcake, put it on the top of the cupcake, and make yourself a sandwich. Here we go. I'm speechless.
SPEAKER 19: [MUMBLING]
SPEAKER 1: Mhmm, exactly. I knew you understood.
[LAUGHTER]