(upbeat music)
- Hey guys.
I have my friend's sick apartment for the summer,
so I feel it's only right to throw a party.
I just picked up a bunch of groceries all for $30.
Let's get it started.
Now, everything that we're making today all costs $30,
so it's cheap,
and everything that we're making is super-easy,
because I like cooking,
but I want to hang out with my friends,
so this way we can get everything done really fast,
and then we can party.
So, let's start with our kebabs.
Today we're using Oscar Mayer pork franks
and pineapple,
and we're gonna use a little bit of
orange bell pepper, because it makes it pop,
and color's important.
You want to make sure
that everything you're adding to your kebab
is roughly the same thickness;
that way, everything cooks evenly.
Today we're using franks, and we're also using pineapple,
and they really don't need that much time on the grill,
so we're just gonna get some char on them,
and they'll be good to go.
Kebabs are a really great way to stretch your ingredients.
And as you can see,
this is definitely enough food for four people,
so we're good.
We can't leave our kebabs naked like that --
we need a sauce.
We're gonna make a salsa verde,
and we're gonna use charred scallions.
So I'm gonna brush my scallions
with a little bit of olive oil,
and we're gonna gill those guys too.
Let's get these guys on the grill,
and then finish our kebabs.
Let's brush our kebabs with a little bit of olive oil.
We're adding oil so they don't stick to our grill,
and also we're adding oil
so that the fruit and the vegetables don't dry up.
After they're all lubed up,
we're gonna season them with salt and pepper.
I believe in a very thorough seasoning of kebabs.
All right, let's grill these little guys.
Let's pull these scallions, they have a nice char on them.
Our kebabs are finished, our scallions are charred:
Let's go make our salsa verde.
For our salsa verde, we are gonna add our charred scallions
into the blender, some fresh cilantro,
two cloves of garlic, white wine vinegar,
to give it a lot of brightness.
It needs a lot of acidity to really stand out in flavor.
Some salt and pepper, and you want to season to taste,
so we're gonna blitz this up a little bit first
before we add the oil,
and then we're gonna let that go on low, pop the top,
and slowly stream in our olive oil.
We're gonna scrape down the sides a little bit.
It needs a little bit more salt.
Blitz it up again.
That tastes delicious.
We're gonna pour it in our ramekin.
So there you have it.
Our kebabs are complete, but our menu is not.
Now these kebabs are really meaty and salty,
and we want to balance that out
with something a little bit brighter,
so we're gonna make a rainbow noodle salad,
and we're also gonna grill some watermelon.
And what summer kickoff party is complete
without a nice fruity cocktail?
So let's get started on our rainbow noodle salad.
It's super-simple. We'll start with our dressing.
So we have soy sauce,
and I'm gonna add some rice wine vinegar,
some brown sugar for a bit of sweetness,
start mixing this up.
We're gonna add lime juice, lime zest --
stretch that lime for every little bit we can.
And we want to whisk it until our brown sugar is dissolved.
We're gonna add canola oil,
some sesame oil,
and just mix that up and set it aside to build our salad.
So we're using vermicelli noodles.
They are made of rice, they are delicious,
the texture's awesome, and they cook in about three minutes.
We're gonna add some cabbage,
some carrot,
some diced jalapeño, some scallion whites,
fresh cilantro, and fresh mint.
That's nice!
Now this salad will be delicious just as is,
but we're gonna add our sesame dressing
to take it over the top.
You don't want to add it all at first,
so we're gonna start with a little bit,
mix it around, keep going, until you get the perfect
amount of dressing.
We're gonna garnish with a little bit of cilantro,
we have some chopped mint and scallion greens.
So that's it: Our rainbow noodle salad is all done,
and now let's grill some watermelon.
We're gonna take some olive oil,
and we're gonna brush our beautiful summertime watermelons,
so that they don't stick to the grill.
And we're using watermelon because it's summertime,
but you can grill any kind of fruit.
Grilled fruit is delicious fruit.
OK, and that's it -- our watermelon's ready for the grill.
And these don't have to grill for very long,
so we want to keep an eye on them.
So when our watermelon is finished,
we're going to hit it with a little bit of lime salt,
and lime juice.
And I'm gonna use the zest of one lime into some sea salt.
And you just want to get the green
whenever you're grating any citrus,
because the white part, the pith, is kind of bitter,
so we just want to make sure that we use the green.
Salt is done.
OK, our watermelon looks ready,
let's take it off the grill.
One last step, we're gonna dip each one
into our lime salt, just like that.
And that is the very last dish that we just finished,
right before our guests arrive.
So all of our food is finished,
but it would be a crime for me to invite my pals over here
and not serve a little bit of booze, right?
So, what we did was we really stretched
all the ingredients that we bought.
We used the leftover watermelon we had,
we used the leftover pineapple we had,
and we blended everything up
with a little white rum and sugar and mint.
So we basically made a watermelon pineapple mojito.
And it's pretty strong.
- Oh, hey, Lee! - Hi, friends!
How you doing?
- Good. - What do you have there?
- Here's what we've got going on today.
We have some pork, frank and pineapple grilled kebabs,
and that's a little salsa verde
we've got going on the side,
which we made with charred scallions -- very delicious.
We have some grilled watermelon,
and then we have a rainbow noodle salad over there,
and that guy in the pitcher is a
watermelon pineapple mojito.
So you guys, eat up, all right?
- Mmmm! - They're so good.
- Now, what kind of hot dogs are these, exactly?
'Cause I'm very particular.
- Well, Wil, we only use the finest hot dogs
here at Thrillist, so I'm using Oscar Mayer.
- Hot dogs are literally my favorite food.
- Here's a question, Lee.
As a chef, do you think a hot dog, when it's in a bun,
is a sandwich or not?
- I do not think it's a sandwich.
I've been asked this many times before.
I think it's a hot dog: It's its own thing.
If you were to put a hot dog and other things
inside of like a hoagie roll, I would call that a sandwich.
I think it's the bun that makes the difference.
- [Wil] Hm, I'm gonna have to disagree with you hard there.
- Oh boy, this is why I love having you guys over.
(laughing)
- [Wil] Serious weiner debates.
- [Lee] Yeah, fierce weiner debates.
- This watermelon is so good.
- It's great, right?
A little bit of salt, a little bit of lime.
- The recipes were so easy,
I was stunned that the watermelon
was just like salt, lime, watermelon on a grill.
- So you guys, I tried to make something
that wasn't too involved.
I wanted to grill, but I wanted it to be really simple,
so do you think you could make this at home?
Is this something you could do?
- Yeah, totally.
I don't know if it would be as good as yours, but--
- Sylvie!
- See, I'm not much of a cook, to be honest,
but it did seem pretty easy to make.
The ingredients were super-simple.
I loved that watermelon mojito.
Super-refreshing, great for a summer afternoon, I think.
- So there you have it.
Very cool friends,
very delicious food, all for $30.
So happy grilling, and happy summer, guys.
- Yeah! - Cheers!
- Cheers! - Cheers!