- My mom gave birth to me,
and they handed me a banh mi right away.
It's a lifestyle.
The girls that get it, get it.
(intro music splash)
What's up, everyone?
My name is Tway, and welcome to "Making It Big",
the show where I turn your favorite foods giant.
Today, I have my friend Marco in the studio with me,
and I think he has a challenge up his sleeve.
So let's see what he got.
- Hey, Tway.
- What's up?
- Well, I have something underneath here.
You and I have done once before,
but have not, you know, made it big.
I challenge you to make the Mama Dough Banh Mi.
- Ooh, this is the Mama Dough Banh Mi.
It's named after my mom, Mama Dough,
because this is her recipe.
The nem, the cured pork in here is hers.
And it was a collaboration between Open Market
and I, and we fed over how many people?
- [Marco] 250? When we first did it, we were playing around
with two ideas and they were like, that tastes good.
This tastes good.
Let's do this.
You're like, oh my gosh, like I have this recipe.
My mom's let me bring this in,
the pate, the pa-Tway, as we, as we called it
when we first made it, that's a nice little key element.
And we tried it and I was like, this is it.
- And then we birthed the Mama Dough.
- Yeah.
- This sandwich uses your pate.
I'm gonna need a lot of your pate.
- How much?
- Like 10.
- 10 quarts?
- Yeah.
- I'll make it happen.
- Let's get started, I had to change
into this shirt because this is the exclusive
colab tee between Open Market and I,
this is a collage of my mom, had to wear it.
Let's get started on a bread, which I'm really nervous about
because I actually didn't make the bread for the colab.
So, the fact that I have to make a big, giant one?
We're gonna see, I'm gonna start
off by blooming my yeast in water right here.
Give it a little stir.
Let that sit.
10 and a half cups of flour.
And this is only half.
This is so much flour.
And then, and then salt it.
You're gonna have to use a lot of salt.
I'm gonna whisk this up.
And then my starter,
this has been starting since last night.
It's just yeast, flour, and water.
And then add the yeast, I don't specialize
in bread making because that's just not what I do, okay?
I had to take a bread making class in culinary school.
There was one day where I made literally
the most perfect baguette.
I got a perfect score, so.
(sad piano music)
And then after that,
I never got another perfect score, but that's okay.
Really glad that I didn't go to the gym today
because I'm about to get a workout in.
So the dough is getting under my nails
and I'm kind of regretting the decision to have nails.
It's a lifestyle.
The girls that get it, get it.
I was born in Vietnam.
I don't really remember the first time I've had a banh mi.
My mom gave birth to me and they
handed me a banh mi right away, so.
She's looking gorgeous.
Now I'm about to transfer this big boy into this bowl.
Gonna grease it first.
(metal bowl clanging)
Okay, more grease, cover.
And then now we're gonna let our dough baby
take a nap for about 90 minutes.
90 minutes is the perfect nap time.
Don't quote me on that though,
I just saw it on the internet.
And the baby has risen.
Wow.
It grew so much.
This is so much dough.
Okay, I gotta get the air bubbles out,
but I have not made a bread this big.
So I'm really kind of nervous about how this is
going to turn out.
I just don't know, but I am doing my best.
Reminder, this is just half of the banh mi.
All right, so now I'm going to fold it
in the middle, and another rule.
Oh, did you see that?
I'm a bread maker.
And then I'm gonna pinch it together.
I just gotta transfer this into this baking tray.
(dough slapping counter top)
Look at this.
I'm really proud of myself.
I'm gonna spray and then cover it.
And then I'm gonna let this baby
take a nap for about 45 minutes.
So far, so good, because look at this.
I am very, very proud of this.
Now, we gonna make slashes.
I'm not a bread maker, so, don't judge me.
3, 2, 10 slashes, exactly.
Now we go to the oven, in you go
(oven door shutting)
Good luck.
Oh my goodness.
I'm so happy.
Now, one of the component
in the sandwich is pickle daikon and carrots.
Pickle daikon and carrots is a classic Vietnamese pickle.
You will see it literally everywhere.
So, I'm going to salt the veggies first.
Now, salting the veggies for pickling is really important.
So it can release the liquids
and that will make your pickle crunchy.
Give this a toss.
So, the cuts on these veggies are a little bit bigger,
well, a lot bigger than normal, regular
Julian cuts because we're making it to scale.
This is Making It Big, so we're making it big.
I'm gonna throw this in a strainer.
So when the water pulls out from the veggies,
it can just drop to the bottom
of the bowl and it's not sitting in its own juices.
Now we're gonna let this sit for like five minutes
so the water can drain to the bottom of the bowl.
I'm going to rinse this off in the sink
so the veggies aren't too salty.
I'm gonna transfer the veggies into this.
And now I'm gonna make the pickling liquid.
It's just vinegar, hot water.
Now, I like to use hot water because I'm about to
put in some sugar and that's really
going to help dissolve the sugar.
Our sugar right here.
Whoa.
(sugar splashing into water) (laughter)
And then a little bit of salt, whisk this up,
and then I'm just gonna pour it right into the veggies.
And this can sit for 30 minutes,
the longer it sits, the better it is,
cover it, let it sit.
And now this is the star, the cured pork sausage.
This is my mom's recipe.
So it's very special to me.
I never got to make it with her in the kitchen because
she never let me in her kitchen,
but she gave me the recipe, so.
I have some pork.
I have some pork back, pork back fat.
Why can't I say?
I have some boiling water and I'm going to
add some pork back fat in.
While we're waiting for this to cook,
I wanna introduce you guys to my little friend over here.
Her name is a Tiny Tway and
she told me some really interesting facts about banh mis.
Did you know the word banh mi translates to "wheat bread"?
In Vietnam, we literally just used banh mi
as a way to describe bread.
I'm not sure where the wheat bread is coming from
but I'll give Tiny Tway that one.
This is now cooked and I'm going to transfer it onto a tray.
Oh, the smell, can't lie to you,
I will never get used to the smell.
Oh no.
(giggling)
And then we're gonna cool this down to room temperature.
So it's time to put this bad boy together.
So this is the cooled pork back fat.
And I'm going to just add it into my food processor.
(food processor whirring)
Ooh, I like this thing.
This is a ground pork belly.
I'm gonna add it straight into here.
This is actually only a quarter of one batch for one patty.
We are making two patties.
Then I'm gonna move over here to my spices.
I have some water and baking powder.
Gonna mix this up.
This is really going to help tenderize the meat.
Add this right over the top.
I have fish sauce, a little bit of salt.
This is sugar, white pepper.
And then this is pink curing salt.
This is exactly my mom's recipe.
Just, just bigger.
And we pulse.
Come on.
(food processor whirring)
Okay, wait, I gotta, oh no.
Okay, let's try to not break things.
(food processor whirring)
Wow.
Okay, wait, it's really coming together.
I have some shallots here.
I'm gonna add into the mixture.
Some garlic.
(food processor whirring)
This is looking so good.
I think my mom would be proud.
And I am very happy with this mixture.
Let's make this patty.
This is actually 16 pounds of meat right here.
So, let's do it.
And that's only one.
I'm not good at math.
How much is 16 plus 16?
- [Producer] 32.
- 32.
Oh man.
This is so much meat.
I honestly did not know what to expect when
I was challenged to do this.
And I didn't realize how, oh, there's more meat in here.
I just can't wait to see it come together.
So, I'm gonna pop this in the oven
and then I'm gonna start that process all over again
because this is only the first patty.
(grunting)
Okay, 16 pounds of meat in the oven for one hour.
Now we're going to assemble the lemon grass chili oil aioli.
This is my special lemon grass chili oil.
I could literally eat this by the spoonful.
It's so good.
And now I'm going to add all of this mayo.
This is the best mayo, and I'm going to add the whole bottle
of the best mayo to ever exist in the world.
So I'm just going to fold this in.
Look at that color.
Oh, gosh, so for the popup,
I also had to do a big batch of this aioli.
I just feel like I'm reliving that day all over again
but it's cool because it was a really fun day.
(aioli churning)
Now, that's what good aioli sounds like.
This is done now, it's about time,
we get to assemble this sandwich.
I'm so hyped first, we need to cut the bread.
All right.
I have to really make sure that
it's even all the way through.
Three, two, wow, this looks so good.
Smells good.
I'm going to put the pate on the bottom.
A very generous amount.
Pate is very important.
You need to have pate in a banh mi.
If you don't have pate in a banh mi,
I don't know if it's even considered a banh mi, I'm sorry.
So pate, for those that don't know,
it's basically seasoned liver that's blended down into
really nice, mousse like consistency.
We get to lay our meat on this nice bed of pate.
I can't believe this is so much meat.
I'm very happy with the char on this.
This is perfect.
Why are you so perfect?
Now we move on to our aioli,
making sure every single crevice has some aioli.
And then I sprinkle a little bit of crispy shallots on here.
This is coming out better than I thought it would.
I think I'm killing it.
Then I'm going to put pickle daikon and carrots on top
of the meat, we cut up three big English cucumbers for this.
I feel like I'm dealing cards right now.
I hope Marco is gonna like this.
I spent a lot of time on this, so he better.
That looks so cute.
And over here, we have a special herb
called Vietnamese coriander.
This is called rau ram in Vietnamese.
And it's very specific.
It has just a distinct taste and smell
to it that you just can't get it anywhere else.
It doesn't even taste like regular coriander to begin with.
It's kind of liquoricey.
And now I get to crown my sandwich.
3.
2.
1.
That's the sandwich.
(clapping)
This is actually only half of the sandwich.
I have to do another one.
And I'm really excited to see how this is gonna turn out.
Oh my gosh.
I'm a bit overwhelmed right now,
because I knew it was gonna be big, but this is big.
I can't wait to show Marco this
because I don't even think he understands how big this is.
Let's bring him back.
Marco, polo.
- Whoa.
- Made it big.
- Yeah, you did make it big.
And then you made it into one patty?
- Yes.
- Oh my gosh. This is so big.
- But does it look like the Mama Dough?
- It, it does.
It just looks gigantic.
- So now the question is, does it taste like the Mama Dough?
- Oh my gosh.
- This is what you challenged me to do.
This is my execution.
- That is crazy, cheers.
- Cheers.
- I feel like I had to give you space.
There it is.
- That's the Mama Dough sandwich.
- That's the Mama Dough.
- Just gotta go for it.
Oh my gosh.
- Mm, that's good.
This is indeed a Mama Dough.
I mean, if you take a look at it, you hit like all spots.
There's pate on the bottom, you got
your chili oil, bringing the heat,
you got all those pickles, you got the meat.
It's cooked really nicely.
It's really good.
- This has been very motivating
because I really didn't think that I could do it,
but I did it.
- It's like you didn't like start off of being like, okay
I'm gonna make one sandwich bed,
you're like, no, I'm gonna make the
biggest sandwich bed that I could possibly do.
- By looking at this sandwich,
how many pounds of meat do you think this is?
- Ten.
- One patty is actually 16 pounds.
- 16 pounds?
- Well, this has definitely been a journey, but a fun one.
So, thank you for the challenge.
In the comments, let us know what we should make big next.
- Did you use all the pate by the way?
- No, I didn't.
That's for me.
- That's for you? Okay, so it was like
two quarts for this, eight quarts--
- For me.
- For myself, yeah.
(Outro Music Splash)