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(dishes clatter)
- This one is a little bit of all of us,
everything that we all kind of know about each other, and
I wouldn't know any of you
if I didn't work at the Beef.
(dishes clatter)
- What's this one called?
- The Michael.
(dishes clatter)
- [Andrew] Hey, what's up guys?
Welcome back to Binging with Babish.
For this week, to close out "The Bear" trilogy,
we're taking a look at the savory cannoli.
So let's start by getting
the upsetting stuff out of the way,
because first we have to make a meat smoothie.
In order to make the filling,
we're roughly chopping six ounces of mortadella,
placing it in the jar of a high-powered blender,
along with three and a half ounces of whole milk
brought to a bare simmer.
Then we're gonna blend this guy on high speed
for about two minutes, or until smooth.
I think my face says it all.
Next in this method, courtesy of Joe Sasto,
we're placing our meat goo in a small bowl
and placing that small bowl
into a much larger bowl full of ice,
rapidly chilling the mixture to room temperature
whilst we whip our cream.
For that, we're whipping two and a quarter ounces
of cold heavy cream to a whipped cream like consistency.
And then to combine the two,
we're gently folding them together with a rubber spatula,
quickly giving up on that and just using a whisk,
and seasoning with an eighth teaspoon of white pepper
and a few spirited rasps of freshly grated nutmeg.
And we're gonna stick this in the fridge
while we make our Parmesan cheese shell,
which we're gonna make by wrapping a cheese frico
around a rod while it's still hot.
To make the frico,
we're baking 14 grams of freshly grated Parmesan
at 450 degrees Fahrenheit for five to seven minutes.
I'm using a ring mold to make sure
that the cheese melts and spreads evenly.
Then while still piping hot,
we're wrapping it around a wooden dowel,
gently removing after about 15 seconds once solidified.
Now, this looked pretty delicious
but also very full of holes.
This sent me down a bit of a frico rabbit hole,
as the old saying goes, trying different amounts
of different cheeses to give it a more consistent structure.
On a whim, I tried combining 60 grams of Parmesan cheese
with three quarters of a teaspoon of cornstarch,
hoping that this would somehow give me
a more cohesive crisp.
I also wanted to make them smaller,
so I moved down to seven grams of cheese per cheese circle,
baking for a little bit longer, seven to eight minutes,
and was surprised to see that it worked.
The cornstarch helped prevent giant bubbles from forming
in the cheese as it baked, resulting in fewer holes
and a generally more unified cheese frico.
So now we have our Parmesan shell.
Next up we have the mysterious oil
that's drizzled on the plate by Chef Marcus.
It might have just been olive oil, but this seemed
like a good opportunity to introduce an oniony element.
So in a medium saucepan, I'm combining one cup
of room temperature olive oil
with four thinly sliced shallots,
gently bringing up to a bare bubble
and low temperature frying for about 10 minutes
until the shallots
have reached a state of golden browned-ness.
Strain out the oil, drain the shallots on paper towels,
and reserve for wherever else
you might need crispy shalloty goodness,
'cause all we're gonna use in this recipe is the oil
in this chefy squeeze bottle, of course.
Last but not least, it looked like the cannoli
was perched atop a pile of tapenade,
so in the jar of a food processor,
I'm combining one cup of pitted black olives,
three roughly chopped anchovy filets,
two roughly chopped cloves of garlic,
the juice of one half of one particularly juicy lemon,
a pinch of salt,
a few twists of freshly ground black pepper,
and one and a half tablespoons of drained capers.
Now we're gonna pulse this a whole bunch of times,
scraping down the sides of the food processor once or twice
until we have a consistently textured
rough and pebbly tapenade.
Empty out the food processor.
Give it a thorough cleaning,
because next up we have a cup of dry roasted pistachios,
which we're gonna finally process
to make for some tip of the cannoli decoration.
And with that, it's time to plate and serve.
We're starting with a small mound
of our black olive tapenade that's gonna act
as a sort of kickstand for our cannoli.
I've got the mortadella cream in a piping bag,
which I'm gonna use to fill up the cannoli from both sides
before dipping in the pistachios
and perching atop the tapenade.
I sure do like saying that.
Gingerly top that with some salmon roe
for a pop of color and briny, oceanic flavor,
and generously drizzle with shallot infused olive oil.
And there you have it, the heart wrenchingly named Michael,
which would be a pretty convincing fake out
for a real cannoli were it not for the fish eggs on top.
It seems like a fork and knife restaurant,
so I'm gonna crack through the shell using a fork and knife,
fix myself up a bite
with a little bit of everything and dig in.
And it's really, really delicious,
but it's mostly mortadella cream, which is too much.
Don't get me wrong, it's very, very tasty and inventive,
and two out of two Kendall's and Nicos agree,
it's worthy of the clean plate club.
And maybe it's just because I liquefied the meat myself,
but I think this needs a higher
Parmesan shell to meat filling ratio,
so I'm gonna make some teeny tiny four gram fricos,
which I'm going to roll around the shaft
of this severed arrow, something I often describe
as a very, very normal kitchen tool to have.
But since these guys are so small, within 30 seconds,
I was having a hard time forming them.
Luckily, a brief stint back in the oven
softened things right up.
Now, for plating, if we're shooting for a Michelin star,
I think there's more room for ring molds,
so I'm gonna to use one to form a perfect disc of tapenade
to act as a platform for our 'nolis,
which I'm filling, dipping, and stacking pyramid style,
along with the roe and drizzle of infused oil.
And there you have it, bite-sized savory cannoli
as seen from every possible angle.
Let's see how these guys perform.
And at this size, not only does it make
for a lovely amuse-bouche courtesy of the kitchen,
but it's much better ratio
of cheese and crunch to meat and soft.
After all, Michael did say,
the small cans of tomato sauce tasted better.
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