You know, sometimes.
Damper on. You can still eat healthy
and go out at MGM National Harbor.
Executive chef Anthony Chaplinsky is
here to help us out. Good to have you.
Thank you for having me, Kristen.
That's, I think a misnomer.
Sometimes it's like to eat healthy,
I have to eat in. But you all as chefs,
are providing such healthy and rich options.
Perfectly healthy harvest
salad for the winter. You know,
you can have it anytime of the day.
You can put any protein you want on it,
whether it's chicken, shrimp,
fish, anything like that
complements that salad very well.
So I suggest that if you were
looking for the protein part of it.
Plus, they have the option of the
yeah. OK, can you start making it? Sure.
Absolutely. Smells delicious. Everything is
already created.
We already have the roasted vegetables,
the roasted pear and everything.
What I'm gonna make is a very
quick vinaigrette for the salad,
which is gonna end up
looking somewhat like this.
Nice and creamy. Right?
Now we just want to start with a
little bit of your honey in there,
some mustard, give it a little bit of bite.
All right.
And then acid is always the vinegar, right?
Is that just regular? What kind of vinegar?
This is an apple cider cider. So again,
we're sticking with the harvest theme.
So it's going to be an apple cider.
You could use white vinegar,
you can use red vinegar,
anything like that that
you want to put into it.
Once you mix out a little bit,
get all that combined very well.
Sorry for the splash.
That's alright.
You want to hit it with
a little bit of cinnamon.
Just to give it that fall,
that Harvest festival flavor
and a little bit of sugar for
some sweetness, not too much.
You can always use brown sugar or
or a non refined sugars just as
well if you want to stay healthy.
But then you just mix that very well.
And then the tricky part here is
where everyone kind of messes up.
You get the olive oil part.
Now you can make a vinaigrette very simple,
you can just dump it all in there and mix it,
but then you'll start to see
it break. Always separate,
it always separates.
So if you want to truly emulsify you
just want to keep on stirring right and
just slowly stir it just like that.
You'll start to see it get thick.
And if you have a mixer at home,
it's a heck of a lot faster.
I have to tell you that much.
But if you got time on your hands,
you wanna burn some calories like you
were just rolling on the rolling machine.
You sit here and burn that, OK, alright.
So as you do it and it gets nice and thick
and you start to see that consistency.
Obviously it's going to be a
little bit lighter in color, right.
When you're finished
you can put some sage in there.
Ohh. Alright just mix it
right, just mix it right
in there. You can chop it up,
you can leave it whole.
The salad itself is all whole salad,
whole vegetables.
So you can just roast them up,
right. And then
you toss them into the salad.
So you have your mixed greens
right here. Those are, these are
baby carrots, right? These are
heirloom carrots, come in different
colors, flavors, textures.
You got some parsnips here,
throw a couple in there if you
like a lot. You could put a lot
and here's your roasted pears.
Boom, boom, boom. Which of course
is perfect this time of year right.
Absolutely. I'll take that off for
you. Yeah. Alright then we're gonna
put that here. They just want to
drizzle some of that on there.
I mean easy enough, very simple. Very.
But the key is getting fresh ingredients,
always fresh and you can switch
this for the summer time as well
if you want to find some summer
vegetables, maybe some apple,
some regular apples salad.
Ohh. Yeah absolutely.
Yeah. You guys are
participating in restaurant,
so we have Restaurant Week coming
up next week and that's going to be.
That's why we got a couple
of restaurants on property.
They're gonna be partaking in that and
look forward to seeing everybody there.
And then also, you know,
we also want to talk about costs
a little bit more, right.
So if you can't make it for
Restaurant Week, that's fine.
We'd love to see on Mondays or
Fridays when we have endless pastas.
On Mondays, OK,
come in and you can get any kind of pasta.
We have a Ricardo Mella radius,
which is like a ricotta flavored pasta,
penne pasta and it's all
made fresh on property,
nothing store bought there.
So that's fantastic.
Alright, so Restaurant Week next week,
but if not, come Mondays and. Fridays, yeah.
And then Friday or we have the Tour of Italy.
It's like a lasagna,
chicken parmesan and fettuccine Alfredo,
almost like that other restaurant
speaking my language there, chef.
So you finish this off with
toasted pumpkin seeds.
You get toast them yourself.
Or you could actually find them at the
store and try to grab a couple of them.
They're very salty and savory,
so they're perfect.
And then you just finish off
the salad with some goat cheese,
goat cheese you're always
going to find in a log.
So you just want to take it out of the
package and just crumble it up and
throw it right on top of the salad.
So Assyria Costa is more Italian based,
right? Yeah. So, but Costa is Italian based.
Everything obviously is you got lasagna,
you have some beefs,
then are definitely a lot of pastas, OK.
You do have a calamari, right?
Everybody loves calamari,
have that there as well.
And then linguini and clams.
And then we also have chopina,
which is like a seafood Stew, right.
You have all the seafood in the
ocean put in there with tomatoes,
garlic, white wine, everything.
It's fantastic.
But you're executive chef.
Of Nash, MGM, National Harbor.
So you're overseeing all the all the
rest. So yeah, vultaggio, we have Diablos.
Market, the national market if you
want to come in for a quick bite.
And Zaza's pizza is probably the
best pizza in around and I'll
challenge anybody to that. So yeah.
And then of course we have ginger,
which is our, our famous Asian restaurant,
which everybody loves going to.
It's right there at the front of the casino.
So it's fantastic.
A little bit of something for everybody,
little bit everything. Alright,
so you got Restaurant Week next week,
but in February there's also
National Harbor Restaurant Week.
So, so many great ways for people
to come and really try the cuisine,
come out, try it, come out for those weeks,
come out when it's not going on
for food diary or the restaurant.
Next week, yeah.
Take out the February and make your
food diary so everybody come down
for the whole 28 days of February.
We'd love to see everybody there.
Amazing Chef, thank you so much.
Just smells and looks delicious.
This will be my lunch for
today and I appreciate it.
Thank you again.
You can eat healthy and eat out
during DC Winter Restaurant Week
at MGM National Harbor,
so go check them out.