(hand clap)
- Matta, lets-a make-a some-a pasta.
- Itsa time to make-a da pasta, ah?
- I'm in the West Village at Pig Bleecker,
a restaurant that is really known for its barbecue
and its smoked meats and its fried chicken
and its steak.
But I'm here to eat lasagna,
the one thing on this menu that I crave above all others.
(upbeat rock music)
So I've know Matt since he was a chef
at the four New York Times starred Del Posto,
which also had Michelin stars - Indeed.
- I mean-- - It does indeed.
- This is an epic lasagna,
not just because it tastes great,
but because there's so many cultural and you know,
just real New York City influences
embound in it. - Yep.
- And a lot of your history. - Indeed.
- So this lasagna tells your story in many layers.
- It does, in many layers, that was very clever.
So in order to make our duck lasagna
we first have to have, honestly, duck.
The ducks that I like to use here
are Long Island crescent ducks.
We're just gonna start taking our legs and thighs off.
We're gonna make two little cuts.
What I like to do is, I take the legs
and I sort of pop the joints out on both sides,
which makes it easier for me
to find where that oyster meat is gonna be.
And I run my knife right to where that joint is.
In doing so, I get to get all that good oyster meat.
So we're gonna trim these over, here.
And what we're left with is our duck leg and thigh,
just like that.
- So a classic ...
- Classic duck leg, thigh, confit.
This is used is countless preparations
in French cooking, Italian cooking.
Duck, any sort of meat, any sort of protein,
any sort of fruit, vegetable, fish
all needs to be - Hold on a second.
- Oh, I said the wrong words.
I said vegetables. - No, no, those two, what?
Fruit and vegetables?
- What are those? (laughs)
We have to season these duck breasts
before we put them in the oil.
And we're gonna season both the skin and the meat itself.
And then what we're gonna do is we're gonna take
a little bit of our all purpose barbecue seasoning.
- And this is what you would rub your
award-winning whole hogs with?
- We use this on pretty much,
a large majority of our barbecues.
We use this for the whole hog,
we use this for our baby back ribs.
I have some of our pre-rendered,
- Smoked. - smoked
duck fat
that we're just gonna pour over all these duck thighs.
And you wanna make sure that they're completely covered,
because if there's any parts that are exposed, like that,
that's gonna dry out.
So now we have our fat rendered,
it's poured over our duck thighs,
we're gonna now put our duck thighs into the smoker
and in about three to three-and-a-half hours later,
it's gonna be at that texture
where the meat is falling off the bone,
and that's where we wanna be.
So we have our duck smoked, confited,
falling off the bone and ready to go.
So the next thing to do is to take that duck meat,
and put it into a ragout
that's going to be one of the layers of our lasagna.
(upbeat rock music)
So to start this lasagna,
we're gonna take a little zig-zag of bechamel,
a little dollop of grandma's Sunday gravy,
and really all we're doing is laying the platform
for the first sheet of pasta.
(upbeat rock music)
And see there's nice big chunks of duck meat in there?
It hasn't been over-worked
and not falling apart or being shredded,
- It looks like ... - So we get that nice
bite of duck.
You can tell there's duck in this ragout.
- It's meat, you can taste it. - Exactly.
- [Nick] You want that mouth feel.
- [Matt] And it's more meat to sauce.
(upbeat rock music)
With so many layers here, less is more.
So we don't wanna go too heavy on the fillings.
- [Nick] So you're doing kind of a Jackson Pollock kind of
distribution, right? - Exactly, yeah.
Puttin' our artisanal on right here.
- [Nick] Well, we're in the West Village,
I mean, how appropriate.
- Why not, right?
(slow rock music)
Ready to go sear some off and make a finished dish?
- I'm ready to go eat it.
- My man. - If we could go do that first
let's do it.
- Let's go make it happen.
(upbeat rock music)
- Okay, well here we are.
The moment I have been waiting for.
It's such a long, arduous, convoluted process,
but as you're about to find out through my seed words,
it's worth it.
This dish is complex and at the same time,
incredibly humble and familiar and warming and rewarding,
and all of those things.
But at its height, it really is
all of these great culinary influences
coming together in one incredible dish.
The challenge I always find is,
where do I actually approach this from?
Like, you have to have the right entry point,
'cause you don't want the whole thing to fall apart
like a stack of dominoes.
I'm gonna go for a nice diagonal cut here.
(utensils clanking)
Look at that (gurgles).
The aroma coming off that
is like every Italian grandmother's kitchen.
You can smell the char, it's interesting.
It definitely adds a component to it.
(soft rock music)
Mmm. (knife clanks)
The complexity of the process is so apparent,
and the flavoring.
There's so many layers of texture, first of all,
'cause you get that crunch from the exterior,
and then the pasta has kind of a gentle chew to it.
But then the bechamel itself,
it just sort of coats your mouth in this sort of viscosity,
and then you get the tang from the cheese
and the bread crumbs has a nice little bite to it.
Then the flavor of the duck comes on
and it's like the perfect rendition of duck.
It's got some smokiness, but it's not over-smoked.
But most of all, it's got like a real bite to it.
It really does feel like meat.
That isn't lost in there.
You know, a lot of lasagnas,
when they sort of render down the beef, or whatever,
down to mere pebbles,
that is not this.
This has recognizable chunks of duck.
The thing about this dish is that it's so evocative of
so many Italian dishes that I've had before,
whether it's lasagna, or these baked pastas,
at the same time, it's very new
because the element of smokiness in it and the duck
sort of satisfies both my yearning for nostalgia,
and also my longing for something new.
This is the dish that I crave above all others
on this menu.
And I think it's something to do with the fact
that it really does have a familiarity,
because it's a lasagna, and who doesn't love lasagna?
At the same time, it's really bringing in
this great smoked duck element.
And I love duck, it's my favorite poultry.
And I love food that tells stories,
and I think this story,
especially when you hear it from Matt,
like all of the disparate elements
in his really diverse and interesting culinary life,
you know really,
you can taste that range of experience on the plate.
I recommend that you get down here.
Try all of the great meats on this menu,
but do not skip the duck lasagna,
'cause I think you're gonna get as addicted as I am to it.
Thanks very much for watching.
We'll see you on the next episode of the Meat Show.
(dramatic whoosh)