- Ta-da!
- Oh, wow.
- Is it a chia seed?
- And then the salmon....
- Yeah, your's is.....
- It's like this fruit roll-up salami. Uh-uh.
- Hey, what's up everybody?
It's your girl, Merle.
And like many of you,
I've learned a thing or two
from the many famous chefs we see on TV.
One thing that I've noticed
is that vegan chefs and vegan food
don't always tend to make the cut
on mainstream cooking television shows.
You know, maybe with a little bit of airtime
vegan food can find its way
into the hearts and bellies of people all over the world.
And it is for that reason
we're going to be taking an iconic chef,
and we're going to be vegan-izing their signature dish.
Our focus is going to be on...
(hands drumming)
Wolfgang Puck!
(audience clapping)
Oh yeah. Ever heard of him?
Wolfgang Puck is an Austria born chef
known for his many appearances on TV
and his many restaurants all over the world.
And he's actually widely known as the first celebrity chef.
His catering company has been providing food
for the Academy Awards for the last 26 years.
He's a cancer, just like my mom.
I don't know anything about horoscopes at all.
It's just a fun little detail.
He currently holds two Michelin stars
for both upscale and more casual dining restaurants.
And, with that, it's time to introduce his signature dish,
a smoked salmon pizza
with caviar.
Legend has it, the creation of this dish
revolved around one fateful night
at Spago in the early eighties
when Joan Collins came into his restaurant
and she requested smoked salmon and brioche.
And, as the story goes, they were all out of brioche.
And, so, he took a fresh pizza dough,
he slathered it with some delicious creme fraiche,
topped it with smoked salmon,
and a couple dollops of caviar.
Apparently it was a big hit.
And now it's pretty much one of his most,
well, it is a signature dish.
So my plan of attack for this
is to have a silken tofu based creme fraiche,
carrot smoked salmon, and mustard seed caviar.
Just bear with me.
I think I can get all of the right flavor notes
to come together in a beautiful harmony
and make a vegan version of this
that even Wolfgang would be proud to try.
So, without further ado, let's get into it.
First step, we are going to make our carrot smoked salmon.
You're probably thinking about typing
something like carrot can't be salmon, you wild woman.
I've tried this substitute before.
It brought me mostly positive reviews
from the people that tried it.
Doesn't this look like fish?
(both laughing)
- I kind of wish I didn't see this.
- Listen, carrots are naturally sweet.
And when you marinade them with the right flavors,
they come together and they create this really fantastic
sort of smoky, sweet, salmon-like flavor.
So, the first thing we're going to do
is to salt our carrots.
And these carrots that I've got here
have been scrubbed generously.
Especially if you're not using organic carrots,
you wanna make sure they're quite clean.
Or you can just peel them
and remove that added layer of fear.
And if you're thinking, whoa, Merle, that's a lot of salt.
Don't worry. Carrots are not like a sponge.
It's not like an eggplant. They're more course.
They got more grit to them, so no need to panic.
And now we're just going to bake them for 40 minutes
at 350 degrees Fahrenheit, that's 180 degrees Celsius,
and then we're gonna make our marinade.
So, for starters, we're gonna put in some water,
soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, canola oil, capers,
caper brine, smoked paprika, garlic powder,
and finally some salt.
Now we're just gonna blend this all up
and then we're gonna add in our nori sheets.
So, we really want the capers to break down all the way
before we add in our nori sheets.
And the nori is going to add a little bit more
of that seafood flavor that you would get from salmon,
which is, you know, a fish.
Breaking news. You heard it here first, folks.
All right, now we're gonna blend that up once more.
(blender whirring)
Instead of using plastic bags
we can use a resealable container,
'cause it's glass, and you can wash it,
and use it all the time.
Oh, yeah.
You know, don't think too much about what it looks like.
Just imagine the wonders that it's going to create
when it meets it's carrot counterpart.
I'm gonna set this aside
and we're going to peel our baked carrots.
They look a little pathetic,
but don't hold that against them.
They're about to do very mighty things.
We're gonna peel them.
Be very careful with your peeler, as always,
you know, sharp objects.
And as soon as you peel a little piece of your carrot off,
you can just plop her right in the old marinade,
right in the fish tank.
Although that would be a very dirty fish tank. Oh my God.
Sorry for the visuals. Just ignore me.
I try to peel, like alternate which direction I'm peeling in
so that I get an even peel on the carrot.
And we want these nice thin strips
because that means they're gonna take on the marinade
even better.
They'll have a better texture as well
'cause they won't still have that kind of carrot crunch.
Now we've got our carrots in our marinade.
We're just going to cover these up
and refrigerate them for 24 hours.
Now it is time for us to make our dough.
We're gonna start by adding some flour, water, olive oil,
instant yeast, organic sugar, and, finally, salt.
And we're just going to mix that
until there are no dry spots.
I got mine started with a spatula,
now I'm gonna go in with my hands.
It's a sticky business, working with dough.
All right, that looks good.
So, I'm gonna cover this up
and we're gonna just let it rest for five minutes.
So, now we've let our little dough baby rest,
you sweet, sweet thing.
I'm going to lightly dust my surface here.
I'm gonna put some flour on my hands
to minimize the stickiness.
If you haven't gathered yet,
I don't like working with dough.
But that's not a good attitude to have,
so today I love working with dough.
I do it for Wolfgang and I do it for you.
We're gonna knead this dough
for about two to three minutes.
We're gonna let it incorporate a little more of this flour.
This dough is just like one with my hand now.
Remember when I said lightly dust
and now it's just like, kind of looks like a snowfall.
I'm just gonna drizzle a little bit of olive oil.
Gonna plop our dough baby in there.
And I'm just going to cover this up with some Saran Wrap
and then we're gonna let it rest
for about an hour and a half.
Fun fact, if you want the flavor of your dough
to incorporate even more,
you can let it rest overnight for 24 hours.
I'm gonna go put this in a warm spot to rest
and then we're gonna make our mustard caviar.
Very fancy.
The best words used to describe caviar
would be briny,
umami.
And when you put them in your mouth,
they tend to pop and then the briny water kind of comes out.
I don't know if I'm making it sound good or what,
but, you know, briny.
Kind of like an oyster has like a briny flavor
to it as well.
But their fish eggs, in case you didn't know.
We are using mustard seeds.
Once we get them to kind of boil and simmer for a while,
they're gonna pop, baby.
They're gonna pop, lock, and drop it.
So, I'm gonna add some water, rice wine vinegar,
organic sugar, some salt.
I'm just going to mix that up just a tish.
And we're gonna put our pan on a high heat
and we're gonna just let that come to a boil.
And then we're gonna add in our mustard seeds.
And you just want to keep an eye on them.
We're gonna bring them down to a simmer,
but I've got a little additional water here
so if you see 'em getting thirsty,
hit 'em with a little bit more water.
Ooh, that is vinegary.
We are gonna let these simmer for about 45 minutes.
Then we're gonna go ahead in the meantime
and make our creme fraiche.
We're going to be using silken tofu as our base.
And then I'm gonna add some apple cider vinegar,
some lemon juice, some white pepper, some salt, and sugar.
Now we're gonna blend that all up
until it's nice and silky smooth.
Get it? 'Cause it's silken tofu.
Yeah, okay. Moving on.
(food processor whirring)
Brilliant. Looking nice and smooth.
Then we're gonna add in our shallots and dill.
And, we're just gonna blend this up one more time
until it is nice and smooth and combined.
Remember the dough? Yeah, it's ready.
I wet a washcloth here
and I'm just gonna put it underneath my baking sheet.
And what this will do is keep it from sliding around.
You wanna have a steady surface.
This hack also works for cutting boards
when you're cutting things.
Now I'm just going to lightly dust my baking sheet here.
Wow.This dough looks great.
I'm gonna put a little more flour on my hands
and a little more on my dough.
You know how I do.
We're just gonna use our fingers
and press from the center out like this.
We just wanna form like a 10-inch round of dough.
Process takes a little patience. It's feels nice.
Dough feels good. It's very relaxing.
Oh, my God. Why did I say relaxing?
Stay together. Make peace with one another here.
Oh, my Lord.
You know, it's okay if it's not perfect, that's life.
You wanna push it out into as close to a circle
as you can get it.
But, you know, don't be too hard on yourself.
Then we're going to drizzle
a tablespoon of olive oil over the top.
I'm just gonna brush that out.
That'll help it to crisp up,
get nice and golden brown for us.
And then we're going to sprinkle
some red onion slices over the top,
just about a quarter of a cup.
And this is a trick from our buddy, Wolfgang.
That'll get them nice and crisp for us
before our assembly.
And now we are going to bake this at 500 degrees Fahrenheit,
that's 260 degrees Celsius, yeah,
for about eight minutes.
And then we're gonna let it
broil for a couple more minutes to brown on top.
All of our hard work, all of these moving pieces
are going to come together in a beautiful harmony.
Let's start off by using our creme fraiche.
And we're gonna put about half of that on the pizza.
And we're going to save the other half for dipping,
if you wanna dip the crust in,
or you could use it as a spread for a sandwich or wraps.
Now, I'm going to put on some gloves.
We're gonna need 'em for this next step.
We're gonna take them out
and then we're just gonna kind of like
wring the excess marinade off of them with our fingers.
We just don't want the extra marinade
because it could be overwhelming on the tongue
and we don't wanna shock our taste testers, you know.
It's looking pretty dandy. The carrot salmon really pops.
It looks nice.
Before we go about putting our mustard seed caviar on top,
we're gonna go ahead and cut our pizza into six slices.
And, now that we've got our pizza all sliced up,
it's finally time to put our mustard seed caviar on top.
You can be a little conservative
with the amount that you use.
You don't wanna have like huge heaping spoonfuls everywhere.
I think we're looking pretty good.
And then finally, we're gonna garnish
with some nice finely chopped chives.
(triumphant music)
Before we serve this to our lovely guests
I'm gonna have a taste of it myself.
There's so many different flavors.
The red onion with the crust
adds like a nice little bit of sweetness.
And then we have the kind of smokey, fishy flavor
from the carrot salmon.
And, finally, there's a little bit
of a sort of like briny, vinegary taste from the caviar.
And the pizza is delicious. It has a nice crunch.
There's just like so many sensations going on.
It's like an elevated cream cheese lox bagel.
It's good. Let's bring our taste testers in here.
I'm excited for them to try it. Are you a picky eater?
- Actually, I prefer the term selective.
- Do you trust me?
- Kinda.
- You're like, I don't even know you.
- I don't.
- 3, 2, 1.
- Hello!
So, I'm getting kind of like bacon vibes on top.
- The strips of orange, but they're bacon,
but I'm assuming it's salmon strips.
- Is that supposed to be the salmon? The carrots.
(both laughing)
- Yes. - Okay.
- You can tell those are carrots?
- Yeah.
- Hold on a gosh darn second.
That's what we call in the biz a carrot. Right?
- Yes, it is.
(both laughing)
- I'm a little nervous.
- (Ciel laughing) What is so sour? I don't hate it.
Would I eat it? No.
(both laughing)
But I definitely don't hate it.
- First of all, the creme fraiche,
is absolutely fresh as hell.
Oh my gosh. It makes Subway eat fresh look like disgusting.
- There's a lot of good textures in there.
I feel like you've got the crust
from like the dough of the pizza.
And I'm usually not a fan of like really creamy substances,
but I'm surprised.
- The carrots.
It was exactly the issue that I thought it was gonna be.
'Cause you know, they're long.
I was like, you gotta bite them, you know,
and make sure that they don't get away from you.
That's what I felt like I had to do.
- Does it look like caviar to you?
- Oh, hundred percent.
- The caviar...guess what it's made of?
- Yeah, just try.
- What is it? A little tapioca ball?
(Merle laughing)
Is this Boba?
- That's a really good guess, actually.
- Thank you!
- But, no, it's not.
- Blueberries?
- The world's smallest.
- The world's smallest blueberries. What is this?
- They're little mustard seeds.
- It is very odd.
(both laughing)
But I do like lox bagels. It definitely gives that vibe.
But I don't know about that.
(Ciel laughing)
Like, it's okay.
- If I pictured myself eating caviar,
I'd go, oh, there's gotta be a burst.
And you have the pop.
- You got the pop?
- You get the pop.
(Merle snapping fingers)
- I didn't expect to like it,
one, because I'm a selective eater,
and you impressed me.
- For the pizza, one to 10, what would you rate it?
- A four. Because I like the pizza crust.
- So you wouldn't pay $37 for this pizza?
- No, no.
The more I think about it, the more I'm like....
- You're not interested.
- You can have that back.
- I'll give it a 10.
Would eat again, want to eat again. Is there any more?
- There's a lot more, yes.
- 7.5.
My good friend, Gordon Ramsey,
he likes to judge things off of finesse, flair, and flavor.
The three F's. Definitely has flavor.
The flare is in the presentation.
Like, you've got the fruit roll-ups, everything.
It looks good.
The finesse was basically making a meal that is vegan.
- Hell yeah.
- And healthy. This is good.
(upbeat music)