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- I made 'em extra sloppy for yas.
(lunch lady laughing)
I know how yous kids like 'em sloppy.
(lunch lady laughing)
- Lady you're scaring us.
(kids laughing)
- Hey, what's up guys.
Welcome back to Binging with Babish where this week
as you can see, I have the correct walk-on shot.
Indicating that this week we are making sloppy joes.
As you can see, this is a three ingredient recipe.
One pound ground beef, burger buns, and Manwich,
which I think legally speaking also makes this
a "Futurama" episode.
Do I get points for that?
I don't know.
Anyway, let's get started on our extra sloppy, sloppy joes.
We're starting by browning our ground chuck
in a large saute pan over medium high heat
until it has reached the classic brown on the outside,
no longer pink in the middle state of matter.
Add our can o' Manwich.
Mix around and cook together for about a minute,
pile high on a bun, and that's all there is to it.
I'll see you guys next week.
(upbeat music)
Yeah, yeah, I'm just screwin' around, sorry.
Of course next up
we're gonna make everything from scratch.
Starting with our own potato rolls from this recipe
courtesy of King Arthur Flour.
In the bowl of a stand mixer
we are combining 360 grams of all purpose flour,
45 grams potato flour, 28 grams dry non-fat milk,
two tablespoons of sugar,
and two teaspoons instant dry yeast.
Tiny whisk those to combine,
and then we're adding a teaspoon and a half of kosher salt,
230 milliliters lukewarm water,
and 60 grams unsalted room temperature butter.
Affix dough hooks and let it knead everything together
on medium, low speed until it forms a cohesive dough.
Which we're then going to allow it to knead on medium speed
for five to seven minutes until smooth,
and elastic, and supple.
Then this guy's headed into a lightly greased bowl
where it shall rest undercover of plastic wrap
for just about one hour, or until roughly doubled in size.
This is going to depend of course
on the temperature in your kitchen.
Once it's just about doubled.
You want to show the audience, Andy?
There you go.
We're going to divide it into six equal pieces
for which a greasy scale comes in handy.
Weigh the whole thing, divide that number by six,
and divide into six portions
making sure that each weighs the same amount.
This of course will result
in six perfectly evenly sized balls.
Which we're gonna stretch until their tops are taught
before placing on a lightly greased,
parchment paper lined, quarter sized rimmed baking sheet.
Lightly grease their tops, lightly grease some plastic wrap,
and loosely cover and allow to rise at room temperature
until once again, doubled in size.
Then, after we've very carefully removed the plastic wrap.
Careful.
These guys are headed into a 350 degree Fahrenheit
or 175 degrees Celsius oven for 15 to 20 minutes
until deeply browned and looking ready to drink up
some melted butter which we're gonna brush their tops with.
Then we're allowing these guys to cool completely
on a wire rack, at least two hours.
During which time we can start messing with our meat.
"America's Test Kitchen" has a great tip
where they combine half a teaspoon of baking soda
with a little bit of water,
and add it to our one pound of store bought ground beef.
Along with a teaspoon of kosher salt,
mixing by hand to combine.
This alters the pH balance of the beef
which apparently helps it stay moist during cooking.
Let that hang out for 10 minutes at room temperature
while we prep our veggies.
One half cup each red bell pepper, green bell pepper,
and white onion.
Also, this is totally optional.
I like to mince up two thick slices of bacon
which has the obvious benefit of bringing bacon flavor
to our sloppy joes.
Start the bacon bits out in a cold pan,
this helps their fat render out more easily without burning,
and cook for about five minutes over medium heat
until crisp and most of the fat has rendered out.
Then we're gonna pour off all but about
two tablespoons worth of that bacon fat,
and into it we're gonna dump our onion,
letting it sweat for a couple of minutes over medium heat,
scraping up all that good stuff
off of the bottom of the pot.
Then adding our red and green bell pepper
and really cooking these guys thoroughly,
like four or five minutes over medium heat.
I want them caramelized and soft.
Then we're scootin' 'em out to the outside rim of the pan
so we can drop in our beef,
giving it direct contact with the bottom of the pan
is gonna help it brown rather than steam.
But eventually we're gonna have to mix everybody up
and cook everybody together.
Then once the beef is still just a little pink,
we're gonna crush in two cloves of garlic,
add a tablespoon of chili powder,
and two to three tablespoons of tomato paste,
mixing these in and allowing the tomato paste
to cook a little bit the same way that we would
with like a red sauce.
Then we've got a whole bunch of fat swimmin' around
so we're gonna add about a half a tablespoon of flour.
This is both gonna thicken our eventual sauce
and help emulsify the fat into the sauce.
Speaking of which, here comes an eight ounce can
of tomato sauce, a quarter cup of ketchup,
and about a tablespoon of Westchester sauce,
an optional teaspoon of paprika,
an optional half a teaspoon of mustard powder.
Toss our crispy bacon bits back into the bathtub,
and why not, a tablespoon of red wine vinegar.
And I know the ingredients
are starting to really add up here,
but I like a teaspoon of chicken boullion,
and a tablespoon and a half of brown sugar.
Then I swear, we're all done.
Except of course, for some kosher salt
and freshly ground black pepper.
Then, all there is left to do is simmer it
for about 10 minutes, divide in half,
and toast and butter our homemade potato rolls.
I like doin' this because it prevents the bun
from absolutely dissolving the way they so often do
in a sloppy joe context.
Pile it high, top it up, and there you go.
I know it's a lot more complex
than your average sloppy joe recipe,
but it's also a lot better.
You've got some lovely barbecue flavors here,
some playful rivalry between sweet, and sour, and savory.
And of course a whole bunch of still crispy bacon.
And it's a member of the clean plate club, sort of.
But how can we take the sloppy joe formula
and turn it really bat (beep) crazy?
For that, I think we need to deconstruct a sloppy joe.
I'm starting by making some confit cherry tomatoes.
Arranging some still on the vine cherry tomatoes
with a few cloves of garlic,
a couple sprigs of fresh rosemary,
and covering everything with a whole lot of olive oil.
I want everybody submerged.
Then this guy's headed into a 275 degrees Fahrenheit
or a 135 degrees Celsius oven for one and one half hours,
until the tomatoes have burst and caramelized,
and the garlic is a pleasant nutty brown, and deeply soft.
Oops sorry, there was also bay leaf in there,
I forgot about that.
These guys are all headed onto a non-stick wire rack
to drain while we prepare our other elements.
These tomatoes are gonna cover our bright
and acidic flavors,
but we still need a deeply rich and savory sauce.
So in a large saucepan, I'm combining half a cup
each flour and vegetable oil,
and cooking over medium heat for 20 to 30 minutes
to make a Creole style--
Creole cuisine take four.
- Cajun.
(clapping hands)
- This is Creole cuisine take five. (clapping hands)
- Cajun.
- [Andrew] Creole food, take six.
(clapping hands)
- [Isaac] Cajun.
- [Andrew] Oop sorry Isaac, Cajun style roux.
Once it is the color of dark chocolate,
I'm gonna start by removing about half
'cause I made too much.
And whereas Cajun gumbo would now add the holy trinity
of bell peppers, celery, and onion,
I'm going to add red and green bell peppers with onion.
If you couldn't tell before, I'm just making this up
as I go along.
I'm gonna saute those in the hot roux for about 10 minutes
until deeply soft and caramelized,
add a couple of tablespoons of tomato paste,
and let that saute for about a minute.
And then slowly add one cup of homemade beef stock.
My idea here was to sort of make
a Cajun style sauce Espanol,
a sentence that I'm pretty sure
has never even been said accidentally.
After cooking this together for about five minutes
I'm gonna bring back some of the sloppy joe flavors,
tablespoon of red wine vinegar,
two tablespoons brown sugar,
one teaspoon each chili powder and paprika,
half teaspoon of mustard powder.
And what the hell, a couple of tablespoons of ketchup.
What resulted is an actually pretty genuinely
delicious sauce that straddles the line
between barbecue sauce and gumbo.
I fully intended to just strain out the sauce
but then I tasted the vegetables
and they turned out to be the star of the show.
While that cools,
we have to deal with the bun factor of this equation.
What I'm doing here is a technique that I learned
from one of my favorite restaurants.
I have frozen one of our burger buns rock solid
and I'm using a deli slicer to make paper thin slices.
Granted, they used to do this with baguettes
and not burger buns, but whatever.
I'm then arranging these slices on a quarter sheet,
brushing them down with olive oil on both sides,
and then weighing them down with yet another quarter sheet
brushed down with olive oil.
This prevents the crisps from curling
while they're baked, which we're gonna do for 10 minutes
in a 375 degree Fahrenheit, 190 degrees Celsius
convection oven for about 10 minutes
until we've got ourselves some lightly browned,
wafer thin little doilies,
that I'm gonna go ahead and call burger bun crostini.
Go ahead and set those aside to cool
because we've got one more element to tackle, the beef.
And what is the fussiest,
most Gastronomique version of ground beef?
That's right, tartar.
So I'm hacking off about a hundred grams
worth of the finest filet mignon
that I can get my hands on,
and on a sanitized cutting surface
removing any connective tissue
and chopping it finely into our quote unquote ground beef.
Which I'm now gonna mix with one of our
confit garlic cloves, chopped and mashed,
a few tablespoons of our Cajun gumbo barbecue
sloppy joe sauce, and some of those sauteed vegetables,
everything cooled completely of course.
Mix to combine, seasoning gently with kosher salt
and freshly ground pepper.
And with that we're ready to plate up
on a chilled piece of slate.
I'm dropping the beef into a three-inch ring mold,
tamping it down evenly with a spoon,
and gently removing the mold
to reveal our haute cuisine beef puck.
I probably could've made that sound more appetizing.
Then I'm topping this guy up with five
of our still on the vine confit cherry tomatoes,
flaking with our burger bun crostini,
posing really quick for the thumbnail.
And there you have it, our deconstructed sloppy joe.
But how does it taste?
And I know I'm biased because this is my creation
but I gotta say, I actually really like it.
The burger bun crostini are marvelously delicate and crisp.
The beef is rich and hyper savory
from gettin' the Cajun treatment,
and the tomatoes offer a bright, vibrant contrast.
But how does it stand up to the other versions?
Well, as evidenced by this shot, we enjoyed all three.
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(upbeat music)