- Let's get it you guys.
I'm Calvin Eng, I'm the CDC at
Win Son in Brooklyn.
Today, Inga challenged me to do a
dollar store challenge.
To use ingredients from Daiso,
this Japanese dollar store
in an attempt to make a two-course meal,
one entree and one dessert.
Let's go.
Finally made it out here to Diaso
out in Flushing.
Now we're just gonna look around for some stuff.
They got a lot of fun [Bleep] Around.
They have some pretty sick plates here
for a dollar store.
Dude, this is like straight food section now.
Literally surrounded by food all over.
Ooh, it's like noodle snacks.
Yaki soba flavored, aka MSG.
Usable.
I love Pocky.
I've probably eaten all of these flavors.
This could be for dessert.
Ramen crunch, hell yeah.
Hot and spicy, I'm down.
I got this as marshmallow.
It's a sponge.
Ooh, wasabi peas.
Not wasabi flavored, but still delicious.
We'll definitely use some chocolate.
Let's definitely get some protein up in here
for the entree.
Grilled, dried yellow jack.
All right, wanna go seafood?
- [Inga] Sure.
- And then she got rice and stuff.
We could probably do a rice or noodle dish.
Yeah, let's do a curry noodle,
I think I'm gonna grab an Udon
because their so good.
I've actually never used these curries before,
but people rave about these things.
All right, how hot?
- [Inga] I like it really spicy but...
- You got it.
Get some Furikake.
I'll probably jazz it up with a bunch of
other snacks.
It's like a seaweed base seasoning
with sesame seeds and a bunch of other stuff.
I love seaweed snacks.
I think I'll blitz this up
and that'll be a good little seasoning mix.
Put a little chili drizzle on top.
Let's grab the soy sauce.
All right, so I think we have the entree covered.
And now let's go back to thinking about dessert.
I love red bean stuff.
Get some of this, baked wheat cake pastry roll.
I feel like I can do something with this.
Maybe I can soak this.
Let's see what drinks they have.
Ooh, all right. I got it.
A little bread pudding type dessert.
With milk. Yeah.
'cause we don't have milk.
Take one of these.
Take a coffee shot.
Milk tea and coffee together is not good,
let's just do both.
I used to love this stuff when I was little.
We could use just like the frosting part of it.
I say I think we're pretty set.
Yeah.
Now we're back here at the BuzzFeed kitchens,
and I'm just gonna do a little recap
and kinda what my plan is and my idea.
I'm sure it'll change as I go.
I kinda separated it out into two sections
this side will be dessert
and this side will be the entree.
I'm trying to do like a little
coffee, milk tea, bread pudding.
And on this side,
we are gonna do a curry udon
with some peas, some jerky
and I'll whip up a little seasoning mix.
Should be good.
I'll probably start with doing
the dessert first.
Have some time to cook in the oven.
I have faith.
Diaso never disappoints.
This is the baked wheat coffee cake.
Let's see what it tastes like.
It's okay.
A little dry.
We'll make it work.
Now this red bean thing has to be good.
It's literally like pancake.
With like a sweet read bean filling.
Ooh, this is actually really good.
The coffee cake's more neutral
so might actually work really well.
I brought my every day knife
just 'cause
I'm used to using it.
I'm familiar with it.
It's like weird using it cutting sponge cake
but gets the job done. It gets everything done.
I'm just gonna whip up
a little batter.
We didn't get eggs at Diaso
but everyone has eggs at home, right?
You should try these coffee drinks too.
Ooh, that's sweet.
It's good though.
Add a little bit of this.
(sound effect)
This coffee shot I think should just
unsweetened, straight, black
cut that sweetness from the other one.
This is the milk tea.
Tastes like the [Bleep] I drank growing up
in like, Chinatown bakeries.
This will be nice.
More of that.
I wing everything.
That's what cooking is about.
Just wing it, taste it,
use all your senses and see how it goes.
Get these bad boys in.
I'm just gonna soak it up a bit
before I chuck it in the oven.
You want it to be a little custardy.
A little butter is a staple.
Butter makes everything better.
Get it all up on the sides.
I mean I love butter.
It's basically french toast chopped up.
In a pan.
Usually I would add like milk,
half and half or cream
or something, but
milk tea counts.
It's flavored milk.
Even better.
You could add a little chocolate to it.
Ooh, cut them in half so they can melt.
About 15-20 minutes, 350.
We'll check it at seventeen, see where we're at.
While we wait for the bread pudding to cook,
we'll work on the curry udon.
I think I'm gonna do a soft
soy marinade egg for that one,
so I'm gonna get the eggs cooking for that.
Crank this thing up.
[Beeping]
I'm only gonna put one on the dish,
but I'll cook another in case it cracks
or you get hungry.
I like seven minute eggs.
A little jammier.
And then I'll see what I'm working with,
with this curry.
I've never used this before,
but you said it's good so I trust you.
- [Inga] Yeah.
- You picked extra hot, too.
It smells really good.
I want to definitely rehydrate the dried seafood
that we got.
This is legit just like whole dried little fishies.
Dude, that shit's pretty tatsy.
You don't have to rehydrate that one.
It's not even that chewy.
This is the dried filefish.
This one's chewy.
I'm just gonna cut this up into strips
and then soak it up.
(cutting)
This one looks weird.
Ooh, three different textures.
This is crunchy.
This'll be nice for like the top maybe.
All right, so I'm definitely rehydrate this,
might as well just throw these bad boys in too.
Cool.
And then I'll probably use the liquid as well,
help build the curry sauce later.
This I'll reserve in another bowl.
Got that all sorted out.
We said we were gonna do our own version
of furikake.
You wouldn't throw that on anything.
This one's kinda citrusy too, it's nice.
And these were the crispy noodles snacks.
They're just like broken ramen packets.
Delicious.
A little bit of that.
Hot and spicy corn snack.
That'll be good.
All right, eggs are done.
Let this hang out.
We'll blitz this up,
and make our own little mix for the top.
Give it a taste.
Yep, we make it.
Full snack powder.
So we got that mise en place out.
Let's see what we're working with
with these noodles.
These are pretty much fully cooked.
All we're doing is reheating these later.
Eggs are out.
Gonna peel these up, get them in a little
soy sugar mixture.
By the time the sauce and noodles are done
these'll be perfectly marinated.
I think we need another.
This one's busted.
Proper preparation prevents poor performance.
(whistle)
That's the bottle.
Nice, some sug...
Cool.
Let this hang out here as well.
The third thing we got
besides butter and eggs
are scallions.
So I'm gonna utilize the greens for the garnish
later and the white parts,
gonna treat these as onions.
By the time we finish this
the bread pudding should be ready
to come out the oven.
This is just canola oil.
I also decided I'm gonna add these dried vegetables.
Gonna rehydrate these a little bit in the pan.
This is the packets that came with the udon.
We're gonna throw the peas in there as well.
As they are vegetables.
Hot enough.
(sizzling)
Get these packets opened up.
More scallions.
See if you don't wanna cheat,
just use the packets then.
I like more scallions.
Add this block.
Melt this down.
Add some peas.
To help me I'm gonna add all the liquid
from re-hydrating this fish to add flavor.
Help build the sauce better.
Let it reduce.
Let it thicken a little bit.
Taste it, re-season if we need to.
Add a little more salt.
(high pitched tone)
Ooh.
Cut the heat.
Add some butter.
Mulsify that in.
(unintelligible)
One last taste, hopefully.
It's pretty nice.
It's not even that hot.
Nice.
Ooh, looks and smells pretty good.
Let this rest.
Finish absorbing all the liquid.
It should still be really custardy.
These noodles are cooked, so they shouldn't take
more than 2-3 minutes in the water.
A little oil.
Got our sauce that we made.
Pretty intense in flavor.
A little bit should go a long way.
A little bit of the udon water,
help bring this together.
(sizzling)
And then we'll taste it.
Maybe use a little more seasoning,
use a little more
of the curry.
One last taste.
Ooh.
Plate this up.
Cut that soy egg that we did earlier.
Just hang out here.
A couple of these wasabi seaweeds.
A little bit on top.
A little heat
from this chili oil.
Fish crunchies.
And then our seasoning mix,
just a little bit on top,
over these eggies.
Scallion tops.
The main entree is finished.
It's the squid, fish, veggie, curry situation.
Now we're just gonna finish up this dessert
real quick.
I'm just chopping up some of the
random Pocky sticks we bought.
Throw those all over here for some texture.
He needs a little more pink.
Maybe a little strawberry.
Haven't had these in so long.
(chopping)
Cool.
I did say I wanted to use this frosting,
a couple dabs.
There she is.
- [Inga] Oh, smells so good.
- [Woman] This legitimately looks like
gourmet restaurant food.
- It's so good.
- It's a lot of different dried concentrated fish,
but you don't really taste it.
It's more like, oohmami vs. fishy.
- That was genius.
Ten points for presentation.
Eleven points for flavor.
Look at this.
This looks so legit.
I don't know what I'm eating,
but it tastes good.
- Yeah, I think I taste the red bean.
- Yay, all right, you did it.
- Cool.
- So good. You're amazing.
- Well, that's it.
I hope you guys were inspired by these two dishes.
Feel free to roll up to dollar store,
super market, diaso,
wherever and just cop random ingredients
and just have fun.
(laughs)
- All right. Thank you, and cut.
(music)