- Okay, so here we are, another episode of Eating Your Feed.
Today we're going to make a flaming wheel of cheesy pasta
that Adam has challenged me to recreate.
There's a place called Le Petit Paris,
and you have this wheel of cheese that has
the top taken off of it, some liquor is lit on fire,
they make a cream sauce, they dump the pasta in,
swirl it around, then it's done.
We need to get a wheel of cheese I think.
You can get it on William Sonoma for $2,500,
Costco, $900.
Okay, we're gonna buy a 72-pound,
$900 wheel of cheese.
The Costco product description says,
"Features, aged 24 months,
imported from Italy, extravagant."
(laughing)
Okay.
Alright, we're gonna use the cart.
(peaceful orchestral music)
Okay, so here's the package, 80 pound warning on it.
So this is Rie, Tasty producer, chef extraordinaire,
Eating Your Feed designated savior.
- I cannot lift it.
(laughing)
- Today I think I'm gonna need a lot of help.
- [Rie] Okay.
- [Andrew] Let's open it.
- It's like Christmas.
What?
- Is this a crap brand?
Zanetti?
- Says typical Parmesan.
- Typical Parmesan.
No this is good, this is the good stuff.
- Ooh. - Wow.
- We got a big wheel of cheese.
The next thing I have to do is chop this lid off.
Any concerns?
- Just don't hurt yourself, it's very difficult to cut.
- I'd worry about it slipping and chopping my finger off.
- Yeah, that's my biggest concern for this.
(laughing)
- Okay, day three of the cheese adventure.
There are some very specific tools that are typically used
for cutting one of these open.
Instead, we got a bunch of other tools.
This is more of like a sandwich spread knife,
oyster shucker, butter knife, hammer to kind of try,
you know, and we got cut-safe gloves.
(laughing)
Where do you start?
I'm gonna go to this little serrated blade
and just to try score.
This is gonna take hours, just this alone.
Oh, (bleep).
(metal striking metal)
Oh god.
We've struck cheese, mmm, that smells good.
Let's just try doing the oyster sh...
And then just kinda, oh god, like Leonardo da Vinci.
(metal striking metal)
(clanging)
Cheese break.
Oh, this cheese is so good.
Oh, the smell is like, it's a smell explosion.
We're just gonna have to pop the rim off this bad boy.
Alright, so we got that now, look, I'm Cheesus.
Also kinda like a toilet seat.
That's okay though.
Yeah, now it's a matter of just cleaning it up.
Look at this, so pure.
(inhaling deeply and with satisfaction)
We have taken out all the top layer.
I'm gonna start forming the bowl.
Adam, stop eating cheese, like, we're good to go.
We're ready to start making cheese here.
I want to do a test run before I have any pasta.
How much cognac do you think I should use?
- Let's do a quarter cup.
- Just a quarter?
- No, half cup?
- Half a cup.
That seems like a good amount.
Why is cognac good for flambé?
- It has a higher alcohol percentage,
kind of has a, like, mild sweet flavor.
- So I have my blowtorch.
- Have you done flambé before?
- No, never.
(clicking)
Is that on fire?
- [Rie] Mmm mmm.
No.
Oh, it's on fire!
- Is it? Yay,
it's gone.
You wanna kinda wet around it, so like it...
- Soaking a wheel of cheese with fire right now, Adam.
Okay, so there, it's kinda on fire.
I want to scoop it out, I'm nervous
that we're ruining the cheese.
Can you see the flame?
This is a lot of fire.
- What should we do?
Do you want to extinguish it?
- Yeah, I'm just going to put this
on top to extinguish it, okay?
It smells like a cheesy alcoholic concoction.
- [Rie] We can use it for later.
(laughing)
- Tastes so bad! Ugh!
Alright, so I'm going to scrape up
a little bit of this cheese.
Attempt two.
- [Rie] Raise it, little by little.
- [Andrew] Okay.
(dramatic music)
Now I'm just going to...
- Oh, yeah!
- spread the cheese around, ooo.
Oh man, it's just, like, salty alcohol.
- [Rie] Ugh, more cheese and less brandy.
- I wanna carve out the bowl so that it's shallower,
and that way the alcohol can all be on fire at once.
Okay, one tablespoon.
- Is it too little?
- Two tablespoons. - Oh, yeah.
- So I'm weighing out my pasta,
because I want to do the same amount every time.
So this time I'm gonna scrape up
a little bit more cheese, ignite it, pour it in now.
Is it extinguished?
Looks like it is.
- [Adam] I mean, the pasta's hot.
- Okay, I'm gonna keep going with my pasta here.
Okay that looks kinda gnarly at the moment.
I think I had too much cheese.
Alright, I'm going to take it out.
Ugh, it's just alcoholic pasta.
- Should I pan-fry it and see what's gonna happen,
like once we completely cook off the alcohol?
- [Adam] Oh, it looks so much better.
- Look at that creamy glisten.
Mmm, basically perfect,
Rie did it, so.
- I think you can get to this, right?
- Maybe you want to flambé longer time,
before you adding in the parm?
- Okay, this is what's going to happen.
Cook the pasta, and then we toss it in a pan with butter.
That too much butter?
- No, there's not such a thing.
- That's what I like to hear.
And a little bit of starchy water,
get that to, like, a good state.
You know, in Westerns, how there's always a bartender
who's wiping down a mug behind the bar?
I'll start heating the cognac, two tablespoons,
get it hot before it's ignited.
(laughing)
Okay, there, it's on fire, we're gonna pour it out, yeah!
- No hair. - Can you see that?
You can see the singed parts.
Alright, pasta goes in there, mix it around a couple times,
put it in my eating bowl with some pepper.
- It's good.
- Yeah, it's actually really tasty.
- Oh, it's still a little boozy though.
- Time for the best version yet.
I made the bowl a little shallower,
hopefully, that will help keep the flambé alive.
This time I think we're going to go with
three tablespoons of cognac.
I'm going to poor it over my spoon, oh, yeah!
Look at that, it's more alive this time.
So I think keeping the cognac moving around is important
to making sure all the alcohol burns off,
because when it pools some of the alcohol is trapped.
'Kay, yeah, that smells good.
I think the cheese actually had more opportunity to flambé.
Oh, yeah, look at that!
Just needs a little salt, actually, how'd I (bleep) that up?
Okay, we're at the final attempt now,
that's why I'm wearing a hat.
We're going to make a cream sauce this time.
That's also how they do it
in the video that we're referencing.
So here's some minced shallot, grated garlic,
add some cream into it, ooo, yeah.
This will come together so that it's a little more flavorful
and for the cheese to have a little bit more to grab onto.
In the video, he actually adds a little bit
of Parmesan to his sauce, so we're going to do that as well.
I'm going to do some light scraping of the wheel here
to get some more cheese crumbs.
I think my chunks were too big.
Four tablespoons for this portion.
And then once people get up here,
and we're ready to do the flambing,
we're gonna turn the lights down a little bit,
so that you can see the flames a little better.
Ooh, that's too much.
Okay, the lights are down, sauce is nice, people are coming.
Okay, stand back everybody.
Oh yeah!
- [Woman In Polka Dots] Is it working?
- You tell me.
- Nice!
(screaming)
- Yeah, cheesy pasta, what do you guys think?
- [Rei] It looks crazy in the dark.
- Okay, so now it's going in there.
- Wow. - Ooh, yeah.
- [Andrew] And yes, now it's coming all together.
- [Woman In Polka Dots] It sounds like mouth sounds.
- Everybody silent.
(squeaking)
Okay, I got the thumbs up, so here comes...
- [Woman In Polka Dots] Ahh, shiny.
- Okay, here's a cheesy pasta,
made in a flaming wheel of cheese.
Is it really good?
- [Rie] Mmhmm.
- Alright, I gotta find out.
The first time that you dump a bunch of liquor
into a $900 wheel of cheese, and it just kind of sits there,
it's a pretty dark moment.
It's a long way back up from there.
You can definitely achieve the same thing
without actually doing it in a wheel of cheese,
but come on, wheel of cheese that's on fire,
little spoon action, pasta goes in there,
pretty fun and I think it tastes pretty good.
We figured out how to make this thing.
Now I have a lot of cheese to share with everybody.
Should we save the bowl so that we could make more?
You want to see more, right?
- [Everyone] Yeah!
- [Andrew] Alright, let's do it.
- [Adam] Yay!
- [Andrew] Oh, yes!
(camera shutter opening and closing)