[Show clips begin] "It's Monday night it must be Frito pie with wolf-brand chili." "I made it just the
way you like it, perfect." "Well at least the brown Betty
was good." "You must give me recipe." "oh man, you know I can't do that."
"We are having spa-Peggy and meatballs." "Did she say spa-Peggy?"
"Well spa Peggy is a lot like spaghetti I'm not sure what Peggy does different.. if anything." [Clips end]
Hey what's up guys, welcome back to Binging with Babish where this
week we're taking a look at the favorite foods of rainy streets own matriarch
boggle champion and two-time substitute teacher of the year Peggy Hill. Starting
with a Texas favorite Frito pie. Which requires wolf brand chili two cans worth
this stuff is really really thick so, dig it on out with a spoon. Looks.... lovely, and
we're covering that and heating it to a bare simmer. During which time we are
needlessly measuring out our bag of Fritos, about four cups worth I'd say,
and buttering up a large glass pie plates then believe it or not there is
only one ingredient left in this thing and that is cheese. and trust me I agonized
over which cheese to use, Hank Hill's favorite pepper jack or yellow
American, the thing that I had really imagined Peggy Hill would use. On the one
hand she said I made it just the way you like aka with Hank's favorite cheese but
then again Peggy is incredibly stubborn and stuck in her ways in the end I gotta
go yellow American it's what I think she would use. Do I recommend do you use it?
No. I would use cheddar or pepper jack... Anywho, we were starting by layering half
of our chili on the bottom of our pie plate, followed by half of our Fritos,
followed by half of our cheese, five slices. This is gonna give the Fritos
some degree of protection against the final layer of chili. During what would
seem to be a pretty unnecessary stint in the oven 375 for 20 minutes according to
every recipe I could find. 20 minutes later and it emerges looking darker and
at this point we are applying one final layer of cheese and of course Fritos.
Then we're popping it back in the oven for another five minutes just to get
everything all melty and to crisp up the top layer and that's it. We just got a
let 'er cool off for five minutes before scooping and serving. Now, I know you guys
were probably expecting me to remake this with homemade tortilla chips, and
artisanal cheeses, and hand curated chili...but, Frito pie is a recipe that does not
need improving upon except for maybe the cheese this ended up being
gluey and dry and kind of gross. So, bring it to your next Texas potluck but do
yourself a favor and use cheddar. Next up, we're taking our best approximation at
spa-peggy and meatballs if I had to guess I'd say that Peggy made meatballs
the same way that every mom did back in the 90s. Store-bought ground beef, egg.
breadcrumbs, splash milk, little sprinklings each of: garlic powder, onion
powder, oregano, and dried basil all the usual meatball suspects. Like most things
in life we are seasoning with salt and freshly ground pepper and then it's time
to mix this whole affair together by hand, oh wait a minute,
I almost forgot the most important part! Just the right amount of parmigiano
cheese and I'm assuming that she uses this junk that comes in a bottle. Anyway,
once we've got our meatball dough oh... did I just call this meatball dough? I
guess that's what it is.... Once we've got our meatball dough well kneaded, it's time
to divide into small mouth size balls and Peggy never makes any claims to be
Italian so I'm guessing that she's baking her meatballs instead of frying
them. While those bake at 400 degrees Fahrenheit for 15 to 20 minutes we're
gonna make an ultra simple tomato sauce. I would have bet any amount of money
that she would use jarred sauce but she mentioned adding just the right amount
of sugar. So, we're finally mincing an onion sweating it adding garlic at the
last second, sauteing for 30 seconds or until fragrant and then adding a can of
crushed tomatoes and then we're gonna simmer that for at least 30 minutes. Now
the only reason people add sugar to tomato sauce is to attempt to combat
acidity which doesn't actually work. But, it does help round out and mask the
acidity of undercooked sauces. So, once you've got this seasoned with salt,
pepper, and sugar to your personal taste it's time to add the meatballs back to
the sauce. It's both going to finish cooking them and it's going to lend some
of their meaty flavor. So we're making sure these guys are well coated and
we're covering and simmering for another 15-20 minutes. Once those are almost done
it's time to get our pasta cooking I've got some thin spaghetti here that I'm
going to boil for one minute less than is recommended to me by the
manufacturer's suggested cooking instructions, reserving a half a cup of
pasta water towards the end of cooking this is gonna help the sauce adhere to
our now drained pasta. First, I'm going to set aside the meatballs for a moment
because we're gonna plate those up with the spaghetti later. I'm gonna add most
of the pasta water to the awaiting pasta and then start adding the sauce..
Realizing halfway through that this got to be a more efficient way than just
scooping it out using my measuring cup but.. onward and upward. We're tossing that
all together and then preparing to plate. We're scooping
our spaghetti into a large serving bowl, topping with our meatballs, and of course
the requisite heavy snow of bottled Parmesan cheese and before you can say
the name of Arlen's most romantic restaurant "That's Amore": you've got Spa-Peggy
and meatballs. Which is of course just spaghetti and meatballs but that
doesn't really matter, does it it? All comes down to how it tastes and how does
it taste... well it tastes like spaghetti and meatballs like every spaghetti and
meatballs your parents have ever made for you and you know what that's okay
not only is a nice nostalgia trip but what is that old saying if you can't
handle spaghetti at its worst you don't deserve it at its best. Plus, I hadn't
eaten anything all day at this point now it's really really hungry so
congratulations Peggy you got yourself a member of the 'Clean Plate Club' but I
have absolutely no doubt that 'Apple Brown Betty' will also join those ranks.
We're starting with about a half a pound of brown sugar to which we're going to
add one teaspoon ,of ground cinnamon 1/2 a teaspoon ground ginger, 1/4
teaspoon ground allspice, and maybe 1/8 teaspoon of ground cloves. Along with a
nice shake of table salt. We know for a fact that she doesn't put any nutmeg in
there because of that meddling Minh Souphanousinphone.... Next up, we've got a peel
core and sliced between 7 to 10 granny smith apples..... It's gonna depend on the
size of your recipe, the size your baking vessel, all that good stuff. Just chop up
the whole bunch apples, okay? I'm cutting mine into slices you can cut yours into
chunks, just live your life. One thing you for sure don't want to skip is buttering
your casserole or pie dish before layering down about half of your apples
enough to cover the bottom of the casserole and then some. Then we're gonna
sprinkle a whole bunch of brown sugar mixture on top along with a sprinkling
of bread crumbs.. I know this sounds weird but this is how brown Betty is
traditionally made and the bread crumbs give the filling some body, while also
giving the top a faux crust. So we're layering in the rest of our
apples, the rest of our brown sugar and maybe solid three quarters of a cup of
bread crumbs and then we're topping that with a whole stick of butter sliced it
thinly. You don't have to be as organized as I'm being right now this is a very
forgiving recipe and it will forgive you of any baking sins you might commit. So,
we're baking this at 375 Fahrenheit for about 20 minutes covered followed by 15
minutes uncovered and we're left with this: Apple Brown Betty in all of its
sweet crunchy bubbly goodness. I have a particular soft spot for this
dish because I used to make it all the time back in college because you might
have noticed you only need a baking dish and a knife to make it. Plus, it's only
got like seven ingredients if you include the spices, eight if you included
scoop of ice cream on top and it's super easy and economical way to get a
homemade apple pie equivalent on the table in under an hour.
I hope you guys give this one a try yourselves it's one of the things that
first sort of encouraged me to try cooking.... just promise me that you won't
use it to try and poison Randy Travis.