-In honor of the start of summer grilling season,
Tariq and I had a friendly competition
to see who could make the best barbecue.
It's the first annual -- First annual.
We're assuming we're gonna do this again.
The first annual "Tonight Show Barbecue-Off,"
And after our -- We had a dip-off.
Then we had a cake-off competition earlier this year.
It all comes down to this, really.
-Yeah. -This is what it's all about.
The rules are simple.
We each had to make a barbecue dish.
No hot dogs or hamburgers, and, also, two sides.
Whoever makes the best overall plate is the winner
and gets their name engraved on the Barbecue-Off Golden Spatula.
[ Cheers and applause ]
Earlier, Tariq and I made our barbecue,
and we recorded the whole thing.
Check this out. Right on the roof.
[ Cheers and applause ]
♪♪
Hi. I'm Jimmy, and I'm going to crush Tariq
at the barbecue-off because tonight,
I'm doing the butt.
♪♪
Pork butt, that is.
I'm making a barbecue pulled-pork sandwich,
fresh slaw, Bahamian mac and cheese.
Oh, my gosh!
-I'm Tariq Trotter.
Today, I'm here to shut [bleep] down once and for all, man.
What I'm gonna be preparing for you all today
is a little cedar plank salmon, grilled artichoke,
and my grandmother's potato salad.
I challenged Jimmy to a barbecue-off
because I wanted to just, you know,
settle this once and for all.
-I wanted to make sure that I won this competition,
'cause the last two were very close, but Tariq won.
I almost won the cake competition.
My cake was almost --
If you looked at the two, you could see
I should have won that one.
[ Laughter ]
-Barbecue Mania 1. Let's do it.
-First, your pork butt.
Get it all salty and peppery and olive oily.
-I'm gonna start with just a little bit of olive oil,
a blend of these seasonings.
I think my dish is gonna be better than Jimmy's
because I'm just a stronger chef.
I think Jimmy is -- You know, he dabbles.
I don't know where his recipe came from,
but he couldn't have conceived it.
-This recipe is very near and dear to me.
I'm just -- I got it off the Internet.
[ Laughter ] -So you take this guy,
you place it on the plank,
and you cook it at about 375 for 20 minutes or so.
-You're gonna want to sear this on all sides.
Now watch this guy go down. [ Sizzling ]
You hear that?
You heard enough! That's it.
Something's happening here, and what it is, is clear.
-My favorite way to pass the time while,
you know, the food is cooking is just watching it cook.
I'm not the sort of person who's gonna barbecue
and then I'mma be over here drinking beer.
[ Laughter and applause ]
Yeah, you see that bubbling?
It looks offic'. [a fish]
You see what I did there?
-Let's check on the pork right here.
Oh, my gosh!
Jimmy Fallon, what are you doing?
I'm doing the butt. That's what I'm doing.
Don't ask.
-Whatever you prepare should have a personal element to it.
You know, it should mean something to you.
This is my grandmother's potato-salad recipe.
You know, it's tried and true. It's real deal.
-You can buy this pre-mixed in a bag.
I use just vinegar and mustard because I don't like mayonnaise.
Mayonnaise reminds me of pus. [ Laughter ]
It would mean so much to me if I won the "Tonight Show"
Golden Spatula, the first annual barbecue-off.
-To have my name engraved on the "Tonight Show"
Barbecue-Off Champion Golden Spatula,
again, would mean absolutely nothing, nothing to me.
-Are you ready for this, Tariq?
You ready to get porked?
My dish is gonna be better than Tariq's
because it was made with love.
If you make anything with love, it will win in the end.
That's what I did tonight.
I didn't even make a pulled-pork sandwich.
I made love tonight.
I won.
-You guys see that? That's how you do that [bleep]
It tastes amazing. It looks amazing.
It smells amazing.
It's a multisensory barbecue experience.
-Tariq, don't even say congratulations.
You know what you say? "Thank you."
And I will say, "You're welcome."
Boom.
[ Cheers and applause ]
[ Both laugh ]
The heat is on to decide the winning plate.
We have a special guest serving as our master barbecue judge.
You might know her from her popular YouTube channel
or her cookbook, "Dessert Person,"
please welcome "New York Times" cooking contributor,
Claire Saffitz!
[ Cheers and applause ]
Claire!
Welcome! Hi!
Welcome back. Thank you for --
Thank you for being here.
Now, you are more of a dessert person.
Where does barbecue stand with you?
-I mean, I'm not a barbecue expert,
but I am an expert in things that taste good,
so I feel like I'm qualified. -Yeah.
That's what I'm talking about, yeah.
All right, Claire, it's now time to try the barbecue.
Whenever you're ready. -Okay.
-And you don't know who made what, right?
-Right. Right. -That's the fun of it.
-I had headphones on. -Yeah.
-So I'm gonna try -- start with number one.
-Sure. -Okay.
Ooh, okay.
This is, like, a --
We've got, like, a mac and cheese casserole
kind of thing here.
♪♪
All right. Good heat.
Good seasoning. [ Laughter ]
♪♪
Cole slaw. This is pretty classic.
You got...
I'm guess I'm really gonna eat this sandwich.
[ Laughter ]
-Watch out for the toothpick there.
-Watch for the toothpick. Mmm!
All right, like a little pulled-pork kind of thing.
Very tasty. Very into it.
Would eat the whole plate.
-All right, good. -Although, I got a little hungry
backstage and had part of a Turkey sandwich, so...
I try not to eat beforehand, but...
-You pre-ate before you came out to the --
-I got really hungry. [ Laughter ]
-How was the turkey sandwich?
-It was pretty good. -Yeah good.
-I made that. I made the turkey sandwich.
[ Laughter ] -Oh, nice.
All right, thank you. All right, points for that.
-Plate number two. -All right, number two.
-Wow! Wow.
-Oh, okay. -Whoa.
-Wow! So, we got some --
Looks like salmon -- very unusual for barbecue.
But actually it smells great. I'm getting, like,
lots of the seasoning and -- and, like, an artichoke --
grilled artichoke half with, like, an herb thing.
This looks delicious, safe to say.
I love artichokes.
It's artichoke season.
Start here. -Yep.
-Oh, my God.
It's good. Really good.
[ Laughter ]
Little potato salad.
One of my favorite foods, potato salad.
-Me too, me too. [ Laughter ]
-Mmm. Great seasoning, good acid, creamy.
This is, like, what I want in potato salad.
Little bit of the salmon.
The salmon is throwing me a little bit, but I'm into it.
I'm enjoying it.
-Sometimes things throw you a little bit, you know?
-Yeah, yeah. -Mmm.
I like the sauce.
I like that it's kind of like -- Oh. Ooh.
Good heat. Little sweet and sticky.
Super tasty.
Mmm, delicious. -Yeah.
-Okay. [ Laughter ]
-Well, all right, Claire, please write down your choice
for the winning plate of barbecue...
-This is really hard. -..and put it into the official
"Tonight Show" barbecue-off ballot box.
-Okay. -Is it barbecue plate number 1
or the barbecue plate number 2?
-This is really hard. -It's tough, right?
-Mostly because I -- It's like, I like the fla--
I don't know. I won't tell you.
I'll just -- I'll just vote.
-Yeah, you can tell us after the decision's made.
And it's -- one is more unusual than the other,
and one's more classic. -All right.
I'll do this secretly. -Look, man, look, look...
-No, I'm just saying, she's writing a thing down.
We're good. -Okay.
-Claire. -The ballot is cast.
-The ballot is cast. It is now in the locked box.
I don't know why there's a lock on the box.
-Okay. Now we unlock the box.
-Let's unlock the box and reveal...
You can reveal. -Okay, now we open the box.
-Yeah, the lock doesn't even do anything.
[ Laughter ] I don't even know why
the lock's there. It doesn't even do anything.
We have a lock there just in case.
-Okay. -All right.
Please declare now who will be the winner
of the first annual "Tonight Show Barbecue-Off."
Is it number 1 or number 2?
-The winner is barbecue plate number 2.
-Whoo! [ Cheers and applause ]
Whoo!
♪♪
What?! What?!
[ Laughter ]
Champion! -Come on.
-Whoo! [ Cheers and applause ]
-Claire...are you --
[ Cheers and applause ]
Unbelievable! -Thank you.
-Unbelievable! -Thank you!
-Now, what -- -We won!
We did this tonight!
[ Cheers and applause ] You did this!
-What are you talking about?! Stop it!
Why did you end up picking that one?
-It was just more seasoned. -Yeah.
-It just, like, tasted better. [ Laughter ]
Like, it was ta-- I mean, again,
not as classic, but, like, very tasty.
-It was more seasoned and tasted better!
-We have to go -- Unfortunately, we have to go --
[ Cheers and applause ]
Oh, you're kidding me. Congratulations
to the "Tonight Show Barbecue-Off" champion,
Tariq Trotter! [ Cheers and applause ]
-Whoo! -Rock on, Trotter!
I feel like -- I feel like I can feel from the audience...
-What's that? -...that they're not happy
with the decision. [ Laughter ]
-You've said that they're against it.
-Of the barbecue. And they --
[ Laughter ] -Wow.
-They weren't happy with the decision.
I'm not happy with the decision.
If I ever went to a barbecue and someone gave me an artichoke...
[ Laughter ] -You'd be bummed out.
-If I ever went to a barbecue
and someone gave me -- mac and cheese?
Who makes mac and cheese at a barbecue?
It's a barbecue. Didn't you get the memo?
It's a barbecue. [ Laughter ]
-Mac and cheese wasn't the best move.
-Right, yeah. I realize that.
[ Laughter ] -But we have --
We actually have plates for Higgins and Questlove.
I want you guys to try both.
So that's the pulled-pork sandwich right there.
Yeah.
Questlove, you want to try --
You tried it, okay. -Way ahead of you, man.
Way ahead of you. -Okay.
-Mmm. That's good.
-No contest? -Well-- [ Stammers ]
It's just -- -That's good potato salad.
-There's a lot of flavor in it. That's all.
-Look, I bought -- I opened my bag of slaw.
You put it in the salad spinner. [ Laughter ]
-Nah, man, you got to -- -Turn it off, and then you...
-Listen, I think the next challenge should just be --
we should just batt-- the battle of the macs.
-Oh, God, no. -Mac and cheese-off?
-Battle of the macs. Yeah, mac and cheese-off.
-I'll definitely have a mac and cheese-off.
-Okay. -It'll be a mac and cheese-on.
[ Laughter ] -Okay, you can't re-enter
this Bahamian whatever. [ Laughter ]
-Bahamian rhapsody. -Yeah, right, Bahamian rhapsody.
I'm with it. [ Laughter ]
-That's the name of my mac and cheese --
"Bahamian Rhapsody." [ Laughter ]
-Final -- Final decision.
Was Claire Saffitz correct?
Questlove, who is the winner?
-Yeah. Riq's the winner.
-All right, go to H-- [ Laughter ]
Higgins, what's -- [ Laughter ]
All right, okay. All right, I'm happy --
I'm happy knowing that there's an answer
and there is a decision.
[ Cheers and applause ] We have more show to get to.
Congratulations. Well done.