- Hey, I'm Matthew, a Tasty chef and producer,
and today I'm gonna be showing you how to make
some impressive, show-stopping dinners.
(upbeat music)
I love Beef Wellington because it's a show-stopping dish.
Beef Wellington is a great test of a chef.
It's one of the most challenging dishes you can make.
I think this dish is perfect for a special occasion.
So, when you sear the beef, what you really want
is a dark brown, crispy crust, and this process
of searing is called the Maillard reaction.
The Maillard reaction is basically just proteins
breaking down when they reach a certain temperature,
and that gives you your dark crust.
It's important for great flavor and complexity with beef.
So, for me, some of the best food will hit
on many different types of flavors and notes, and so,
Beef Wellington kind-of hits a little bit of everything.
It is super meaty, and savory, and salty,
and the mushrooms are very rich and complex,
and then you have a little bit of spice, some nuance
from the English mustard that hits your nose,
you have like, your super buttery, flakey puff pastry,
so when you put a piece of Beef Wellington in your mouth,
you have a tiny little bit of all those flavors together,
and it just mashes together perfectly.
When I was 18, I left my hometown to go to culinary school,
which means I'm always away from my family,
except for Christmas and New Years,
and when I am home, I always make our holiday dinners.
Food is an expression of the heart, and this
over-the-top, gorgeous Beef Wellington is a great way
to show my family just how much I miss them.
Creating show-stopping entrees is all about
taking the time to cook for the people you care about.
The dish has been around for years and years.
Gordon Ramsay was kind-of the person to sort-of
modernize it, in a lot of ways, you didn't have
to do the same duck liver pate, you didn't have to do
all the old techniques, you were able to update
it with stuff like prosciutto and mustard.
I grew up being in awe of chefs like Dan Barber,
Thomas Keller, Wolfgang Puck, people who really
pushed the boundary of what the food world is,
as well as food media game changers
like James Beard and Julia Child.
When I make a dish like this, it makes me feel
like my idols that I grew up loving would
be impressed with what I do, and it gives me
a lot of comfort and gives me a lot of joy.
I know if I work hard, one day, I'll be
a major player in the food game, and I hope to become
an inspiration to other young cooks out there.
I like to cook these dishes because they
are a challenge that push me to grow
as a chef and as a producer at Tasty.
These are just a tiny percentage of the food that amazing
chefs I've worked for have taught me over the years.
Tasty reaches millions of people, and I want to teach
them all the classics, expose them to something new
and inspire them to be adventurous in the kitchen.
This is just the beginning.
To me, cooking is so primal, innate, and hands-on,
and having great food is essential to having a great life.
(upbeat music)
Chicken Marsala is a simple dish
that people get easily wowed by.
This is a dish you can make on a random Tuesday
and your family or your partner will love it.
There's so many dishes that are similar to Chicken Marsala.
The techniques in this dish are used in thousands
of other recipes, it's just about applying them
to this simple dish and mastering the techniques
so that the final product is delicious.
What I love about Chicken Marsala is that is has
very earthy flavors that comes from the searing
of the chicken and from the mushrooms.
It's nice 'cause you can use Marsala,
which is a pretty common wine, but if you don't have
Marsala, you could really use any type of deep red wine.
It's great to like, finish off a bottle you have
at home, again, it's like, a really approachable
dish that, if you do it correctly, can impress.
What's great about Chicken Marsala is it's very,
like, subtle and buttery, and it kind-of just
like, creeps up on you, like, if you don't cook
very often, this is an easy, approachable recipe.
It's all about the flavor components
that you're pairing together.
If you hit all the important steps,
you'll have a dish that will impress.
This is a great show-stopping weeknight dinner.
The chicken will be super succulent and tender,
it will melt in your mouth, and the creamy sauce
should cling to the pasta and chicken.
Eventually, cooking at home will be
easier for you than ordering out.
Also, nothing is better in this world
than surprising a loved one with a bangin'
weeknight dinner they didn't expect.
(upbeat music)
So, with this recipe, I wanna be clear,
I'm completely aware that this is not traditional,
but I thought this would be a cool twist on a popular
Italian dish by fusing it with a classic French dish.
Ratatouille is basically a tomato and vegetable stew
with lots of French herbs, and lasagna is a classic
Italian dish that's been passed down through so many
families that it's eventually come over to America.
When creating a show-stopping vegetarian entree,
I wanted something that's satisfying and filling
as a lasagna, and something that had
as much vegetables as a ratatouille,
and combining these two was perfect because it took
the best aspect of a ratatouille and all of its
amazing, rich flavors, and it had a really great
layering aspect that came with the Italian lasagna.
Neither are completely traditional because they were put
together, but that's sort-of what's great about food.
It's basically a universal language that we all understand.
It's more exciting to be able to learn from
the best things every country has to offer
and combine them together to make something new
and exciting that you can be thrilled to try.
When I was a little kid, one of the first
fusions I ever tried was combining grilled cheese
and ham, 'cause I thought that would be delicious,
and we called them grilled chams, and now I fully
realize it was just the grilled cheese sandwich with ham.
But now, that same type of curiosity is what
I take into creating foods now.
To me, recipes are just guidelines.
The person who took the time to write the recipe,
if you follow what they do, you should get the same result
that they got, but that doesn't mean that you have to.
If you want to experiment and try something new,
you can make every recipe your own.
In order to grow as a cook, you really need to take
that leap of faith and really experiment.
Don't be bogged down with the rules of the world.
If you love two different types of dishes,
combine them together, make them something new
and exciting that you can then share with your friends.
This is the perfect show-stopping entree to bring
to a vegetarian friend's house, or just if you want
a lighter alternative to the rest of these meaty options.
Speaking of which, here's a bacon-wrapped prime rib recipe.
So, this final recipe is a show-stopper you're gonna
wanna make to give an entire crowd a cardiac arrest.
For the prime rib, we're doing this reverse-sear
method, which is the opposite of what we
did with the Beef Wellington.
What you're doing is ensuring that all the meat
on the inside is cooked medium-rare, and then
you're just going to cook the outside at a high
heat to get that nice, Maillard reaction
and browned bacon flavor your want.
So, the thought behind this dish was basically,
I wanted something that was a complete monstrosity,
but you were intrigued nonetheless, and it tasted great.
Every once in a while, people just want something
that's gonna blow their mind, and that was
the goal of making this prime rib.
It never fails to shock me how easily
people are impressed with good food.
You can make a simple dish that just tastes great
and people act like you reinvented the wheel.
So, when I walk in with my food offering,
I really want to blow people's socks off.
I want them to talk about the food I made
for them to their friends, and nothing impresses
a crowd more than a huge piece of meat.
Something like this bacon-wrapped prime rib
is perfect for when you want to be the winner at a party,
and I guess, at the end of the day, that's why we all
love show-stopping food, because we all love that moment
of shock and awe on someone else's face when they
just can't wait to dive into the food you cooked for them.
So, growing up, my family always cooked in the kitchen,
I spent every waking moment in the kitchen,
and I would watch food television all the time,
and I just knew I wanted to work in food my whole life.
And basically, knowing what you want to do
at a young age, it makes you become a huge planner.
It's never not cool to be the hard worker.
It's never not respected to be someone that works hard.
This is what I wanted to do with my life.
So, I love when I make food that I know
I put time, and care, and love into.
When I pass if off to someone else and I just
see their face light up, it brings me a lot of joy.
This is why every meal I try and cook myself,
why I work my butt off every day, and why I try
to make everything I do be the best it can be.
My entire life revolves around cooking
and I love it because it allows me to connect
with other people and tell stories through food.
Everyone has some favorite food
memories, tell me some of yours.
- [Tasty Guy] Oh, yes.
(upbeat music)