- [Host] This episode is sponsored by ButcherBox.
If, for some weird reason,
you don't want to eat dog food for humans,
ButcherBox delivers high-quality beef, chicken,
pork, and seafood directly to your home
in an eco-friendly, 100% recyclable box.
New members will get the Game Day Bundle
for free in their first box.
The bundle includes St. Louis ribs, bacon, and pulled pork.
Go to the link in the video description for more info.
- We begin with point one...
(dog food clattering)
(water sloshing)
Concerning our pest problem,
somebody's been leaving food around,
and it's attracting owls.
And I, for one, am getting tired
of cleaning those owl drops.
- [Host] Hey, what's up guys?
Welcome back to Binging with Babish,
where this week I'm standing in front of a dog bowl,
so that must mean that I'm taking a look
at the Bachelor Chow from Futurama.
As you may know, we here at Binging with Babish
tend to start by trying to make an accurate version
of the fictional food in question.
And since there are no human dog food equivalents,
I see no other alternative to grabbing a spoon
and tucking into this bowl of dog chow.
Here we go, Andy, you can do this.
One, two, three, go.
Three, two, one, go.
C'mon dude, just be a man. Here we go.
Chew once, chew twice, and not for me.
It had a sort of rancid cheese flavor
that I didn't expect or appreciate.
And now more than ever before
I think we can do a whole lot better.
As you can see, I'm starting by preparing
some roughly chopped mirepoix,
and I'm trimming the excess fat and connective tissue
off a four-pound beef chuck roast.
Because we are making boeuf bourguignon,
dog food for humans.
Once the excess fat has been trimmed off,
I'm gonna cut the meat into two-inch cubes.
But wait, don't throw away those trimmings just yet,
because we're going to utilize
a brilliant method from America's Test Kitchen,
which starts by placing those scraps
in a large wide roasting pan,
along with one pound of salt pork
and two tablespoons of butter.
Then this guy's headed into
a 500-degree Fahrenheit oven for 20 minutes.
While that's happening we're gonna toss our beef
with half a teaspoon each
kosher salt and freshly ground pepper,
letting it rest at room temperature
until we're ready to use it.
Meanwhile, our scraps are headed out of the oven.
As you can see, they're nicely browned
and the fat has rendered out.
Pull them out and set them aside, but don't get rid of them,
we're not done with them just yet.
This pan, with all of its delicious fat and fond,
is headed over to the stovetop
where we're gonna place it over medium-high heat
and use it to sauté our mirepoix.
Two large onions, four carrots,
and four stalks of celery, roughly chopped.
Let these guys go for about five minutes
until they've got some nice color.
Then we're gonna add one tablespoon of tomato paste
and one teaspoon of anchovy paste,
mixing around and sautéing for about a minute,
just so they can caramelize.
And then we're adding a third of a cup of all-purpose flour,
sautéing for an additional minute or two
until the raw flour smell dissipates.
This is going to create a rudimentary roux,
or roux-dimentary.
What? No.
Which is going to thicken
our four cups of homemade beef stock
that we're gonna add slowly, mixing constantly
so that the flour does not clump.
Let that come back up to a simmer,
and then the beef scraps are headed back into the hot tub,
along with two bay leaves, several sprigs of fresh thyme,
two sprigs of fresh rosemary,
and about one gaggle of fresh parsley.
We're also gonna add a half teaspoon
of whole black peppercorns,
and optionally about a half ounce
of dried porcini mushrooms.
Oh, almost forgot,
one whole head of garlic, peeled and crushed.
And it quite literally wouldn't be boeuf bourguignon
without Burgundy, one whole bottle of the cheap stuff.
Now we're gonna use all the stuff in this roasting pan
as a sort of platform for our beef,
because we want each piece to be
roughly three quarters submerged underneath the liquid.
This is going to help it brown beautifully
as it spends three hours in a 325-degree Fahrenheit oven.
After one and a half hours, we're gonna pull it out
and flip all the pieces of beef
so they get evenly browned top and bottom.
Pop it back in for another 90 minutes, and presto,
the best boeuf bourguignon ever to be made into dog food.
That's the Babish guarantee.
Now we're gonna tong out all of our beef cubes
and refrigerate them, then maybe take a few minutes
to snack on all the delicious
caramelized garlic and onions in the pan,
before straining out all the solids
and likewise refrigerating the liquid.
Normally we'd refrigerate them together
so their flavors can get to know each other,
but for this application,
we wanna keep them separate, and I'll show you why.
As you can see, the fat in the liquid
has solidified into an easy-to-peel-off layer,
which, whether you're turning this into Bachelor Chow
or eating it like a normal person, you're gonna wanna do.
Next step, to make the beef better resemble dog food,
I'm going to cube it into little cubes.
And to transform this beautiful French classic
into a shelf-stable kibble that makes its own gravy,
we have to freeze dry it.
This involves placing it in a vacuum chamber,
freezing it to -50 degrees Fahrenheit under vacuum,
and then gently heating it,
driving off 99.5% of its moisture
and giving it a theoretical shelf life of 25 years.
So, after a 24-hour stint in the freeze dryer,
it comes out looking pretty similar,
but completely robbed of all of its moisture.
If you grab one of the beef cubes,
it looks almost exactly the same,
but you can crush it between your fingers into a fine dust.
And the gravy has to be broken up into shards
like the meth from Breaking Bad.
The other reason I'm breaking it up
is 'cause I want it to form a sort of powder
that coats the beef chunks,
which should seamlessly turn into gravy
when we add hot water.
I'm gonna place everything
in a futuristic-looking Mylar bag.
I know this isn't Futurama-accurate,
but I can't bear to look at the dog food bag anymore.
And there you have it, boeuf bourguignon Bachelor Chow.
All we gotta do is pour it into a dog food bowl
and cover it with hot water so that it can rehydrate.
I'm just gonna cover this up with a lid
and let it sit for 10 minutes
so that it can fully reconstitute
while I contemplate how this is hopefully the last time
I ever have to eat out of a dog food bowl.
Give it a little stir and allow the gravy to thicken,
and it's time to dig in.
Now, one of the most fascinating things
about freeze-dried food is that,
when it's done right, it comes back to life
the same way it was before it was freeze-dried,
and this is no exception.
The gravy is thick and rich, and the meat is tender,
if not, understandably, a little drier than it was before.
But I think you'll agree with me
that something about the presentation and form factor
just rubs me the wrong way.
I think this is gonna be a problem that we'd have
with most Futurama foods, particularly Popplers.
Luckily, I think we're many years away
from me making sentient popcorn shrimp.
Thanks again to ButcherBox for sponsoring this episode
and sending me something actually good to eat
after having to eat dog food.
ButcherBox sources from farmers and fishermen
who meet the highest standards for quality.
You choose your box type and delivery frequency,
and can skip or cancel a month at any time.
Your order will come frozen at peak freshness
in an eco-friendly, 100% recyclable box.
New members will get St. Louis ribs, bacon, and pulled pork
in their first box for free.
Go to the link in the video description for more info.
(bright music)