- Hey, everybody,
and welcome to yet another episode of Picky Eaters.
Today's mystery ingredient is one that all y'alls nasty
(beep) will recognize.
That's right, it is the eggplant.
But not the emoji, more on that later.
(acapella singing)
This is an ingredient that I'm actually indifferent about.
I could take or leave eggplant.
It's like a sponge,
so it's soaks up whatever flavor of whatever it is
that you're cooking it in, so I don't mind it,
but I'm also not gonna run to the grocery store
specifically to buy it.
But today we're gonna cook the hell out of it,
and you're gonna see exactly what I mean in a minute.
♪ I know you ♪
Alrighty, we have an extra special guest here today,
my friend, Ehis, come on out.
- I have arrived.
- I would also just like to say that Ehis smells amazing.
- Thank you.
- We got some food cooking next door,
but she smells amazing,
like it's overpowering all of that.
- Thank you.
- So shout out to you for your signature scent.
- I showered.
(Seth laughing)
- We've got one thing that you can't stand here.
(Ehis gagging)
- I'm gonna put it down.
- You probably shouldn't gag
while you're holding one of these.
(Ehis laughing)
These people are disgusting.
- If I become a meme, please don't,
my mother watches these videos.
- What is your hatred or your aversion to eggplant?
- I don't think there's anything I like about it.
The color's nice,
like I look great in the color eggplant.
But everything else about it, it's just gross.
Like it's slimy, it's weird, it's bland.
I also don't like that I don't understand its motives.
Like, what exactly are you?
What are you doing?
What are you offering?
It's too complex for something that isn't that good.
- These are all valid points.
I don't even know if I can finish this episode,
but I'm gonna try. - I mean, yeah.
(Ehis laughing)
- I am going to try to inject as much eggplant flavor
in this dish as I possibly can.
And then we're gonna bring you back
and see if we can make you a belieber, or a bel--
- I mean, I am a belieber, I love Justin Bieber.
That's another episode.
- That's another episode.
(acapella singing)
So one of the things that I hear a lot
from people is, "Seth I can't cook."
And "I can't do that."
And "You make that look easy."
And "I can't do it."
So for all of you that claim that you can't cook at home,
this step is the perfect thing for you.
So there are two ways that you can do this.
If you have a gas stove,
you can put this directly on the burner and let it char.
But if you have an electric stove,
you can put it in the broiler in your oven,
let it char on one side. and then just flip 'em over,
do 'em on the other side.
We can't use an open flame here,
so we're just gonna use our broiler.
(upbeat music)
Alrighty guys, so our eggplant is blackened, it's charred.
As soon as it came out of the broiler,
I put them into this large mixing bowl
and covered it with plastic wrap,
and just let it sit for 20 to 30 minutes
just to let it sweat.
We've got some amazingly smokey eggplant liquid
at the bottom of our bowl.
So I'm just gonna carefully remove our plastic wrap.
And this is still warm,
so I'm just gonna take my chef's knife here.
We'll split this down the middle.
I'm gonna do the same with our other friend over here.
(knife tapping board)
I'm just gonna take a spoon and scoop this
directly into our bowl.
So don't worry about getting the seeds in there.
The only thing that we want to make sure
that we keep out of the bowl is the blackened charred skin.
There's a lot of very bitter bits in there.
Okay, so we've got our charred skins here
that we're just gonna discard.
And then we have our melty, silky charred insides here,
along with the smokey liquid.
So we're just gonna go ahead
and scoop this into our blender.
(scraping bowl)
And we're gonna add some Greek yogurt.
(scraping bowl)
Add some koshure salt.
Some grated garlic.
(scraping bowl)
Some lemon juice.
And finally, we're gonna add some parsley.
Just gonna cover our blender here.
So you can use for this just depending on the texture
that you like, you can use a food processor,
you can use a blender,
you can finely chop the eggplant
and re add the smokey liquid.
Doesn't really matter, just depends on how smooth
or how textured of a texture you want.
We're gonna start this off of on a one.
(blender running)
And this should be good enough,
this is gonna make a nice, really balanced sauce,
so I'm gonna give this a taste.
Perfect, really excited about the next step,
we're gonna move over to our kebabs.
(acapella singing)
Alrighty guys, we have made that delicious eggplant sauce.
We need to make something to compliment that,
so we're gonna get started on these chicken kebabs
that are really, really simple.
So we've soaked our skewers in water for about 10 minutes,
just to make sure that those aren't dry,
and they don't burn when we put the kebabs on,
so we're gonna get started.
I have some nice juicy, boneless,
skinless chicken thighs here.
And just cut these into one inch cubes.
Place them in our mixing bowl over here,
and I'm gonna rinse, wash, repeat,
not literally rinse again, but you know,
you know how the saying goes.
And then our last one here.
Alrighty, so to this,
we're gonna add some of our onions,
gonna separate all of our layers here.
That should be enough.
Then we're gonna add some zucchini.
Some red bell pepper.
To this we're gonna add some extra virgin olive oil,
which is gonna coat everything.
And to this, we're just gonna add
some good old store-bought Mediterranean seasoning,
nothing fancy, right off the shelf.
No fuss, no muss.
We're gonna give this a good toss,
make sure that our seasoning is even.
So everything is nicely coated.
So I'm gonna take our first skewer here
and in no particular order, just start layering it up.
Got some bell pepper, some chicken,
some zucchini, some red onion.
And then again, we're gonna rinse, wash, and repeat.
First skewer is done.
I'm gonna do the rest of these,
and when you see me again, they're all gonna be complete.
(upbeat music)
(cheerful music)
Hey kids, what's going on?
It's me again.
We're gonna get started on grilling our kebabs.
So we got a nice little pan here, gonna turn the heat up.
Let this get nice and hot.
And while that's doing that,
let's talk about you guys.
How are you feeling?
What's goin' on in your life?
Are you happy?
Are you sad?
Okay, so our pan is nice and screaming hot
so we're just gonna add some olive oil.
Just gonna brush it all over to make sure it's even.
We got some tongs.
(kebab sizzling)
That's that nice sear that we like to hear.
(kebabs sizzling)
So we're gonna let that do its thing,
and for all you guys in the comments
who are like why are you not using a grill pan?
We don't have one in the studio today, okay?
We couldn't find one so stay off my back.
This is the best thing we had, all right.
We're gonna give these a little flip,
some nice color goin'.
So we're gonna let that do its thing on that side.
(acapella singing)
Looks like these are about done
so we're gonna go ahead and turn off our digital flame.
We've got some nice, everyday, run of the mill,
very tasty, very fluffy, and very tender pita bread.
So we're just gonna take our kebabs.
If you have callused fingers like me
because you cook all the time this should be very simple,
just hold the end, flies right off.
And we're just gonna rinse, wash,
and repeat that step over and over.
But first I'm putting the cart before the horse.
Have the sandwich ready, grab a toothpick here,
stick it right down the middle to secure it.
You're gonna do that again.
Your pitas might break a little bit,
ours are here.
We don't have grill pans,
pitas breaking, but it's still delicious,
and that's the only thing that matters here folks.
So this one's just gonna go on top,
and then I'm just gonna carefully try not to break it.
Hold it, that one's beautiful.
Starting to break a little bit.
So we're just going to turn on our digital flame once more.
Just gonna add some more E-V-O-O.
E, extra virgin olive oil, that's what I'm gonna add.
Not great with acronyms, guys.
We've got our tongs, just gonna place these pita pieces
on their sides.
We're gonna give them a little bit of color
so we get a little crunch.
So we're just gonna give these a little flip
since we have some color on here.
(pitas sizzling)
I'm just gonna dress these kebab sandwiches
with some of our smokey eggplant sauce.
(upbeat music)
And then I'm just gonna finish this with a little parsley.
(upbeat music)
And there we have it.
So now, the moment of truth.
(upbeat music)
All right guys, it's the moment of truth.
It's time to taste,
and I have to be honest, for the first time I am nervous.
There's something about Ehis,
I really genuinely care what she thinks.
Hopefully she leaves today with a little bit of appreciation
for eggplant, we'll see.
Ehis, come on down.
- I have my water in case something bad happens.
You never know, I might need to like wash the taste out.
- It's delicious, that's first of all.
- It looks amazing, but you can never be too safe.
Also stay drated, kids.
Wait, where's the eggplant?
- I'm not gonna tell you where it is,
I'm not gonna tell you what I did until you taste it.
So madam, good taste--
- This looks so fancy.
- Let's do it.
- Okay.
(intense music)
All right, I'm gonna be honest.
- Be brutally honest.
(intense music)
- This is (beep) delicious.
I would eat this like every day of the week.
- So that is your eggplant, the sauce.
The sauce is your eggplant.
- I don't even need the meat,
I would just take the pita.
- That is the star ingredient folks.
I think we got a big old, capital, cursive W.
This is a win.
Would you give it five out of five eggplant emojis?
- You know what, I give it six out of five.
- There we go, there we go for the well endowed out there.
- Eggplant isn't much of a shower,
but you proved that she's a grower.
- It is definitely a grower, right?
- I'm not even hamming this up for the bit.
This is actually good, like this is,
I would ask for the recipe if I cooked,
but I don't.
- I don't know why I cared about your opinion so much.
- 'Cause it's important.
'Cause all my issues with eggplant before
is that it's just slimy and tasteless,
but this is neither of those things.
Eat your eggplants.
Maybe not, try things.
- Try things, yes.
I'm gonna go home a happy kid today.
I have a very happy customer.
- Yes.
- My girl Ehis liked it a lot.
- I loved it.
- She loved it matter of fact.
So on that note, I'm going home.
This has been Picky Eaters, and we'll see y'all later.
(graphic swooshing)
(upbeat music)