(Sim grunts)
(Sim groans)
(Sim exclaiming)
(Sim sneezes)
- Ew. Uh.
(laughs) Uh.
Ha!
- [Babish] Hey, what's up, guys?
Welcome back to "Binging With Babish,"
where this week, we're (speaking in Simlish)
Uh, excuse me.
We are entering the world of "The Sims," literally.
The good people from EA put me into the "Sims" world
because this episode is sponsored by "The Sims 4,"
the original life simulation game
that has empowered people to discover themselves,
share personal stories, and shape culture for over 20 years.
The latest edition to "The Sims 4,"
the "Cottage Living" expansion pack,
offers new ways to play with animal friends,
build a close-knit community,
and whip up garden-to-table meals.
"Cottage Living" is available July 22nd.
Click the link in the video description to learn more.
But before you head off to your new cottage,
let's make some dishes from the world of "The Sims."
Let's start with one of the very easiest dishes in the game,
mac and cheese.
Fittingly, we're gonna make
the world's easiest mac and cheese recipe.
Bring 1 1/2 cups of whole milk
and one cup of water to a boil,
adding eight ounces of elbow-flavored macaroni
and cooking for the manufacturer's specified cooking time,
in the case of this macaroni, five minutes.
Once the macaroni is just shy of fully cooked,
we're gonna add four ounces
of shredded yellow American cheese,
which is loaded full of stabilizers and emulsifiers
that's gonna help give us a creamy, stable sauce.
Once the American is fully melted,
we're killing the heat,
adding four ounces of shredded cheddar,
covering, and letting sit for five minutes
so the cheddar can more gently melt without breaking.
Once the five minutes is up, give it a stir.
Add some more cheddar if it's a little bit too liquid-y.
Season with salt to taste,
and then we need to nail the game's form factor:
a domed orange-yellow blob.
So we're gonna place the mac and cheese
in a stainless steel bowl lined with plastic wrap,
let it set at room temperature for about an hour,
dump it out onto a plate,
give it a little shimmy to set it free,
remove the plastic wrap, and there you have it:
"The Sims" mac and cheese.
All it needs is a garnish of fresh parsley.
And I know what you're thinking: "That's dumb."
Well, yeah, but we're just trying
to make it look like the thing from the game
and make it accomplishable for a player at skill level 0.
But what about more like a level 2 or 3?
For that, we're gonna mix together some butter
with some panko bread crumbs,
use those to coat the outside of our cheesy dome,
and we're gonna thoroughly lubricate
our source bowl with butter,
plop our mac and cheese dome back in there,
have a very delayed reaction to the fright it gave us,
and start scooping out the center,
maybe snacking a little bit as we go along.
Our intention is to end up
with a sort of half mac and cheese globe,
which we're gonna reinforce
with another smaller buttered bowl
and bake in a 400 degree Fahrenheit convection oven
for about 15 to 20 minutes,
just until it's turning nice and golden brown
and crispy around the edges.
Carefully dig out the inner bowl
and run an offset spatula around the outside of the,
uh, the inside of the outer bowl.
Fill the cavity with a fresh batch of mac and cheese.
Invert onto a plate and give it a nice tappa-tappa
to make sure that it breaks free from its bowl-like prison.
And there you have it:
an upside-down mac and cheese molten lava cake,
one that looks even more like the one
from the actual game.
He even does my little reveal dance.
That's spooky.
Let's see if we did Chef Carl Casper proud.
Yes, it's nice and molten in the center.
And I definitely could've let it
crisp up a little bit more on the bottom,
but we've got bigger fish to fry,
and by fish, I mean eggplant.
Eggplant is one of the newly available vegetables
in "Cottage Living," and it enables you
to make aubergine Parmesan, or eggplant Parm.
So I'm gonna start by slicing up
one large or two medium eggplants,
lightly salting the slices on both sides,
and sandwiching them between paper towels,
then stacking them on a series of rimmed baking sheets
that we're gonna weigh down with something heavy,
like a cast iron casserole,
perhaps the very cast iron casserole
that we're going to bake our aubergine Parmesan in.
Is that messed up somehow?
No? I didn't think so.
While our eggplant compresses for one hour,
we're gonna make a super basic marinara sauce.
In a heavy bottom saucepot or enameled cast iron Dutch oven,
we're sweating one small finely chopped onion
in a little bit of olive oil for three to five minutes
over medium heat until softened,
adding three or four crushed cloves of garlic
and a little sprinkle of red pepper flake
and sauteing for another 30 seconds or until aromatic
and then adding two 28-ounce cans
of crushed San Marzano tomatoes,
an optional tablespoon or two of tomato paste,
and two sprigs o' basil.
Partially cover and let simmer over low heat
for about an hour until it's sweet and mellow
and tastes like, well, marinara sauce.
By this time, our eggplant should be about ready to rock.
Salting and compressing our eggplant like this
before cooking helps draw out moisture.
Not only is this gonna give them a better texture
and help prevent our casserole from turning into a soup,
it's gonna get rid of some
of the eggplant's naturally bitter flavors.
Next up, a standard three-stage deep fry:
flour seasoned with kosher salt
and freshly-ground black pepper;
plain bread crumbs seasoned
with dried basil, oregano, and parsley;
and four eggs, shells removed.
Tiny whisk everybody to a state of homogeneity.
Use the wet hand, dry hand technique
to prevent bready buildup on your fingertippies.
And dip your eggplant slices first in the flour,
then in the egg, then in the bread crumbs,
arranging on oiled racks set in rimmed baking sheets.
Now we're headed on over to the not-so-deep fry.
We've got about one inch of vegetable oil
heated to about 350 degrees Fahrenheit,
into which we're gonna deposit our breaded slices
and fry on both sides until deeply golden brown and crisp,
removing and draining on paper towels to keep 'em that way.
Not that it matters,
because we're about to smother them
in sauce and cheese and bake them,
so I don't even know why you deep fry in this recipe,
but you do.
We're starting with a layer of sauce in our casserole
to prevent things from sticking,
shingling a layer of our deep-fried eggplant medallions
and topping with some shredded or thinly sliced
full-fat, low-moisture mozzarella.
Top that up with some more of our marinara sauce,
and top that up with some freshly grated Pecorino Romano
or Parmesan cheese.
Rinse and repeat until the casserole is full.
Then, for the final layer, we're topping with sauce,
some more Parmesan, and six discs of fresh mozzarella.
We're using fresh on top
because it tastes great and it looks nice
and low moisture in the middle
so we don't end up with soupy Parm.
Throw a lid on there,
or tent the casserole with foil
so it doesn't touch the cheese.
Pop it into a preheated 350 degree Fahrenheit oven
for 35 to 40 minutes,
until the cheese has begun to melt
and things are starting to bubble.
Back into the oven for another 25, 30 minutes or so,
cranking up the temperature at the end
if you wanna get some nice browning.
Then, like virtually any casserole,
we're gonna let it rest for 10 minutes before serving.
I can also see that the one in the game is dotted
with what looks like torn fresh basil,
so I'm gonna scatter those all about
before cutting myself a slice.
Who else is ready
to really destroy the roof of their mouths?
I know my avatar is.
(Babish munching)
Mmm. (speaking Simlish)
You... You said it, guy.
This delicious eggplant Parm, or aubergine Parmigiana,
brings me right back to Rochester, New York's
Italian culinary and cultural epicenter, Mark's Pizzeria.
Now, on to one of the most difficult meals
to prepare in the game,
something I've always kind of not really wanted
to try making: baked Alaska.
We just made a whole mess of ice cream
on last week's "Basics,"
so go check that out if you wanna make your own ice cream.
Otherwise, you just gotta beat
your favorite store-bought stuff
to a soft-serve consistency.
Lay down first a layer of vanilla
in a large, plastic wrap-lined bowl.
Get it nice and smooth.
Pop it into the freezer for about 30 minutes to firm up,
followed by a layer of strawberry,
followed, of course, by a layer of chocolate,
because we're going for a Napoleon baked Alaska.
Once you got all three ice creams in there,
go ahead and pop that in the freezer
so we can make our cake base.
First, we gotta find a cake pan exactly the size
of the width of our ice cream bowl.
Cut out a layer of parchment paper
that we're gonna line the bottom with,
but not before lubing the whole thing up
with nonstick spray,
both the top and bottom of the parchment paper.
Then we're gonna make a super simple chocolate sponge,
starting by cracking three large eggs
into the bowl of a stand mixer,
which we're gonna whip together
with 50 grams of granulated sugar
for anywhere from three to five minutes on medium-high speed
until it reaches what I like to call
the slobbering Saint Bernard phase.
Did I just reason cakes for you?
I'm sorry.
Now we're gonna sift together the dry ingredients
onto a piece of parchment paper:
30 grams of all-purpose flour,
20 grams of cocoa powder,
1/2 teaspoon baking powder,
and 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt.
Sift that through at high speed so it looks cool,
tip it directly into our wet ingredients,
and then gently fold them together using a rubber spatula.
We wanna do our best not to knock out all the air
that we beat into our eggs.
Then we're gently pouring 20 grams of melted unsalted butter
down the side of the bowl, gently folding that in,
and dumping the results into our prepared cake pan.
Get that nice and smooth
and drop into a preheated 375 degree Fahrenheit oven
for 10 to 12 minutes
until it just starts to pull away from the sides of the pan,
like this.
Then we're gonna allow this to cool completely in the pan
before turning it out and merging it
with our ice cream entities.
It should come out of the pan with little to no resistance.
Peel off the parchment paper,
plop this guy on top,
wrap everything tightly in plastic wrap,
and stow this in the freezer overnight
so everything can firm up.
And now, for the reason why "The Sims" requires you
to be at cooking level 10 to make this dish:
whipping and subsequently torching an Italian meringue.
We're starting by separating four large egg whites
into the bowl of a stand mixer,
adding 1/4 teaspoon of cream of tartar,
and whipping those together on high speed
for about one to two minutes
until they reach the snot phase.
Meanwhile, over on the stovetop,
we're combining 225 grams of sugar with 45 grams of water,
placing it over medium-high heat,
and allowing it to simmer
until it reaches 240 degrees Fahrenheit,
the softball stage.
Take that off the heat,
and then with the mixer running on medium-high speed,
slowly, very, very carefully stream it
right between the sides of the bowl
and the blades of the whip.
Once everything has been added,
crank the speed all the way up to high
and whip this guy for a solid 15 minutes
until the bowl is cool to the touch,
indicating that this stuff won't melt our iced cream.
And there you have it: Italian meringue,
which we must now spread evenly and decoratively
on top of our Napoleon ice cream cake,
which we're gonna fetch from the freezer,
invert onto our cake stand,
carefully remove its protective bowl shell,
and aggressively remove
the very, very stuck-on plastic wrap.
And we're gonna place all this
on top of a fireproof surface,
'cause things are about to get hazardous up in here.
Spread the meringue over top
and get it into a nice even layer,
about one inch thick.
We want it thick not only to protect the ice cream
from the hot, hot flames,
but so we can carve a decorative pattern.
In my case, a sort of spiral
that I'm hoping the alcohol will slide down
like an Italian meringue luge.
Bring a little bit of white rum to a simmer,
set it aflame, and very, very, very carefully,
pour it over top of your meringue
with what I would call disappointing results.
My fire-slide didn't work,
and I may have gotten a little scared.
Just some of the many reasons
that you should not try this at home.
Instead, we're gonna act more like a level 9 Sim
and just use a good old-fashioned culinary torch
to give this thing a patchy,
but pretty toasted marshmallow exterior.
Now all there is left to do
is dip a knife in some hot water, wipe it clean,
and use it to cut some big ol' slices of this big ol' cake.
And, of course, take a look at that cross section.
Now, I know that this is a giant baked Alaska,
and in the game, they're much smaller
and more individual-size, but in my defense,
I forgot.
So pretend that this is a fraction of the size
and there's six of them.
And then just dig into this overcomplicated,
very 1950s, underwhelming dessert.
But, I mean, it's still good.
It's ice cream, toasted marshmallow, and cake,
which, as you can imagine, is a nice combo.
Might not be worth all the effort, but hey,
at least I didn't have to make Ambrosia, right?
Thanks again to "The Sims" for sponsoring today's episode.
To get more of your "Sims" cooking fix,
head to the link in the video description
to check out the "Cottage Living" expansion pack,
available July 22nd.
"Cottage Living" is full of new recipes
and a brand new challenge
that requires your Sims to use the freshest ingredients.
You can grow your own produce,
source your ingredients from your cows and chickens,
go to the village market, or go foraging in the wild.
Plus, you can enter a variety of competitions,
such as Best Cow or Best Llama, at the Finchwick Fair.
You might even see a familiar face, mine,
available to download from the Gallery
so you can recreate today's episode
in your very own cottage.
(casual upbeat music)