FEMALE SPEAKER: So thank you everybody for being here today.
We're all very excited to welcome a great chef
to the Google office.
He just released a new cookbook, which, if you want,
is back over on that table.
You can see it up here.
He's going to be demoing two recipes for us, the crab
cakes and the pumpkin salad.
So if you have questions, we'll do a Q&A towards the end.
But throughout, just enjoy, learn, and have fun.
So thank you.
JEREMY SEWALL: Thanks.
So both these recipes are in the book.
And they're really very easy.
And I encourage people to-- if you like food,
I always encourage people to get outside your comfort zone
once in a while and do something you've never done before.
And these a really easy recipes that are pretty doable.
I think with a little bit of patience,
a good bottle of wine, and some time, you can figure these out.
And they're very seasonal, so this
is from the fall section the book.
It's with pumpkins.
Obviously, pumpkins you see everywhere now to nauseum.
Every store has a pumpkin.
The smaller ones are called sugar pumpkins.
And they're a little bit sweeter.
They're really good.
And the lettuce we're going to use
is called frisee, which is a little bit bitter.
It's a little hearty lettuce.
It's In the chicory family.
It's got a sweet bitterness to it, which is really good.
And then ricotta cheese and a real simple vinaigrette.
And I'll explain each section as we go along.
And then we'll get to taste it.
Everyone as a kid, you carved pumpkins.
You got the top out.
You scooped the seeds out.
And you toast the seeds, hopefully.
But I'm just going to show you the chef
way, how you tackle pumpkin.
They can be really delicious.
So, really easy, just cut the top off.
We cut the bottom off.
And really, that's just so it sits flat
so it doesn't wobble too much on you.
And everyone should have one of these in their house.
It's a really good vegetable peeler, really heavy-duty,
really sharp, really a great thing
to have around for shaving cheese or anything.
And these are strong enough-- those actually
peel a pumpkin-- thanks very much.
And this is a lot easier than trying to take a knife
and peel it from the outside.
It's lot safer.
You peel the pumpkin like you're peeling an apple.
It's a little thicker skin, and sometimes you've
got to go over it twice.
But that just gives you an idea of how easy that can be.
Just peel it all the way down.
So I'm not going to peel the whole thing.
But that just gives you an idea.
And then we're going to cut it.
And then for this recipe I cut it in, usually, four or six.
This is a little bit bigger, so we could probably
cut it into six.
But first we cut it in half, then in half.
And what we want to do is just scrape the seeds out.
And there's actually-- you can see
there's a lot of seeds in a pumpkin.
And they're really delicious.
So you just scrape it all out.
And then from that part, what we end up
doing is, before we cook it, from here what
we do is take this piece, cut that in half.
And then we just cut it into little wedges like this.
And then from here-- you can see how easy that is.
From here, we just toss these in a little olive oil,
and we bake them.
And this is what they look like at the end.
Now, you don't want to bake them so much that they're mushy.
But they're soft, so you can eat them cold in a salad.
And they pick up the flavor really nice.
And they have great flavor, great color.
They're a really beautiful, autumn color.
So that's what that looks like.
And then the seeds-- a little bit of the trick
is if you actually scrape all the seeds,
and then you put this in water and just mix it around,
all the seeds separate from everything else.
And you just peel them off the top.
Once you get the seeds and you rinse them off--
and you see how easy they separate.
And you rinse them off, and you dry them.
And then we toss them in a little bit of butter
and toasted cardamom.
And you toast them.
And that's what they come up with.
They're just really little crunchy pumpkin seeds.
They're absolutely delicious, and it's really easy.
So to make the salad, again, it's
just simple autumn salad, our frisee.
And that's the root, where it grows in the ground like that.
Just trim that end off.
Trim a little off the top, where it might be a little wilted
or beat up from handling.
And then I just cut in half.
I'm just going to spread out.
Oh my God, it's so easy.
So here it is, our roasted pumpkin, our frisee.
And this vinaigrette is we took curry.
And we put dried curry powder in a dry saute pan.
And you put it on a low heat.
And you toast the curry.
And as it starts to get hot, it'll
start to change the flavor.
And you'll smell this great toasted curry aroma.
And as soon as you start to smell and see
that toast a little bit, you pour olive oil over it.
Let that warm up, and then you set it to the side.
And you just let that all kind of steep together.
And that's how you get curry oil.
So this is just curry oil and lemon juice.
That's all this is, really simple.
We just drizzle just enough to coat everything.
You don't want it to be soupy.
And then this here is just ricotta cheese,
a little bit of cream to thin it out, a little chili flake.
Now, chili flakes add a little bit of spice to it.
If you don't like that spice, don't use them.
You just want to thin this out, a little bit creamy.
And we season everything.
Now salt is kind of-- it's a great tool.
You don't want food to taste salty,
but salt helps bring out the natural flavors
of most any food.
You won't taste the salt.
It doesn't have to taste salty.
So a little bit-- and again, if you don't like curry,
don't use curry.
You can just use lemon juice and olive oil.
If there's another spice that you like,
like cumin or coriander might work really
well in this, if you want to mix up the spice.
There's no rules.
The food police will not show up and arrest you
if you use the wrong spice.
So to plate this out like this, it's so easy.
We just a little bit of ricotta on the bottom of the plate,
spread that around.
And that's going to be the base of the salad.
And then in here we have our pumpkin, our frisee,
and our dressing.
And we season it with a little bit of salt.
I normally season with salt and pepper,
because pepper's a little bit spicy.
And since I have the chili flake in here, I held back on that.
I just don't want too much heat or spice in there.
That might fight with the other flavors.
So then we just to build it a little bit high.
We want it to look confused but organized, as we say.
Then our toasted seeds, and we just-- over the top.
And then if you're really trying to impress somebody,
make it fancy.
We just drizzle a little bit of vinaigrette around the outside.
And if you notice-- I think, one thing about this dish
is it has all those earth tones that
are associated with autumn, the orange pumpkin,
and the toasted brown seeds, and the yellows,
and in the deeper greens.
I mean, that looks like fall on a plate.
So that's really it.
So that's what our sugar pumpkin salad with toasted seeds
and curry looks like.
We're going to taste a bunch.
SOUS CHEF: [INAUDIBLE].
JEREMY SEWALL: Sure.
Great, come on up and try these, guys.
Do we have forks?
OK, so we're going to do-- the next thing we're going to make,
it's really simple.
We're going to make a crab cake.
Again, I think it's a really simple recipe.
It's in the book.
I think it's something that's really doable.
It's not that bad to make at home.
This is a great holiday one, if you're
cooking around the holidays, because you
can make these a day ahead, Keep them
in the refrigerator for a day or two.
They keep really well.
Once they're made, they're pretty easy to serve,
so really easy.
But really what it starts with is-- this
is Jonah crab meat, which is a local crab here
to New England, usually northern New England, from the Cape
up to the Gulf of Maine.
Gulf of Maine and up towards Canada is where most of them
come from.
And it's one of the smaller commercially-caught crabs.
When you think of crabs, you think Alaskan King crab--
what's that show, Deadliest Catch.
Those are what most people think of crab.
So those are sometimes six feet across span.
These are called Jonah, or rock crabs,
which are about this big.
And it's a little bit more work to get the meat out
of the shell than it is in the larger ones.
But it is local.
It is really good.
I always encourage people to try to source out fresh crab meat,
instead of-- and you can make this with most any kind of crab
met.
But if you buy pasteurized or anything like that,
generally, you lose some of the flavor.
It gets a little watery.
So this time of year in, especially food shops and fish
markets, fresh Jonah crab meat is available.
So it's just really simple.
I picked it for shells, squeeze the moisture out.
So we just have some dry, straight-up crab meat here.
We're going to mix in a little bit of mayonnaise.
This is just chopped cilantro.
And again, if you don't love cilantro, don't use it.
Use an herb that you like, like fresh dill, or chives,
or rosemary, or parsley.
Anything like that is really good in there.
This is just a little red bell pepper and red onion minced up.
We use a little bit of that.
An egg, and I'm not going to quite use
the whole egg, because it's just a small batch.
But egg is just really used-- is a little bit
of a binder to hold it all together.
A little bit of fresh lemon juice, a bit of lemon zest.
So if you don't have one of these at home, you should.
It's called a microplane.
They come in fine-- fine grating like this.
And they do bigger ones.
This is great-- great for kind of zesting fruit really easy,
and then grating cheese over the top of stuff.
If you burn your toast, if you run this across it,
it cleans it right up.
In our kitchens-- don't tell anyone.
It's our secret.
But if you burn a piece of fish on the edge,
you scrape this across the burnt edge of the fish.
It cleans it right up.
It's a pretty cool tool to have around.
And we seem to go through a lot of them,
because I'm always looking for one.
So a little fresh lemon zest really makes it bright.
And then this is just Tabasco.
And this is just-- Tabasco is high in vinegar.
So it's a vinegar sauce.
So it adds acid, which like salt, kind of helps
flavors pop out and a little bit of heat.
And I don't want it to be hot, but I just-- a little bit
of heat in the background there will
help develop some of the other flavors.
You never want to taste the Tabasco,
but it should be in there.
A little salt, we mix this together.
So really what it is-- it's about 50%
crab meat, 55% crab meat, and then 45% to 50%
of everything else combined.
So it's really at least half or more crab meat.
All mixed in there.
It's a little bit wet, but that's OK.
It's seasoned well.
Everything's in there, nice proportion.
And these are panko breadcrumbs, which
is just-- they're sold everywhere now.
When I started cooking years ago,
only specialty stores had them.
It's just a Japanese white breadcrumb, really versatile,
really easy to find, easy to use.
We just fold in a little bit, until we
get the consistency of the crab cake that we want.
So where it's moist but not sticky,
and it'll still hold together.
And again, if you don't like peppers, don't put peppers in.
If you don't like Tabasco, don't put Tabasco.
Sriracha's really good in there.
I really encourage people-- when you're cooking at home, just
do stuff that you like.
Follow a recipe.
So maybe sometimes you understand how something works.
But after that, make food that you want to eat.
OK, so you can see it coming together.
And that's about right where we want it,
where it's still-- it's coming together.
It's a little damp to the touch, but it's not sticky.
Let those breadcrumbs soak in.
And then this is-- it's called a ring mold.
And every kitchen has a gazillion
of these thrown throughout the kitchen, different sizes.
This is what you make things-- it's really easy.
This is a great thing to use, because you get the right size.
And you want everything-- one of the most important things
in a restaurant is consistency.
So if four of you were eating dinner in a restaurant
and you all order the crab cake, and one was bigger
than the other, everyone would be like, what's that.
So this is built for speed and consistency.
So I know when they're making crab cakes at work,
they know to put breadcrumb in, fill this thing up, breadcrumb
on top, and it's the same every time.
So that's one of our little tools.
A little breadcrumb in the bottom of this.
We just pack the ring mold.
Really push it down so it all comes together.
Then we do a little breadcrumb on top.
There are some recipes where you bread crab cakes.
That's a different process.
That's where you take the crab cake.
You roll it in the flour.
Then you roll it in eggs.
Then you roll it in breadcrumbs.
And you can do that too, and they come out wonderful.
This is just a little easier.
And I love-- I think the best part about crab cake
is the crab.
And sometimes if you have too much breading on there,
you don't get enough of the crab.
So I just bread the top and bottom
and get that nice and crispy.
So it's crispy on the top to bottom, hopefully.
And then you have a nice, creamy, crab middle.
So that's really it.
And then we try not to burn it.
So I got this a little hot.
Vegetable oil, or canola oil, really
is what you guys should cook with at home.
Don't cook with olive oil.
So if you buy a nice olive oil-- olive oil
is not meant to be cooked with.
So it's called-- you can see how you see that smoking.
So that's called a flashpoint in oil.
So if oil gets too hot, and it starts to break down,
the flavor start to really change, is when it's smoking.
Olive oil isn't a meant to be cooked with.
It's meant to be made dressings with and drizzle over the top.
Because olive oil-- if you ate a spoonful of olive oil,
it has a unique flavor.
It's pleasant.
It's meant to be eaten on its own
or dressed over top of the stuff.
Vegetable oil, not so much.
It's meant to be cooked with.
So the temperature can get hotter.
I'm just going to let that get crisp.
Oh my God, that's so easy.
So you see-- just nice and even, so enough oil in there
where the entire thing's coated on the bottom.
Get a nice, crispy crust.
And what I would do-- when you're making these at home,
at this point, from there you throw in the oven.
You flip it over, you've got a nice brown
on top, nice even, beautiful golden brown.
You throw in the oven.
It'll brown on the bottom, and it'll warm through.
If I brown it on the stove, on both tops,
it'll be hot on the top and bottom and crispy.
But it'd be cold in the middle.
So from here, in the oven for a few minutes.
Let it get warm all the way through.
And you're ready to go, super easy.
I know everyone's going to go home and make crab cakes.
I can tell.
Let that cook another second.
So one of the things we've paired this with in the book
is we did squash.
And I think in the book, it's Hubbard squash.
I don't remember every last detail of every recipe.
But I remember most of them.
So Hubbard squash is a local squash.
It's kind of a funny shape to it.
It's called an heirloom squash, which
means a really old variety.
Most of the squash that you see in the store
are your typical butternut squash or acorn squash,
which look like a large acorn.
Just never buy those again, ever in your entire life.
Just promise me that, if you'll do one thing.
There's so many more interesting, flavorful squash
out there in the world that just have an amazing flavor.
I mean, you could do this-- and we do a little squash puree
with this and pickled chilies.
If you did this with pumpkin, or Hubbard squash,
or there's these big funky ones called Long Island cheese
pumpkins, amazing flavors.
All kinds of stuff out there that
have much better flavor than butternut.
They have this rich, deep, earthy, fall flavor.
They're amazing.
Nothing against butternut, but there's lots of cool stuff
out there.
It's really simple.
If you think about fall, think about fall flavors.
As the weather turns cold-- and boy
we've had a really mild fall-- but I mean, for all us,
what you want to eat, and what you kind of-- it changes.
You start to crave things that are warm,
and hearty, and nurturing.
And these are some of those things that
make you feel really good about eating.
And in the summer, you crave tomatoes,
and you crave corn and all those things.
In the fall and the winter, the colder
it is and the more the weather changes--
that's kind of unique to New England.
And that's what we talked about in the book, how as the seasons
change, you want to eat different things.
And as a cook or a chef in a kitchen,
you want to cook different things.
You get to work and use these different things.
And that's-- there's season's everywhere, obviously.
But what happens in New England is truly unique.
It's a region that's so defined by the seasons.
And we're so defined to what's available to us
throughout those seasons.
So these are just some-- and what
we do is we talk about, in the book, the guys who grow stuff,
who brew stuff, who catch stuff, and how that ties back
to the restaurants and how they bring it to us.
And how that changes what we cook
and eat throughout the year.
And this is just a couple of small examples of that.
So please grab a crab cake and try one.
And hopefully they're not bad.
Well, thank you, guys.
I'm going to hang out over there and sign books
for a few minutes, if anyone's interested.
And i thank you, guys, for coming down.