[Janie] Are you looking for some amazing recipes to wow your friends and family on the big game?
[Chef Scott] Well find out today are a very special sports edition of WTF
[Chef Scott] Hello and welcome to WTF where we transform food here in the
Modernist Pantry Test Kitchen! I'm chef Scot Guerin -
[Janie] And I'm Janie Wang, the owner of Modernist Pantry. Today Scott and I have tons of recipes for you
that's all about the big game so we are super excited to share what we're gonna
be doing for the playoffs and all those fun games with you!
[Chef Scott] As you can tell, Janie is a huge sports fan just can't contain her enthusiasm but think about
all the good foods that you get even if you go to a game or someone's party
you get chicken wings, you get guacamole, you get nachos, but sometimes they're not the
best quality. Sometimes they're - you know, takeout from
a place that's not as reputable, or you buy them at the grocery store and you
get plasticky tasting cheese or guacamole that turns brown.
[Janie] So what do we have here Scott Today?
[Chef Scott] So actually we're gonna give a call back to our first
episode aptly numbered episode 100 and it's our Sodium Citrate cheese but we
actually have a nacho cheese recipe that we've developed that has a little bit of
roasted jalapeno in it, and it gives you that really nacho cheese flavor without
all the plastic kind of textures that you'd get if you bought the cheese in
the store. This works really well because also when you pour that
nacho cheese over the chips after a while it just turns into this kind of
solid brick on there that's not as appetizing this one is formulated so
that it stays liquidy throughout so even if it gets a little bit cool you
still get that nacho texture. We can show you that I heated this up maybe about 10
minutes ago you could still get that nice beautiful nacho cheese right over
and I'm sure Cole's getting great shots right now.
[Janie] And that looks super delicious! And - for I think
the few people who have not seen episode 100 all about Sodium Citrate,
can we go over really quickly a little bit about what sodium citrate is and what's
it doing with the cheese that makes it special?
[Chef Scott} Yeah so sodium citrate - it's very easy
it's just the salt from Citrus foods and you add a little bit in and it
helps that protein and that fat combined so you know when you melt regular
cheddar cheese it'll be this you know clump of melted cheese and then oil like
a slick that comes off. Well this helps it melt evenly and it doesn't break like
it normally would. So you get that beautiful cheese that you can pour over your nachos.
[Janie] So it's like Velveeta but with quality cheese of your choosing [Chef Scott] Yes exactly
[Janie] Cool! that looks delicious so definitely - I love nachos, I can't wait to eat one!
[Chef Scott] Yes we will eat them at the end of the episode
because there's still more things to put on the nachos
so next actually a very simple recipe especially if you're coming off of a
holiday season or you just happen to have heavy cream at home you can make
your own sour cream using just a mason jar and a fermentation lid that you can
find at episode 112. This is the SteriLock fermentation lid, it's an airlock
that you put right on top of a mason jar that's been sanitized and you confirm it
right in there it allows all the oxygen to escape without letting it back in so
you're not gonna have any of those pathogens in there. This is just some
sour cream we made using heavy cream, and it's two parts heavy cream in one part
buttermilk. You find the recipe on the blog. - A little bit of salt in there as well.
But you get after four days or so you get this really beautiful sour cream
then you can put on top of your nachos. You can also strain this if you want a
little bit thicker of a sour cream. I kind of prefer it like this for sour
cream if you strain it you get almost like a creme fraiche. You can let it
ferment a little bit longer if you want that really sour kind of flavor from it
but it's up to you. Whatever you like whatever you prefer and you can kind of
customize it to yourself in your taste.
[Janie] Yeah and for the fermentation period for somebody who wants to
to do this for the big game or any game how far ahead should they prep that?
[Chef Scott] So I did this one four days ago and I just allow it to sit
in a nice warm place, in the shade is totally fine, in a cabinet is
totally fine, and after four days - obviously every day I just tasted a
little bit to see and I open it just in case something had gotten in there and
you see a little bit mold or yeast. The yeast will be a really dry white film on
top I know it's white already but you'll see a dryness to it.
And if it's mold you'll see mold.
- either blue, green, black, whatever it happens to be, throw it out!
So you don't want any mold you don't want any yeast, and that's
what the fermentation lid is there for. but yeah about four days to get it right
where you need it for the big game.
[Janie] So just a little bit about the fermentation lid, for the SteriLock line, we do have it
on the website in both a regular jar and also a widemouth. So if you're gonna be
doing a quart mason jar like this definitely make sure that you get the
white mouth one because otherwise it won't fit so there is a bit of a difference.
[Chef Scott] And we understand not everyone needs a quart of sour cream all the time so
if you want to do it in a pint size that's totally fine we have the lid for that as well.
[Janie] Awesome! All right and what do we have here? These these too very different bowls.
[Chef Scott] So obviously we have two delicious looking guacamoles.
The one on the left and the one on the right are made on the exact same time,
the exact same recipe, and the exact same day.
And the one on the left has - well my left you are right,
has sodium bisulfite. So a small amount of sodium bisulfite will kind of bond to the
chlorophyll inside of the avocado, the cilantro, and it's going to keep it green
and keep it really beautiful for longer.
And these like I said made on the same day.
I left them out just to stress test them and you can see what
happens obviously the avocado but even if you leave it out and let's say the
game's four hours long. By the end of a game you're gonna have brown guacamole
you don't want that you want something to look nice beautiful
and fresh it doesn't affect the flavor.
[Janie] Yeah and just kind of looking at this it's
almost impossible to believe that Scott made them the same day but it's true!
[Chef Scott] It's the same batch it just separated it, so they're the same
avocados, you can just see what the difference of them are.
[Janie] Yeah it's incredible!
and I think one of the things that questions we get from people
- questions/concerned is that people hear the words "Sodium Bisulfite"
and they get a little bit concerned they're like "Oh sodium bisulfite sounds
really chemically" and I guess our response to it is -
[Chef Scott] It's understandable because these are the names
of the ingredients. But if you take baking soda
which everyone has in their cabinet, and you look at the back it's sodium
bicarbonate so all of these have you know their traditional chemical names
but everything is made of chemicals so it's not much to be scared of there is
if you use far too much of sodium bisulfite it can cause an allergic
reaction but that's way more than you would ever possibly need to use and
trust me if you're using tablespoons upon table spoons
there's an issue with your recipe but if you follow our recipe on our blog
it uses a very small amount and it just keeps it nice and beautifully green.
[Janie] Yeah, so don't be afraid of chemistry people, it's in everything!
Alright, lets finish off with this probably my personal favorite of all the dishes
[Chef Scott] Just the wings! They're simple, delicious, inside the wing sauce, it's a traditionally
made wing sauce at home rather than buying a bottle and mixing in some butter.
So we take red bell peppers which I find have a really nice flavor and
then I had the heat with Thai bird chilies. So you can kind of gauge where
you like your heat. This recipe has about thirty. If you want something a
little bit more mild do fifteen. If you want something that's going to be
blazing hot go all the way up to forty five so it's very easy to kind of gauge
rather than buying a bunch of Fresno peppers or whatever and then hoping that
they just come out the same so you can really kind of gauge it while getting
the same volume of sauce. And I added a little bit of xanthan gum to it to
thicken it up and just make it stick really nicely to those wings and then
obviously butter because butter makes it better!
[Janie] Yeah and you can kind of see right here we plated this
right before we started shooting and all the
sauce is still yes pretty much exactly where where it was right?
[Chef Scott] Yup and you can also find the recipe for the wings themselves
- a wing recipe that I've used for a long time it makes really great crispy wings!
[Janie] Wow! This is a delicious spread here so we got your nacho cheese you have your nachos,
sour cream, guac, wings, a couple of different ingredients and tools. If you do want to
check out any of these items in detail we do have episode 100 all about sodium citrate,
episode 112 all about fermentation, not just this particular lid but if you were like
"how do I make pickles?" "I bought this lid, what else can I do with it"
check out episode 112 for fermentation in detail
and then we do have another episode 118 that is
all about xanthan gum which is one of the most versatile and widely used of the
modern ingredients. So before we leave the folks here as they're getting
rushing off to buy all these things in order to get ready for the big game
is there anything else we want to talk about?
[Chef Scott] No, I think we pretty much covered
everything we need to it's just you can take these and say you don't
like jalapeno you want to add something else to it, all these recipes are really
a guideline just to be you know customizable to you. So if you like your
guacamole a certain way but you wanted to say green you could just take my
recipe and add in whatever your favorite ingredients are so it's really great as
long as you sodium bisulfite you're gonna get that big beautiful green color
off of your guacamole and really while your friends.
[Janie] Yeah definitely looking forward to having fun and
hopefully your team's in it to win it and
any other sports analogy that I don't know! [Chef Scott] You're really nailing it with those sports terms!
[Janie] so from here in the Modernist Pantry Test Kitchen, I'm Janie Wang
[Chef Scott] I'm Scott Guerin
we hope you enjoyed today's episode! If you want these great recipes and these
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And then you're going to go to blog.modernistpantry.com where you can find
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go to www.modernistpantry.com, and until next time we'll be here in the
Modernist Pantry Test Kitchen helping you transform food