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(speaking in foreign language)
Hey, what's up, guys?
Welcome back to "Binging with Babish."
For this week we're taking a look
at one of the best cold opens in TV history,
the tater tot and sauce tasting scene from "Breaking Bad."
I'm just setting up these five fancy sauce cups
because we have five sauces to make.
And I'm going with cups because in my experience,
all these sauces tend to be a lot runnier
than those depicted in fiction.
So going in presentation order,
we're starting with honey mustard,
which you might think only contains honey and mustard.
But you'd be wrong.
Because we're talking about a large corporation
catering to Americans,
we're going to add a little bit of honey,
but mostly, high fructose corn syrup.
So we're doing 1/3rd of a cup yellow mustard,
1 tablespoon of corn syrup,
and a scant 2 teaspoons of actual honey.
Next up is French, which starts with Ranch.
Into a bowl goes a 1/3rd of a cup sour cream,
quarter cup mayonnaise, 1 tablespoon buttermilk,
1/2 teaspoon dried chives,
1/2 teaspoon dried dill weed,
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt,
and 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder,
plus a tablespoon and a half of chopped fresh parsley.
Tiny whisking with great rigor to combine.
Next up, the French dressing,
which I was surprised to learn
is a mayonnaise-like emulsion.
Starting itself with 1/3 cup each mayonnaise and ketchup,
an astounding three tablespoons of granulated white sugar,
tablespoon white vinegar,
two tablespoons apple cider vinegar,
plus half a small onion roughly chopped go
into the jar of a blender where,
while they're getting blended,
we're gonna slowly drizzle in a half cup
of neutral flavored oil, like vegetable or canola,
through the hole.
And there you have it, French dressing,
which isn't quite red enough,
so I'm gonna add some more ketchup.
And there you have it, French dressing with extra ketchup.
Which as predicted, is runny.
Next comes the one I'm most excited about,
Cajun kick-ass,
a greenish, mayonnaise-ish looking emulsion.
So to try to capture some of that Cajun flavor,
I've got two ribs of celery diced,
half a small onion diced,
and half a small green bell pepper diced,
AKA the holy trinity,
along with two cloves of garlic,
a half teaspoon each black and white peppercorns,
and a couple sprigs each fresh oregano and thyme.
These are headed in some cold vegetable oil,
then I'm gonna slowly and gently cook for about 10 minutes.
Allow to cool completely,
and then strain the resultant infused oil,
which we're gonna use to fashion a mayonnaise.
But not just any mayonnaise,
a kick-ass Cajun mayonnaise
because this stuff tastes good.
Back to the blender,
we're starting with one whole egg,
one large clove of garlic roughly chopped,
half teaspoon of Dijon mustard,
which I apologize,
I'm using my fingers to dig out of the cup.
Not a great look.
Quarter teaspoon of kosher salt
and one tablespoon of white vinegar.
Then we're gonna go ahead
and blend in the blender until blended.
And once pretty smooth,
start slowly streaming in one cup of our infused oil,
creating a mayonnaise that is Cajun,
but isn't kick-ass.
We need green color and we need a little bit of heat.
Where are we gonna find that?
How about this jalapeno in my hand?
Half of it roughly chopped.
Plus, in order to flavor, thicken and greenen things,
maybe a quarter cup of the cooked vegetables
from the infusing process.
Blend for about one minute until totally smooth.
As predicted, just a little runny
and really very actually kick-ass.
It's super flavorful.
It's a little spicy.
This would genuinely be a very pleasant condiment
to eat with the thing.
Next up, smoky mesquite BBQ.
This begins with 2/3rds of a cup of ketchup,
plus a half teaspoon of garlic powder,
two teaspoons of Worcestershire sauce,
1/3rd of a cup dark brown sugar,
three quarters of a teaspoon onion powder,
half teaspoon paprika,
two tablespoons each white vinegar,
and of course, corn syrup.
These guys are gonna get corn syrup in there
if it kills them or us.
About a teaspoon of kosher salt
and a half teaspoon of freshly ground black pepper,
plus a couple tablespoons of water
to safeguard against scorching.
Now to get the smoke flavor in there,
we're gonna use mesquite-specific liquid smoke, which...
Oh, I thought that would come out way more slowly.
All right, no saving that batch
because this stuff is strong.
So this time,
carefully-ish pre-measure a teaspoon of liquid smoke.
Tiny whisk until everybody's dissolved
and cook over medium/low heat
until it has a barbecue sauce-like consistency.
Next up, ketchup,
which we're gonna take from tomato to bottle
to show you the process,
or what I think is the process.
First, we're gonna make homemade tomato paste.
Chopping and scooping the seeds out of six
to eight large Roma tomatoes,
which we're gonna place in a medium/high walled saute pan,
along with the strained remains of the tomato seed pulp,
which is apparently where a lot of the tomato flavor lives.
Once you're done harvesting your last drop
of orange/red snot,
place over medium/high heat,
cover and bring to a simmer,
uncovering once starting to bubble.
Bring the heat down to medium/low
and cook uncovered for 20 to 25 minutes,
until things are starting to look a little dry.
But not too dry
because we still wanna puree the hell out of these things
about three minutes on high speed
to ensure that as much tomato as possible
has been broken down into a liquid format,
which we're gonna press through a fine mesh sieve
to catch any errant particulate needlessly into a bowl,
since we're just gonna put this into a pie plate anyway
with the rimmed wide non-reactive bake ware of your choice,
which generally means no metal.
Then this guy's heading into a 250 degree Fahrenheit oven
for two to three hours,
removing every half hour or so to give it a stir.
Tap it flat and put it back.
Basically, you want the tomato puree
to be all surface area so it's constantly getting exposed to
and caramelized by the heat of the oven.
As you can see, I let it get a little too thin at one point,
and some of it burned.
But I was determined to give it
at least three hours in the oven
so that I would end up with the thickest, richest,
most delicious pip squeak of puree on the planet,
which as you can see,
can only generously be called a third of a cup.
To that we're adding one tablespoon of brown sugar,
a tablespoon of white vinegar,
quarter teaspoon each garlic and onion powder,
an 1/8th teaspoon each mustard powder and celery salt,
1/16th teaspoon each ground clove and allspice,
and of course,
a teaspoon of the requisite high-fructose corn syrup.
Once again, I'm gonna press this mixture
through a fine mesh sieve
to try to get it as smooth as humanly possible.
And this might have the consistency of Sir Kensington's,
but it's got the flavor of Heinz,
which is right where I wanna live.
Now, with all sauces negotiated,
we can begin to tot our taters.
Three large russet taters peeled and plunged
directly into boiling water,
which might seem counterintuitive,
but we actually want the potatoes to cook unevenly
over the course of about 12 to 18 minutes,
at which point the outside of your potato should be cooked
and the inside should still be pleasantly raw,
which is gonna give our resultant tots a varied texture.
That's two back-to-back consonants back to back.
Very rare.
Once these guys are cool enough to handle,
we're going to commence to grating
on the large holes of a box grater.
And like I mentioned,
this should give you a mixed bag of potato shreds and mush.
And we definitely want shreds,
but we don't want them to be too long.
So I'm gonna chop these guys up using a bench scraper
until no shred exceeds 15 millimeters in length
for a little German precision.
Place these in a big old bowl.
And then in a small old bowl,
we're gonna combine one and a half teaspoons of kosher salt,
a tablespoon of all-purpose flour,
two teaspoons cornstarch,
and a teaspoon of freshly ground black pepper.
Tiny whisk until homogenous.
Add to the potatoes.
Mix until evenly combined,
and then it's time to fashion this mixture into pucks,
for which I have this vintage falafel mold
that Kendall found for me on eBay.
They were clearly dealing with some type F 230 fold
50 hertz tater tots,
so I'm gonna whip up one batch,
show accurate in these little puck forms,
which I might be poking fun at,
but I think they're actually gonna turn out better
if they're 90% surface area,
which means a higher tot to tater ratio.
But I also gotta make the cylindrical ones,
so surprise, "Napoleon Dynamite" episode.
- Napoleon, give me some of your tots.
- No, go find your own.
- Come on, give me some of your tots.
- No, freaking stop.
I didn't get to eat anything today.
(foot stomps)
(Napoleon groans)
- Gross.
Freaking idiot.
- [Babish] Hey, what's up, guys?
Welcome back to "Binging with Babish."
For this week we're taking a look at the tater tots
from "Napoleon Dynamite."
First we gotta make the potato batter,
and then shape it into tots.
Just be sure to repeatedly dip your hands in water
because this stuff is sticky.
No matter how you tot your taters,
they're heading into the freezer for at least an hour,
and up to a few months.
This is both to crystallize
the potato's cell walls or something,
resulting in fluffier interiors,
and to lend it some structural integrity
as it plunges into some 350 degree Fahrenheit
preheated fry oil for anywhere from three to six minutes,
depending on the size and the form factor of your tots.
The same goes for the big boys.
They might take a little bit longer to fry,
so maybe drop your temperature down 10 degrees.
Fish them out, allow them to drain on paper towels,
salt them while still hot,
and there you have it, homemade tater tots,
something that, like the entirety of this episode,
you should probably just buy.
But let's pretend I didn't just say that
and begin to plate up our sauce samples,
making sure not to forget
to integrate a little bit of Ranch into the French,
big dollop of my favorite, Cajun kick-ass,
some smoky BBQ,
and the only condiment that mimics the viscosity
of its store-bought contemporaries, ketchup.
Plate up the tots in a fancy glass bowl of some sort
and commence to sampling
with the 1,000-yard stare of somebody who knows
that they're well and truly (censored).
Now, each of these sauces tasted pretty good.
Cajun kick-ass and French were definitely the stand-outs.
But the real winner here was the tater tots.
They taste just like the ones that you got in high school,
which was often the best part of high school,
but they added more potatoey,
less processed flavor.
One thing I'll say is that
in the context of this glass bowl,
I am definitely pro-cylinder.
The puck format, while novel and exotic,
is very difficult to fetch out of a narrow mouth bowl
with one's fingertips.
(groans) Got it.
Now folks, real quick,
you might notice at the time of this episode's publishing
that we're at 9.99 million subscribers.
So just this once,
I'm gonna say something I've never said
in the seven years of making this show.
Here we go. (clears throat)
Please like and subscribe.
I can't do it.
Just thank you all from the bottom of my heart,
all 10 million of you.
We've got some really fun and exciting episodes to celebrate
in the coming weeks.
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