Around the Kitchen Table - How to make Beef Braciole

Hey everyone, I'm Chef Dennis Littley and thank you for stopping by to Around the Kitchen Table. This is our, I believe, 5th show in the series, 4th or 5th, somewhere in there. I'm having so much fun I'm losing track. But we're here today to prepare one of my favorite classic Italian dishes and that would be beef braise with my very special mushroom sambuca sauce. And we're going to get to that later on in the show, but first I'm going to introduce my co-host Susan Sarah. And we're gonna let her take it away from now. So how you doing, Susan? Good to see you.

I am good. Good to see you too, Chef. It was a great weekend here. I mean, we only got down to 37 degrees, so spring is clearly here, you know. I didn't know yesterday was Easter, and you know, we had the whole family thing, so I didn't know what to wear, but you know. How about you? How was your weekend?

Beautiful. 75 degrees. It's a little cloudy but very easy, very nice and cool. I had a bunch of friends over Saturday night. I cooked a lot of food and we had fun. Some of my G+ friends, Tina Willis, Greg Trullio, and Carolyn Caperna came over. We had a bunch of people, snowbirds that come down for part of it from another community came over. We had a great time. We were open until about midnight having fun. Sunday I got to see the Jersey Boys. I was really excited.

Yeah, I know you said that. That's real, that's great. I've seen that too. And look who's in the film strip, who just kind of snuck in here. No, but we're so happy to have with us Coriann Eddian, who is just a fabulous kitchen lifestyle professional, and we're going to be talking to her more in depth, you know, in a little bit. But hi, Coriann, good to have you here.

So delighted to be here. Thank you for allowing me to grace your fabulous company.

Sure, we're going to have fun.

We're very happy to have you here. I haven't seen you since last year in Orlando, actually, at the conference. So it's nice to see you again.

I know, I know. It's like old home week. And I saw Susan, what, 3 years ago?

Yes, I think so. Yes, at SubZero.

Yes.

And you had— and I will never forget, you had a fabulous shawl on. There was some kind of shawl you were wearing. I will not forget it, because I was behind you.. And I just kept looking and I said, she just has it, she just has that style, she's got it.

So, well, thank you. Pashminas and sunglasses and high heels are my staple, and you will find me in them any time of season, any time of day.

Yeah, it's like food, you know, you have your basics. Yeah, I think that's it. So, you know, this is so great, Chef, because you were entertaining this weekend, and we have Corianne here who is the entertaining you know, guru-esque, if there is such a word. So we'll be talking about that. And how did your party go? Was it stress-free? Were you filled with stress? Oh no.

That's a good answer for you.

Oh geez, you just use the mallet and use it on your guests when you had a problem.

Yeah, nobody tends to give me a problem when I carry my hammer.

I believe it.

It wasn't bad considering, you know, most of it's just getting back into the feel of making that much food at one time again. It's been a while since I've— I only made 3 soups. I made a New England clam chowder, a Moroccan lentil soup, and escarole Italian wedding soup. Then I whipped together a few desserts. I had tiramisu, of course, and a flourless chocolate torte, and a ricotta cheesecake with blueberries. Then I decided I'd grill some chicken, and I made some saffron rice. It was nice, easygoing. They just drank a lot of wine and had a great time.

Yeah, I mean, you know, it's funny because, you know, you entertain, you have people over, and I mean, I don't do soups very often, but you, I mean, you have 3. You don't have 1, you have 3.

For the longest time, you know, being up north, my parties were always soups and desserts. You know, I had a lot of breads and just, you know, that would always fill people up, and usually I'd make 5 or 6 desserts.

Yeah.

So there was always a lot, but you know.

I think it's great. I mean, it's savory. Let's face it, it's all about being savory. Savory, right?

Yeah, and they usually enjoy them. And I always was really good at making soup.

So, so now, do you— how did you spread out the evening? Did you have a plan beforehand?

As for what, serving?

Yeah.

Oh no, it was just all out at one time. It was all buffet. Oh, so much room here. I had my desserts over on the far side. I had my soups on the stove. I have a big Ninja kind of crockpot cooker, and I made the rice in that and turned it down to buffet, and I grilled the chicken outside on my Weber, and I just kept the oven on low and kept it in there. And I made sausages too, sausages and chicken, brown rice. And yeah, they just kind of replenished as we went. We had— this counter was full of beverages of various kinds. I had— it's funny, I had a— wasn't real decorative, but I had a bus pan, so I loaded that up with ice and stuck everything in it.

Okay, that's That's, that's functional, you know, for our first party, it was functional.

But right, right.

So that, so you just kind of, you were able to enjoy it then?

Yeah, it wasn't bad. Everything was done ahead of time. I made all the desserts Friday night, I whipped them together in about 2 hours. And so that wasn't too bad. And then Saturday morning, I just started cutting vegetables for the soups and got them on, let them simmer and threw the chicken on the grill. So it wasn't bad at all, really, you know, it's They're always stressful for a chef because— just because.

Oh yeah, I mean, you're putting it out there. That's— and do you look for reactions? You know, people take a taste and a bite and do you watch?

You know, absolutely, absolutely.

Do you really? Oh sure, you know, funny, I had no idea. I just kind of said that.

Why didn't you finish that? Didn't you like it? You know, you know, no, I'm not that bad, but I do watch and I actually, I listen more than anything. And if they stop talking, it's always a good sign.

Wow, that's both— I think it's both stressful and exciting to see the reactions, the positive reactions, and then wonder if a person doesn't react very well, or what's going on. I would go over there and say, did you like it? Did you not like it? Tell me.

I didn't go into that. They were all coming up telling me how much they liked him, so I didn't have to Of course. It's a virtual love fest for Chef Dennis Littley.

Right, of course it always is. So Corian, so Corian is one of our favorite people for both Chef and myself, and Corian has this great website, similar colors to my own blog actually, called kitchenlivingwithcorian.com. And she also has another website, and there is just everything about living in the kitchen. Corian, she is an expert in kitchen living. She's a social butterfly, she's a TV host, she's a home cook, she is every woman like you and me with kids and a busy lifestyle, and she's a writer. So she does a lot. So what are you up to these days?

My head is now like, you can't even see it in the screen. Thank you, darling. Thank you so much.

Yes, so we're looking forward to later on in the show we will talk to you more in depth about what you're, you know, what you enjoy really doing in the kitchen. What's your favorite thing? Like when you say kitchen living, just give us a nutshell, what do you mean?

Well, you know, in a quick nutshell, 20 years ago I was a London socialite who stored vodka and takeaway boxes in my kitchen and thought that domesticity was really kind of beneath me on so many levels. And You know, funny thing happens when children pop out of you. You become domestic and you want to feed them and you want to discover how to live in your home again. And for me, the core of my home is our kitchen. And that means really making a food-centric life where we talk and share stories and eat and grow and get to know one another and just live our lives in our kitchen. And More and more, as you know as a kitchen designer, you know, homes are built around the kitchen. 100 years ago, the kitchen was a small galley in the back, and now the kitchens are the focal points of everyone's home. And that's what means to be, you know, kitchen living. It means taking not only the architecture of the kitchen being the center of your home, but making it part of your life and having fun, getting dirty in the kitchen, getting sassy. Flirting, telling stories, crying, laughing, everything that unfolds through life unfolds through food. It's just a natural synergy.

And in the kitchen. It absolutely does. So we're going to talk more about it. This is why I am so excited about the show because we have Chef who is, you know, I mean, he contributes fabulous food and fabulous insight and information on food. We have yourself who encourages us to live well in the kitchen. And then we have me who will help you, you know, design it for, you know, for all of these things that happen in the kitchen. So Chef, this is— I'm excited about what you're making today, so let's see it.

Let's do it. Alright, well, we're gonna make a beef bourguignon. And you know, typically a beef bourguignon is the meat rolled up with some veggie seasonings in it.. And it's just rolled together and simmered in some red sauce. You know, it'll be sautéed a little bit, but I stuff mine. So it's not a traditional bourgeon, but it's something I used to do in a restaurant, and it just was really— went over very, very well. My wife loves them. I don't make them very often for her. And you can use, depending, you know, in the restaurant we used to use this, the trimmings like the pieces of steak that had the vein running through them, and we really couldn't use them for steaks. So I would save them, and when I had enough of them, I would freeze them. I would have enough of them, I would make bourgeon. So, you know, I'd have to have like maybe 40, 50 pieces of them because it was that popular of a special. So when we had that, you know, I would use those and I would make up bourgeons. And they were a bigger size at that point. It was— these are going to be more— these are going to be smaller. You could use them as an appetizer or as part of a buffet if you made them up, but these were like bigger versions of what we're going to make today.

Yeah, I've always been afraid to make it because I've always been afraid it would be tough.

Well, there's ways around that, and one of them is pounding your meat out with a meat hammer. And you'll see, if you can see this on the screen, it's got kind of a corrugated edge on it, and that goes to the meat. I mean, it's got a real vicious side here, but I never really used that. But I'm going to turn my microphone off and I'm going to hammer this out. You can watch.

Boy, that is— I mean, he's not fooling around with that mallet. I have one as well, and I think it's about half the size and, you know, very small. How about you, Corianne? Do you have one of those?

No, I don't have a mallet. I have a rolling pin, and I have 3 children, and I generally will put my meat in a Ziploc bag and toss it on the ground and tell my boys to stomp, and it works beautifully.

You're kidding me! You're kidding, right?

No, I'm dead serious. Gotta have fun!

Gosh, that's great.

I'm sure Chef Dennis Littley will disagree. It probably doesn't do quite the same job that he does, but I want my children in the kitchen, and what better way than to throw a piece of meat on the ground and say, "Stomp!" Great idea.

It's always good to get a male's attention. Throwing a piece of meat on the ground will do it for you.

There you go.

We're just that hunter-gatherer type, so you got a good philosophy there. But no, anything Anyway, you can do it. Don't feel intimidated like you need to go out and buy a meat hammer. I have used regular hammers when I've gone to someone's house. You just want to wrap them in tin foil. You can use the butt of a frying pan, a small frying pan, to hammer stuff out. You know, whatever you got that does the job. And frankly, putting them in a Ziploc bag and just break, you know, and using the butt of your hand if you wanted to. The only thing you want to watch is that the meat doesn't tear too much if you're, if you're doing this. And, you know, just that you don't get to make a mess of it. So a lot of times, if I'm doing a lot of these, I will cover them, especially chicken, not so much beef, because I wanted to use the pointy end of the hammer. But if I'm using the side of the hammer, and that tends to, that tends to tear up the beef a little bit too much, this is very tender beef. But if I use the side of the hammer on chicken, I will put plastic wrap over it first, and it actually helps it spread and it makes it easier to do. So you can do the same thing with beef. Generally, in the restaurant, we use sirloin scraps from the steak. If I was making these all the time, you know, if I was making them for a big dinner party, you could use an eye round roast because it's consistent in size and you can slice it down and then you can use those. They're almost round to begin with, so it makes life a lot easier. A lot of times your supermarket sells bourgeon meat, they'll call it, or different cuts.

Yes, I've seen that.

Yeah, so that makes life super easy. Now these are for my wife. I don't eat beef, but these are for her, so I bought her two grass-fed organic fillets, two little fillets, and I cut them in half. So hers are going to be made out of fillets. So if you really want to impress someone with really super tender meat that will melt in their mouth, you know, and you don't mind spending a few extra dollars, you know, the fillets are a great way to go because you saw how easy that they did pound out. But, you know, it's not necessary. If you're going to do a big party and you just want to use, like I said, an eye round, it will work beautifully. And you just want to remember when you're—

I have a quick question for you. Sometimes when I'm using, you know, my boys to tenderize my meat, I'll throw in my salt and my herbs in the bag so that they kind of a lazy last-minute quick infusion. Does that work? I mean, this is my little home cook rule, but as a chef, what do you think about that?

Absolutely. If you're going to do it that way, there's absolutely no harm in doing that. You're going to flavor the meat and then get that— the spices actually embedded into them. I would just make sure that they were mixed up before putting them in the bag. That way they'll spread a little more evenly. That would be my only thought. But now, that's, that's an excellent idea. Thank you for sharing it.

You're welcome.

Hey, you know, if you can't learn something every day of your life, your life's just about over. When the day comes when you think you know it all, that's when it's time to pack it in. So no.

Tips and tricks— That's funny. I just had that conversation with someone last week. You're absolutely right.

Tips and tricks. I mean, you're never too old to learn something new, and I'm always amazed that I go, "I can't believe I didn't think of that." It's when you're doing something for like 10 years and all of a sudden something, a light bulb goes off and you go, "Oh my God." But at that point, I'm usually happy that I figured it out as long as I'm still doing it. That's a good thing. So anyway, I have 4 pieces of meat tonight. You know, if you were doing more, like I said, look for them cut or ask your butcher to cut them. You know, sometimes they will, and that'll make life a lot easier. Pounding them is going to make them more tender, so I would advise doing it for this kind of meat. But like I said, you know, it can be— they even have some pinning machines too, I think, or attachments. So, you know, whatever works for you to flatten it out a little. And tenderize it is a good thing. So to make the filling, it's really simple. I'm going to use some ricotta cheese. This is a real dry— it's actually a New York style ricotta, so the container said, and it's very, very dry, which is always good when you're doing stuffings or anything because you don't have as much water in it. It doesn't leak out as much, so it makes life a little easier. And the product a little better. And I have some baby spinach that I cooked off. I just cooked it with a little water. So I'm going to mix some spinach in here.

So is that good for an additional sort of texture and color, would you say?

Color, color, color, flavor, texture, whatever you want to do. It's completing the package. But now I'm adding in the last ingredient that really is for color, and that's roasted red peppers chopped up. And again, that's more or less just for color. It's going to add some flavor to it, of course. But again, it's the color. Like when I was teaching my girls, I would always say to them, I said, why am I adding this? And they go, for color. You know, you know, again, it's something that if you don't like peppers, leave them out. All right. You know, there's always a way to make things your own and flavor it up. I'm also going to use 1 egg. And that's going to be my binder. I got a little piece of shell in there. We'll get rid of that.

How about garlic, Chef?

I'm going to get to that.

Okay.

Yeah, we're getting to that.

Jumping the gun.

I have actually some spices together here, and I have some garlic, I have some granulated onion, I have some salt, sea salt, and some black pepper. And they've kind of dried, so I'm just going to put them in here. And it's more or less to taste. I would use probably about half a teaspoon of each in this, somewhere around there. And then some grated cheese.

Nice. I'm liking that.

What grated cheese are you using, Chef?

Romano.

Romano?

Yeah, I forget. I'm glad you say that because to me there is only one grated cheese, and that's grated Romano.

Uh, you like it sharp then?

Yeah, well, you know, it's— to me, it's spaghetti cheese. It's what we have in the house that we use for just about anything, and I'm not the kind to go out and buy different kinds. So the Romano adds a little bite to it, and you know, when we have pasta, that's what we use on pasta. I have some in my breading mix. Anytime I use cheese, it's just easier to buy my bag of that and use it for everything, just like olive oils. I mean, I only buy extra virgin olive oil. It's just not worth it to have, you know, a regular bottle around just for cooking. Just use the one.

You know what I love? I love Locatelli.

Well, that's— yeah, Locatelli is more the brand name.

Oh, is it?

Yeah, the Grado Romano. I thought that for years. I always said Locatelli, but it's basically the company that makes that version of it. Okay, it's all— it's a very good Romano, and it's very consistent, and actually has— usually has a better flavor. And this I can't get in big bags, so whatever my big box store— Costco, Sam's, or BJ's, whichever one I happen to be at, because I have memberships to all of them, of course— whatever they happen to have is what I buy, as long as it's a good brand. I've gotten some sometimes that weren't very good, and then they ended up being made into something else. But, you know, Locatelli is always a preferred brand. It's just usually about twice as much as I pay. So there are some things that I don't spend a lot of money on. So this is my mixture, and we're done. And that's simple as that. Now, this is something that you can do almost a day ahead of time if you really wanted to. Say you're having a dinner party over and you need to make 30 or 40 of these. Well, you can make them up. You can even freeze them if you wanted to. You know, I would be a little careful with freezing the cheese because it's It's going to change the consistency a little bit. But definitely make them up a day ahead of time, put them in your refrigerator, and then cook them when you're ready. Or even cook them ahead of time and then come back to them and heat them up. So we'll get to that too. So I'm going to take— I'm probably going to have more than I need because I'm going to make some stuffed chicken later also and use the same stuffing. So if you don't like beef, this would go excellent in chicken as well. It would also make a wonderful filling for mushrooms.

Oh, yeah.

So if you're a vegetarian and you don't want to eat any kind of meat, put them in some portobellos or some nice big button mushrooms.

Or how about, how about like an eggplant rollatini?

It would go good in eggplant. I think the ricotta would leak out a little bit too much though.

Okay.

Because you got to be able to close it up somewhat. In a mushroom, it's going to sit and it's not going to go anywhere. Okay, so what I'm doing when I roll these is I'm kind of just trying to tuck them a little bit so that the ends are going to close up. I'm making almost like football shapes. And in the restaurant, like I said, when I made the big ones, I'd make 40, 50 of them. Those are the days when I'd actually would make the stuffing. I'd make the stuffing, cut the meat, pound it out, and send it back to one of the prep guys and have him roll them all out.

Okay.

That was one of the good things about being the chef.

That's right, you do the fun part.

Yeah, I mean, I would do what I had to do that maybe they didn't, might not have the skill to do, and then they could do the other stuff.

So Chef, you're wrapping them like a burrito. You're folding the sides as you fold the inside then. So that they're perfectly sealed?

Yeah, well, perfectly would be a hopeful term, but sealed as well as you can hope for is probably more of it because you're still going to have some leakage from them where the meat's torn. I guess one's got a little bit of hole, but we'll try and work it a little bit when we bread them. So, but yeah, anytime you stuff chicken or beef, you know, it's good to try and seal it so the items don't leak out. Alright, so now what I'm going to do is I do a typical 3-station breading station, and it's flour that's seasoned with sea salt and pepper, it's egg, and the egg has a little milk in it and a little seasoning, and then I have a breading mixture that you can buy seasoned breadcrumbs if you want to. I had plain and I just seasoned them up with garlic, onion, a little oregano and basil, black pepper, and some cheese. So you can make your own or you can buy whatever you have. One good thing about the flour here is when you're making them, say you didn't form them quite as well as you would have hoped for, this is a good time to help you get the form a little better when you're using the flour because now the meat is a little easier to form and it's not as wet.

Chef, am I wrong or would that contribute to a nice crust.

Oh, absolutely. The flour— I mean, it's flour, egg, breadcrumbs. And rule was always one hand wet, one hand dry. And sometimes I can't remember which one.

Oh, is that the rule?

Well, that's the rule, but you know, that again doesn't always work for me. If I'm breading any kind of number of things, my hand just gets rinsed off after about every 5 because my fingers get too thick.

Yeah.

Alright, so that's one.

Yeah, that's looking— that's good. I like that thick brown crispy— it's almost a searing. So that's what you'll be doing, actually, searing them.

Absolutely, we're going to get them a nice golden brown.

Now you're using your portable induction top again.

Yep, I love it.

Yeah, portable induction top. My induction has been rocked.

That is—

oh my gosh. Oh, they're the best. $80.

I'm using— we have an outdoor kitchen. I'm going to get one for our outdoor kitchen. That is incredible.

Yeah, and they're 110. The only thing you need to do is make sure that your pans are magnetic. That's it. Yeah, you need a decent, a decent tri-ply pan. But other than that, they heat as fast as gas.

I mean, oh, I love induction.

It does.

I love, I love induction. I weep every time I go to make something on our stove and it's not induction.

Well, we're hoping to get me an induction for in here because I can't have gas in here because of where in Florida we are. But induction would be wonderful.

I have a nice collection of questions and comments for after you're done cooking, a real nice collection.

Sounds good. We'll get to them. I'm almost ready. We'll sauté these and then—

Good.

A little bit. Of course, I forgot my rule once, if anyone was paying attention. The dry hand went in the wet last series, so I've made a nice mess of my finger. Now this is the last one, so I'm not as worried about it.

It's all about getting dirty in the kitchen, Chef. Didn't you know?

Yeah, that's your whole— that's your whole, uh, aura.

That is definitely it.

You know, Corianne, when I cook— and when I cook, I cook, and when I don't, I'll order out 5 days in a row— but when I cook, the countertops, I make my mess you know, for the entire cooking process, and then I clean up. And then it's, you know, so I work in extremes. I don't know about you. So my kitchen is dirty.

I'm a clean cook, but I love to use my hands. I feel like— sorry, my dog has joined us. I feel like using your hands is— it's just, if you've ever watched Like Water for Chocolate or read the book, you know, you use your hands and it's like the soul of the food. I love to feel the temperatures, the textures, the wetness, the dryness, the weight. I mean, everything is through your hands. And of course, you know, the benefit of it when you're not cooking raw meat is that you can, you know, lick and enjoy and taste as you go.

That's so interesting you say that, because show after show, that's, that's a lot of what I see chefs doing gauging, you know, different ingredients and how much and how little. And you missed the first show where he put his hand in the pot of butter and said, "This is what I need." I said, "What did you just do?

Did you really do that?" He said, "Yeah, that's how you do it." Yeah, all my time as being on the line, I never got to do anything but spin in a circle for about 3 or 4 minutes. 5 hours a night while I was reaching for ingredients, and then I had a sink to wash my hands in all the time, but reaching for ingredients, putting them on the stove, and then turning around to plate them, and then I'd turn back around and start again. And right behind me, this was in Ocean City, and it would get— I had a thermometer at my head, we had a real low ceiling, and it would get up to 140 in there.

Wow.

If I could step back 3 steps there was an air current that was like— it felt like it was 60 degrees cooler, 70 degrees cooler. So, but I rarely made it to that point.

You paid your dues.

So now I'm going to put a little olive oil in here, and again, I use my squeeze bottle. I love that. And it's nice and hot, and I'm just going to lay these in, and we're going to get some nice color on them.

This.

I hope everybody saw I did have a little handy wipe under the cutting board so it didn't move.

Oh, did you tell us that before and I missed that?

Yeah, you want to put a little wet paper towel or a handy wipe or something underneath of it, and that'll keep it from sliding, especially when you're banging out the meat like that too.

Yeah. And now, in the recipe, I read that when you're banging the meat, you're pounding the meat, that there's a certain motion that you do.

Yes.

It's not like flat up and down. It's sort of a stroke?

It's pulling it away a little bit. Excuse me while I'm trying to center this a little bit better. Now that I've moved it. There we go.

The pan cam.

Pan cam. It's actually, as you're hitting it, you're not going straight down as much as you're just like pushing it out a little bit as you hit. And it takes a little practice to get it.

Okay, so Chef, I need to ask you, because I'm watching you use one of my absolute favorite kitchen tools, the tong. Are you a tong fanatic, or is this simply for this dish?

I use tongs and I use spatulas. I started with a spatula, and then I went to a restaurant and everybody's using tongs, and I really had no clue. But my tool of choice for years was this.

Wow, that's a big one. That's a big guy.

The holes in it, and I'd always have a couple of these that would go in the pan. This is what I used to turn things with. When we first started, I think I mentioned it to Susan, I would be building sauces in here. We didn't have spatulas, we didn't have tongs, we didn't have spoons. It was a real rustic restaurant, and I would make, like, if I was making an Alfredo sauce, I'd I would put the cream in, I would put the cheese and the spices, and then my fingers would go in the pan like that, into the hot pan. And I remember doing it the first time in front of somebody, and I hadn't done it in a while, but old habits die hard. And they're like, oh my God, what are you doing?

What are you doing?

This is just how we did it in the old days.

Well, now everyone's a germaphobe, so I don't know. I don't know.

I tell you, I get more I get more emails about people commenting about me eating with my fingers during my shows than anything else. It concerns people to no end, and I have to reply and say, well, I am cooking for myself. I'm not going to feed this to you.

Yeah, you don't see me with gloves on, and you won't see people in most cooking shows with gloves or hairnets or hats.

No.

If I was cooking in a restaurant, you know, gloves would be on more often. Although, you know, I wash my hands so many times during the course of a night, you know, and I don't have time to do anything else with them. So I would say either you trust the chef or you don't.

Well, you know what I say? My son and his fiancée actually live with us, and they are germaphobes. Who raised my son? I have no idea. I thought it was me. But my favorite saying to them is, It's good for the immune system.

There you go. I would tell the people that are bothering you about eating on your show just to get a life, then, you know.

Yeah, we say those things. We can say those things.

This is Google+.

We can say everything. It's like cable.

One of the best things— I mean, one of the reasons I loved the British chef, what's her name?

Nigella Lawson.

Nigella Lawson.

One of the first reasons I fell in love with Nigella was because at the end of the show she'd be sneaking into her refrigerator, taking pieces of food out of it, putting them in her mouth in the most— yes, sensual manner that you could ever imagine. And it was just wonderful. And I love a woman that loves to eat. Nothing to me is more sexy than a woman who enjoys eating. And that was just wonderful. And then even with Giada, you know, she savors each bite. So you taste it. Your hands are your vehicle to eat with. Plus, I'm half Mexican, so I grew up with tortillas, eating things. We didn't, you know, always have utensils for everything, so your hands were a great tool.

I lived a long time in the Middle East and in North Africa, where you eat communally off of a plate with your hands. That's where I first kind of fell in love with food and learned that, you know, there's something about eating with your hands that is such a direct connection with the food and the people that you're with. It's just second nature for me. But Nigella Lawson, I could talk about her all day.

She is— you know, I was so sorry to see her have those problems with the press and everything, but they'll just eat you alive if you let them. That's just what they do. All right, so I'm done with these. Let's— and—

oh, you're done with those? Okay.

Well, they're going to go in the oven.

And then what happens?

Not fully cooked. Well, they're going to go in the oven for about 20 minutes. All right, I'm going to make the sauce, get that ready, and then we'll sit and we'll talk. But let's say you were making 30 or 40 of these for a party. Okay, you can make them in the morning so you wouldn't be sweating to death later in the day while you're cooking them over a stove. Get some big frying pans, put them in your refrigerator, let them chill down nicely, and then, you know, about half an hour before you want to serve them, put them in an oven, let them heat back up, make your sauce, and they're good to go. You know, it's a real easy item to serve. It's very tasty, and people will love them. So, you know, again, this— you saw how fast this was. Now, if, let's say wanted to freeze these, I would freeze them at this point after they're sautéed. Okay, say I wanted to make a bunch of them up, put them in the freezer so we have another meal for my wife at some point in time. You know, you can do that then and then just warm them up to frost them and then put them in the oven to warm up again. So, you know, it's— if you're making— my always thought, like when I taught too, was if I'm making these, why not make twice as many? It's not going to take me much longer. Freeze half of them, and then one night all I got to do is take them out of the freezer. It makes life a lot easier. When I bread stuff, I generally bread— I'll be here for half an hour breading chicken or breading eggplant just so I don't have to do it again for another 6 weeks.

Sounds good.

Right, so I'm going to pop these in the oven.

He makes it look so effortless, doesn't he? Doesn't he, Corian? He just makes it look so effortless. He does.

It's great to watch.

Yeah.

Well, thank you. All right, so—

You look great in that black chef's coat too, I might add.

I like that one. Of course, I've got shorts on under this, so I'm lucky that there's a half a— I may have to opt out for some full-length pants if we ever get more cameras in here. But being in Florida, you know, this is my happy wear. All right, for my sauce, and the sauce is a little unusual, it is mushrooms, of course. Turn this back on. Pan's already a little hot, so I'm going to oil it. Mushrooms generally soak up quite a bit of fat. Put my mushrooms in. And my marinara is already homemade and it's seasoned well. You can always season up a little bit more if you like to, but you know, it's good the way it is.

So that's olive oil, that's olive oil in that you're sautéing the mushrooms in. Now, I don't know, I don't know why I associate mushrooms with butter. Why is that?

You can use butter, it's just the butter doesn't go as well with red sauce, so it's going to break too much.

Mm-hmm.

Coriann have a question there while she's there?

I was just loving Christopher's comment about eating with your hands. Christopher, would you like to watch my show? Because that's all I do.

Oh, you want to take a few while we're here? We have some time, we'll do more.

Sure, sure. I have a number. I have a nice collection. Okay, let me put it up here. Okay, as Lynn Bloor says, looking forward to it, Chef Dennis Littley. Just had a look at the recipe, love it. Early question for the show, if one isn't a fan of aniseed flavors like moi, what would you suggest? Vermouth? White wine?

I would just stick with white wine and I wouldn't try and flavor the sauce with anything else. I do not like sambuca and I'm not a real fan. I do not like licorice, so I will tell you that. I do like the sauce, so I would say try it once and see and then decide. But if, you know, if you weren't going to use that, I would just use wine or not use anything, just make a regular red sauce with mushrooms in it, which is fine.

Great. Carmen Mandic says, "The sense of smell helps us to recall memories much better than any other sense. The kitchen is where memories are created." And you know, I mean, personally, I grew up with— my parents emigrated from Copenhagen, Copenhagen, and left. They were the only ones to leave their family and after they were married. And so they can, they, I grew up with Scandinavian foods and I, and it's just such an important part of my, you know, my memory, my food memory. We all have food memories. And Dennis, you alluded to that before when you said, you know, you're Mexican and your heritage and foods, and I think that's— and that's what you were speaking about too, Coriann.

Yeah, for me, food evokes such a memory. I spent 20 years traveling the world with a backpack and eating off of street carts and in street corners and gave myself food poisoning on many number of occasions, but I can't think of a a dish that doesn't evoke some sort of memory for me, either from a childhood memory or traveling, or even just, you know, this Easter we had lamb, and it's something that my— I'm not very good at cooking, but my husband loves it, being English, and he immediately said, "Oh, this just reminds me of Easter at my grandmother's house." And there was nothing that we did that correlated to his Easter traditions as a child except the lamb, and immediately These stories just started flooding through. We've been married for 15 years. I never heard any of these stories before. It was because of the lamb. The food, the aroma of food, it evokes this amazing memory that just captures this back-end memory glands that we have and brings them forward. It just makes life so much better.

It sure does.

Absolutely.

Wayne Nixon. Says, what about a jacquarder, if I said that properly? Do you like them to tenderize?

I'm not sure I even know what a jacquarder is. I probably should, but I'm going to admit that I don't.

Yeah, no, I don't either.

Well, let me move on right here real quick. My mushrooms are done. I'm going to hit it with some sambuca. In the old days of flame, this would have fired fired up, uh-huh, it would have ignited. But unless I pull out my barbecue lighter, it's not going to ignite. And I've had bottles blow up in my hand, so—

oh my goodness—

I would not advise doing it over the gas. I would take— wow, it actually took me 2 bottles in 1 week to stop pouring over gas because the first one I just kind of shook off, um, and the second one did it. So it was like a message. I'm thinking like, how many How many times does this have to happen before I listen to it? But it's amazing because you hear the sound of the flames going into the bottle with a whoosh, and then the back of the bottle blows off. So it is kind of cool, but not something I want to repeat again. So now we're going to add in our red sauce. This is from a recipe on my blog as well. Very simple to make. Stir it up. A little bit of grated cheese, actually a lot of grated cheese, and we are done. So we're just going to let this sit here while our beef is finished cooking. And like I said, if you want to taste at this point and re-season it a little bit, by all means, whatever you like, and go from there. But we're done for now, so let's take some more questions and have some fun.

Good.

Actually, I have a I have a question. I'm always, you know, I'm a lover of the crockpot, and I have to say, if I sautéed the brajole early in the day and I had my sauce made, is it beneficial at all for an even more tender dish to have that go in the crockpot, or is this not a crockpot dish?

I don't think it would be a crockpot dish because you want the breading to stay a little intact and you want it to stay a little crisp. I have not cooked a lot in crockpots, but what I have is I just think it's going to get too moist on you and it's not something that's going to be real tasty or that tender.

That makes perfect sense. There's so much science in cooking and that's— I mean, I should have thought of that, but that's perfect sense. We have another Comment from Aslin Blore. If you love food, life is always going to center around the kitchen. I agree. And when you have kids or grandkids, it's always going to be fun and messy. And Coriann, you are the queen of the dirty kitchen from what I hear. But you know, just getting in there and getting messy, and I really enjoy that. I have two little grandkids, 4 and 2, And right now they're loving putting the stool up to wash dishes and this. And the place gets a mess and everything falls. And they, you know, my daughter comes over and the place is trashed. And you know what? It's fun. It's all good. It really is. Let's see. Where, which, is this the one? No. Okay, now I'm, let's see. Now I have to unpin the pin. Okay, yes, Kim says, would you please pronounce brajole again? I think she just wants to hear you say it.

Brajole. Brajole.

One more time.

Brajole.

There you go.

I used to have an employee that would get me mad because she wanted me to say shit because I would pronounce it really fully. So that was one of the things. Yeah, come on, Dennis, say it.

I think chefs do that. Here's a good one. From Kathleen DeCosmo. When I'm in Florida, I usually have trouble finding the necessary ingredients for my Italian food recipes. Where do you buy your Italian ingredients in Florida, Chef?

Oh, you're going to love this one. I order a lot of them from Amazon, so— because I have an Amazon Prime account. And my UPS driver gets a little ticked on pasta day, though, because the box gets a little heavy. You just have to look around, and you have to adapt. I couldn't find basil really sold by the bunch the way I like it. They sell you these little plastic containers of them.

Yeah, right.

I have it growing out back now, and hopefully, it'll grow all summer. I planted an herb garden a couple weeks ago, so I have a bunch of herbs growing. I don't know. Italian ingredients, you can find most of the gentler ones just about anywhere. You just can't get a decent load loaf of bread that I found anywhere in Florida. There's certain things, but I did find the ladyfingers, the Italian ladyfingers. I have found cannoli shells. Life isn't too bad.

You know what? I think we have to do a bread-making show. I think we have to do that. I will bet you have a million recipes. Here's another—

go ahead.

No, I'm not a big bread baker. I do the artisanal bread. That's, that's about it. I make brioche that way and I make artisanal bread, which is really simple, but I'm not a big kneader, especially with my hands the way they are these days. You know, I don't do too much kneading.

Yeah, yeah. And Elena Bellametti says, did you put salt and pepper in the egg?

In the egg? I had a little bit, yes.

Okay, all right, so you put that in there. And Renee Bod says, my Polish grandma used to say, leave one hand dry in case you need to answer the phone. Don't grandmas know everything?

They sure do. I mean, really, answer the phone or scratch your nose, one of the two, you know.

Yep. So yeah, so we have some good ones. And Coach Jean Moore has a compliment, a humble observation about your HOAs. MaybeFoodTV.com is missing the personal touch you have. Keep up the great HOAs.

Thanks, Coach.

I appreciate it. Good to hear that. So what comes next, Jeff?

Well, now we're just sitting and waiting. My sauce is ready, the brioche will be ready in a couple minutes. We'll plate it up. So let's talk a little. Say hi to Corianne and her little pup there. What you got?

Yes, Corianne, you have a—

She normally sits with me in the office all day, and so when I sit here in the library, she's like, what's up? Why can't I sit on your lap?

So tell us about— tell us more about kitchen living. What are the ingredients, you know, to have an ambiance, a feeling? You know, your moods change, the dishes change, the vibe in the family changes. What do you need to keep it all fresh and going and positive? Positive. Key word positive.

Well, I think first and foremost is that people need to toss away anything they've ever watched on any cooking show and under— or food blog and understand that the food that we cook on a daily basis is not going to be magazine ready and is not going to be as effortless as it appears on TV. That the phone will ring A child will bump their knee, somebody will need homework answered, maybe you've had one too many glasses of wine, maybe you haven't done all the dishes. I mean, life in the kitchen is ever-evolving and always changing. So don't beat yourself up if you burn the toast. Just remember not to put the toast in the oven and keep an eye on it. You know, kitchen living for me is just about having fun, obviously getting dirty. People are so afraid to have a dirty kitchen or get their hands dirty and really feel and understand the food that you were using. But I'm a huge advocate of children cooking in the kitchen and also seasonal fresh ingredients. You know, there used to be a saying where you don't shop in the middle aisles, but the reality is, you know, I know how to make pasta, but on a Wednesday night after 2 flag football practices I have boxed dried pasta that I use, and I'm okay with that. My children don't always have a cooked breakfast in the morning, but they do sometimes. Otherwise, they have cereal, and I'm okay with that. People need to just relax and have fun in the kitchen. For me, that's blending modern living, which is extremely hectic, with a food-centric lifestyle, which is amazingly emotive and just brilliantly tasting.

That really sounds, you know, and it's true. It is about just going with the flow, and the flow changes sometimes minute by minute. And, you know, doing what you just, you know, doing more what you want to do rather than you feel you should do, I think. And I think that's—

We're not all born master chefs. You know, 10 years ago I boiled— I burned water, literally burned water.

Oh, that's funny.

And that happens to people. And I really encourage people to start with something that they like the taste of and learn how to cook that. And then once they get confident with that, then try something else. Get confident over time. Don't try and be confident in one go. A year ago I was still using boxed cake recipes because I couldn't master the science, nor did I have the attention span for baking. But a year into it, I'm now baking cakes and cookies, still with little recipe cards and stressing out and drinking my wine as I go along and flour all over my outfit, but I'm baking from scratch and I'm getting better at it. Each time I do something, even like a little victory, like wasn't that vanilla frosting amazing? That just It feels good.

That sounds like the right approach. Tell us what special projects are happening with you right now that you're excited about. What are you doing now that you're really revved up about?

Well, I just wrapped up a whole new video series for Idaho Potato Commission where two of my children were center stage showing us how to cook midweek dinners, which just, it's It's such a joy to be able to cook with your children but then say, "Hey, you want to come to work with me?" They actually think that I'm still cool, so they want to. That's pretty exciting. I've got my show Cooking with Koriann on iFood.tv. It's more educational and tutorial, so the videos are a lot longer. As I was saying to you guys before, I've just started this new video series on Google+. I'm brand new, I'm a newbie on Google+. Google+, but kind of chatting for 15 minutes about life in the kitchen with some of my favorite kind of food personalities and bloggers, and that's kind of where I'm at. And obviously I'm an entertaining expert for Celebrations.com, so I'm always on the hunt for kitchen activities and DIY projects for just celebrating everyday moments.

You are busy. You are busy. So Chef, how are things going on your end now?

Well, we're just about ready to put them together, so I got them out of the oven. Uh-huh. And I'm going to plate a couple up.

Okay.

Reheated the sauce a little bit.

Oh man, look at that.

Wow. So we have our nice sauce here, flavor. I've got 2 of them on the plate.

See, I usually like to do that.

What's that?

Where's the scratch and sniff app?

Oh, I know. I tell you, if we can get that, boy oh boy would we be set.

I have to say, I usually drown everything with sauce because I love it so much.

You can always serve it on the side. You want to present. You can always serve them extra sauce. I tell people that if they don't think they are going to like it to not be quite quite as generous with it. And there we go. So if you wanted to serve this family style in a nice platter, you know, you could do that.

Oh, a little more. No, opposite.

I feel like Where's Waldo.

There we go. Stop.

There we go.

Yeah. Wow. I love it on a white plate, Chef. I love it on a white plate. I love the red and green. I love the neutrals. Beautiful.

And that's it. So that's my version of bourguignon. And it's— I won't taste this one, unfortunately, because like I said, I don't eat beef. But it is delicious, and I will attest. I'm sure my wife is going to enjoy it, especially made with a filet. So it'll be a nice treat for her tonight.

That is just beautiful. And I'm going to put in my two cents for literally two minutes or less on entertaining in the kitchen and designing your kitchen for entertaining. And you know, we talked before about the portable induction cooktop, and that will be a continuing theme with me because I have spoken about it before. When you have a portable induction cooktop for 1 or 2 burners, you're essentially expanding your kitchen in a very big way. You can put it on your kitchen table. You can put it elsewhere on your kitchen countertop and assign someone, a guest or friend or other person to do some cooking. In the case of also entertaining appliances, there are wine racks, there are mini wine appliances. Liebherr is a great brand who makes mini wine appliances. I mean, you can even put one recessed one in a wall in your breakfast area, or you can put one say on the end of an island, that might be a good spot where beverage appliances and wine appliances, even coffee appliances might be so that you don't have a bottleneck within the kitchen. Because once you have a bottleneck, you know, you can get cranky pretty quickly as you're moving your— the movement, whether you're— you have an existing kitchen or you're considering designing a kitchen is critical. I like to plan the movement first and then back into whatever's left for storage and appliance location, things like that, because movement and adequate aisles are really critical. So just, you know, you want to design in flexibility and comfort. And so those are just a couple of thoughts I had on entertaining for kitchen design. So, so what do you think, Chef? I think we had a great show.

I think so. As usual, you guys are great. I'm so happy Korean, you could join us, and I look forward to seeing your show on, on the new Google TV here. And I'm sure we're going to start to see more and more people coming on to Google doing shows because it is the year of the HOA and people are finally starting to wake up. And I'd love to give a shout out to my friend David Amerland, who just finished another book on Google Hangouts. So if you're not sure what to do, David's book— I have it on my Kindle. I'm reading it now, but I've ordered my autographed copy, of course. He is just a genius.

Oh, he is.

He's writing some really good stuff. If you're just starting, you want someone to understand the importance of a business that just isn't drinking the Kool-Aid from you, give them a copy of the book and see what happens because it's really showing them where this is going. We're still at the beginning stages, so this is a good time for people to get involved. No, I'm having a great time.

It really is. I have one more critical ingredient, Chef, for entertaining in the kitchen and cooking for entertainment. That is music.

Oh, absolutely.

Music. Don't forget the music ever.

We would have music on here, but you know, YouTube can get a little cranky and we don't want our account pulled.

Oh, they do get cranky.

Yeah, we don't want our account pulled because we're playing music.

Oh, no, it's true.

But then I don't want to spoil your appetite.

Yeah. So thanks, everybody.

I love to have my soundtracks match the food.

Oh, absolutely.

Perfect. Look, great lesson.

I would be playing Italian music all the time. I usually have Bocelli on.

You would be.

I cook mostly Italian.

Good. Well, thank you. Thank you, Coriann Chef, another fabulous dish. And I'll be catching a plane later today, and I'll be there in time for dinner.

Oh, I wish. We are going to have to do that very soon though because we need to be in the kitchen. We will be. You are going to New Orleans though, aren't you?

I am. I'm going on Thursday, from Thursday till next week Wednesday. I'm ending up in Pensacola. We'll just see where I end up on location this time around.

Gotta love it.

Gotta love it.

Yeah. It's actually Saturday I'll be on location. Saturday I'm going to be out at the Great American American Pie Festival. Oh, where for $10 you can eat all the pie you can.

Man.

So I'm going to be doing some interviewing there too.

So I take some pictures.

Yeah, yeah, I'll be doing something. I might do a live, live broadcast from there. We're talking about it. So, so anyway, thank you all for joining us and stopping by for Around the Kitchen Table. As always, it was great to see you, and we'll see you again next Thanks everyone.

Thanks for having us. Bye-bye.