Binging with Babish: South Park Special

CHEF: "I want you to see my new sweets." "I think they're going to sell through the roof!" "I call them 'Chef's Salted Chocolate Balls.'" STAN: "Are they good?" CHEF: "Try them!" *Munch munch munch* STAN: "Hey, these are good!" CARTMAN: "Yes, I love your salted chocolate balls, chef!" KENNY: Hey, what's up guys? Welcome back to Binging with Babish, where this week I have a little announcement to make. I'm appearing at the Colossal Cluster Fest in San Francisco. It's this massive comedy festival, June 2-4. It's headlined by Jerry Seinfeld, Bill Burr, Kevin Hart, and I'm participating in a South Park Chili Con Carnival-style cooking contest.

More on that after the episode, but for now it's time to make the chef's salty chocolate balls, exactly as he described them in the song, which starts with two tablespoons of cinnamon, two or three egg whites, half a stick of butter (melted)... Oops, I forgot that specifies stirring it with a wooden spoon, adding a cup of flour, "will you soon be in heaven"? I think that's how it goes? A quarter cup of unsweetened cocoa powder, a half cup of brandy, and then it says "two or three bags of sugar," which sounds crazy, so I'll just add a TON of sugar. (I know this will end in disaster, but we must be precise.) Mix it with your wooden spoon, as specified, before adding a pinch of vanilla, or I guess half a teaspoon of vanilla, and shaping them into salted chocolate balls. which, ironically, has no salt in the recipe.

But we'll bake them at 350 degrees for about twenty minutes or until... Oh, they're not quite balls, are they? Okay, we'll see if they taste good. They end up tasting a little like old-school Italian grandma cookies, and not in a good way. All the alcohol and cinnamon, so... Let's see if we can make this a little more palatable. We'll add ANOTHER cup of flour, a teaspoon of each (baking powder and baking soda), mix it all together, and now you'll finally have a dough that you can shape into balls more appropriately, before baking again at 350°F. for 15-20 minutes or until they come out a little closer to the balls.

That's a little better. Even with the much needed addition of some kosher salt, the flavor and texture of these are still not good and I know we can do better. So, we'll take a stick of butter, put it cubed in the stand mixer with two cups of sugar, patiently beat them for 2-3 minutes on high speed with our chin resting comfortably on the top of our head. Stand mixer, crack three whole eggs in there and again, on high speed, beat until smooth and, that is, creamy. And in the meantime, we'll combine one cup of flour, half a cup of unsweetened cocoa powder, and one and a half teaspoons each of baking powder and kosher salt, which we'll whisk together before slowly adding to the machine on low speed.

As it combines, we'll add half a teaspoon of vanilla extract, half a cup of buttermilk, and a quarter cup of vegetable oil. Pour it slowly down one side before turning the mixer back on to high speed for 2-3 minutes or until the batter is light and fluffy. Grease the inside of a cake pan. Fill it with our cake dough. Smooth the top and bake at 350°F for 35 to 40 minutes or until set and no longer jiggly. While the cake cools completely, we'll melt some chocolate in a double boiler, about 8 ounces, and pour it onto a baking sheet.

We are going to spread it in a very thin layer. Pound it a few times to get it nice and smooth and freeze it for 10 minutes or until it loses its shine. Then, being very careful not to scratch the metal, we are going to use a lemon zester to make some short, curly chocolate curls. Some short and curly. Then we're going to mix it with some cocoa powder before placing it in the freezer until we're ready to use it. Meanwhile, let's place the cooled cake in a mixing bowl. Add half a cup of whole milk and add more milk as needed until you get a dough consistency which we will then shape into chocolate balls and place on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper before covering with melted chocolate and rolling in our shorts. and curly.

Now these are salty chocolate balls that I think Chef himself would recognize and man, Chef's balls are tasty, but do they compare to Cartman's chili? CARTMAN: "Do you like it?" "Do you like it, Scott?" "I call him 'Mr. and Mrs. Tenorman Chili.'" SCOTT TENORMAN: "OH MY GOD!" That's right, we're making chili with cascabella chiles, guajillo chiles, ancho chiles, and Scott Tenorman's parents. We're going to start this chili very similar to Kevin's famous chili from The Office: removing the seeds, removing the stems, and cutting them all into one-inch pieces that we can then place in a dry skillet and toast over medium heat until just barely. smoke. and fragrant.

Then, while the pan is still hot, but not too hot, we'll add about a cup and a half of chicken broth, bring it to a simmer, cover, remove from the heat, and let it sit for half an hour. before placing it in the bowl of a food processor. Now this is a slightly different method. I found it to be much easier than grinding dried peppers. (As long as your food processor is plugged in!) We'll pulse it a few times before adding half a cup of cornmeal (to thicken). Maybe a tablespoon of dried oregano, two tablespoons of unsweetened cocoa powder, and a tablespoon of freshly ground cumin.

Go ahead and process for about two minutes, or until completely smooth, and set aside while we combine one finely chopped habanero, two finely chopped jalapenos, one chopped onion, and one clove of crushed garlic. Now, according to some very... morbid articles I've read online, the human taste is more like pork. So, we'll use a boneless pork shoulder that we'll cut into half-inch pieces and squeeze a pound of uncured chorizo ​​from its casing. Next we're going to brown the sausage over medium-high heat, pouring out all the fat and breaking it up into small pieces, and then brown the pork in the rendered sausage fat.

Make sure those pieces are nice and golden brown, so that a nice honeycomb forms on the bottom of the pot. In which we will then throw our vegetables. Sweat them for a few minutes before deglazing them with a full Mexican beer. Scrape all the good stuff from the bottom of the pot, add our spice paste and another cup and a half of chicken broth. Add our meat back to the pot and I forgot to film it, but you want to add two 14 oz cans of chopped tomatoes to our chili before covering with the lid slightly ajar and simmering for 3 to 4 hours, or until the meat is completely. tender and the sauce thick.

Season with salt and pepper as needed and prepare to impress your school bully at the Chili Con Carnival cooking contest. Add some grated cheese and freshly chopped chives, if you really want to bring out the flavor of Mr. and Mrs. Tenorman. This could be a very tasty way to get rid of the parents of your worst enemy, but what you really need is some crème fraîche. RANDY: "Sit down, sit down! I made everyone breakfast again!" STAN: "Oh shit." RANDY: "Now, what I have for you is a delicious goat cheese and heirloom tomato frittata." "And we're going to top that off with some... crème fraîche." ANDREW: Randy's frittata sounds like the perfect breakfast to have after a long night making pie balls and chilis, so I'll start with: half a dozen shallots thinly shaved on a mandoline.

Now, unless you're a trained professional like me, make sure you use a manual grinding wheel...yikes!! SHIT! SHIT! SHIT! Okay, now that we've gotten our hand guard out of the back of our closet, we're ready to shave our shallots. We will cut them into eight-inch slices that we will then separate into small rings and prepare them to fry at low temperature. Shallots have a lot of moisture, we don't want to leave them over high heat. They will explode. Start at 215°F and increase to 350°F and remove once blonde. Not dark brown, but blonde. They will continue to darken outside of the oil.

Now it's time to tackle the heirloom tomato part of our heirloom tomato frittata. We're going to cut up three large heirloom tomatoes, remove the seeds, and place the dough in the middle before cutting them into one-inch pieces. Then we are going to heat two tablespoons of butter and olive oil in a 10" cast iron skillet. Beat together-- beat t-- beat t-- beat the other-- Beat six eggs with one cup of milk, salt, pepper and 4 ounces of crumbled goat cheese. Stir to combine, work on your enunciation and place the butter and olive oil over medium high heat until the foam disappears and add a small chopped shallot over medium heat until smooth and crushed garlic clove and sauté for 30 more seconds or until fragrant.

Add our chopped heirloom tomatoes, increase heat to medium-high and cook until most of the liquid has evaporated and the tomatoes are soft. our egg and goat cheese mixture. Over medium heat, constantly run the wooden spoon across the bottom of the pan. This will create a smaller curd and therefore more tender eggs. Once the eggs thicken, place in a 350°F oven for 15 to 20 minutes. until the eggs are ready, cut a slice, put it on a plate with some fried shallots, some freshly chopped spring onions and let's eat. Oops, wait a second, I think I'm forgetting something. Last night I remember combining a pint of heavy cream with a couple tablespoons of buttermilk, stirring well to combine, covering and letting sit at room temperature overnight, thus creating: Crème fraîche.

I'm going to put a good spoonful on top of our... awww, yeah... Ahem, sorry, on top of our frittata. Now, it's rare that I clean my plate on this show, but it's even rarer that something is so good that I come back for seconds. Randy Marsh, you win the South Park

special

. Alright guys, like I was saying, Colossal Cluster Fest is happening June 2-4 in San Francisco, and they'll have vendors serving food from shows like South Park, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and Seinfeld. And I'm competing in a South Park Chili Cook-Off with Carnival with Matthew Accarrino of Michelin-starred SPQR and Sarah and Evan Rich of Rich Table.

So if you want to come and see my face and watch my ass get thoroughly handed over in a chili cook-off, come to the Colossal Cluster Fest on June 2nd.