Binging with Babish: Tortilla Chip Sombrero from Despicable Me 2

♪ You have a best friend, I want to see that girl ♪ ♪ All the women are invited ♪ ♪ Hair and nails, that Louis, Chanel ♪ ♪ Everyone at the party ♪ ♪ Presidents in my wallet ♪ - (laughs) I'm so glad you did could have done that, my friend! Hey what's up? - Oh nothing! Nothing is wrong! I'm relaxing with the guacamole in my

chip

hat. - Hey, what's up, guys? Welcome back to Binging with Babish, where this week we'll take a look at the

tortilla

hat from Despicable Me 2. For the record, I had a hard time deciding between this and the nacho hat from "The Simpsons," but I preferred the use of the brim of the hat as a container for dipping the substances.

Speaking of which, first we need to make the hat. In the bowl of a stand mixer we combine 10 ounces of masa flour and all-purpose flour along with 2 tablespoons of kosher salt. A small whisk until smooth. And then I have 5 ounces of lard, cubed, which I will spread over the dry material and incorporate with the paddle attachment of the mixer, about three minutes on low speed until the mixture resembles wet sand. And then I'll start slowly adding a little bit of boiling water, about 8 to 12 ounces. Just add a little at a time. You don't want the dough to be too crumbly, like this, but you don't want it to get wet either.

Ultimately, what we're looking for is a just-opened Play-Doh can type consistency, slightly crumbly, but not sticky or tacky. Once we have it right where we want it, we'll knead it by hand for a couple of minutes on the counter, until it forms a nice smooth ball. And then we'll press it into a disk, wrap it tightly in plastic wrap, and refrigerate it for at least an hour. This will allow the dough to relax and make it even easier to roll... Wow, that wasn't much of a toss. And do you want to try it again? Perfect. Once fully refrigerated, we will subdivide the dough and try to help it develop its gluten.

Our hats have three types of facets, so I will divide them into three approximately equal parts. Close enough. And then, on a lightly floured work surface, I'm going to sheet these pieces of dough, which basically means I'm going to roll them out into a long strip, fold it into thirds, rotate it 90 degrees, and repeat the process. Normally, gluten is something we would want to avoid when making

chip

s, but we need a unique chip that is strong enough to not only hold its own guacamole but also to wear as a fashion accessory. So go ahead and laminate each piece three or four times, wrap it in plastic, and then it's time to take a look at our hat mold, which, as you can see, is a bowl inside a cake pan, which I'm going to use.

Spray generously with non-stick spray. And then we're going to unfold the different parts of the hat into three separate pieces, starting with the kind of dome in the center of the hat. I apologize in advance for my lack of knowledge in hat architecture. We take one of the three pieces of dough we have and roll it out as thin as possible, cut it into a shape as close to a circle, wrap it around a rolling pin, and then use our rolling pin to place it on top of our greasy bowl. And then comes the meticulous modeling part.

First we need to eliminate some strategic fold points. And then, once the bowl is fully engaged, we have to press it down and try to level it, a job made much easier by whatever this thing is. I found it in a drawer and it is absolutely perfect for rolling into

tortilla

hats. The next piece is the base of our wing, which will eventually serve as our guacamole pit of sorts. Once again, I roll this guy as flat as I can. Cut out a circle in the center, which, once we roll it once more around our rolling pin, will hopefully fit like a glove around the dome of the hat...

Great. And now we both need to press this as evenly as possible into the bottom of the mold, trimming the edges and fusing it with the bottom of the central dome, trying to make it as flat and uniform as possible while repairing the tears. Next and last is the brim of the hat. Now, this is a 10-inch cake pan, which means a 31.42-inch circumference, which means two strips that are 15.71 inches long and about an inch and a half high. Of course, I got my calculations wrong somewhere and ended up having to patch it a couple of times, but either way, lay out the strips, press them against the walls of the cake pan, and press them down into the corner to fuse them together. with the base of the edge.

And there you have it. At least you've formed a tortilla hat. But now you have to dry it in a convection oven at 300 degrees Fahrenheit for an hour to an hour and a half. It should shrink and darken a little. And once you've let it cool for about five minutes, you can take it out of the pan, take out the molding pan, be surprised that you didn't destroy it somehow in that process, and let it cool. a rack for about another hour. Again, this will help dry it out before frying it, or at least our closest approximation to frying it.

You see, I don't have anything big enough to fry this, so I'm going to treat it like a porchetta, heating up a bunch of oil to 375 degrees Fahrenheit and very carefully and carefully, and with the full weight of knowledge of what I'm doing, place it over each facet of the tortilla hat. Wow, I sure can say some crazy things on this show. Then, once again, very carefully, we are going to discard the excess oil accumulated on the edge. Once again, you should be surprised you made it this far before draining on some paper towels, salting generously with kosher salt while it's still hot so it sticks, and letting it cool completely for about 30 minutes, during which time we can make our guacamole.

We're going to need a not insignificant amount of guacamole for this hat, so here I have four large, ripe Hass avocados that I'm going to cut in half and remove the seeds. And then I'm going to score your meat with a butter knife to make it easier to mash. Once you've cut a striped pattern into the flesh, you can scoop it out, rinse, and repeat with the rest of the avocados. Then, first of all, we're going to give these guys some lemon juice. I'm using three limes, which will add a lot of flavor and prevent the avocados from browning too soon.

I will also add a whole red onion, small and finely chopped; one small, whole jalapeño, finely chopped, ribs and seeds removed; and three large cloves of garlic, whole and finely chopped; also a little shake, or half a teaspoon, of ground cumin; and a bunch of finely chopped green vegetable substance that is most likely cilantro. It's definitely not parsley, so I can eat it and enjoy it. I wouldn't go to such lengths to deceive you. And of course, we have to add a big pinch of kosher salt and a few big rolls of freshly ground black pepper before we realize that our intended bowl is too small and we'll have to upgrade it.

And mash together with a fork until you achieve the desired consistency. Personally, I like guacamole with visible chunks so I have goals to aim for. And with that, it's time to fill the brim of our hat with tortilla chips. Make sure it's evenly distributed, both for aesthetics and weight distribution, because what good is a hat with tortilla chips if you can't wear it? And this one is definitely a size and a half too small for me, but it still gets the job done. It may not be perfect, but it's my first edible fashion accessory. I mean, let's see how it tastes.

And you could think of the tortilla hat as the fun, hands-free way to consume your favorite snacks. And while it tastes surprisingly good, it's actually tremendously difficult to consume in practice. You have no idea what's going on up there. You're just diving in blindly, hoping the hat doesn't disintegrate with every hit and you find dirty guacamole with every stab. That being said, this is the most fun I've had eating chips and guacamole in a long time. I really don't know how you could eat the center of this thing, and I don't care. It's a Cinco de Mayo miracle and I couldn't be happier with it.

That being said, I know one of my dear friends will be even more excited than me. Hey Weissman! How are you'? - Babi call me while I'm making fries, friend? What's up man? (Babish singing angelically) (laughing) Hey! Oh Lord! It's like a bowler hat! He's so cute! - Yes, it's like a top hat. - It's the bowler hat! - It worked very well. The chip is a little thick, but I wanted to show it to you and try to entice you to come to New York so we can do another collaboration, now that the world is getting back to normal. - Dude, you know I'm already there, but if there's no hat waiting for me, then I don't know, man.

I don't know. That's number one. I've fantasized about it for years. In my dream. - No friend. Thank you very much for visiting us. I'm sorry I don't have this to share right now, but I'll have one waiting for you. Come to New York. I'll go to Austin. - I will be there. Thanks Babish. I love you. (upbeat music)