Latest / Blush / French-Inspired Recipes to Get You *French-Girl Hot*

Transcript

French-Inspired Recipes to Get You *French-Girl Hot* · Blush

0:00
You know how French women just kind of seem hotter and happier
0:02
than the rest of us? Well, I really want some of that
0:06
energy in my life. So I decided we're going to make
0:09
a very French inspired meal, but we're going to make it lighter,
0:13
we're going to make it plant based, and we're all just going
0:15
to channel that effortlessly chic French girl vibe.
0:25
I want to make a soup and usually when I add beans into
0:28
soup I just use canned beans just for convenience.
0:32
But today I really really wanted to do dry beans.
0:35
So I've been soaking these beans overnight and apparently
0:40
according to Chachi VG this is not something I knew myself.
0:44
They, they don't take that long to cook.
0:46
Once they've been soaked, it's only like 45 minutes.
0:49
But if you have them in with acids, apparently that can make
0:54
them take longer to cook. And listen, the show isn't gonna
0:57
be like 8 hours long. So what we're gonna do instead
1:01
is we're gonna parboil them. I have my soaked and rinsed
1:06
beans here. We're gonna add a couple of
1:10
pieces of kombu. This is because it actually
1:14
helps breakdown some of the sugars and fibers that cause
1:19
gassiness from beans. Who doesn't want that?
1:23
And I'm just going to add water and I'm going to parboil all
1:26
this while we do everything else.
1:29
OK? While those beans parboil, we're
1:32
going to get the base of our soup going.
1:34
So I'm just going to turn this on and hopefully not catch on
1:38
fire. Woo, a little avocado oil spray
1:45
and I already chopped my onions so that you don't have to watch
1:49
me do it for 20 hours. I should have let this heat up.
1:54
Let's give it a minute to heat up while we just chit chat.
1:58
So honestly, this meal, it's so not heba coated.
2:02
I mean, it is like it is in that it's going to be light and yummy
2:05
and whatever, pretty yadda, yadda, yadda.
2:08
But I just mean, I don't usually do kind of more European
2:11
flavors. I feel like I really tend to
2:13
gravitate towards a lot of Asian flavors.
2:16
And then after that, maybe Middle Eastern.
2:19
I was going to say Mediterranean, but there are
2:21
plenty of Mediterranean countries in Europe.
2:24
So that doesn't really fit my logic.
2:27
Yeah, this is kind of outside of my wheelhouse.
2:29
But honestly, last weekend we were visiting some friends in
2:34
Connecticut and we went to this really beautiful French
2:37
restaurant, and I had a salad that was good.
2:40
We're going to get back to the salad later, but I had these
2:44
really amazing veggies. Like they just made me this
2:48
little veggie plate. And I enjoyed it so much.
2:51
And I just really enjoyed the vibes and watching everyone
2:55
else's meal. So I was like, hmm, I feel like
2:57
I could do something kind of French inspired but just make it
3:00
a little bit more blushy if you will.
3:03
All right, this is ready for the onions.
3:05
So this is a fuck ton of onions. I don't even know.
3:09
I think it was like 2 really big onions that I diced up.
3:13
Usually I do one onion as a soup base, but I just really wanted a
3:19
lot of onions in the swan. So we're just going to saute,
3:24
saute, saute. I'm just going to grab a bit of
3:26
thyme. This was fresh thyme, but now
3:32
it's really dry, so I'm just going to pull some of that off
3:36
and add it to the onions. Yeah, I really do feel like
3:39
French food is so like outside of how I usually cook and eat.
3:45
But ever since the French Bistro and Connecticut incident, I've
3:51
been reminded of this article that I read when I was little.
3:55
I mean, I wasn't like a kid kid, but I was kind of a preteen who
3:59
would always read teen magazines and stuff.
4:02
And by the way, that time smells so good.
4:07
So, oh, I should be doing something.
4:10
So we're going to add leeks to this once the onions go down a
4:14
little bit, so I may as well chop them now.
4:17
I'll be real with you. I've tried to get everything as
4:21
fresh as possible and that's in large part because that's just
4:24
how I like to eat. But it's also in part because I
4:28
just watched this thing on Netflix with Alice Waters, who I
4:32
guess is a well known chef. I was not familiar with her work
4:36
and I've actually never watched It's a Chef's Table.
4:40
I think that's what the Netflix show is called.
4:42
I've actually never watched it before.
4:45
But when they do those little, you know, they do the preview
4:48
thing or like the things they recommend to you.
4:51
I saw someone talking about some salad and I was like, well, I
4:55
like salads. And she's like, yeah.
4:56
And no one's ever had a salad like this before.
4:58
And I was like, I mean, OK, so I just was really, really curious,
5:05
honestly. So I did put it on.
5:07
Apparently she's a very well known chef.
5:09
I just don't know people. It's not like, I'm not doubting
5:13
her well known this. I just like literally don't know
5:15
people. Like I don't know who people
5:17
are. So I was not familiar with her
5:21
work. So anyways, she apparently a big
5:25
thing of hers is let me just get this flame a little bigger.
5:30
Or is it this way that it gets bigger?
5:33
Oh yeah. OK, let's do that.
5:36
So a big thing of hers is an emphasis on really fresh
5:41
produce. And she said that when she, I
5:44
think after college, she went to France for a bit and that's
5:48
really where she fell in love with cooking and stuff.
5:51
And she had never seen a farmers market.
5:53
And she just realized everything tastes so much better in France
5:57
because it's so much fresher, Which is interesting because I
6:00
don't really think of France as like a big fresh produce
6:05
country. But that's neither here nor
6:07
there. And her big thing is, you know,
6:09
sourcing from local farms. And she set up this whole
6:12
network of farmers or some shit. Apparently, her restaurant has
6:17
for dessert, they'll just bring you a bowl of fruit.
6:20
Like, it's literally just a bowl of fruit.
6:22
But The thing is, it's meant to be like the best bowl of fruit
6:25
you would ever have because it's so fresh and stuff.
6:28
Anyway, so I did try to source really fresh ingredients, with
6:31
the exception of these leeks, which I bought from Trader
6:35
Joe's, because Trader Joe's trims their leeks and it just
6:39
makes the cleaning process so much easier.
6:42
And I think that we all have to do what we can where we can.
6:45
The salad is going to be fresh as fuck.
6:47
OK, but this, you know, we're doing our best.
6:51
But yeah, I remember reading this article.
6:53
See, I'm so good at swinging back through the tangents these
6:56
days. I feel like that's a skill I've
6:58
really developed this past year. But yeah, going back to that
7:01
article, I remember reading this article that was like, how are
7:04
French women so thin when their food is all butter and cheese
7:10
and bread and stuff? And I guess the answer was, I'm
7:14
just going to throw the leaks in because whatever, there are no
7:17
rules. It's our own show, We can do it
7:19
however we want. Their answer was that basically,
7:23
I mean, I don't remember all of it, but it was just a lot about
7:26
how they end up eating less because they enjoy everything
7:30
that they do. There's like so much pleasure in
7:33
it and they're just like happier.
7:34
And they're not sitting around overeating because of that.
7:37
And I really cosigned that message.
7:39
That being said, we're not going to do butter and cheese in this
7:42
meal. It's still going to feel so
7:45
decadent. But I'll show you little tricks
7:47
of how I lighten things up a little bit.
7:51
And most of that is just by letting the flavors of the
7:55
vegetables shine through. I'll start chopping up some
7:59
carrots. That's all that we're going to
8:01
saute. I'll add some garlic after the
8:03
carrots if I don't forget, but that's all that we're going to
8:07
saute. And then the rest of it, the
8:09
rest of it is just going to like, I don't know, simmer oil.
8:14
Whenever it's not going to saute, though, I used avocado
8:18
oil because it has a high smoke point and so it's really great
8:22
for sauteing. And I buy it in that spray
8:25
bottle. Honestly, it's such a racket.
8:27
Like it's such a waste of money to buy it in the spray bottle.
8:30
But the reason that I do it is because I bought my own.
8:34
Well OK, I like it in a spray bottle because you can evenly
8:38
cook, coat your pan and use way less oil than if you were to
8:43
just pour it in. So that's why I like the
8:46
spraying mechanism. But I tried to buy my own oil
8:51
sprayer and just fill it up myself and it gets clogged and
8:56
all the reviews of every sprayer I found say the same thing that
9:00
they just stopped working eventually.
9:03
So now I just buy the stupid spray bottles.
9:05
I mean, it's, it's actually the markup that you pay on that is
9:09
pretty nutty. But you know, you do what you
9:11
can, you do what you can. I think that's the theme of this
9:16
episode. By the way, I'm not peeling my
9:19
carrots. You can.
9:21
The reason I'm not is because I washed them really well.
9:25
And the skins just have so many nutrients because that's where
9:29
they were underground. So, so long as there's no
9:31
visible dirt, I don't peel them. The only time I peel my carrots
9:36
is when I'm serving guests and the carrots are raw, especially
9:40
on a crude tape powder or something like that.
9:42
But when it's just me or just me and Aussie, I don't bother.
9:46
This smells so good between the onions and the leeks and the
9:51
thyme. Obsessed.
9:53
Although I am getting pretty hot in this cashmere, I love how I
9:58
chose to use. I have no fewer than 450 cutting
10:02
boards, but of course I choose to use the most comically small
10:07
cutting board that I own. Actually, that's not true.
10:10
I own one that's smaller, so at least I didn't grab that one.
10:14
Anyway, I really don't want to see any comments about how my
10:17
hair doesn't look good. I did my best.
10:18
OK, I thought it looked really cute, but it's my first time
10:21
doing this hairstyle and I have not nailed making it.
10:26
Doing it. Yeah, whatever.
10:28
The food will slap and that's should be all that matters.
10:31
Oh my God, it's really hot in front of this thing.
10:34
I'm actually kind of starting to sweat.
10:37
Might have to call an audible. I'm going to move the pot back
10:39
to the stove, though, once we're done sauteing all this dog shit.
10:49
Yeah, righty, let me grab some garlic so we can add that in and
10:57
then we'll do more of the soup base.
11:00
OK, I have the garlic. I also grabbed some black
11:03
pepper. We're going to crack it directly
11:07
in this and saute, saute, saute. So this soup is actually
11:15
inspired by a French rustic vegetable soup that comes with a
11:22
pesto on top. We're going to make our own
11:24
version of that. I don't think that there is ever
11:28
really a very strict recipe for this soup.
11:32
I can't remember what it's called.
11:33
I think that different regions and places do it differently.
11:37
But we're going to have a very tomato base to this because
11:42
that's just what I'm obsessed with these days.
11:44
Like I really can't get enough of it.
11:46
Like I mean, I feel like you've heard me talk about it a lot.
11:49
I'm just fucking obsessed with soup right now.
11:51
I don't know how much garlic I'm doing.
11:54
I think it's like 5 or so cloves.
11:57
Maybe I'll add a few more. I'm going to start using whole
12:01
garlic. I think.
12:02
Honestly, I used to be so much more intense about only shopping
12:08
at the farmers market and only buying local organic.
12:13
And then I would say last year in 2025 is when I really started
12:20
to pull away from that a lot more and just feel like,
12:23
whatever, I'm going to buy things that are more affordable
12:26
or easier. But I don't know.
12:29
Watching that Alice Waters thing, I love how he literally
12:32
had no idea who she was before. And now I'm, like, changing
12:35
everything because of it. But I do think there's some
12:38
there, there. And I know with garlic, the
12:40
flavor's so much better when you just buy a whole garlic.
12:43
It's just the process of healing garlic that really turns me off.
12:47
But I feel like it has to get there.
12:50
All righty. Yeah, OK, not too long left
12:56
until we're going to move this thing back.
12:58
Hell yeah. That smells so fucking good now
13:01
with the garlic to. Holy shit.
13:05
So we are going to add potatoes and green beans, but I'm not
13:09
going to saute those. Those are just going to go in
13:12
the broth. I'm just going to cut them up
13:15
right now while all this is going.
13:18
By the way, I feel like I should check on my beans.
13:23
I don't know. We haven't even reached a boil.
13:25
So the good thing about this soup is everything is so
13:31
forgiving. Like you can really kind of do
13:32
whatever you want. And also there is no overcooking
13:37
anything. Like I'm really not concerned
13:39
about the potatoes being overcooked.
13:41
I am using waxy potatoes rather than starchy potatoes because
13:46
this is not going to be a pureed soup.
13:48
It's going to be a chunky kind of rustic soup, and the waxy
13:52
potatoes hold their shape better.
13:54
If you want a more creamy pureed soup, I would recommend using
13:59
starchy potatoes for that because they'll just break down
14:03
and then thicken up the whole soup.
14:05
But yeah, we don't really have to worry about overcooking
14:08
anything. So it's a very, it's like not
14:12
even a recipe. Truthfully, I'm going to do a
14:15
lot of potatoes because I find potatoes to be just the ultimate
14:18
comfort food. You know, there is this study or
14:23
something that found that potatoes are the most satiating
14:27
food on the planet. I think it's because they're so
14:30
comforting and they feel so decadent.
14:34
But you know, potatoes are actually quite light.
14:37
Like it's really kind of hard to gain weight eating potatoes.
14:41
I mean, obviously you can gain weight if you overeat in
14:45
calories regardless of what those are.
14:47
But people have such a fear of potatoes, like they think of it
14:50
as such a decadent food. And some preparations of
14:53
potatoes certainly are like cough, cough French fries.
14:56
But for the most part, they're actually like a boiled or
15:00
steamed potato is so much lighter than things that you're
15:05
eating that you think are probably really, really healthy.
15:08
You know what I mean? Like even if I feel like over
15:13
the years people are constantly trying to find substitutes for
15:17
potatoes because there's this, I'm not going to use that.
15:21
There's this narrative out there that potatoes are bad for you or
15:24
you're going to gain weight on potatoes.
15:26
But The thing is, all those variations and listen, a lot of
15:29
them are veggies that I love. Like I love cauliflower so much.
15:33
But if you're craving potatoes and you eat cauliflower, that's
15:38
not going to be a good experience for anyone.
15:42
All right, I'm going to go grab the tins of tomato.
15:46
We're going to dump that in, get our potatoes in, get our green
15:50
beans in, fill it with water, and then move it to the stove.
15:56
OK, We're going to use these tomatoes.
15:58
They're by Trader Joe's. They're the crushed fire roasted
16:01
tomatoes. I like using San Marzano
16:05
tomatoes and like the whole peel tomatoes.
16:07
I really do. But I feel like the fire roasted
16:10
ones have so much more flavor. I often will do one big can of
16:15
fire roasted and one big can of San Marzano, but today we're
16:20
just going to do 2 big cans of the fire roasted and hopefully I
16:24
can open this thing. OK, there we go.
16:27
Oh great, now in addition to all the sweat all over my face, I
16:32
also have tomatoes all over my face.
16:35
How fun is that for us? And another thing I'm going to
16:39
do is once my beans are, I don't know, doing something bubbling
16:45
up or something, I'm going to ladle not only the beans into
16:48
this pot, but also some of the cooking water, not all of it.
16:53
I'm going to take this tin because there's still residue
16:57
left inside of it. I'm going to pour the water in
17:00
here and dump it in there. All right, I poured water into
17:03
both of these. Let's do one.
17:07
I can't wait to not have this thing in front of my face
17:09
anymore. It is so hot.
17:12
This camping stove is so much hotter than a real stove.
17:16
But I will say, food cooks a lot faster on it.
17:19
I guess maybe and camping, you're not trying to Dick around
17:23
with food too much. You just want to, I don't know,
17:25
be under the stars or whatever it is that people do when they
17:28
camp. I don't know.
17:29
I've literally only camped at music festivals before, so
17:33
drugs. That's not what people do.
17:35
I'm just kidding. Really.
17:37
Just kidding. All righty, let's do some green
17:40
beans now. These are the French green
17:42
beans. I'm not even going to attempt to
17:45
pronounce it. OK, I struggle enough with
17:46
English, really not trying to add an entire language that I
17:49
don't even fucking speak on top of this.
17:52
What is it like I am going to attempt it.
17:54
Is it haircut Barrett? I'm sure that's not it.
17:58
It's so embarrassing. And again, I'm going to call
18:01
myself out on my own bullshit. I bought these bagged and
18:04
trimmed because I fucking hate trimming the end of green beans.
18:07
Now, would they taste better if I'd bought them from the farmers
18:11
market and they weren't trimmed? Yes.
18:13
But I don't think there are green beans at the farmers
18:16
market this time of year, so that also kind of helps my case.
18:22
All righty, I think this seems like a good amount.
18:25
I'm scared there won't be room for anything else.
18:28
And we still have to get the beans in there too, so cut it
18:32
off here. Add some more of this Watra.
18:38
Oh, that's a weird inside joke between Ozzie and I.
18:40
So many of the things that I say are a little dumb inside jokes
18:45
of Ozzie and I, and I'm never mindful to not say them in front
18:51
of other people. And The thing is, I would tell
18:53
you what it means, but it means nothing.
18:54
So all right, we're going to add a bit of salt to the sky and
18:58
then cover it, and we're going to move it to the stove in the
19:01
back and just move on. I'm going to do maybe like a
19:05
tablespoon or so of salt. Can always add more salt later.
19:12
And this is the Celtic sea salt. I really like it because it's
19:16
really rich in minerals. All right, lid on and she's
19:21
moving to the stove and the inferno hell that I'm at is
19:26
finally fucking over. I have these.
19:30
How cute. I can link them.
19:33
Look at that. Look at how it latches in.
19:37
Oh, that's heavy. Oh my God.
19:39
Thank God I do. Solid core.
19:41
Oh my God, Before we get to salad, we're going to make a
19:46
tea, which usually is the first thing that we do our little
19:49
beverage segment of the show. But I really had to get the soup
19:53
on the stove so that I could just cook, cook, cook.
19:56
So we're going to do the tea now.
19:58
Now, this is a French herb. I'm probably going to pronounce
20:03
it incorrectly. I think it's vervain vavain, I'm
20:06
sure is how the French say it. Just like that.
20:10
I think it's similar to lemon verbana.
20:12
It's supposed to be really good for calming the nervous system
20:15
and it's also really good for bloating and digestion.
20:18
Who doesn't love that? So we're just going to put a
20:21
bunch of that into my little tea strainer.
20:24
I really like this one. I'll link it.
20:25
I got it on Amazon. The reason I like it so much is
20:28
because the holes are microscopic so you really don't
20:34
get any herbs that pass through. I have like 6 billion tea
20:37
strainers. This one is definitely not the
20:41
chicest but I still go back to it because it fucking works.
20:48
Now my water is 95°C. I think anywhere between 90 to
20:57
100°C, which is boiling. So I think it's 212 is boiling
21:04
in Fahrenheit, right? I don't know what 90 is in
21:07
Fahrenheit, but I know 170. I think 175 is 80.
21:12
So 90 is somewhere between 175 and 212, let's say 200.
21:18
That sounds about good to me. Oh my God, I'm reading this book
21:22
right now. It's a science fiction book.
21:24
I'm fucking obsessed with that. I you've probably heard me talk
21:27
about it. I literally can't shut the fuck
21:29
up about it. And I'm not going to say what
21:32
it's called because I just want to be able to talk about it and
21:34
not spoil anything. But the human is on a spaceship.
21:39
Ozzy makes fun of me so much. Every night I tell him little
21:43
updates about what I'm reading in this book, and he's just
21:47
like, wow, you are the biggest dork I've ever met in my life.
21:51
Anyway, so this guy is in a spaceship.
21:53
He's actually in a different solar system trying to find
21:57
answers to this crisis that's going on on Earth, and he's made
22:01
contact with an alien. Hold on, I'm just going to fill
22:03
this up and put it back on because we need slightly warm
22:07
water for something. OK, So I just put the kettle
22:11
back on. I put it on 40°C because we need
22:14
warm water, but we don't need hot water for the next thing
22:18
that we're going to do. Actually, it's not the next
22:20
thing, but whatever. Let me just finish this real
22:22
quick. So very important alien story.
22:25
So he makes contact with this alien in a spaceship, and that
22:31
alien is from an entirely different solar system.
22:34
And it is so much smarter than us.
22:38
Like so much smarter. But it also kind of looks like a
22:41
giant spider. And it basically has no head.
22:43
It has no eyes and its main sense is hearing.
22:47
Fascinating. Anyway, the reason I just
22:49
thought of it is because this alien is so smart that it can
22:52
just convert units so quickly in real time.
22:56
Me not so much, but that alien totally.
23:00
Anyways, so let's get back to what we're going to do for this
23:03
T. So while the T steeps in here
23:06
and it really does not need very long, I'm going to slice up.
23:12
I have some Meyer lemon here. You can use regular lemon.
23:15
Honestly, the regular lemons at my store just kind of looks like
23:20
dog shit. That's why I'm using the Meyer
23:22
lemons. And I have some fresh mint.
23:24
I really wanted to use spearmint but I don't think there is any
23:28
right now in this season. But spearmint is cool 'cause it
23:31
can really help with estrogen dominance.
23:34
So if that's something that you deal with, I don't know if
23:36
you've talked to your doctor about potentially trying
23:41
spearmint for that. All right, I'm going to use this
23:44
cup, so let's just layer in. Maybe I'll do the whole thing.
23:50
Why not? Why not?
23:52
Food is meant to be eaten, things are meant to be used.
23:55
Do you know, I have such a kind of toxic trait of, of buying
24:01
things that I love and then not using them because I seem to be
24:05
saving them for something. It's something I've really
24:08
worked on, I would say over the past 10 years, but it's a habit
24:12
that seems to die very hard for me.
24:15
So I'm going to do some fresh mint in this cup and just layer
24:20
it with some lemon, more fresh mint and a little more lemon.
24:28
I think you understand where this is going now.
24:31
And I'm going to muddle it a tiny bit, not a ton.
24:36
Mainly for the mint to release its aroma.
24:38
Well, I guess for all of it. How fun is this?
24:41
I kind of feel like a mixologist, except I am God
24:45
awful at making cocktails. It's like you would think I
24:49
could do it. I'm so good at making food, you
24:51
know, not to rag and I'm really good at making like coffee type
24:57
of drinks. And I don't know why I think
25:01
it's me because I don't really drink much and I don't like love
25:05
alcohol. So it's just hard for me to know
25:08
how to balance that flavor if it makes sense.
25:11
All right, I'm so excited to try this.
25:16
By the way, this is what's that type of glass called?
25:18
I don't even know how it's pronounced.
25:20
We should just rename the shelf. I don't know how it's
25:22
pronounced. I think it's something like
25:24
we're silicating glass. That's the thing.
25:27
It's not that I don't know how to pronounce it.
25:28
I don't even know what fucking letters are in it, but it's
25:30
something to that effect. So it's very heat proof.
25:34
I'm not 100% sure if you can pour water this hot into just
25:39
any cup. Anyway, I'm going to give it a
25:41
minute to cool down before I drink it because I do not want
25:44
to burn my whole fucking mouth. How pretty is she though?
25:49
It just looks so fresh, which I guess is a big theme of this
25:54
episode. You know, that intersection of
25:56
fresh and decadent. OK, should we try it?
26:04
Oh, that's delicious. Now, am I mostly tasting lemon
26:08
and mint? Yes.
26:09
Is that probably because 90% of my cup was lemon and mint?
26:13
Yes. But it's fucking good.
26:16
In Persian medicine, mint is really big for bloating,
26:19
especially if it's kind of gas kind of bloating.
26:23
Isn't it funny how I feel like I'm so comfortable saying the
26:27
word bloated, but I don't really like to say gas.
26:29
Like I'm like, oh, gross. No, I don't have gas.
26:32
You know, we do. We all do.
26:36
Well, let me check on this soup. Let's see.
26:41
Oh yeah, that's bubbling. Well, since they're both
26:43
bubbling, what I'm going to do now is I'm going to transfer
26:46
some of the beans, or all of the beans I should say, into here
26:51
with some of the cooking water. I'm not going to bring the calp
26:54
in. One nice thing about having long
26:57
sleeves when you cook is you can kind of use them as pot holders
27:00
and stuff. OK, don't mind me just starting
27:10
a whole fucking fire back here. OK, we're going to shift gears
27:16
to the salad now. So we're going to start with a
27:19
salad dressing. I have two very small shallots.
27:23
I'm just going to chop those up a tiny bit.
27:26
By the way, I I am in a blunder crisis right now so both my
27:34
blunders are broken. One my Vitamix I've had for
27:38
years and I actually bought it second hand.
27:41
It's been having issues for years.
27:43
I feel like I've talked about it a lot so I'll just spare you all
27:45
the details. So no Vitamix right now And then
27:48
my other blender had maggots in it.
27:52
I do not want to talk about it. Please respect my privacy at
27:55
this time. It was horrifying.
27:56
So I will not be discussing that.
27:59
So we're going to use a handheld immersion blender until you
28:04
know, you know, I got some new fucking blenders.
28:08
OK, so this is where our warm but not hot water comes in.
28:13
So let's do 1/4 cup of that. Oh my God, watch this glass
28:17
burst. That looks fine.
28:19
Thank God. So this is 40°C.
28:22
It's warm. It's not hot.
28:24
We're going to pour it over the shallots.
28:27
Now. This is something I have never
28:29
done before. I was reading about the salad at
28:33
Via Corrada, this restaurant in the West Village that's supposed
28:39
to be phenomenal. And apparently this is the
28:42
secret to their salad is very well known.
28:45
And apparently the secret trick is that they let the shallots
28:50
and the vinegar sit with hot water, which takes away some of
28:53
the edge. I don't know.
28:57
Yeah, that tea is stunning. OK, so I have a bit of white
29:01
wine vinegar left, so we'll use the rest of that.
29:05
And then I'm just going to add some red wine vinegar.
29:09
Let's do maybe 1/3 of a cup of vinegar in total.
29:18
So we'll just let those sit in there.
29:21
I'm also using some dates. I'm going to put in three dates.
29:24
By the way, I've never made this dressing before.
29:26
We're going to see how it is together in real time.
29:28
I'm just going to let it sit in there and everything soften for
29:31
a few minutes and I'm just going to drink my fucking tea.
29:34
OK, so quick intermission. I've been thinking a lot about
29:37
this article that I read about the French girls and I I found
29:42
that there was a book about this too.
29:44
I think it's called like how French women stay thin or
29:46
something like that. I honestly I wonder if the
29:48
author of that article went on to write that book because it
29:52
was like a wildly popular article.
29:54
I have no idea. Anyway, I wanted to ask ChatGPT
29:57
Hey question. So when I was younger I read
30:02
this article. The title of the article was
30:04
something like how French women stay lean or stay slim or I
30:07
don't know, the early aughts. So I mean it was maybe worded in
30:11
a more toxic way, who knows. I know that there's a book on
30:14
the subject and I know there are probably many articles.
30:17
Can you kind of summarize what they say?
30:19
I'm going to go grab some Dijon while Chad gets back to me.
30:22
Do you feel like Chad is taking longer than ever these days or
30:25
is it just me now? I think that the best Dijon
30:29
mustard objectively is that melee brand.
30:34
I'm sure that's not how it's pronounced.
30:35
Again, I struggle enough with English, I think it's
30:38
unreasonable to expect me to pronounce things correctly in
30:41
French. But I personally, for my taste
30:44
buds, love love love the Whole Foods organic Dijon mustard.
30:50
It's a little more vinegary, which I think is why I like it
30:54
more. But I think that the Melee brand
30:57
is really, really good. And I know I shouldn't talk shit
31:01
about other brands, but I think it's a lot better than Grey
31:04
Poupon. Wait, wait wait.
31:06
Before I do this, I want to see what chat said.
31:09
Yeah, blah, blah, blah. OK.
31:11
They eat Whole Foods, not diet foods.
31:13
They eat real bread, real cheese, blah, blah, blah, blah,
31:15
blah. So food tastes satisfying and
31:18
nutrient. That's OK.
31:19
So we already talked about that. They eat structured meals at
31:22
structure times, no snacking. Basically.
31:25
They sit down. They turn eating into a ritual.
31:28
OK, I feel like these are all very blush coated things that we
31:30
talk about on this show. They prioritize pleasure, not
31:34
restriction. Good for them.
31:36
Can we have a quick detour and just talk about how I feel like
31:39
the sex industry has Co opted the word pleasure.
31:42
Like I can't even say the word pleasure without feeling kind of
31:45
like think demure, like oh, I don't mean it like that, you
31:48
know? Anyway, blah blah blah, yeah,
31:51
they enjoy the food, so they end up eating less, enjoy quality
31:54
over quantity. They walk a lot.
31:56
They produce constantly. They drink water, not soda.
32:00
They don't moralize food, so no guilt around bread, no guilt
32:05
around dessert. They prioritize social eating.
32:08
Yeah, I mean, that all tracks. OK, so let's add maybe like,
32:13
let's do 1/4 cup of the Dijon. I'm not writing this down.
32:17
So I feel like if it ends up being really good, which I
32:20
intend for it to be really, really good, I'm going to have
32:23
to rewatch this episode to get the recipe.
32:25
I usually write down all my recipes in a little notebook.
32:29
Now a traditional vinaigrette is 1 parts vinegar to two to three
32:35
parts oil, which is great, but I do like to make a vinaigrette a
32:42
little bit lighter. I feel like it's just not
32:45
necessary for it to be that oil intense.
32:48
And one of the tricks that I use for doing this is using a very
32:55
intensely flavorful oil. So it's flavor really shines
33:00
through without you having to use a ton of it.
33:03
So I have my immersion blender here.
33:06
We're going to blend this up before I even add oil.
33:19
OK, now usually I add a miso to my dressings for salt, but we're
33:25
not going to do that for this one.
33:27
I mean I even do it in non Asian Y recipes.
33:30
But for this one, I just want to grab salt.
33:32
So I'm just going to grab a little pinch of that Celtic salt
33:35
that we used and I think it was the soup.
33:38
What the fuck did I put it? All right, so I'm truly just
33:44
going to do a little pinchy pinch.
33:47
Well, that's a huge pinch, a little pinch.
33:52
I feel like the dates are not blended.
33:54
Got to get on that. So if I were doing a traditional
34:02
vinaigrette ratio, like a lot more oil, I wouldn't even add
34:06
the dates. The reason that I'm adding the
34:08
dates is because they're going to take away some of the
34:11
sharpness of everything in there.
34:13
The shallots, the vinegar, and the mustard all have a lot of
34:18
intensity to them. The dates will help balance
34:21
those flavors without having to add a ton of oil.
34:25
At the end of the day, I'd rather use a few dates to do
34:29
that because they have so much fiber, they have so many other
34:32
nutrients, and they're just going to be far lighter than a
34:34
bunch of oil is. Even though I don't think
34:36
there's anything wrong with oil. Like I definitely have been in
34:39
phases in my life where I would not have any oil because I was
34:42
like, well, it's just, I'd always say it's like worse than
34:46
sugar because it's just one macronutrient extracted from the
34:50
rest, except it has literally twice as many calories as sugar
34:54
per gram. So and why would it not be
34:57
worse? And I still think that there's
34:59
some truth to that, but I also don't think it like fucking
35:02
matters that much. Like a little bit of oil can
35:05
always make your taste food taste so much better.
35:07
And that's so worth it. It's that like French girl
35:10
thing, right? Like quality over quantity.
35:13
Anyway, that being said, I do like to have a large quantity of
35:17
dressing. So it is my first time using
35:20
this oil, but it's supposed to be super, super pungent.
35:24
It's high fennel, high phenol, phenolick, high phenolick, extra
35:30
virgin olive oil. What does that mean?
35:32
I don't know. I think it's really high in
35:35
antioxidants. I think that's what it is,
35:37
actually. I think we should do 1/3 of a
35:40
cup. Yeah, it smells pretty good.
35:42
I actually want to taste this before the oil even goes in.
35:46
Yeah. See, that's delicious already.
35:49
The warm water trick works because it's not nearly as sharp
35:53
as it would be usually at this point.
35:55
So I'm going to have this running.
35:57
That's actually one nice thing about using this immersion
36:00
blender. And then I'm going to slowly
36:02
pour in the oil. All
36:13
right, let's see how this is. Wow.
36:21
OK, to me, this tastes so oily and it's not noticeably sweet at
36:28
all, which I love because I didn't want to do like I love a
36:32
sweet kind of mustard base dressing.
36:34
I think he can be so delicious, but that's not the vibe that I
36:38
wanted for this. I wanted something that doesn't
36:41
taste like it's been sweetened at all.
36:43
So the purpose of the dates in this truly are just to balance
36:47
the flavors. I think is the word I'm looking
36:49
for. It is insanely hot in this
36:51
kitchen. You guys have no idea what I'm
36:53
going through right now. I really knocked out a tooth.
37:03
I'm just going to check on this soup.
37:05
I think it might be ready to turn off.
37:08
I'm really just going to check if the beans are cooked or not.
37:12
And I'm really, really going to try not to spill this.
37:18
Yeah, That's yummy. Mm.
37:23
Hmm. Mm.
37:24
Hmm beans cooked from dry taste so much better than canned
37:30
beans. OK BRBI need to ice my tongue
37:33
'cause I just burnt it but OK I'm starving.
37:39
I'm so ready to eat. There's just one more thing
37:42
we're going to do before assembling our salad, serving
37:44
the soup, and just gouging. So I mentioned that the soup is
37:50
based on a French vegetable soup that usually is served with a
37:55
French version of pesto on top. They hand grind it, which I
37:59
think is how you're meant to do pesto too.
38:02
And it's just basil, lemon and garlic, I believe, I believe
38:06
from what I read. But I thought it would be fun to
38:09
do more herbs in it 'cause like, why not?
38:11
I love herbs and I think that it they just brighten soup so much.
38:15
So we have some fresh basil from the farmers market, parsley and
38:21
cilantro all from the farmers market.
38:24
I'm just going to grab like a handful of each maybe the smells
38:30
so good, tastes good too. I will say I like kind of mild
38:35
PTSD from the maggots incident. Anytime I see anything kind of
38:42
maggot shaped, which is a lot of things, you know, because it's
38:46
just like a white comma basically, a lot of things kind
38:50
of look like maggots. Really freaks me out.
38:53
So yeah, that's just something I'm dealing with.
38:56
Maybe I'll do a round of EMDR to deal with that here.
38:59
Let's grab some cilantro and I'm going to add a bit of garlic to
39:06
this and more Meyer lemon. I do not believe the French use
39:11
Meyer lemons but that's their mistake.
39:13
So I'm going to do maybe like I don't know, 3-4 cloves of
39:18
garlic, why not? And we'll do the juice of 1
39:22
lemon. I have this one that my niece
39:25
put stickers. Oh she bought it for me and she
39:27
didn't buy it for me. She was like a fucking not even
39:30
a toddler when this happened. I don't think my sister-in-law
39:34
and brother bought it for me and she put stickers all over it for
39:36
me. How sweet.
39:38
Now, I've had this mortar and pestle for a while.
39:41
I don't. Oh, pestle.
39:42
I say pestle, but I, I think it's pestle, right?
39:45
Ozzie corrected me once. Thank God.
39:48
You know what? If you ever catch me saying
39:50
something wrong, please, for the love of God, feel free to
39:55
message me and tell me, 'cause I really don't know.
39:58
Like I'm not standing by pronouncing things incorrectly,
40:02
OK? I don't know how to use this.
40:14
I just have a hard time believing that this is ever
40:16
going to turn into a paste. Like, am I doing something
40:20
wrong? This can't possibly be how
40:26
people do this. OK, I feel like we're kind of
40:36
getting somewhere. Yeah, I give up on this.
40:42
It is good enough. We're going to use what we have.
40:46
Let's move on to the fucking salad because I'm hungry.
40:52
So we have a bunch of really fresh leaves.
40:58
I have some little gems. I often call these baby gems,
41:02
but I believe the word is Little Gem and inspired by Alice Walter
41:11
Waters. I believe not even, I don't even
41:14
know her fucking name, who apparently is my new hero.
41:18
I believe her signature like infamous salad.
41:21
She doesn't even chop up the greens, which sounds pretty
41:26
nuts. She just arranges them and then
41:30
there's layers of greens and dressing.
41:32
So we're going to kind of emulate that a little bit.
41:36
Now, I do feel like with these two types of rudicchio, I feel
41:40
like something needs to get a bit chopped.
41:43
Like, I don't think that's going to work here, especially because
41:46
this is quite big. I mean, unless I just, like,
41:48
make my way into the center, I couldn't do that.
41:52
I don't think we're ever going to eat.
41:53
I feel like I've been doing this episode since the beginning of
41:56
time. Like, I probably was a toddler
41:58
when I started. And now here we are.
42:03
OK, I know what to do. I don't know why I didn't think
42:05
of this sooner here. What an easy solution.
42:13
Oh, that's so pretty. Yes, let's get some of the outer
42:20
it leaves off this. This is so pretty.
42:23
It's called like Rosa stripe radicchio or something.
42:29
We're kind of in a great season for radicchio.
42:32
I believe radicchio Rosa is coming back into season soon,
42:36
which is just a really pretty light pink radicchio.
42:41
This one's more striped. That one's just like uniformly
42:44
light pink. It's so pretty.
42:46
We're also going to do some frise, which I actually believe
42:49
is a type of radicchio. And what's really cool about
42:52
radicchio is the bitter taste. By the way, this is it's just
42:56
one massive head of freeze, like literally bigger than my fucking
43:01
head. But yeah, one thing that's
43:02
really cool about radicchio is the bitter taste actually causes
43:06
your gut, I guess your digestive system to secrete I guess, a
43:15
bunch of digestive enzymes. So like basically in short,
43:18
radicchio or bitter flavors help your body digest food better.
43:23
So isn't that cool? Now, I am not doing edible
43:27
flowers for this because again, I wanted to keep it really, like
43:32
simple and elegant and clean and, you know, not use too many
43:38
frills, but instead have the beauty come from the simplicity
43:44
and the elegance, if that makes sense.
43:47
That's why I'm using a head of frise that is the size of my
43:51
childhood bedroom. All right, I'm going to add a
43:54
bit more of this radicchio just to balance out the colors.
44:00
I think that looks really good. Let's drizzle on some dressing.
44:07
And I'm going to add some freshly cracked pepper on top of
44:11
that. And now for my favorite part of
44:14
this meal, we have bread. I got sourdough from my favorite
44:20
bakery. I did not make it myself despite
44:22
it coming out the oven, but also because of the French theme.
44:26
I also got their baguette. Now, their baguette does use
44:29
their sourdough starter. This part, I'm not entirely sure
44:33
which. All right, maybe I'll do the
44:36
baguette first. Soup, salad and bread has got to
44:41
be like the best fucking meal out there.
44:44
OK, now something that I think every salad lover has to own is
44:48
a good set of tongs because it is the way to get your salad
44:53
dressed. Also, this bowl is not nearly
44:55
big enough for all the fucking shit in here, so I'm not even
44:59
going to toss it that well. Usually I would do this in a
45:02
mixing bowl and then serve it here, but we're going to do it
45:08
like this today. All right?
45:09
I'm just going to fucking eat this.
45:10
It's not going to work. And fun fact about me, I like to
45:14
eat my salads with chopsticks even when it's not Asian.
45:19
I just really like holding them. Now this is perfect.
45:32
I do think you could do one to two more dates in the dressing
45:37
if you want it sweeter, and I also think you could do a bit
45:40
more oil if you want it more creamy.
45:42
And there's a lot of wiggle room, but it's really good.
45:45
Just going to take a little piece of bread.
45:54
This is like my shit. I just can't even put into words
45:57
how happy this makes me. And we haven't even had the soup
46:01
yet. I'm so far getting excited to
46:03
get into that. OK, as much as I just want to
46:12
stand here and eat the salad all fucking day long, we're going to
46:16
move on to the soup real quick. This is so heavy.
46:21
Oh my God, no. I feel like I can skip solid
46:25
core tomorrow. I feel like I got my workout in
46:28
all right. I'm so excited for this.
46:35
I know it's not the prettiest thing in the world but it just
46:40
looks so Hardy and rustic and just exactly what we need.
46:47
Let's add some of this herb thing.
46:55
I'm also going to add some just fresh untouched herbs on top and
47:02
a little more pepper. I mean, look how Hardy and just
47:10
decadent this looks. Oh yeah.
47:17
All right, it's time to taste the soup.
47:20
I'm so excited. OK, I've been making a lot of
47:31
fucking soups. This is one of my favorite ones
47:34
I've made in the category of a chunky, rustic tomato based
47:38
soup. Hands down the best one I've
47:39
made and part of what makes it so good is that stupid non pesto
47:46
thing that we made. Use a food processor.
47:50
Don't do what I did. Sometimes the old way is not the
47:52
best way. OK, you would not walk to Canada
47:56
would you? If you live in the glass, I
47:59
mean, I really, really love that.
48:04
Wait, I want to get a bite with beans in it too.
48:10
The beans are a very important player in this and I really do
48:14
think cooking them from dry huge effect on this.
48:19
OK, this is the meal of my dreams.
48:23
I'm going to go sit down with my partner and enjoy this meal and
48:29
you will get another recipe from me next week.
48:32
Love you. Thanks for being here.
48:34
Bye. You know what, I think that was
48:41
pretty good. Let's do it a few more times.
48:43
Hey sweets.