The Mind of a Chef (2012) s03e04 Episode Script

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Chef Ed Lee arrived in Louisville, Kentucky, for what was supposed to be a brief respite from the madness of New York City.
But then, as they often do, plans changed and our chef fell in love It's really incredible.
with its gentile manner, with the fried chicken and brown liquor, but most importantly with a girl.
I infiltrated your world with kimchi.
In need of a change, he ditched his Metro card and classic French cooking style and found himself in the river city armed with his knives, a new restaurant and an eagerness to make his mark.
Sounds good, let's get this going.
Enter the mind of a chef.
All curious chefs are just fascinated by their surroundings.
That is intense.
They don't teach you this in cooking school.
So I arrive in Kentucky and it's Derby time.
And so there's pretty women in beautiful hats and everyone's drinking bourbon.
And everything felt perfect.
It just called to me in a way that said, "Listen, you know, you have a chance here to regroup, reprioritize, just think about your life.
" You know, and I think that was very important for me.
No.
Not going to go in your mouth.
Historically what Louisville was was a port city along the Ohio River.
So it was always a city that was open to outsiders.
Hey man, how you doing? What's Scandinavian bread cheese? It is kind of like a baked mozzarella.
You know, part of my job is to sniff out the new things and then we try and figure out from there if it's worth exploring on a dish.
I like that a lot, actually.
How many do you have? Just the two? We have two more in the cooler.
Okay.
I'll talk whatever you got.
And I think more than anything, the spirit of people there was like, "If you want, "you can have a place at the table here.
So come join us.
" I got some cheese I want to work with.
Have you ever seen this before? Nope.
This looks kind of interesting.
I want to kind of mess with it.
It kind of looks like pizza cheese.
Every week I want to learn something new.
And every week I want to teach someone something new.
It's nice.
It's actually got a kind of toasty flavor to it.
That's all I live by.
And I think that to me is what my role is as a chef.
Anyway, it says here "often served warm with fruit.
" But I'm not going to do that.
No.
Because we never listen to what the directions say.
There's a lot of visual literature, there's a lot of written literature about pretty much any topic in the world.
And so as a culture and as a society we've stopped being adventurers and we started to be scholars.
I wanted to see if it'd get You know, how like a Yeah, like a parmesan crusty thing.
Yeah, maybe you can flip it over.
Ready? Watch this.
That's nice.
But I think by not doing that we also lose a lot.
But the risk is it could be a day that's completely wasted.
And I think for a lot of people that's just not acceptable.
How is it? Good.
Real neutral though.
Good and boring? Mm-hmm.
I want to do kind of like the umami ketchup we do at Milkwood.
Can we do like a butter version of that? So like an umami butter? If we're just focusing on food, every single day in the kitchen, you could have a kitchen that is built entirely on technique.
Whoops.
But to me, I want a little bit more soul in my food.
And a little bit more nuggets of narrative.
We had some pieces of duck that were so dried out we didn't know what to do with it.
And Kevin actually decided to dry it out even more.
Use it like bottarga.
Use it like bottarga, yeah.
It's really incredible.
A menu isn't just a bunch of random things on a piece of paper.
You know, a menu is a narrative so it has to work along that narrative.
Is there a place for this on the menu? If there's not, then it doesn't work.
We'll mess around with this a couple more times.
Just cause we experimented on something today the idea that we need an answer today is also Yeah, it's a moot point.
We take weeks to come up with a menu sometimes.
610 Magnolia was owned by a gentleman named Eddie Garber, who is a very legendary chef around town.
But, you know, to put it mildly, eccentric.
This restaurant, it survived for 27 years before I even got there.
You know, in some ways I was inheriting this restaurant.
Right around the six month mark I just decided to change everything on the menu.
And I pretty much lost every customer that we had.
There were easily nights where we had, you know, three, four customers in the whole restaurant.
On a Saturday night.
And at the end of each night I would lie through my teeth and say, "No, no, no, this is exactly what I wanted.
" You know, I didn't even have an apartment.
I was sleeping upstairs in the office.
And I would go upstairs and cry myself to sleep every night.
Going, "What the hell did I get myself into?" The only thing that kept me going was that the four customers we had, you know, would each come and knock on the kitchen door and say, "Thank you, that was an incredible meal.
" When he handed the restaurant to me, he said, "I don't care what you do.
" He said, "Just pay your rent and always push the envelope.
" There's this identity to Louisville that is part Southern.
The other part of it is very German.
And so we're sitting around, you know, with my wife and some of her family.
And I remember someone saying, "Well, we used to eat a lot of hasenpfeffer.
" And like I started literally like laughing because I hadn't heard that word in probably 30 years.
There's a really famous Bugs Bunny cartoon where, I don't know why, but Yosemite Sam is a chef.
And there's a king that says, "Where's my hasenpfeffer?" And Bugs Bunny happens to come in and, you know, hilarity ensues.
So hasenpfeffer is basically rabbit that is marinated in red wine, onions, vinegar and a lot of these spices, which are you've got mustard seeds, bay leaf, cinnamon, chili powder, allspice, clove, and very importantly, lots of juniper.
I don't know German cuisine.
I don't know it firsthand.
I've never been to Germany.
I actually don't know what hasenpfeffer is supposed to taste like.
I don't have a taste memory to go by.
My wife is of German descent, and also she has an incredible palate.
I rely on her a lot for that sense of you know, and she tells me the truth.
A lot of what we knew about Southern food was kind of a caricature of Southern food, and it was considered clunky, it was considered heavy.
It was considered all the things that were not desirable about food.
So I feel like German food too has that kind of connotation where we think of it as brats and beers, and that's it.
You know, a lot of what we think of as American cuisine we owe to sort of German heritage.
So this is the marinade.
It just has all the vinegar and all the spices in it.
It'll be like two hours or so for that to be ready.
Traditionally, you would use semolina dumplings or maybe spaetzle served with this dish.
But it's a pretty heavy dish, so I kind of want to lighten it up and just do a slaw.
So this is just red cabbage.
So I'm going to add a little bit of salt to that.
And then this is going to be white cabbage, which I'm going to kind of burn in a pan a little bit, get it real caramelized.
I say burn like it's a good thing.
Because I'm Korean I'm going to throw some kimchi in here.
If you can have fermented sauerkraut, you can also have a little kimchi.
There's room for both.
Now I'm going to take some quark, which is kind of like German sour cream.
Just add a little bit to that.
And then I'm going to finish it off with something very, very German, which is wonderful sprigs of dill.
I don't consider myself a preservationist.
But now I'm taking it upon myself to turn this into a family tradition.
We're going to make hasenpfeffer.
Everywhere I travel in the entire world, if I say Kentucky, people say fried chicken.
Colonel Sanders is the one responsible for that.
I think most people don't understand.
Fried chicken, up until that point, was not something sold in restaurants.
Fried chicken was something you made at home.
I don't think we ever went out and ate fried chicken.
When I was a child my mom made fried chicken all the time.
And my dad was a hobbyist beekeeper, and so we drizzled the fried chicken in honey.
To me it makes such great sense because it's kind of like the reason that we eat salty popcorn and sweet chocolate at the movie theater.
I've got some chicken here that we've already brined for about 12 hours.
Oh wow.
And then this is good full fat buttermilk.
It's the only kind to use.
Yeah.
And then this is just a leftover shopping bag.
That's a big bag.
What did you shop in there? What are you buying babies? So we've got just some all-purpose flour here.
And then does it matter? Like it has to be a brown paper bag or can it be I mean I guess it could be a white paper bag.
Just got to season that with some salt.
Toasted ground peppercorn.
Shake it off just a little bit before it goes in.
Just drop it right in.
Gentle, or you want me to be harsh? I mean I don't think being harsh is necessary.
Do one more wing, I like the wings.
You like the wings.
This keeps the flour nice and contained.
But in addition to that, it gives us the ability to get flour into all those little crevices under the wings, you know.
It really works perfectly.
That technique.
That hot, hot technique is something, isn't it? What if you're shaking it and the bag rips in the bottom and all your chicken goes flying across the room? Well, that's the problem with these new fancy shopping bags.
These newfangled bags, eh? Are you one of those they don't make them like they used? They don't make them like they used to.
You're already an old lady? The great thing about fried chicken is it talks to you.
It tells you what it's doing.
So it's telling you right now, you know, that some of the moisture from the inside of the chicken is starting to interact with the heat and starting to cook out.
And if we didn't hear that noise, we'd be worried that perhaps our temperature isn't right.
You can almost see it right away.
There's a space right above here, like if you get too close, it's too hot.
If you get too far away it's So there's like a column of like chicken smell that's happening right here.
Well, I have a kind of funny story about that smell.
There's a section of Raleigh where the chicken trinity is.
There's a Church's.
I like Church's.
A Kentucky Fried Chicken and a Bojangles.
And I would, on certain days, like smell that frying chicken smell.
And I always kind of wondered like is it drifting from that other neighborhood? I was driving back from the beach one day with a friend and I was talking about that because I smelled that smell.
My friend informed me that, in fact, that was a dog food factory.
I knew I liked dog food for a reason.
It's making me so hungry.
And so we're going to add just a little bit of salt to the outside of these guys.
To really ensure that great salty/sweet combination.
So we're going to warm up some honey.
And I've got some chilies and a couple cloves of garlic.
And then I've got just a little bit of thyme.
Garlic and honey are such a Oh, it's beautiful, yeah.
A little bit of butter here just to help us emulsify all those flavors.
It's so simple, but it's really, it's really It's really elegant.
Yeah, it's really nice.
So I'm just going to do a pretty light drizzle over the top.
Yeah, get on in there.
How is it? It's so good.
I like that big mound of chicken, too.
And that It's beautiful.
is fried chicken and honey.
If you were a connoisseur of good food, then by definition you must also love fried chicken.
When I met my wife, it was like, you know, there were a ton of people in the room, and we locked eyes and it was like, that's it, I know.
It's the same thing when you lock eyes with a fried chicken joint.
You smell her and you see her, and you're like, "I know you, baby, I'm coming to get you.
" It's a very sensual experience for me.
Like I go into a fried chicken place, and most of the time I want to eat by myself.
And if there are too many people around, it kind of disturbs the whole thing.
So you take it to go.
And you got to open up that top because it'll steam the chicken, and then you drive to like the nearest shady tree that you can find.
And you sit under the tree, you roll down the window and you eat the fried chicken just like that.
Hopefully it's a nice, sunny day.
And that's the best way to eat fried chicken.
It's like having a date with a chicken.
For me, there's essential problems to fried chicken.
You have to fry a piece of chicken so that it cooks all the way through.
But you have to have a crust that is not soggy, but not too burnt.
It's one of the most challenging recipes that you will ever combat.
I'll probably tinker with it until the day I die.
Everyone thinks they have the best fried chicken around.
But this really is the best fried chicken around.
My solution to it was to pre-cook the meat.
Which, to many people, is sacrilege.
I mean like to actually pre-poach meat before you deep fry it is almost like cheating.
But, again, I don't follow rules, so In Filipino cuisine there's something called adobo.
It's basically chicken that's been braised in vinegar.
And then the vinegar actually adds flavor, but also tenderizes the chicken.
It makes the meat incredibly delicate.
Basically, it's water, vinegar and this is soy sauce, black pepper, chili flakes, couple of bay leaves and just a little bit of salt and a little bit of sugar.
And that's kind of the brine part.
Garlic, which is really essential to this because that's going to flavor the broth.
The liquid should be warm enough that it's going to poach the chicken, but actually you should be able to put your hand in it and not burn yourself.
It's almost like a spa.
It's like a warm bath for the chicken.
The broth is really vinegary.
People think, "Oh, my God, you're making sour chicken.
" But what's fascinating is after you dredge it and deep fry it, you don't taste vinegar anymore.
It will just taste like really flavored chicken.
What's interesting if you go to Korea, there is a fried chicken shack on every other block in Seoul.
Korean fried chicken, like kind of what I'm doing is always double-cooked.
The one thing I don't like about Korean fried chicken is that you get a very fine crust.
But you don't get all that texture.
You don't get that incredible you know, nooks and crannies in there.
Hopefully with this recipe, the meat and the fried skin are equals.
So in that broth there's little flecks of fat that have been drained out of the chicken.
Just enough to render it so that when we deep fry it later it's not going to be as greasy.
And so this is just paprika.
A little black pepper.
And I actually do not salt this.
Because we poached it in soy sauce there's a good amount of sodium in the chicken.
I learned this from a friend's mom here in Kentucky.
When you leave it out on the drying rack you have to wait about 20 minutes.
Because you want that buttermilk and the flour to react.
In my ADD mode I actually developed this dipping sauce because I was waiting for this fried chicken to get tacky.
That's your dipping sauce.
So I'm going to start with the thigh because it's going to take the longest.
Then the drumstick.
And then the wing.
Normally with fried chicken you'd probably go for like ten, 12, 15 minutes.
But since this is already poached it's only going to take a few minutes.
Actually, I proposed to my wife with a bowl of fried chicken.
And I had this whole thing planned.
So we ate a bucket of fried chicken and I was going to be like, "Hey, I made a special dessert for you," and I had the ring inside the dessert napkin, you know.
And but we ended up eating so much fried chicken she was like, "I'm full, I don't want dessert.
" And I go, "No, you really want dessert.
" She goes, "No, no, no, I don't want dessert.
" And I got so mad at her.
I was like, "Damn it, I'm trying to propose to you, like eat the damn dessert.
" So I have a dish we call chicken and waffles.
I don't know why soul food restaurants do chicken and waffles.
I've asked a million people, no one knows.
It seems somewhat a little bit too unrefined to take this fried chicken that I've labored so much over and just put it over a big piece of waffle.
So I kind of slice it.
I almost make croutons out of it.
Waffle croutons.
Beautiful.
The faster you can circulate air around it, the nicer it's going to have that crunch.
I got some fennel and chervil here.
Sometimes I'll throw some dill on it, some parsley.
This goes on right at the last minute.
Lots of peppers.
That looks beautiful.
There you go, fried chicken with some waffles.
I got to where I am today because I landed in Louisville and I decided to explore my surroundings.
I feel like I owe it to my cooks in the kitchen to go, you know we got to go explore.
I say we get a little funky with the next dish.
Eel has that wonderful in-between flavor.
The meat itself is actually denser than fish.
It's its own category, you know.
And I think that's why it works nicely as an accompaniment.
All I'm doing is adding a little cream to this and then white soy sauce.
This actually has a really haunting, subtle flavor to it.
I'm very like tantalized by anything that's not easily categorized.
I mean how many things do you know that can work with caviar, lobster, and beef? But also it works in our philosophy of what we do.
I really want people to open up their minds and understand that there's so much more out there.
Listen, if you have a shrimp dish and a rutter fish dish, no one's going to buy the rutter fish.
Everyone's going to buy the shrimp because it's shrimp.
So you just have to say, "Listen, if you want fish today, this is it.
You're eating barracuda, period.
" Then at that point you're either on board or you're not.
It's good.
What we've been doing over the years is cultivating an audience to say once you walk through the doors of the restaurant, this is the program.
And if you do and if you trust us, I promise you you're going leave with an experience.
I felt like from a culinary standpoint, even from a personal standpoint I was a one-tricky pony.
I had this one thing that I was doing.
You know, I said, "Yeah, of course, I'm Korean, I'm going to do some kind of Asian food.
" But that's not fulfilling.
You know, that doesn't create wholeness.
And I think when I moved to Louisville, I found that peace.
I feel like finally I had a voice.
I had something to say The idea that Southern food sort of crept into my bones.
Thank you so much.
Good to see you again.
Thank you, we'll see you soon.
And said, "You know, I'm staying here.
You can't get rid of me.
" What do you think? You ready to go home and make some eggs? All right.
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org/themindofachef.