David Dobrik Tries to Keep Up with a Professional Chef

How did I do?

Uh oh. [laughs]

[retching]

Carla, that was [bleep] delicious!

[upbeat music]

Hey guys, it's Carla, I'm here

in the Bon Appetit Test Kitchen today with David Dobrik.

Hi guys.

And today we've got our usual 20 minutes

to make Vietnamese-style summer rolls.

Okay.

And we're gonna see how David does

following along with me through verbal instructions only.

Easy peasy.

I'm ready.

Just tell me, just so I have a sense,

rate yourself as a cook on a scale of one to 10.

It's bad, I'm not even exaggerating

when I say it's like a one, I don't...

I can't even make a DiGiorno pizza.

Oh, okay, cool. Yeah, it's bad.

So it's gonna be perfect.

All right, so on a count of three,

we're just gonna turn around and start cooking.

Okay.

Ready, one, two, three.

Let's cook. Here we go.

So orient yourself a little bit.

I'm oriented.

Right in front, we have these four very large shrimp.

I'm allergic to raw shrimp, so I'm gonna put on gloves

which you can find on the station too.

[laughing]

Shouldn't have washed my hands before.

I know, that was a tricky part.

[laughs] I already messed it up.

We haven't even touched the food.

Not today, we don't need the gloves.

So I want you to pick up a shrimp,

and the first thing you're gonna do

is you're just gonna twist the body away from the head,

like twisting opposite directions,

and just twist off the head.

And some gunky stuff might come with that, and that's okay.

I hate seafood.

Really?

Yeah it's my least favorite.

Oh, dear, all right, well, um...

[laughs] I'm gonna eat yours, so I like it.

So now, your head is off, there's an empty bowl

on your station, just toss that head away.

[David] Okay.

[Carla] And then I want you to find the little pair

of white snipper, um...

Scissors.

I got 'em.

Okay, cool.

So then I find it easier if you turn the shrimp over

where the legs are, and we wanna cut the shell off.

So you just have to slip the blade

right underneath the shell,

and just snip down the length of the shrimp,

kind of like--

Oh, it's really gross.

You know what this feels like?

[Carla] Tell me.

It feels like I promised a girl

that I was gonna make dinner for her,

and I lied, and now I have a chef in my ear

helping me out with the date.

[Carla] Perfect.

As she's sitting in the room watching me.

[Carla] And you're like, I regret every minute of this.

Yeah, I shouldn't have lied to her.

If you've peeled your shell off,

or once it's snipped, you can peel the rest of the shell off

and then just pull the tail out.

Okay.

And then I have a bunch of dangly, like,

head-gut stuff, so I'm gonna use my snippers

to cut that off, I don't know if your head came off cleanly,

you might not have to do that.

Okay, the tentacles came off.

Okay, great, perfect, no tentacles.

And now, find your paring knife,

now you have to de-vein it.

That's okay, let's make veiny shrimp.

Oh, you don't want the digestive track.

The actual tail. Okay.

All right, so now with this denuded shrimp in your hand,

I want you to turn it over, so like the...

Now the backside, and there's like a seam

that runs down the center where the two halves connect,

I just want you to put your paring knife

and kind of run your paring knife,

just to score the top of that seam

in the middle, right at the top,

there's just some gunky stuff.

[David] It's like a little white...

Like it looks like floss.

Yeah, exactly.

I pulled it out.

Perfect.

Okay, so you did it, you did one, we only have to do three.

So underneath this tray with the shrimp is another tray,

you can put your clean shrimp on that one.

So just lift that tray up, got it?

[laughs] Yeah.

Okay, cool.

Well, so you don't like seafood, but do you ever cook it?

No, I mean I don't cook anything, even the food I love.

[Carla] Oh, cool.

I'm really, really genuinely scared of seafood.

The smell, the texture,

the fact that it could bite me back any second.

[laughs] This guy's not gonna bite,

just pull his head off, he can't do anything to you.

[David] I'll pull the head...

[Carla] And then again with your scissors

going where the legs are, cutting all the way down,

and then pulling the shell off.

[David] Okay.

[Carla] Do you ever...

Do you eat fish if it's cooked,

or you just avoid it completely?

[David] I avoid it, and sometimes like,

it'll look like a chicken wing.

Yeah.

So I'll be like, I'm gonna give it a shot,

how bad can it be?

[Carla] Yeah.

But I immediately regret it.

I feel like if you don't like fish when you're younger,

you'll like it when you're older.

[Carla] Maybe.

So I'm kinda waiting for that moment.

I think it's good to continue to try it.

That's worked for me, I had a food aversion I got over

just by years of trying it.

So shell is off, so taking that paring knife again,

turning over to like, the outside curved part of the--

Twist the head off?

[Carla] Yeah, your head's off!

No, I'm doing another one.

Oh, you're going number three.

Did you take the vein out already?

No.

[Carla] Okay, we gotta take the--

That's good, I was testing you.

[laughs] Take the vein out.

Scoring the back of the thing with the paring knife,

you might see, it might be white, it might be brown,

and then, all right, you already took off a third head.

[David] Yeah, I took off the third head.

You took off the third head, okay, I'm catching up to you.

Carla, do you need help, should I come back there?

[laughs] This is the second time this happened.

[David] It sounds like you're a little behind.

Some people eat the heads,

I've eaten the heads, they're delicious.

Yeah, well you don't seem like a sane person.

[laughs] Deep-fried, they're really good.

Yep, exactly, exactly what I mean.

Yep. [laughs]

Okay, I have three.

[Carla] You have three shrimp?

[David] Three shrimp on the barbie.

Okay, but the three shrimp into this simmering water.

Okay, should I make sure it's hot?

Yeah, it should be simmering.

Okay, we're good.

Fingers, shrimps.

There's a little timer in front of you,

and we're gonna just set that for two minutes,

so just hit the minute button twice

and it should display two minutes.

Yep, and hit start.

Start.

Thanks, okay, so now we have this tray

with vegetables and things,

and the first thing I need you to do

is you're gonna choose two crunchy things.

So the crunchy things are the cucumber,

the carrot, and the watermelon radish.

[David] I got 'em.

[Carla] Okay, so which two of these would you like

to be in your summer roll at the end?

I would love the cucumber and the carrot.

Great, I knew you were gonna choose those two.

[David] They're the best.

I knew it.

All right, so this carrot, just cut it in half crosswise,

and then I think it's gonna be easier to use the--

Like a circumcision, right?

[Carla] Yeah, exactly.

Okay.

Yeah, that's what circumcision is like,

you just cut it right in half.

[David] Right in the middle.

[laughs] Okay, so now, with the bigger half...

The girth-ier half?

It also doesn't matter what half is what,

I just wanna be clear.

Okay, my timer just went off, hold on,

all things must stop now.

Okay, so grab your tongs,

drop these three shrimpies in the ice water.

I just wanna cool 'em down really quickly,

so we're gonna leave them there for a sec,

and you can hit the power button

on the front of this burner.

All right, let's go back to our carrot.

So I want you to now make a...

Just cut off like a thin slice

going the long way, not the crosswise way,

not the circumcision way, the long way.

Long way.

Yep, and then...

So you just take a thin slice off

so that you have a flat side,

and now roll the carrot onto that flat side

so now it won't roll around on the cutting board.

Oh, got it, now you want me to do this thing?

[laughs] Yes, that sounds exactly right.

That's what I've been looking forward to.

So that same kind of slice that you did

to create a flat side, I want you to repeat that,

but just do it a bunch of times in a row

so that you end up with very thin carrot planks.

Does that make sense?

[David] Yeah.

Okay, so when you have like, three or four

that we could stack up, lemme know.

Okay, I have three.

[Carla] You do?

[David] Yeah.

You're quick.

So now stack 'em up, make a pile,

you're gonna cut down to make really thin strips.

Yeah, got it.

Okay, so yeah, making long matchsticks, strings,

julienne, whatever you wanna call it.

[gasps] Just kidding.

You okay?

Oh, Jesus. [laughs]

And then whatever you didn't use of the carrot,

just toss it back on the tray.

Okay, you want me to put the little ones where?

On the, there's a, like, rectangular shiny metal tray,

and just put your matchsticks over there.

By the flour?

So now I want you to cut the cucumber in half

like we did the carrot, but I want you to cut it

to the same length as these carrot sticks,

so if you need to take one of your carrot sticks over

to give you a little ruler,

and cut your cucumber to the same height.

And then we're gonna repeat the whole thing.

So take a thin slice off of the outside of the cuke

to make a flat side, and roll it onto that flat side,

and then I want you to make really thin slices

to make cucumber planks.

All right, stack 'em up, and then rip 'em down,

nice, beautiful strings of cuke.

Okay.

Okay, when those are done,

just put 'em on your tray next to your carrot.

So now, we have our crunchy stuff done,

now we need to choose a slippery thing.

Your two slippery choices are avocado or mango.

Oh, mango.

Mango, oh, I'm so pleased, okay, cool.

So now you need the little peeler.

First thing is just make a very small cut

at the stem-end of the mango, just...

Okay.

[Carla] Okay, your stem is gone?

Stem's gone.

[Carla] Okay, then taking your peeler from that cut end

and dragging it down, just peel the mango.

Slow down, okay?

[Carla] [laughs] Is your mango peeled?

[David] Okay, there we go.

Yes? Okay, so now, I want you

to stand your mango up on the cut end,

and then working the knife from the outside edge,

just really, really thin slices again.

We're not gonna make matchsticks,

we're just gonna have some like, nice,

very thin, oblong mango slices.

It's kinda like cutting a heart open,

which I also wouldn't know anything about.

[Carla laughing]

How many of these...

Three or four.

Great, I have three.

Great, okay, amazing.

Okay, now just take the lettuce,

just cut off the bottom of it,

we just need like, a couple, maybe three lettuce leaves.

And I'm gonna be like, greedy,

and take the ones from the center,

'cause they're the right size for the lettuce roll.

So you can go down to the core and take some

of those little inner leaves.

And now we're gonna wrap and roll.

And get this like, vase of herbs.

Oh, the flowers?

Yeah, and now take a rice paper round,

which are stacked up on the plate.

And what we're gonna do is we're gonna dip

the rice paper round in the water,

swish it around, get it wet,

turn it over, get it wet again, and then out of the water.

So it should be like, pretty translucent,

and kinda pliable now.

[David] Yeah, it's great.

Right?

Okay, put that down on your lightly-watered work station.

Yep.

So bring the shrimp over to the cutting board.

I forgot, oh, okay.

I forgot all about the shrimp,

really shoulda done this before.

Okay, so three shrimp halves at like, the bottom third.

And then just pull off a couple of basil leaves,

and put those on top.

Basil leaves?

[Carla] Yep, and a couple of cilantro,

and put those on top.

I'm just surprised you couldn't do this yourself,

you had to have me come and help you.

And now take a few carrot sticks,

and just tuck those right next to your shrimp,

like more towards the middle, not towards the end,

and a couple pieces of cuke,

and put those right on top of the carrots, and then...

Take a little handful of noodles,

and put that right on top of everybody.

[David] Yeah.

[Carla] And then on top of that, a lettuce leaf,

and then on top of that, a piece of mango.

[David] Okay.

Okay, and now working with the side

of the rice paper wrapper closest to you,

you're gonna fold that up and over,

so up and over, it should come up,

like, on top of the mango.

[David] Okay, I'm here.

And then fold your left side over towards the middle.

[David] Oh, wow.

[Carla] And your right side over towards the middle.

It's crazy how it's making sense what you're saying,

'cause I'm keeping up so well.

Really?

And then rolling it, tucking it and rolling away from you,

and you should make a nice little rice paper burrito.

This is disgusting.

[laughing]

It looks like my seven-year-old sister packed me a lunch

and threw everything in a Ziploc bag.

Okay, cool, that's what mine looks like too.

So grab your plate, it's over by the sink,

it's got dipping sauce.

Reveal?

Yeah.

Yeah?

On a count of three, we're gonna turn around, ready?

One, two, three.

[laughing]

Okay, this is really sticking to my face.

That was terrifying.

That looks pretty good, I have to say.

[David] Oh, wow.

[Carla] I'm impressed.

We literally made the same thing.

We made the same thing, I just had time

to make an herb garden while you were preparing

your hydration mask.

[laughing]

All right, so I apologize for making something with seafood,

but you have to eat it anyway.

I'm excited.

So I'm allergic to seafood, you had an allergy too,

but it was...

It was...

Coconut, I heard you were allergic to coconut.

I was, coconut, yeah.

Is that true? [laughs]

I honestly make allergies up.

Like I'll be at a friend's house, and like...

I'll see they're making like, cabbage stew,

I'll be like, guess what?

Guess what I'm allergic to?

Cabbage and stew!

[laughing]

All right, ready?

I actually don't even like mango.

Oh. [laughs]

I'm allergic to it.

Mm!

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

[laughing]

Mm-hmm, do you... [laughs]

The mango's weird.

The mango, mm-hmm.

[laughs] It really is.

Although, I cannot tell you how excited I was

that you chose mango. [laughs]

Do you need the trash bowl again?

No.

No, you're gonna get through this?

Mm-hmm.

How did I do?

Uh-oh. [laughs]

[retching]

Carla, that was [bleep] delicious!

[laughing]

David?

Yeah?

Come back anytime, we'll make pizza.

I'm allergic to kitchens now.

Are you?

Well, I had fun.

I'm really glad you were here, sorry I made you puke.

If you ever have french fries and a Big Mac--

Yeah.

I'm here.

Okay, good.