Eric Stonestreet Tries to Keep Up With a Professional Chef

It's like, almost like you're splitting...

I'm pulling pretty hard on the tail end

as I pull on the head end. Yeah, I'm pulling hard.

[Carla] But then [laughs].

Hey, guys, it's Carla.

I'm here in the Bon Appetit test kitchen today

with Eric Stonestreet from Secret Life of Pets 2

and Modern Family, and today we have 20 minutes

to make sole meuniere.

Hm?

What? Sole meuniere.

Sole, oh yeah.

Had that yesterday for lunch.

Shut up, really?

No, see, I'm a good actor.

It's gonna be amazing. Is meuniere French?

Oui.

And we're gonna see if Eric can follow along with me

through verbal instructions only.

So on the count of three,

we're just gonna turn around and start cooking.

One.

Two.

Meuniere.

So this is the sole part of the meuniere.

Hi.

The first thing we have to do,

we just have to rip the skin off of the fish.

Okay.

So what I want you to do is pick up

the little paring knife on your cutting board.

Yes.

Locate the tail. Yeah.

And we're gonna cut crosswise from the narrowest

part of the tail, but where it's like on the filet

part of the fish. Uh-huh.

You're not gonna take the tail off,

but just scoring down to the center of the filet.

Okay.

[Carla] And that's just gonna make a little opening

at the tail end of the fish, okay?

Yep. And you'll feel the bones,

but just don't go all the way through.

And then, use the tip of the paring knife

and just sort of teasing the knife

in between the filet and the skin.

Mm-Hmmm.

Because we just wanna loosen it up a little bit

so that we've got something to grab onto.

[Eric] Right.

[Carla] Know what I mean? I do.

Okay, so making a little shallow, little slashes across.

Just on the fish, not my hand, right?

Correct, sir. Yep, got it.

And just until you feel like you could pull up,

almost like creating the tag on the inside of your t-shirt

that you could grip with your thumb and your forefinger.

I wish I had some fish-mongering gloves.

[Carla] Oh.

How 'bout that I know what monger means?

[Carla laughs]

How far along are you?

I have made a tab that I feel like flips up

and I feel like I can get my fingers...

And then with a paper towel in the other hand

which will just help to grip,

because the skin's kinda slippery.

[Eric] Yeah, I noticed.

[Carla] All right, so using that paper towel,

just start to pull up like the fish

is getting a bikini wax, kinda.

I'm sorry, what?

[Carla] [laughs] We're just gonna rip the skin off.

Are you pulling up?

Are you getting anywhere? I am pulling up.

Okay, and is the skin coming off?

It is, kind of.

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Mine is being very stubborn and I'm switching

to a-- Want me to come

over there and help you? [both laugh]

I'm gonna switch to my kitchen towel to get a better grip.

Now how do I deal with the spine?

I feel like the narrowest part is the hardest,

but I'm about a third of the way up now

and it's just kind of zipping open.

Okay, I'm here with the sole [Carla laughing]

and I'm about, I would say I'm about a third

of the way up too. Okay.

But I'm worried.

I don't wanna, I don't wanna

ruin this wonderful piece of fish

that gave its life so we can enjoy this meuliere.

Yeah. Is it meuliere?

Molaire? Meuniere.

Meuniere, yep. Yep.

So we're trying to be respectful.

Yep, but you have to be firm and diligent

at the same time and actually I'm pulling pretty hard

on the tail end as I pull on the head end.

Yeah, I'm pulling hard. [Carla laughs]

Can you hear the--

I can.

I can hear your effort.

And then when you get up to the head,

this is a little tricky,

If you pull too hard, you can rip the head off,

so when you-- I'm sorry, rip the what up?

Rip the head off.

Aw, okay. Yeah.

So when you get up to the face, just stop,

and that's what you're gonna use the scissors for.

So grab those little red-handled scissors.

[Eric] Got 'em.

Just cut the skin away but leave the face skin on.

Oh. [laughs]

[Carla laughs] What's the horror movie

that the guy wears...

Yeah. Leatherface?

[Eric] So body skin off... Okay.

[Carla] And face skin on.

I took the skin off and I have a skinless bodied fish.

And do you have a skin face?

I do have a skin face.

Okay, perfect.

Now, we're just going to season

the fish on both sides, thoroughly.

You know, is it true that people under salt a lot,

because, you know, they're scared?

I would say it's the gravest error

that the home cook makes, is the under salting.

So I'm just gonna do a little more!

Okay, and then turn it over to the side

that has skin on it, the white skin side,

we're not messing with that skin,

but I do want to salt it.

Yeah, I feel good about my seasoning.

Okay, great.

So, now we're going into this, um, flour,

dredging both sides.

Okay.

Is dredging a familiar...

I feel like you know about this.

[Carla] Yeah, dredging. Dredging.

[Carla] I'm a big dredger. Okay.

Dredging both sides, but lightly.

Okay, so after you've dredge Eric.

[Eric] Yep.

[Eric] Give nice pats. Okay.

Encouraging pats all along

the guy. Hey, you've done well

so far fishy. Exactly.

I'm patting of our excess flour,

'cause I don't want it to be super...

[Eric] Yeah.

Coated or it's not fried chicken,

you know what I mean? 'Cause, you know

what happens when that...

I know what happens when that happens.

[Carla] This is- What happens?

It gets too much oil and grease...

[Carla] Yeah. and then your eating

[Carla] oil and grease... Yeah.

Rather than a nice crispiness.

Yeah, and this is a nice delicate fish.

So, after you've dredged and patted.

Yeah.

We're gonna go into the other rim sheet tray

next to your saute pan that has nothing on it.

Oh, I have my fish skin in that pan.

You should have a pan that's empty.

I just tossed it.

Okay just toss it, but keep your fish.

Okay.

Okay.

So, um, come over to your burner.

Yep.

And then turn the big dial in the front up until, um,

the read out says 340.

[Carla] Okay I can... Okay.

Already tell ya, I'm going to be ordering one of these.

This is awesome.

So there's butter two ways in this recipe.

The first way is in the form of clarified butter

[Eric] Yup Then we might be using ghee.

And clarified butter, for the home viewer

[Carla] Yes is butter that's had the

whey or something...

[Eric] The milk solids The milk solids

removed from it.

Ah, so you've clarified some butter in your day.

Well I've clarified a few things in my life.

[Carla laughs]

[Eric] Okay so pick up fishy again Yup

And we're gonna go with the side

that used to have the skin on it,

Yup

[Carla] That side's gonna go into the pan first.

That's presentation side.

And if I can just tell you watching at home,

the smell of this clarified butter...

[Carla] Delish.

[Eric] Delicious, it smells like

I'm about to eat the best movie popcorn ever,

it smells so good. [Carla laughs]

[Carla] Totally, 100%.

This is gonna take like 2 or 3 minutes on the first side,

give your pan a little bit of a shake,

and just make sure everybody's moving freely in the pan.

[Eric] Yup, it's movin'. Okay, good.

Slidin' around...

All right so come back over to your cutting board

[Eric] Okay.

Have you ever made a lemon cheek before, Eric?

A lemon what?

So instead of making lemon wedges,

we're gonna make lemon cheeks.

Oh, no.

[Carla] You know, it's really easy.

Take one of the lemons, and just shaving off

like an outer lobe.

Like this?

[Carla laughs]

Tell me what you're doing; so cutting from,

[Eric] you know, the long way, Yeah...

And cutting off an outside round edge

Got it.

And that's a cheek. Yep.

[Carla] Okay, and then if you have any seeds,

just flick those aside, just get 2 nice cheeks.

And those are gonna be for serving.

Now we've gotta cut that other lemon in half,

and this is gonna be the lemon that we use for the sauce.

How's your fish?

[Eric] It's good.

[Carla] So, do you cook a lot at home?

I gotta be honest to tell ya

I don't cook anything like this at home.

I love fish on the grill, I grill out a lot,

which is why I have my signature towel

right here strapped in my belt.

[Carla] Yes.

'Cause I'm always cooking outside,

and I'm wiping my hands,

[Carla] cleaning my hands Are you

a gas griller or live-fire griller?

[Eric] Well I have a great grill that does both,

I can cook gas, and I can cook over charcoal

and wood, and then my favorite is

to do a little bit of a combo of that,

where I'm cooking mainly with the heat element of gas,

but with the flavor of some nice wine barrel wood,

or some nice red oak or white oak.

[Carla] Oh wow; so I'm gonna say very advanced.

All right, lemon has been cut in half, seeds aside.

Yeah, basically Other lemon

has been cheeked, right?

Well, I'm not confident on my cheeks...

[Carla laughs]

These look like cheeks, but I don't know

[Carla] how much of the lemon I need. Yeah.

Well, it's enough to like,

if you squoze them, or squeezed them...

[Eric] There would be some out of there

Okay we would get some juice out,

that's what I needed to know.

All right now come back over to fish,

because I can see that I've got some golden brown

around the edges of the fish.

[Eric] Yeah, I can too.

And using this big fish spatula, I wanna get underneath.

So just lifting up, I have a very beautiful

golden brown color, what do you have going on under there?

[Eric] Pretty good...

[Carla] Really?

[Carla] Yeah, not bad If you were to

compare it to like a brown paper bag,

or a walnut table?

[Eric] Here's what I would compare it to,

like the most delicious looking color of hash browns.

Oh perfect, okay, so then how about the tail though?

The tail, is not as brown.

Yeah, my tail is not as brown either,

so this is where I'm gonna kind of like,

use my spatula almost as like a,

just a slider over-er maneuver,

and then tilting the pan just to cheat it a little,

and I'm just trying to get the butter to pool at that end

so I can get a little action on my tail,

[Eric] you know what I mean? Yep.

I'm getting some action over here...

[Carla] [carla laughs] Yeah.

[Eric] Oh but I'm...

Ooh, but that kind of made me cut my fish.

Don't worry, what part got cut?

[Eric] Just the tail kind of back in the end.

Medic! [Carla laughs]

Yeah, it is possible that the tail

is going to come off if we're not careful.

And when what would you say to do

if that happens, just go with it?

[Carla] Just keep goin... I never meant to even

have that tail...

[Carla] Yeah I didn't need the tail.

So now I think it's time to turn.

[Eric] Okay.

I definitely, strongly advise using the second spatula.

Oh so two spatulas at one time?

[Carla] Yeah so one spatula's gonna be going under,

delicately, and just make sure you're under the whole fish

and not scraping the flesh off.

[Eric] Okay. And then using

the other spatula, but use the back of the spatula,

and just use it to sandwich it,

like it was in a grill basket.

[Eric] Oh, cool!

[Carla] And then turn her over.

Oh yeah... back into your batter.

How'd you do?

Pretty good, and you know what?

I didn't want you to ever have to deal with the tail,

so I uh, I removed it.

Great! [Carla laughs]

I support that decision!

All right, so shake everything around again,

make sure that that second side is not sticking.

No, it's not sticking.

All right, let's chop some parsley,

and this really just for garnish

but I want a couple tablespoons worth.

Slicing as opposed to chopping.

[Eric] Slicing?

Instead of, like, hammering it down in a rocking way,

I like to kind of slice across.

[Eric] Okay, and it's really hard

to chiffonade parsley right?

[Carla] It's hard to chiffonade parsley.

I just looked up chiffonade before I came in here.

[Carla laughs]

You said it like-

[Eric] A whole bunch of studying...

And you said it perfectly, the chiffonade.

Put the parsley in the glass bowl,

and it's fish checking time.

So we're looking for two things now.

We're looking for browning,

but we also need to start checking

that the flesh is actually cooked through.

The way to do that is to kind of use

the edge of the spatula towards the middle of the filet.

There are parts of the filet where the flesh

like naturally separates in these seams.

There's also a spoon in your little equipment kit

and you can use that to check, just teasing

the tip of the spoon down towards the bone in the middle,

and just see if it looks uncooked or fully opaque there.

I think it looks pretty good,

I think it's gonna flake nice.

[Carla] I agree.

Okay, so know the goal is gonna be

to remove the fish from the saute pan,

and then we're gonna dump out all of this

butter and stuff that's in the pan.

Pan goes back on the heat; take the pieces of whole butter,

get those into the saute pan,

and this is gonna be the butter sauce.

We're gonna go to kind of a golden,

and then we're gonna use the lemon halves

and squeeze that lemon juice right into the butter

at the moment when you feel like

it's achieved its goldenness.

So I'm looking for these big bubbles to kinda

start to subside...

Yeah I feel like I'm there.

So now with your lemon halves,

squeeze the juice into the pan.

There's like not a lot going on

in this sauce, it's lemon butter sauce.

[Carla] Sounds great to me. Right?

Starting to get a little color?

[Eric] Yeah.

[Carla] All right, so just give it some swirling,

and then we've gotta taste it.

I think it's gonna need salt.

[Eric] Mmmm. Okay, yeah,

[Carla] that's pretty tart! Super lemony.

Little salt is gonna help balance that out.

Lifting up that saute pan, grab a big spoon

from the equipment kit, and just

spoon your lemon butter sauce over the fish.

Yummy, yum-yums.

I had a chef once who really yelled at us

[Eric] if we poured it from the pan, Oh really?

Even though it seems like, what's the big deal?

See that's what would keep me from ever probably

being a chef is because I feel like

what I would bring is like natural ability,

and then I would get yelled at all the time.

[Carla] And then you would get yelled at.

That's exactly what happens.

And then your beautifully chiffonaded parsley,

just sprinkle over your fish.

[Eric] I'm not huge parsley, and you know,

I think as a chef my job is to

[Carla] decide what you're gonna like Exactly!

And I don't think you're gonna

like that much parsley! [Carla laughs]

[Eric] I appreciate that. Thank you.

And a little flakey salt...

That you're gonna like.

Same; and then pepper, I love pepper, I hope you do too.

[Eric] Ohh, I do too.

[Carla] That's it! Lemme know when you're ready.

All right, I'm ready to show you my creation.

[Carla] Oh, fabulous.

Pick up your fish platter,

and we'll just turn around and fish off!

[Carla gasps]

Oh my God, you're a real cook!

You really nailed it!

No, no, yours!

[swing sound effect]

Okay so now, before we eat,

we have to do the tableside fileting of the sole.

Using your spoon, you wanna find those seams

that we were talking about before,

and just teasing, and if it's cooked properly

it will separate from that center spine.

Oh my look at yours.

We need our butter though, it's better with butter.

[Carla gasps] Gorgeous!

I'm not looking, I don't know what you're doing.

[In French Accent] How dare you do that, do not do that!

Is that how they sound? Literally.

And then did you put a little lemon?

I did.

Voila. I hope you enjoy...

Okay ready? Uh-huh.

Mmm, magnifique! So good...

Let's just chalk it up to my tutelage, my teacher,

and the beautiful ingredients

that we had here today, and luck.

There you have it.

I think the thing to do the next time we're together

is to grill. Let's do it.

Some wine barrel stuff.

Can we grill in here?

Yeah there's a grill right over there,

we can throw a log on it.

[singing] throw another log on the grill

I'm sure nobody in this building would notice.