Chris and Rawlston Make Each Other's Recipes

[doorbell ringing]

Do you see the bon appetit thing?

I've been rocking with bon appetit forever,

you see that?

You see that?

It's like a magnet, but like measurements.

[beeping sound]

Yeah, I didn't even know we had that.

[upbeat jazz music]

Bailey, you can't stay there.

Bailey, home, home, home.

Home.

[doorbell rings]

Hey, Rawlston.

How you doing?

Hey Chris, I'm doing well how are you?

[upbeat jazz music]

Chris sent me two vinegars and we're gonna choose,

maybe I'm gonna take a shots of it or something of them,

and then I'll decide.

That's exactly what you're gonna do.

Yeah.

I wanted us to be able to taste them at the same time.

And even though we can't cook both of our dishes,

like I'm not, you're not cooking your dish

while I'm cooking your dish. Right.

[Chris] Because this goes back to a conversation

you and I started weeks ago.

Yeah.

Where we kind of got into the weeds of vinegar, right?

You were talking about this dish really specifically, right?

[Rawlston] Right.

Escovitch.

I was inspired by the fact

that you're passionate about vinegar.

And I've never seen anyone talk

about the vinegar in that manner,

which like it's wine, it's seasonal,

and all this other stuff.

And it's just, I just wanted to know more.

For me vinegar,

yeah, we use it, but it's not like the thing.

Vinegar was essentially used for cleaning.

The acid that we mostly lean to was limes or lemons,

or things of that sort.

And vinegar, in my household,

we did not really deal with it that much

because, religious household, extremely strict,

vinegar is what they gave Jesus on the cross

when he asked for water.

He refused it.

So why are we taking part in that [laughing]

[both laughing ]

Oh my God, anyway. It goes deep.

It goes deep. It goes so deep

so fast. It goes deep, right?

Should we taste some vinegar here?

Yeah, my breakfast.

All right, cool.

Stomach has been lined.

[Rawlston] Haha, yeah.

Maybe my love of fancy vinegar is bull [beeping].

And if it is I need you to be

totally brutally honest with me.

If we're gonna get into this.

White vinegar.

Let me smell first.

Dude, you got to smell everything first.

Like otherwise what are you doing?

Yeah.

[tense music]

Funny thing it's like it's not as bad as like,

I remember.

Yeah.

That's my reaction, I've never done it like this before.

It's not that horrible.

I mean, it tastes like absolutely of nothing.

And a little bit metallic.

I can taste it.

The separation of the water

and the whatever that vinegar is,

I can taste it separately.

I wouldn't say completely neutral.

I taste a little sweet.

[Chris] I'm moving on to Forvm here.

[tense music]

Wow.

Right?

Yeah, but I feel you can build flavors this way

the same way.

I mean, I get it.

It's less steps in your cooking

if you want to do this, right?

You just put this in there, it's done.

It's drinkable though.

[Rawlston laughing]

Because that's the thing

like I find it's got really nice balance.

It's got a pretty intense acidity.

I vibe with this one though.

[Rawlston] Yeah, it's ow.

This one gets me going.

I like it.

Katz.

[tense music]

Its,

The brute [Rawlston coughing]

The brute, the, [Chris laughing]

I know, like really gets you, right?

[Rawlston coughing]

You're like I'm good, no I'm not good.

It was a drop.

[Chris] You're like lining up shot glasses.

[Rawlston laughing]

It was a drop.

Jesus Crowley.

[Rawlson clearing throat]

I like it.

[Rawlston and Chris laughing]

I like it.

No, I tasted it.

I'm like no it's good.

It's not that bad, blah, blah, blah.

Boom!

There's something about the fruit.

It's so bright.

It's so overt and in your face

and almost like candy-like to me.

It's like almost like a candy, cherry, kind of raspberry,

with like seven Z's kind of thing happening.

But then it really drops in with the acid.

Is that the one you're gonna use in the dish?

I think so.

Because it messed with me.

[Chris] Okay.

So now I want to put some flame on this.

Cheese and bread.

[Chris] Cool.

All right, well,

[Rawlston giggles]

That is the epitome of 2020 there.

You think you're good.

Taste good and comes and kicks you in the ass?

[both laughing]

So let's rock.

I got a snapper.

Well, two snappers that are like really big.

I've got like Moby Dick like one and two

in the fridge right now.

That's great, so just do one really good one.

In terms of the pots that I have,

I might need to,

[Rawlston] Cut the head off?

In half.

Yeah, it's- What would you do?

Would you cut like head and tail?

Or would you cut the whole thing in half

and try to like reassemble the fish?

You need something like this

if you're gonna have a heavy fish.

So, you control the head, you control the tail,

and then you just maneuver it that way.

You shift it up. You can control the flip.

You shift it down.

It's all good until you're flipping it.

I mean, it does get a little wild.

I mean, it's fun, it'll be fun.

It'll be fun to see you try to make it work,

especially a recipe that you've never made before.

Do you hydrate the mushrooms before?

They kind of hydrate in the liquid?

Because I want like all the dried shiitake

kind of, all of it like right in there.

Cool.

All right, well,

[Chris] Wicked.

Good luck.

All right, I'll text you if anything comes up, okay?

Basically, it seems like there's two elements,

there's two main elements to this dish.

There's the pickled vegetables,

which is like the actual vinegary, sort of spiced,

kind of vegetable situation

that is sort of like our dressing.

And then we have the fish.

So I'm gonna sort of start

with the pickling of the vegetables.

And I have red and yellow bell pepper.

I guess I'll go red and green though.

I don't know.

Do you do a little of each?

Is it cheesy to go like three three colors of bell pepper?

I have a feeling that the veg

is going to add additional sweetness

that's really gonna kind of balance

both the heat and the acidity out of the dish.

I chatted with Rawlston just in terms

of trying to have this dish ready when he's ready

with the vinegar braised chicken legs.

And we talked about doing this,

the vegetables and the sauce, ahead of time,

while waiting to fry the fish.

So we're gonna do the fish at the very last minute

which obviously makes perfect sense.

But I just want to make sure I'm ready when he's ready.

We've got vinegar, we've got Scotch bonnet.

See this is like, this is why it's fun to work with a chef.

Look at, this is the recipe process.

White vinegar, Scotch bonnet, all spice, stir,

wait 15 seconds.

Onions, stir, wait 30 seconds,

carrots, bell peppers, stir.

Turn off heat.

Honey, lime juice.

[hand smacking]

Stir it and set aside.

[beeping] the fly's man.

So the first thing we're going to do

is season the chicken with salt.

I'm going to do that liberally.

Because it's the only attention it's going to get

until it starts getting all of the vinegar

and the spices infused into it.

So this case the chicken is literally being seasoned

while it's in the pot.

So get some salt.

[upbeat music]

So this is where

it needs to get in there,

the salt.

All right.

Going to put it in a Dutch oven

and sear it off, brown the skin.

Once the skin is brown,

we remove the chicken.

We'll build layers and layers of flavor

and then we'll re-add the chicken to it.

Some vegetable oil.

So now,

we're gonna put it in.

[upbeat drumming]

[oil sizzling]

I may do

just two at a time.

Well two and then one.

[upbeat drumming]

All right, I think we're ready to rock, right.

And this may pop a little bit

on my face here.

[upbeat drumming]

See it's gonna pop.

So these are gonna rest for a little bit

on the side

until I

have the space and not my OCD taking over.

And then so I'm gonna lower the heat a little bit.

First things first.

I'm going to add some of the shallots,

ginger,

and the star anise,

cinnamon.

And I think I'm just gonna,

I'm also gonna put the chili in there too.

I'm gonna add the garlic first.

I think I made a boo-boo here.

I probably should have cut this damn chili.

I might make a run for it and do it real quick.

All right.

Yeah, you can smell the ginger, the star anise.

I missed the cut here, let me cut that guy properly.

And then

mushrooms, raisins,

the sugar.

That looks great.

I'm gonna hit it with the vinegar,

chicken stock,

and soy sauce.

I just got hit with the vinegar

and it just reminded me of earlier.

[Rawlston laughs]

[Rawlston coughing in slow motion]

All right, so I'm going to re-add the chicken here.

Kind of nestle it in.

And we don't want the skin to get covered.

Yeah, that's the way.

60 minutes,

60 to 70 minutes depending.

All right, so vinegar is in.

He talked about mincing the habanero,

or just kind of slitting it open

or just dropping in there whole.

I'm just gonna,

I cracked it right in half.

I just want to see what happens with the heat with one.

I'm not afraid of a little bit of heat.

All spices going in.

So I'm assuming we're gonna get it, get this thing hot.

Gonna do onion, 15 seconds.

I feel little bit like Rawlston.

Then carrots.

All right, so peppers are in.

Oh, we stir, turn off the heat, boom.

Let's combine our honey with our lime juice.

Just so that the honey dissolves.

I hate that when you get like clumpy honey,

it just kind of like insinuates itself

in like different parts of your dish.

So again, we're just dissolving the honey

so we don't have clumps.

All right, so that's the lime juice and the honey going in.

All right, sweet.

That's gonna hold until we're ready to go.

Which means we can move on to fish.

[upbeat music]

All right, so chicken is cooked.

And now we need to just crisp the skin up.

It looks good.

This one seems to have all the chilies on it

for some reason.

Gonna put some over here.

All right.

OCD.

All right, so I'm gonna put it in a broiler for about

five minutes or so, all right.

And the broiler is on low.

So yeah, it's a little on the big side.

It's like statement snapper.

We're just going to give it a little rinse here.

Beat stray scales, hanging around.

Yeah, we're gonna make it.

We're obviously gonna take the head of the fish off,

but then after that we're gonna make it.

[knife banging against board] Yeah.

So this is stuff that's gonna go inside the fish.

Which is interesting to me,

it's something I want to ask Rawlston about,

the value of putting something inside a fish

that's gonna be fried.

Does it like,

if he really thinks it's adding that much.

[upbeat music]

So the slits are really just allowing you

to access the flesh of the fish through the skin

because the skin provides a pretty good barrier

to salt or whatever other seasonings

you want to put in there.

So that just kind of opens it up

and allows you to season it more effectively.

I guess I would say,

I'm gonna wait to put any salt on the fish

until we're ready to actually cook it

just because salt will start drawing moisture from the fish.

But I will put a garlic in here.

Because that's just friggin fun.

So that's ready to be seasoned.

The garlic is doing its thing.

It's kind of fun putting the garlic in here.

[upbeat music]

Guess we don't really have a cavity anymore.

Something that only just became brutally apparent to me

'cause we took the head off.

[knife banging against board]

Okay, so inside the fish we have garlic slices

inside the slits we made in the skin.

And then inside the cavity we've got black pepper,

slices of lime.

We've got scallion and thyme.

Our cavity,

think we covered exactly what the situation was

in the cavity.

But we're gonna make it happen anyway.

And I got Rawlston's blessings, so.

Let it rain here for a sec.

Before laying in the fish,

just because the fish is gonna drop

that temperature right down

so I think we've got tons of oil in there.

And yes, the tail is gonna overhang the side of the skillet

and I'm totally psychologically prepared for that, okay?

[oil sizzling]

Okay.

We had initially a little bit of stickage

probably could have dropped in the fish with the oil

even a touch hotter.

But I mean look that's gonna happen,

it's a shallow frying method.

The fish is gonna sink down to the bottom

and contact that skillet.

So it's really not the end of the world, okay?

I'm doing this with the lid off.

So there's more evaporation going.

And then after that we'll plate it up.

[oil sizzling]

[tense music]

I think I have [voice drowned out by music]

[tense music]

All right,

feeling really good about this.

[laptop tone]

Hey man, how'd it go?

I mean it went well.

I mean it's like butter without any butter.

I mean the sauce is thick and rich.

I love it.

I was under the impression

that I was looking at a tablespoon of honey in your sauce.

And then I realized just in time

like oh it's a teaspoon

because I think in my mind I was expecting

you're gonna need more sweetness,

you're gonna need more sweetness.

No water, like just not much there

to mitigate the vinegar and what that's doing.

But I stand completely corrected.

Just the, like we were talking about

that like the vegetal quality of the bell pepper

with the sweetness.

All right, you let me know when you're ready.

Okay.

I think,

yeah, I'm saucy.

I'm ready.

[Chris] All right.

I'm sauced.

All right, good.

[chilling music]

Oh my gosh.

It's good, it's like salt and vinegar potato chips almost

that kind of vibe.

[both laughing]

The good kind though.

I didn't start out liking,

[Rawlston] Me neither.

But I totally came around.

That's like my go to.

What do you like about it?

And what don't you like about it?

At first I was kind of like,

oh, the aromatics in the cavity

aren't doing anything for the fish.

But you know what they are doing something for?

The oil.

How was it turning that fish?

All you had to do was cut that tail off.

Really, I was like Rawlston's gonna yell at me

if I cut the tail off.

And I had this like little stump?

I was like, I think I can- Oh yeah, oh yeah.

I'm gonna own the fact that yeah,

there's a fish tail flopping out.

What's funny about that is I am that way,

but I didn't know that,

I didn't think that you would be that way too.

I want that tail on there.

But if you did it, it was like, okay,

but for me,

I had to I would, yeah, I'd definitely leave the tail on.

It's like taking the tail off a shrimp.

All of a sudden it goes from being a shrimp

to like what is it? is it?

Yeah, yeah.

100 percent.

The only thing I think

if I were gonna do the escovitch again,

you know what I would put in

just because you already have it in fish,

I thought was really interesting putting the garlic

in the slits of the fish.

Right. It was like

not what I was expecting.

I would put some garlic in with my vegetables.

Just 'cause I love that kind of like

semi raw, semi tamed garlic. Yeah.

Just to back up on what's happening.

I think it could take it.

There, yeah, there are no rules.

You can do as much as you want.

Once I heard you talking about vinegar

and your passion for it.

This is beyond what I thought of.

It's just really, really,

I'm really grateful to be able to do this with you.

I've learned a lot.

And we'll definitely try to venture out

into the other the types of vinegars.

I'm gonna use it.

I'm gonna use it.

This was a pleasure.

This was, yeah.

Thanks, cheers

All right.

Talk to you soon.

[chilling music]

I like this.

[upbeat music]

I need to go walk my dog.

I'm serious.

Look, she's there looking at me like

come on, can we go for this walk already?