Pro Chef Tries to Make Bánh Mì Faster Than Delivery

I mean, I think I got this, like, I mean

I'm making a, I'm making a sandwich.

Oh my God, I threw the peel into here! [laughing]

I don't usually cook for speed at all.

I'm so nervous, I can't even get the seed out.

[blending]

I am so tight on time.

Oh, I have three minutes.

I don't know about this.

I'm done with this, this is, this is done.

I think I got this, I think I got this.

We got this. [laughing]

[beep]

Hey everyone, I'm Chrissy Tracey

and today I'm taking on takeout.

[upbeat music]

Cooking great food fast doesn't have to be hard,

so today my challenge is to make a takeout dish faster

than it takes to get to my door.

Let's see if I can do it.

[phone ringing]

Oh, I get really awkward about calling in orders.

I don't know why it gives me a little bit of anxiety.

[laughing]

[Restaurateur] Can I have your order?

Yes, I would actually like

the vegan chicken báhn mi today.

How long is this going to take would you say?

[Restaurateur] Five to ten minutes is okay.

[Restaurateur] I'm doing-- Oh oh oh,

30 minutes, okay?

[Restaurateur] 30 minutes? 30 minutes.

Perfect, all right, thank you.

[Restaurateur] Okay, thank you, bye.

All right, we've got 30 minutes.

The timer is going off now.

I'm nervous.

[beep]

[upbeat music]

I am weak, holy hell.

This is heavy.

So we're going to start with

making a simple pickle with daikon and carrot.

And this is a very special radish.

It is kind of funky and overt, which I like.

So adds a little more depth to that pickling.

[laughing] This looks funny.

Sorry.

I don't usually cook for speed at all.

I'm always on Jamaican time,

which if you've ever been to a Jamaican household

or a Jamaican restaurant, you know what that is.

It is slow, all right.

I'm making a jackfruit báhn mi sandwich today.

But before getting started, I wanted to talk

to an expert in all things báhn mi.

Well, I've been making báhn mi

and eating báhn mi since I was a kid,

and you know, that sandwich is like the Vietnamese sandwich.

We don't really have other sandwiches, but we have báhn mi.

What would you say are the key elements

or flavor profiles that you would expect

in a traditional báhn mi sandwich?

You're talking for things that you want to remember

Chrissy when you're putting a sandwich together

Vietnamese style.

First is a layering of flavors.

So you've got lots of veggies and protein.

You're looking like maybe a one-to-one ratio

of protein to vegetables or one-to-two ratio.

Then you've got this really light bread that goes

around it to encase it.

And then you're going to season it

with the báhn mi sandwich seasoning

which is Maggi seasoning sauce.

It's a soy sauce like condiment

but it has like this unique flavor.

That is the flavor of báhn mi.

[sighs]

26 minutes.

Yeah, no, I'm getting nervous

and my hands are shaking because I'm anxious.

Oh God, the restaurants have a clear advantage here

because they have everything already

like in prep trays or containers, ready to go.

They don't have to worry about doing a pickle on the spot

every time they have a sandwich order that comes in.

[upbeat music]

How much time I got, 24 minutes?

Oh Lord.

This should be plenty of carrot and daikon for a pickling.

So I'm just going to now get started

on that pickling liquid as quickly as possible

'cause that's what takes the longest amount

of time in this recipe.

This is just like a really quick pickle method I like,

I'm going to say this is like a third cup of...

I added too much water.

I literally added too much water, but that's fine.

I'll just make extra pickling liquid, that's totally cool.

And we're going to add rice wine vinegar,

some black pepper, salt and of course the sugar.

If you're pickling usually you want your veggies to pickle

over at least a 24 hour period,

but since we are on a time crunch

I'm just going to immerse the veggies in this liquid

and it'll still give them a great flavor,

and you'll still get that sour taste

from a pickling liquid, which is awesome.

And then I'm going to move on to prepping my garnishes.

So we've got some scallions, cucumber, we've got some mint

some fresh mint leaves and what else?

We got a lot of cilantro, which is great.

I'll just start by removing the ends of the cucumber.

We're not removing the skin.

It's very nutritious folks, keep that on.

What's my time like?

21 minutes, oh Lordy Jesus.

[laughing]

We have some green onion.

I'm going to go ahead and chop those.

Okay, that should be plenty for my sandwich.

Jalapeño, and I'm just going to do a few of those.

Oooh, lost one there.

The meis en place process is probably

the most important part to cooking.

Essentially that just means like everything in its place,

so the best thing you can do is to have all

of your ingredients measured, ready to go.

It just nice and easy.

All right, so I'm just checking on the pickling liquid,

it's got a nice simmer now.

And I'm just going to actually pour this over

the daikon and the carrots and they will wilt.

A quick little tip you could do

is just throw it in the fridge to just combine quickly.

Now we're going to move on to the jackfruit.

I opened cans really weird, don't at me about it, okay?

It's just something I do.

And the reason I do it this way is

because it actually leaves no rough edges

on the whatever, can.

I'm just going to, well I guess my can opening method

did have a flaw to it.

[laughing]

So I'm just going to now like go

over my bowl and hand shred the jackfruit.

So jackfruit, young jackfruit is eaten a lot in Vietnam

as a meat substitute as well as a meat extender

because it has that beautiful chewy texture, right?

It's got like a pulled pork type

of texture to it, which is really interesting.

I don't know, I hate to say meat substitute,

but it's like, it's an awesome meat substitute.

It just is what it is.

And in Vietnamese we actually call jackfruit mít.

And so even you're using it as a meat substitute

and I would just call it mít in Vietnamese.

[laughing]

Oh my God.

That's so interesting.

[laughing]

There are báhn mi sandwich options that utilize

like a shredded pork,

so I'm kind of like doing like a take on that

and it soaks in all of the flavors very well, which I love.

All right, we got 14 minutes.

That's good.

We're doing good people.

Anxiety is on level like six,

but like that's pretty good considering

it was at 10 at the start of this,

so I'd say I'm starting to chill out a bit.

So to my jackfruit.

I'm just going to generously sprinkle or,

I don't even know what this method would be called,

I'm just, I'm just going in there with the Maggi seasoning.

Maggi seasoning, you know, or as we say languidly

in Vietnamese Maggi,

is something that the French introduced.

Even though it's made out of soybean sometimes,

it's really like this intense umami bomb, right?

It's got like this meaty flavor

that just brings everything together

when you've got the mayo in there

and the herbs and the pickles, and it just says,

I'm báhn mi!

Okay, 12 minutes.

Got some cracked black pepper.

And we've got some hot smoked paprika

and just combine again.

I still think I got this, I don't know about you guys,

but, I don't know, I think I got this.

So now I'm going to make a quick caramel sauce.

This adds like a really nice, subtle sweetness that balances

out with the spiciness of the dish.

And you're just going to add your jackfruit to the pan.

After we do the jackfruit, we're going to create a pâté,

which is traditionally made

with liver and other animal fats,

but today I'm going to do a raw one using macadamia nuts

so I'm excited for that.

How am I on time?

How am I on time?

I'm guessing about 10 minutes, maybe less.

All right.

Oh yeah.

You don't really want to overcook it.

I'm done with this.

This is done.

We're over it.

So we're just going to add this.

Oh, I'm making a mess now cause I'm nervous.

I'm gonna throw the jackfruit in the fridge

because it's very hot,

I don't want it to be too hot in the sandwich.

It should be at room temperature.

Oh my God, I am so tight on time.

Six minutes.

I got this.

I got this.

[sighs]

Woosah! [laughing]

Okay, so to start with the pâté,

I'm just going to squeeze some juice into the blender there.

There's definitely a seed in there.

Oh my God, I'm so nervous.

I can't even get the seed out.

Yeah, I mean, yeah, we'll get it,

it'll just get blended up, that's totally fine.

We're going to throw our olive oil in.

Teaspoon nutritional yeast, some garlic,

I'm just going to smash, peel and remove the rough end.

Oh my God.

I have five, I literally five minutes, like literally.

Oh my God.

I threw the peel into here. [laughing]

Why did I do that?

We've got about two tablespoons soy sauce.

Mushrooms.

We've got macadamia nuts.

We're going to add a tiny bit of water.

[blending]

And this is like a nut paste.

Oh, that doesn't sound right.

Oh God. [laughing]

I really don't like that.

[beep]

I'm going to now move this to the fridge to firm up a bit.

Oh, I have three minutes.

I don't know about this, to be honest.

I thought I had more faith in myself.

My faith in myself is diminishing,

I have two minutes and 58 seconds,

I don't think I'm gonna make it.

So we're gonna slather vegan mayo onto our baguette.

We also have some sambal oelek

and we're going to add hoisin sauce,

it gives a nice, subtle sweetness.

Whip that bad boy up.

And now it's time to toast our sandwich.

Let's see if I got this.

I literally have a minute and 16 seconds left.

♪ It's the final count down ♪

We have like this baguette here.

It's a bodega baguette.

My timer is out.

I'm going to talk about my baguette, okay?

This baguette is light and airy.

It's just like a crusty, airy,

[beep] delicious French bread.

So sad.

It's okay.

The timer went off.

I missed my 30 minute mark, but delivery's not here yet.

So technically I didn't fail.

[laughing]

Essentially, you can get this from like a bodega.

You don't want to use anything fancy.

People always like getting fancy

with rustic artisanal bread.

That could totally like injure the roof of your mouth

when you're biting into it.

And Andrea mentioned kind of leaving like a hinge.

So I'm leaving a hinge.

So at home, what I do is I take my roll

and then I rub a little water on it.

And then I warm it up in like a 350, 375

degree toaster oven.

And then what that water does is it kind of

recreates the steam effect

and it will crisp up that bread again for you.

And I'm going to check on that bread in the oven.

It should be ready.

Oh yeah, that's that crisp.

That's that crisp.

That's it, I mean, that's the steps,

like I got the steps done,

now it's just like plating and arranging

so that's really [beep] awesome.

Oh.

That's really awesome.

One of the things I'm going to do is just kind of like pull

out the bottom of the bread to create a trough.

That's another thing Andrea talked about.

I'll start by adding the mayo

and then the pâté on the other side.

I'm going to add some jackfruit.

I'm back to Jamaican time and I shouldn't be

'cause I really do want to finish this

before delivery gets here, but I can't help it now.

Okay.

[upbeat music]

If you want, at this point, you can layer on more jackfruit.

So that's your báhn mi sandwich.

Oooh, I think that's our delivery.

Hello.

[Restaurateur] My delivery guy is almost at your place.

Can you go downstairs?

Absolutely.

Thank you so much.

Have a good day.

Bye.

All right.

It's here.

It made it after my báhn mi was done,

let's just please know that for a second, all right?

So let's plate this and see how it looks.

So visually I'm already noticing some differences.

I will say the bread held up really well.

It's very well toasted.

You can see it's got a kind of like darker color than mine.

They've toasted the baguette a little bit further

so it's got a crispy, crunchy, outer layer.

I would've expected it to be a little bit soggy

at this point and it's not,

so like, what could you ask for, for delivery?

[upbeat music]

You got the takeout báhn mi

and we've got the jackfruit báhn mi.

Gonna start off by trying the take out version.

[crunching]

So it's interesting cause there's a spice coming

from somewhere, but I cannot see where,

it must be like the sauce that they sauté

the veggie chicken in.

The veggie chicken, it's a little bit of

like a rubbery texture.

Just a little bit scared of

but it actually has a pretty good flavor.

The daikon honestly is my favorite part of this sandwich.

It's extremely flavorful.

It's got that like perfect bite.

It's a little bit sugary.

Okay, let's go ahead and taste mine.

I'm a little scared 'cause it's mine,

of course I'm scared, I'm nervous.

I'm sorry.

This [beep] good.

It just is.

I just realized one flavor that I think

was absolutely missing from that báhn mi

and it was the Maggi seasoning.

I can really taste that depth and that umami,

I also think that's coming from

the mushroom pâté that I created.

But when you go back to the fundamentals

I really do feel confident that I hit on all of them.

You've got the crispy baguette.

You've got the mayo mix with the hoisin

and the sambal oelek chili paste

that I kind of mixed into that mayo to make it unique.

And then on top of that, I layered the pâté

and then, you know, the pickled vegetables.

I was shocked actually I think this is one

of my best quick pickles that I've done so far.

It had it's 20 minutes to really immerse and wilt

and it still has that crunch.

I actually think I like the crunchy pickles

a little bit more than the wilted one.

I thought I would have the opposite reaction

but I think I like the added crunch

that it gives the sandwich.

Then you've got your cilantro and there's a little hint

of mint in between, adds a really cooling sensation

that pairs just beautifully with the jackfruit.

It's just.

[chef's kiss]

It's good.

That's good stuff.

[laughing]

10 out of 10 would recommend.

I'm sorry.

You gotta make it like I do highly recommend this.

It's it's delicious.

I don't mean to not be humble

but a bitch can make a sandwich,

I don't know what else to tell you guys.

Bitch can make a sandwich.

[laughing]

This is like a garlic nut paste.

[laughing]

I'm over it.

Oh my God.

Oh, there's a peel in there still.

How terrible.

All right.