March 8, 2022 • 26 mins
In this episode of “Always Hungry”, Bobby and Sophie investigate the art of “Oven to Table” cooking. Then Bobby cooks Sophie a delicious baked pasta. And finally, Bobby lets Sophie in on the unorthodox “Oven to Table” technique used by one of the world’s most famous steakhouses for their signature porterhouse.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
All right, guys, welcome to Always Hungry from My Heart Radio.
My name is Bobby Flay, and I'm here with my
daughter and co host, and I'm always Hungry. Sophie and
I gather around my stove to cook together. Well you cook,
I asked the questions, and eat the food and does
any food left? We come to the table together to
share a meal, connect as a family, and tell the
stories that matter to us. Okay, So here we're talking
(00:29):
about oven too table, which has been a way that
I've been cooking for a very long time the first
time I started cooking of into table dishes. Let me
just let me just define exactly what I'm talking about.
Something that you put in the oven in a in
some sort of of improved dish. It could be a
casuela that you'd see like in either you know, Mexico
(00:49):
or Spain, so to speak. Um, you know those are
those earthenware terra cotta like dishes, um that are of improof.
Or it could be a castor old dish. It could
be a Pyrex dish. Um. It could be an oval
gratin dish, uh, you know, stoneware. It could also be
cast iron, like a regular cast iron pan or a pot,
(01:11):
or it could be an enamel coated um cast iron
pan and pot like you know, like like lake Husay
or stop or something like that. Um. Any of those
work really well. Some of them are pretty prettier than others.
The old school ones are the pyrex ones. You know
what those look like most of the time they're clear,
they look like glass bowls, but they're actually ovenproof, you know,
(01:32):
to a certain temperature. And so the idea here is
that you make, you make something in these vessels, you
put them in the oven to finish to to finish
cooking them. When they're done, you take them out of
the oven and you put them in the middle of
the table, so it's oven to table. So you're not
transferring a bunch of things and creating a lot of
(01:53):
you know, dishes, and you know, and you're taking out steps.
And there's also something really I think very comforting and
home you at it great for Sunday night dinner, is
great for family style dinners, just great for anything. Really.
I mean, I cook out of my pizza oven a lot.
And the thing about that, listen to pizza oven is
is a luxury to have, So I don't want to say,
(02:15):
it's not a good thing to have. But the problem
with them is that it takes you three hours to
heat them. So if you're just gonna cook pizza in them,
you better cook a lot of pizza. Like, you don't
turn your oven on for one pizza. It just doesn't.
It's it's a waste of energy. And so what I
do is when I when I'm gonna fire up my
pizza oven, what I do is I try to is
(02:35):
I try to do a lot of things out of
the pizza oven so I don't waste the energy. And
it's an amazing it's an amazing piece of equipment. It
gets incredibly hot. It's very very useful. So if I'm
gonna make pizzas, I'm also gonna like I can cook
a steak in a cash on iron pan, I can
do a pasta in a in a caswell or some
earthenware dish and serve you know, a baked pasta. Um.
(02:57):
You know. One of the things that I like to
do is I like to little appetizers over the table
as well, not just entrees. So I do this dish
where it's like roasted mushrooms and goat cheese with some
fresh thyme, maybe some chili oil. So you just think,
(03:18):
think about it this way, right, So you have like
let's say, no, not like a dip roasted mushrooms. So
you take like, oh, the mushrooms are the main last,
the mushrooms in the main event. So yes, but think
about this way. So you have sliced This is actually
interesting because this is like a little bit like that
TikTok dish with the feta cheese. And I'll explain to
(03:38):
you about this in a minute. I want I'm gonna
paint the picture for you. You have shataki mushrooms, you
have oyster mushrooms, you have cremini mushrooms. They're all sliced up.
You see them in a in a bowl with like
some olive oil, salt and pepper and some fresh garlic.
You lay them into a earthenware dish that you're gonna
put in the oven one layer across. You take a
(03:59):
slice of cheese like out of a out of a log,
put it right in the middle. You sprinkle some fresh
thyme over it, some extra virgin olive oil, salt, and pepper,
maybe a chili pepper or to put it into the oven.
So what happens the mushrooms start to roast, the juices
start to melt together, the fresh time starts to right,
(04:22):
and then what happens to the goat cheese. Well, the
goat cheese doesn't have a lot of liquid in it,
so it melts, but it doesn't melt and run. It
just gets soft. Okay, so now and it gets a
little brown on top. Today you take it out of
the oven and you mix it up and you serve
that on like some toast, goat cheese, mushrooms, garlic time
(04:46):
say less, yes, right, yes, maybe like splash a little
aged balsonamic vinegar on top of it. Game time. That's
a really good appetizer. And then the classic eggplant pamagana.
Now this is not egg plant parmesan, which is the
Italian American version where there's lots of mozzarella, cheese and
tomato sauce on top of it. Basically, in Italy you'll
(05:08):
see like zucchini parmigiano, or you'll see eggplant parmigiano um
artich choked parmigiano, And basically what you're what you're getting
is maybe like a little bit of tomato with thin
slices of eggplant that have been roasted and some parmegiano
or regiano cheese. That's it. So it's not a very
big melted cheese dish. It's most it's really about the
(05:30):
eggplant or the zucchini or the artichokes. And that's a
that's another really good dish to do of the table
as well, comes out really nicely. All right, Sophie. We're
making a baked pasta, which is basically a pasta that
(05:51):
you cook almost all the way through and then you
put it in some sort of earthenware dish or casserole
or something like you know, um of improof to get
it crispy well, to bake it in the middle and
then also get a crusty on the outside, and then
and then it's great to serve it right in the
middle of the turble. Alright. So basically what I did
was I I'm sort of saying, so I'm saying some
(06:16):
how to Talian sausage. So this is gonna be how
to Italian sausage. A vodka sauce, which is a tomato
cream sauce with vodka in one of your favorite so broccoli, Rob,
it's gonna have some fontina cheese rolling through it, and
we're gonna put some parmesan and some mucharella on top,
and we're gonna bake it all right, So I have
the how to Italian sausage. You're gonna get that nice
(06:38):
and crusty cooked all the way through, and we're gonna
save some of the fat from the sausage because that's
it's going to add more flavor all through the pasta.
All right. Then I'm gonna take tomato sauce that I
have made right into the sausage fat and a flash
(06:59):
and vodka stuff, and then you let the alcohol cook
out of the vodka to the tomato sauce. I know
you love this dish. And then you can use heavy
cream and creme frash. And we need to heavy cream
because that's what I have. Let me sure the vodka
cooks out a little bit cream just as touched. So
(07:23):
you want the sauce to be kind of like like
a pink color. How's that color? Beautiful? So what you
want light? I know your vodka sauce aficionado. I'm trying
(07:55):
to think about, like, how did you plate things at below?
I don't have a lot of memories from below. You
don't know. I have a lot of memories in the
kitchen at Bolo So Bolow was open from for fifteen years,
so that would be two thousand and nine or something
like that. Yeah, we had a fifteen year lease and
when the lease was up, they actually knocked the building. Now,
(08:17):
so we had an oven in the dining room. There
was an oven station next to the bar. Yes, it
was like about five or ten feet from the bar,
by about ten feet from the bar. And so we
had the indoor kitchen, which was a very small kitchen.
But then we had this kitchen in the dining room
and it was it was an oven station, and we
did a lot of these oven to table dishes and yeah,
(08:41):
and and and that's you know, that's that was. You know,
it was a Spanish restaurant. And when I say Spanish,
it wasn't completely authentic, of course, because I'm from New
York City. So I was doing the New York City
version of what I thought, as you know, Spanish with
Spanish ingredients. And of course I was inspired by all
these classic dishes and you know, one of them was
you know, shrimp and garlic, which is a classic one.
(09:03):
And we served the mushroom dishes, and I did something
called um I did a uh this roasted eggplant and
Montego cheese salad where we roasted thin layers of baby
Italian eggplant with manchego cheese and oregano, like layer after layer,
so it was like ten or twelve layers and we
roasted in the it's so good, and then the spalsamic
(09:24):
laze on top. I'll make that fear at some point,
But how did you plate things that below table? But
like in what will you say? And what in like
insuelas a lot of cazuellas. Yeah, not everything, I mean
something balls and plates and stuff like that. But but
we we definitely served a lot of things in Cazuela's,
just like we did at Gatto. I feel like I
(09:45):
remember when they were closing, when you were closing below,
Like I was there on a day when like someone
came in and was like can I buy these chairs
in this table from your dining room? Like I like
proposed to, like my my wife. Does that happen a lot? Well?
What does what happened to? People get proposed? Stop it?
Like do people like make requests like that? Like when
(10:08):
one of your restaurants has been closing or shut down
or something like. Do people make requests like that? Every
once in a while, something like that happens, But really
what happens is like when Masa Grille closed after twenty
seven years, Okay, we announced that we were closing, and
we announced that we were closing because well, first of all,
we wanted the customers don't understand that so they weren't
making reservations months at ahead of time. And also we
(10:29):
wanted people to to have a chance to to to
come back one one last time. And you can imagine
after twenty seven years, some significant events took place there
for people. You know, people got engage their people had
their first anniversary there, people got decided to get divorced there.
I mean, it was all kinds of things. I mean,
(10:49):
you know, there's like you know, and so like what
happens is people people tell me stories all the time
about special things that have happened in my restaurants that
are significant to their history of their life, and it's
it's just sweet, It is really nice. I mean, like,
do you have any idea how many engagement rings I've
like hidden in desserts in my life? Oh? My God,
(11:09):
I didn't even think about that. That happens all the time.
Oh my god, that's so funny. I feel like you
only see that in movies. Didn't really realize people do that.
Can we talk to Bobby, Yeah, what's up? Hey, listen,
I'm gonna get engaged tonight. Can you hide this into
some of the food. I'm like, yeah, you just don't
let her eat it, but you know, and so yeah,
and then all of a sudden, like they're eating like
this chocolate cake, and then you know, usually i'd make
(11:31):
it pretty obvious. It's not like a king cake like
New Orleans. We have to go find the ring, but like,
you know, it's it's more like, um, you know, like
it would be like a slice of chocolate cake and
like right on top of the cake would be this
like beautiful diamond ring. You know, It's like you know,
and then she like freaks out, how's that color beautiful? Yeah?
(12:00):
Now you're a vodka sauce aficionado. And then we're gonna
take the cooked reggae Tony, put it in the sauce.
Put in the sauce, and then the sausages that are
cooked the blanche broccoli. Rob gonna cut this up a
little bit salt and pepper. Put the broccy robin there
(12:21):
that's blanched, and then we have some fresh regano. Drop
that in there, fresh Italian parsley. The bland looks a
little dry, so I'm gonna have a little more sauce
and a little pasta. Work nice. So so basically, so
now that's just heated up. I'm gonna put this in
(12:42):
a mixing bowl. Then we're gonna add some some grated
fontina cheese into the pasta, some parmigiano, a little splash
of cream in there, and then we're gonna mix this
up and we're gonna or this into a the earthenware
(13:02):
dish of improof. Wow, it can't we to eat? This
looks so good. Then you're gonna take so mozzarella that's
great and put it up right on top. Yeah, and see,
this is what's great about this is you can prep
this to right to this point, and then when your
guests get there, you can put it in the oven.
You know, if someone just happens to come over, I
(13:25):
think you need to find some friends. I'm gonna put
this in the oven for like twenty minutes until it
gets heated all the way through and then the cheese
on the on top melts, gets a little crusty. Uh.
(13:47):
And then like in terms of entrees for like oven
to table stuff like you know, baked pastas is clearly
one of the one of the one of the most
popular things to do. Enchiladas. You know, you you take chicken,
roll them into the tortillas, stack them into a into
a cast role dish, cheese, sauce layers, and then you know,
(14:07):
you bake it in the oven. It's delicious. You know.
Lasagna is another good one. Then there's also like like
I want you to think of the oven the table.
It's not such a big deal because it's really not
a big deal. I just want I like, just you
have to have the right things you don't actually, yes,
you do. Like you can do long cooking things like
if you did like a pork like like in the
(14:28):
in the in the winter. I like making pork and
green chili stew, which is like pork shoulder. It takes
a long time to cook it, like hours, makes your
house smell good for the whole day, like green chilies, tomatos,
some chicken stock. Just let it cook until the pork
gets really really soft, you know, you cube them and
then you can serve it with like a bunch of
(14:49):
garnishes on the side. But you can just take the
entire pot of that pork and green chili stew it
put it right in the middle of the table. You
have to transfer it. Same thing like if you make
chili like I do, like a having black bean chili,
and then you serve garnishes on the side, but you
served you served the stew or the chili right in
the pot. I love making chili that I can make
a recipe for us to use ground beef or turkey,
(15:16):
oh turkey, Okay. I actually made a vegetarian Actually I
did it on the Today Show. I made a vegetarian
um chili on Beat Bobby Flay was challenged to it,
and then actually I won the I wanted the base
of it instead of me was eggplant and mushrooms Bella
mushrooms because they're very firm, like diced up and then
(15:38):
eggplant also diced up and it actually up really really well.
It was delicious. And then I did on the Today's Show.
And here I'll give you here some examples of some
good baked pastas you're ready, go for it. I'm gonna
say them slowly. So I mets a riggatoni, which is
like a half half sized riggatoni, So like you know,
(15:59):
riggatoni is usually long. That's what you're eating there, So
half size of rigatoni with porcini mushrooms and like a
caccio pepe crust. You like that. So it's like peccorino,
little mozzarella and then some black pepper. Of course, I'm
gonna make that perfect this weekend. Then, um, just like
(16:21):
a classic room with pennay tomatoes and mozzarella and basil.
You put the mozzarella on top, let it bake. It's delicious.
And these are all sort of like I would say,
fancier versions than like then, Like what I think of
is the the the Italian American Stalwart, which is big ZD.
You know that has like ricotta and tomato and delicious,
(16:42):
serves a purpose. Then I like using shells me too.
I love stuffed shells. This one has ricotta, fontina cheese,
tomatoes and Calabrian chilies. Where'd you get that one? What
do you mean? I made it up? Oh? Can you
see me the recipe? Yeah, it's got out our front
tomato sauce and Colobian chilies. And then I don't know,
(17:04):
have you ever have you ever had um? I buy
these squid inc shells, the little the smaller shells, and
they're they're black squid ink. So I like making a
sort of like a crab gratin. So it's like a
creamy crab sauce in with the squid ink shells, but
the shells are smaller, right, They're smaller, And then it's
(17:27):
like it's like creamy and there's like anyway, and then
I do like a lemon and chovy bread crumb on top. Good.
You should make that one. And then this one we're
eating today is the rigatoni with the vodka sauce and
the broccoli rob and the hot Italian sausage. Delicious. And
then one more or quiette you know, do you know
(17:47):
what orchetta means? Little ears? Oh cute? And make that
with like the Bolognese sauce and parmesan on top, so
it's like a it's a meat sauce. I feel like
I always have it with like broccoli rob and sausage.
What that's a classic. Actually, that's a classic dish you Rob,
(18:08):
sausage archaete tomato cream situation. Yeah, it's a version of that.
(18:31):
So I'll show you what it looks like when it
comes out. Is it ready yet? Oh? It's looking good? Whoa,
oh Dad? That looks sick, doesn't it? Yeah? Let me
get a picture. Looks great, doesn't it. I'm happy with that. Yep,
all right, I'll bring it over to the the podcasting table. Okay, perfect.
(18:58):
How's the ovened table pasta? As pasta is so good?
It's kind of you know, listen for you. I didn't
really take a risk. I used that tomato vodka sauce, creamy,
creamy tomato vodka sauce that you love. There's sausages, is broccoli, Rob,
it's baked crispy cheese. But this is a good dish
for you to make it home. How do you feel
(19:18):
about of the table desserts? Harder? No? Not actually not really?
That's actually not a bad idea you could do. You
could do like a baked cake in these casuelas really
well or as who flay really is a hard but
you could do it. But you could do like games
(19:39):
known for your bake ame. Okay, I don't know if
you saw my um morning buns. No, but I'll never
forget my dry birthday cake? Was it? Really? It was terrible.
It wasn't terrible. It was just like, wow, you try
(19:59):
good one. What kind of cake was it? It was
like vanilla with chocolate, I think. I mean, the only
reason why I can give you a hard time about
it is because that basically never happens. So I mean, well, yeah,
my baking. My baking is just so it's like it's
(20:19):
one of those crazy things where like when I decide,
which is very rare, when I decided to bake something,
I literally sabotage myself, Like I go into it knowing
that I'm going to mess it up. I don't just
follow the I don't just follow like the recipe of
some great pastry chef. Oh no, I have to like
(20:39):
take a shortcut or change something or you know, substitute
one flower for the other. Because because it's like it's
almost like if I don't sabotage myself, I'm not going
to be happy about it. It's ridiculous. But you can
definitely do in the table. You can do like like
like like like like a chocolate lava cake. And because
well we work really well. Actually, and actually what's really nice.
(21:03):
You can set the batter. You can you can put
the batter in the caswells, get small ones and have
it ready and then just take some egg whites and
then fold it in and then put it in the
in the oven when you're when you're ready to order.
It's almost like baking the cake to order. And he goes,
you know, basically from the oven to the table. That
(21:24):
actually works, and just serve a lot of vanilla gelatto
next to it. You know. The other thing I like
to do is I actually like to make um. I
like to cook steaks and cast iron and serve them
right into the especially like a like a Porterhouse steak.
I like, I like cooking Porterhouse steaks in a cast
iron pan. What's one of my actually, it's one of
my favorite. It's one of my most well known recipes.
It's Katie Lee makes it once a week and I
(21:47):
have to say every time she makes it and post it.
She's like, Bobby taught me this. It's a Porterhouse steak
that I cook in a cash iron pan. And the
way that you cook it is really it's unorthodox, like
it goes against it goes against the grain of like
of like good technique, but it works incredibly well. What
(22:07):
is it? I'm not going to tell. You have to
look it up, can you just you want to know? Okay,
So you take a porterhouse steak, which is like it
it looks like a t bone and it has you know,
the filet on one side of the bone. On the
other side of the bone is a strip steak. You
know what a portouse looks like. Okay, So you get
a cash iron pan. You put it on top of
the stove. You get it ripping hot, some good cooking
(22:28):
oil like canola or something like that, lots of salt
and pepper on both sides. You put it down on
one of the one of the sides, and you let
it like just get crusty as can be, you know,
like it's like it's almost like it's like deep frying
in the in the oil, really crusty. Don't flip it.
Let it get crusty. It's probably gonna take about five
(22:50):
four or five minutes. Okay, turn it over, let it
cook for about a minute. Take it out. You slice
it on the off the bone, straight down on both
sides into thick slices. And then you put it back
on the bone and back in the pan, so you're
(23:11):
refitting it back on but it's now sliced and raw.
It's raw. Then I take some unsalted butter, whole butter,
put it on top of the steak to cover the steak,
salt and pepper, and then I put it in the broiler, okay,
which is what we did with this posta today. And
then what happens is is the butter melts, It gets
(23:33):
really hot. It melts and it goes in between the
crevices of the steak and it basically based and cooks
the steak perfect medium rare. And then you take it out.
It doesn't take long. You can overcook this very quickly.
You take it out and you take a spoon and
you and you take the take the juices from the
butter and the steak that have now become one, and
(23:56):
you put it on top of the you based the
steak on top, and then you serve it right in
the cast on your pants. Now, the cast on your
pants can be very hot. So if you're gonna put
it on your table and make sure you have like
a tribute or some sort or or you know, a
towel or something, and then you serve right in the
middle and it's like it's it's it's a superstar because
it smells great, it's sizzling, and it's the best steak
(24:18):
you've ever tasted. I learned it from actually going When
I was shooting a show called Food Nation, I went
to Peter Luger in Brooklyn, one of the most famous
steakhouses in the world. Also just f y, I gonna
be my neighborhood Caesar's Palace. They're opening at the end
of twenty two. Lugar, I can't wait. I already sent
(24:40):
him a note. I'll trade you like a whole fish
and a plate of pasta for a porterhouse anytime. I'm
ready for it. Anyway, I was there and I went
into the kitchen and I saw them do it. I
was like, what are they doing? Oh? And what were
they doing? They were making perfect steaks, right of course.
And so you know, I've told the story a number
of times, but Appetite did a big story about this.
(25:02):
You know, when I was opening Goto. One of the
things that we talked about, interesting, could I do that?
Of course? Is that like to advanced? No, you like
I want you to be a little bit more confident
to stove if you if it listen, Sophie, if you
mess up, it doesn't matter, no, but then I have
(25:23):
to do it again. You don't. It's go to go
to be hungry. It's not gonna be that bad. Like,
no matter what, you're gonna get through it. You're gonna
have something that you can eat. It might not be perfect,
but that's the way you do this. There's no substitute
for experience you have. You have to do these things,
these things over and over. Always Hungry is created by
(25:43):
Bobby Flay and Sophie Flay. Our executive producer is Christopher Hasiotis.
Always Hungry is produced, edited, and mixed by Jonathan how Stressler.
Always Hungry is engineered by Sophie Flay. For more podcasts
from my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app
Apple Podcast wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
All right, guys, welcome to Always Hungry from My Heart Radio.
My name is Bobby Flay, and I'm here with my
daughter and co host, and I'm always Hungry. Sophie and
I gather around my stove to cook together. Well you cook,
I asked the questions, and eat the food and does
any food left? We come to the table together to
share a meal, connect as a family, and tell the
stories that matter to us. Okay, So here we're talking
(00:29):
about oven too table, which has been a way that
I've been cooking for a very long time the first
time I started cooking of into table dishes. Let me
just let me just define exactly what I'm talking about.
Something that you put in the oven in a in
some sort of of improved dish. It could be a
casuela that you'd see like in either you know, Mexico
(00:49):
or Spain, so to speak. Um, you know those are
those earthenware terra cotta like dishes, um that are of improof.
Or it could be a castor old dish. It could
be a Pyrex dish. Um. It could be an oval
gratin dish, uh, you know, stoneware. It could also be
cast iron, like a regular cast iron pan or a pot,
(01:11):
or it could be an enamel coated um cast iron
pan and pot like you know, like like lake Husay
or stop or something like that. Um. Any of those
work really well. Some of them are pretty prettier than others.
The old school ones are the pyrex ones. You know
what those look like most of the time they're clear,
they look like glass bowls, but they're actually ovenproof, you know,
(01:32):
to a certain temperature. And so the idea here is
that you make, you make something in these vessels, you
put them in the oven to finish to to finish
cooking them. When they're done, you take them out of
the oven and you put them in the middle of
the table, so it's oven to table. So you're not
transferring a bunch of things and creating a lot of
(01:53):
you know, dishes, and you know, and you're taking out steps.
And there's also something really I think very comforting and
home you at it great for Sunday night dinner, is
great for family style dinners, just great for anything. Really.
I mean, I cook out of my pizza oven a lot.
And the thing about that, listen to pizza oven is
is a luxury to have, So I don't want to say,
(02:15):
it's not a good thing to have. But the problem
with them is that it takes you three hours to
heat them. So if you're just gonna cook pizza in them,
you better cook a lot of pizza. Like, you don't
turn your oven on for one pizza. It just doesn't.
It's it's a waste of energy. And so what I
do is when I when I'm gonna fire up my
pizza oven, what I do is I try to is
(02:35):
I try to do a lot of things out of
the pizza oven so I don't waste the energy. And
it's an amazing it's an amazing piece of equipment. It
gets incredibly hot. It's very very useful. So if I'm
gonna make pizzas, I'm also gonna like I can cook
a steak in a cash on iron pan, I can
do a pasta in a in a caswell or some
earthenware dish and serve you know, a baked pasta. Um.
(02:57):
You know. One of the things that I like to
do is I like to little appetizers over the table
as well, not just entrees. So I do this dish
where it's like roasted mushrooms and goat cheese with some
fresh thyme, maybe some chili oil. So you just think,
(03:18):
think about it this way, right, So you have like
let's say, no, not like a dip roasted mushrooms. So
you take like, oh, the mushrooms are the main last,
the mushrooms in the main event. So yes, but think
about this way. So you have sliced This is actually
interesting because this is like a little bit like that
TikTok dish with the feta cheese. And I'll explain to
(03:38):
you about this in a minute. I want I'm gonna
paint the picture for you. You have shataki mushrooms, you
have oyster mushrooms, you have cremini mushrooms. They're all sliced up.
You see them in a in a bowl with like
some olive oil, salt and pepper and some fresh garlic.
You lay them into a earthenware dish that you're gonna
put in the oven one layer across. You take a
(03:59):
slice of cheese like out of a out of a log,
put it right in the middle. You sprinkle some fresh
thyme over it, some extra virgin olive oil, salt, and pepper,
maybe a chili pepper or to put it into the oven.
So what happens the mushrooms start to roast, the juices
start to melt together, the fresh time starts to right,
(04:22):
and then what happens to the goat cheese. Well, the
goat cheese doesn't have a lot of liquid in it,
so it melts, but it doesn't melt and run. It
just gets soft. Okay, so now and it gets a
little brown on top. Today you take it out of
the oven and you mix it up and you serve
that on like some toast, goat cheese, mushrooms, garlic time
(04:46):
say less, yes, right, yes, maybe like splash a little
aged balsonamic vinegar on top of it. Game time. That's
a really good appetizer. And then the classic eggplant pamagana.
Now this is not egg plant parmesan, which is the
Italian American version where there's lots of mozzarella, cheese and
tomato sauce on top of it. Basically, in Italy you'll
(05:08):
see like zucchini parmigiano, or you'll see eggplant parmigiano um
artich choked parmigiano, And basically what you're what you're getting
is maybe like a little bit of tomato with thin
slices of eggplant that have been roasted and some parmegiano
or regiano cheese. That's it. So it's not a very
big melted cheese dish. It's most it's really about the
(05:30):
eggplant or the zucchini or the artichokes. And that's a
that's another really good dish to do of the table
as well, comes out really nicely. All right, Sophie. We're
making a baked pasta, which is basically a pasta that
(05:51):
you cook almost all the way through and then you
put it in some sort of earthenware dish or casserole
or something like you know, um of improof to get
it crispy well, to bake it in the middle and
then also get a crusty on the outside, and then
and then it's great to serve it right in the
middle of the turble. Alright. So basically what I did
was I I'm sort of saying, so I'm saying some
(06:16):
how to Talian sausage. So this is gonna be how
to Italian sausage. A vodka sauce, which is a tomato
cream sauce with vodka in one of your favorite so broccoli, Rob,
it's gonna have some fontina cheese rolling through it, and
we're gonna put some parmesan and some mucharella on top,
and we're gonna bake it all right, So I have
the how to Italian sausage. You're gonna get that nice
(06:38):
and crusty cooked all the way through, and we're gonna
save some of the fat from the sausage because that's
it's going to add more flavor all through the pasta.
All right. Then I'm gonna take tomato sauce that I
have made right into the sausage fat and a flash
(06:59):
and vodka stuff, and then you let the alcohol cook
out of the vodka to the tomato sauce. I know
you love this dish. And then you can use heavy
cream and creme frash. And we need to heavy cream
because that's what I have. Let me sure the vodka
cooks out a little bit cream just as touched. So
(07:23):
you want the sauce to be kind of like like
a pink color. How's that color? Beautiful? So what you
want light? I know your vodka sauce aficionado. I'm trying
(07:55):
to think about, like, how did you plate things at below?
I don't have a lot of memories from below. You
don't know. I have a lot of memories in the
kitchen at Bolo So Bolow was open from for fifteen years,
so that would be two thousand and nine or something
like that. Yeah, we had a fifteen year lease and
when the lease was up, they actually knocked the building. Now,
(08:17):
so we had an oven in the dining room. There
was an oven station next to the bar. Yes, it
was like about five or ten feet from the bar,
by about ten feet from the bar. And so we
had the indoor kitchen, which was a very small kitchen.
But then we had this kitchen in the dining room
and it was it was an oven station, and we
did a lot of these oven to table dishes and yeah,
(08:41):
and and and that's you know, that's that was. You know,
it was a Spanish restaurant. And when I say Spanish,
it wasn't completely authentic, of course, because I'm from New
York City. So I was doing the New York City
version of what I thought, as you know, Spanish with
Spanish ingredients. And of course I was inspired by all
these classic dishes and you know, one of them was
you know, shrimp and garlic, which is a classic one.
(09:03):
And we served the mushroom dishes, and I did something
called um I did a uh this roasted eggplant and
Montego cheese salad where we roasted thin layers of baby
Italian eggplant with manchego cheese and oregano, like layer after layer,
so it was like ten or twelve layers and we
roasted in the it's so good, and then the spalsamic
(09:24):
laze on top. I'll make that fear at some point,
But how did you plate things that below table? But
like in what will you say? And what in like
insuelas a lot of cazuellas. Yeah, not everything, I mean
something balls and plates and stuff like that. But but
we we definitely served a lot of things in Cazuela's,
just like we did at Gatto. I feel like I
(09:45):
remember when they were closing, when you were closing below,
Like I was there on a day when like someone
came in and was like can I buy these chairs
in this table from your dining room? Like I like
proposed to, like my my wife. Does that happen a lot? Well?
What does what happened to? People get proposed? Stop it?
Like do people like make requests like that? Like when
(10:08):
one of your restaurants has been closing or shut down
or something like. Do people make requests like that? Every
once in a while, something like that happens, But really
what happens is like when Masa Grille closed after twenty
seven years, Okay, we announced that we were closing, and
we announced that we were closing because well, first of all,
we wanted the customers don't understand that so they weren't
making reservations months at ahead of time. And also we
(10:29):
wanted people to to have a chance to to to
come back one one last time. And you can imagine
after twenty seven years, some significant events took place there
for people. You know, people got engage their people had
their first anniversary there, people got decided to get divorced there.
I mean, it was all kinds of things. I mean,
(10:49):
you know, there's like you know, and so like what
happens is people people tell me stories all the time
about special things that have happened in my restaurants that
are significant to their history of their life, and it's
it's just sweet, It is really nice. I mean, like,
do you have any idea how many engagement rings I've
like hidden in desserts in my life? Oh? My God,
(11:09):
I didn't even think about that. That happens all the time.
Oh my god, that's so funny. I feel like you
only see that in movies. Didn't really realize people do that.
Can we talk to Bobby, Yeah, what's up? Hey, listen,
I'm gonna get engaged tonight. Can you hide this into
some of the food. I'm like, yeah, you just don't
let her eat it, but you know, and so yeah,
and then all of a sudden, like they're eating like
this chocolate cake, and then you know, usually i'd make
(11:31):
it pretty obvious. It's not like a king cake like
New Orleans. We have to go find the ring, but like,
you know, it's it's more like, um, you know, like
it would be like a slice of chocolate cake and
like right on top of the cake would be this
like beautiful diamond ring. You know, It's like you know,
and then she like freaks out, how's that color beautiful? Yeah?
(12:00):
Now you're a vodka sauce aficionado. And then we're gonna
take the cooked reggae Tony, put it in the sauce.
Put in the sauce, and then the sausages that are
cooked the blanche broccoli. Rob gonna cut this up a
little bit salt and pepper. Put the broccy robin there
(12:21):
that's blanched, and then we have some fresh regano. Drop
that in there, fresh Italian parsley. The bland looks a
little dry, so I'm gonna have a little more sauce
and a little pasta. Work nice. So so basically, so
now that's just heated up. I'm gonna put this in
(12:42):
a mixing bowl. Then we're gonna add some some grated
fontina cheese into the pasta, some parmigiano, a little splash
of cream in there, and then we're gonna mix this
up and we're gonna or this into a the earthenware
(13:02):
dish of improof. Wow, it can't we to eat? This
looks so good. Then you're gonna take so mozzarella that's
great and put it up right on top. Yeah, and see,
this is what's great about this is you can prep
this to right to this point, and then when your
guests get there, you can put it in the oven.
You know, if someone just happens to come over, I
(13:25):
think you need to find some friends. I'm gonna put
this in the oven for like twenty minutes until it
gets heated all the way through and then the cheese
on the on top melts, gets a little crusty. Uh.
(13:47):
And then like in terms of entrees for like oven
to table stuff like you know, baked pastas is clearly
one of the one of the one of the most
popular things to do. Enchiladas. You know, you you take chicken,
roll them into the tortillas, stack them into a into
a cast role dish, cheese, sauce layers, and then you know,
(14:07):
you bake it in the oven. It's delicious. You know.
Lasagna is another good one. Then there's also like like
I want you to think of the oven the table.
It's not such a big deal because it's really not
a big deal. I just want I like, just you
have to have the right things you don't actually, yes,
you do. Like you can do long cooking things like
if you did like a pork like like in the
(14:28):
in the in the winter. I like making pork and
green chili stew, which is like pork shoulder. It takes
a long time to cook it, like hours, makes your
house smell good for the whole day, like green chilies, tomatos,
some chicken stock. Just let it cook until the pork
gets really really soft, you know, you cube them and
then you can serve it with like a bunch of
(14:49):
garnishes on the side. But you can just take the
entire pot of that pork and green chili stew it
put it right in the middle of the table. You
have to transfer it. Same thing like if you make
chili like I do, like a having black bean chili,
and then you serve garnishes on the side, but you
served you served the stew or the chili right in
the pot. I love making chili that I can make
a recipe for us to use ground beef or turkey,
(15:16):
oh turkey, Okay. I actually made a vegetarian Actually I
did it on the Today Show. I made a vegetarian
um chili on Beat Bobby Flay was challenged to it,
and then actually I won the I wanted the base
of it instead of me was eggplant and mushrooms Bella
mushrooms because they're very firm, like diced up and then
(15:38):
eggplant also diced up and it actually up really really well.
It was delicious. And then I did on the Today's Show.
And here I'll give you here some examples of some
good baked pastas you're ready, go for it. I'm gonna
say them slowly. So I mets a riggatoni, which is
like a half half sized riggatoni, So like you know,
(15:59):
riggatoni is usually long. That's what you're eating there, So
half size of rigatoni with porcini mushrooms and like a
caccio pepe crust. You like that. So it's like peccorino,
little mozzarella and then some black pepper. Of course, I'm
gonna make that perfect this weekend. Then, um, just like
(16:21):
a classic room with pennay tomatoes and mozzarella and basil.
You put the mozzarella on top, let it bake. It's delicious.
And these are all sort of like I would say,
fancier versions than like then, Like what I think of
is the the the Italian American Stalwart, which is big ZD.
You know that has like ricotta and tomato and delicious,
(16:42):
serves a purpose. Then I like using shells me too.
I love stuffed shells. This one has ricotta, fontina cheese,
tomatoes and Calabrian chilies. Where'd you get that one? What
do you mean? I made it up? Oh? Can you
see me the recipe? Yeah, it's got out our front
tomato sauce and Colobian chilies. And then I don't know,
(17:04):
have you ever have you ever had um? I buy
these squid inc shells, the little the smaller shells, and
they're they're black squid ink. So I like making a
sort of like a crab gratin. So it's like a
creamy crab sauce in with the squid ink shells, but
the shells are smaller, right, They're smaller, And then it's
(17:27):
like it's like creamy and there's like anyway, and then
I do like a lemon and chovy bread crumb on top. Good.
You should make that one. And then this one we're
eating today is the rigatoni with the vodka sauce and
the broccoli rob and the hot Italian sausage. Delicious. And
then one more or quiette you know, do you know
(17:47):
what orchetta means? Little ears? Oh cute? And make that
with like the Bolognese sauce and parmesan on top, so
it's like a it's a meat sauce. I feel like
I always have it with like broccoli rob and sausage.
What that's a classic. Actually, that's a classic dish you Rob,
(18:08):
sausage archaete tomato cream situation. Yeah, it's a version of that.
(18:31):
So I'll show you what it looks like when it
comes out. Is it ready yet? Oh? It's looking good? Whoa,
oh Dad? That looks sick, doesn't it? Yeah? Let me
get a picture. Looks great, doesn't it. I'm happy with that. Yep,
all right, I'll bring it over to the the podcasting table. Okay, perfect.
(18:58):
How's the ovened table pasta? As pasta is so good?
It's kind of you know, listen for you. I didn't
really take a risk. I used that tomato vodka sauce, creamy,
creamy tomato vodka sauce that you love. There's sausages, is broccoli, Rob,
it's baked crispy cheese. But this is a good dish
for you to make it home. How do you feel
(19:18):
about of the table desserts? Harder? No? Not actually not really?
That's actually not a bad idea you could do. You
could do like a baked cake in these casuelas really
well or as who flay really is a hard but
you could do it. But you could do like games
(19:39):
known for your bake ame. Okay, I don't know if
you saw my um morning buns. No, but I'll never
forget my dry birthday cake? Was it? Really? It was terrible.
It wasn't terrible. It was just like, wow, you try
(19:59):
good one. What kind of cake was it? It was
like vanilla with chocolate, I think. I mean, the only
reason why I can give you a hard time about
it is because that basically never happens. So I mean, well, yeah,
my baking. My baking is just so it's like it's
(20:19):
one of those crazy things where like when I decide,
which is very rare, when I decided to bake something,
I literally sabotage myself, Like I go into it knowing
that I'm going to mess it up. I don't just
follow the I don't just follow like the recipe of
some great pastry chef. Oh no, I have to like
(20:39):
take a shortcut or change something or you know, substitute
one flower for the other. Because because it's like it's
almost like if I don't sabotage myself, I'm not going
to be happy about it. It's ridiculous. But you can
definitely do in the table. You can do like like
like like like like a chocolate lava cake. And because
well we work really well. Actually, and actually what's really nice.
(21:03):
You can set the batter. You can you can put
the batter in the caswells, get small ones and have
it ready and then just take some egg whites and
then fold it in and then put it in the
in the oven when you're when you're ready to order.
It's almost like baking the cake to order. And he goes,
you know, basically from the oven to the table. That
(21:24):
actually works, and just serve a lot of vanilla gelatto
next to it. You know. The other thing I like
to do is I actually like to make um. I
like to cook steaks and cast iron and serve them
right into the especially like a like a Porterhouse steak.
I like, I like cooking Porterhouse steaks in a cast
iron pan. What's one of my actually, it's one of
my favorite. It's one of my most well known recipes.
It's Katie Lee makes it once a week and I
(21:47):
have to say every time she makes it and post it.
She's like, Bobby taught me this. It's a Porterhouse steak
that I cook in a cash iron pan. And the
way that you cook it is really it's unorthodox, like
it goes against it goes against the grain of like
of like good technique, but it works incredibly well. What
(22:07):
is it? I'm not going to tell. You have to
look it up, can you just you want to know? Okay,
So you take a porterhouse steak, which is like it
it looks like a t bone and it has you know,
the filet on one side of the bone. On the
other side of the bone is a strip steak. You
know what a portouse looks like. Okay, So you get
a cash iron pan. You put it on top of
the stove. You get it ripping hot, some good cooking
(22:28):
oil like canola or something like that, lots of salt
and pepper on both sides. You put it down on
one of the one of the sides, and you let
it like just get crusty as can be, you know,
like it's like it's almost like it's like deep frying
in the in the oil, really crusty. Don't flip it.
Let it get crusty. It's probably gonna take about five
(22:50):
four or five minutes. Okay, turn it over, let it
cook for about a minute. Take it out. You slice
it on the off the bone, straight down on both
sides into thick slices. And then you put it back
on the bone and back in the pan, so you're
(23:11):
refitting it back on but it's now sliced and raw.
It's raw. Then I take some unsalted butter, whole butter,
put it on top of the steak to cover the steak,
salt and pepper, and then I put it in the broiler, okay,
which is what we did with this posta today. And
then what happens is is the butter melts, It gets
(23:33):
really hot. It melts and it goes in between the
crevices of the steak and it basically based and cooks
the steak perfect medium rare. And then you take it out.
It doesn't take long. You can overcook this very quickly.
You take it out and you take a spoon and
you and you take the take the juices from the
butter and the steak that have now become one, and
(23:56):
you put it on top of the you based the
steak on top, and then you serve it right in
the cast on your pants. Now, the cast on your
pants can be very hot. So if you're gonna put
it on your table and make sure you have like
a tribute or some sort or or you know, a
towel or something, and then you serve right in the
middle and it's like it's it's it's a superstar because
it smells great, it's sizzling, and it's the best steak
(24:18):
you've ever tasted. I learned it from actually going When
I was shooting a show called Food Nation, I went
to Peter Luger in Brooklyn, one of the most famous
steakhouses in the world. Also just f y, I gonna
be my neighborhood Caesar's Palace. They're opening at the end
of twenty two. Lugar, I can't wait. I already sent
(24:40):
him a note. I'll trade you like a whole fish
and a plate of pasta for a porterhouse anytime. I'm
ready for it. Anyway, I was there and I went
into the kitchen and I saw them do it. I
was like, what are they doing? Oh? And what were
they doing? They were making perfect steaks, right of course.
And so you know, I've told the story a number
of times, but Appetite did a big story about this.
(25:02):
You know, when I was opening Goto. One of the
things that we talked about, interesting, could I do that?
Of course? Is that like to advanced? No, you like
I want you to be a little bit more confident
to stove if you if it listen, Sophie, if you
mess up, it doesn't matter, no, but then I have
(25:23):
to do it again. You don't. It's go to go
to be hungry. It's not gonna be that bad. Like,
no matter what, you're gonna get through it. You're gonna
have something that you can eat. It might not be perfect,
but that's the way you do this. There's no substitute
for experience you have. You have to do these things,
these things over and over. Always Hungry is created by
(25:43):
Bobby Flay and Sophie Flay. Our executive producer is Christopher Hasiotis.
Always Hungry is produced, edited, and mixed by Jonathan how Stressler.
Always Hungry is engineered by Sophie Flay. For more podcasts
from my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app
Apple Podcast wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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