January 23, 2023 • 45 mins
Wells and Tyler are mixing it up with TikTok cooking star Omi Hopper as she shares her favorite Puerto Rican dishes (as well as her recipe for becoming a TikTok cooking star!)
Plus Tyler shares his secret “par cooked chicken” recipe!
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's Two Dudes in a Kitchen with Tyler Florence and
Wells Adams and I heart radio podcast. All right, I
hope you guys are hungry because it's time for another
episode of Two Dudes in a Kitchen. I'm Wells Adams
and that is Tyler Florence. Man, how are you, sir?
I'm doing good. Welcome to Uh we're officially in it now.
(00:22):
And yeah, I have all my resolutions I failed on
and so whatever, yeah whatever, who who cares? I mean,
I think for the most Partice we talked about this
last episode as far as like, you know, no New Year,
New you and making the best of situations and that
kind of stuff. And I think, you know, keep it simple.
(00:43):
I I think you know, you want to have some
resolutions that are attainable and doable and uh. And like
I said before, I think one of the most important
things you could ever do that requires very little effort.
It's just be more positive about your life and about
things that are kind of coming around you, right, like,
so to shake off the negativity and and try to
try to find the positive side of things, right, try
(01:05):
to find the happiness, try to make yourself happy, make
yourself a happy person because the energy that you throw out,
if it's if it's good, honest, like really good positive energy,
you're gonna get that back to enfold and you're gonna
see how your life story it changes. And and no
time at all. It just doesn't take a lot of work,
you know, just to just to be happy, just to smile. Yeah. Well,
one of the things that makes me happy is eating well.
(01:26):
And you know, I have stuck to this resolution, which
is to be a better cook in and the way
that I'm doing that is visa V my good friend
Tyler Florence over there. Um, So today I want to
really break down on intended I guess the chicken. I
want to talk about making chicken, best cuts of the chicken,
(01:49):
best practices in butchering and then seasoning and then cooking.
So I'm kind of putting you on the spot here
because I don't know if you knew we were going
to talk about this, But I feel like every episode
we should focus on kind of one staple in the kitchen.
And I think chicken is the number one staple out there,
(02:11):
so it definitely is. And and and I didn't I
wasn't really crystal clear what we're gonna jump into. But
I think it's kind of great. And first of all,
committing to cooking, I think is the first step to
really kind of owning your kitchen space and feeling comfortable
in your kitchen spaces. And I'm gonna cook, right And
I think that you know, the most important thing when
it comes to cooking and starting cooking, especially of a
(02:31):
new year, from a resolution standpoint, it's just to pick
a cookbook, right, pick a lane, you know, pick a
culinary lane, like, because there's chicken dishes everywhere if you
like chicken specifically, right, Like you could say, I really
love the flavors of Mexico, I really love the flavors
of Spain, or I really love the flavors of the
American South, or really love the flavors of whatever, right, Italy, France, whatever.
(02:52):
Find a cookbook or finding like a digital resource, and
then just kind of like find a couple of good,
simple recipes that you feel like are attainable. You know,
chicken is always a great play to start, just because
you know, you know everyone's gonna love it and you
get your hands on it and it's relatively easy to cook.
And then and then just kind of jump into it,
and I think your mastering four or five, you know,
really good chicken recipes on your belts, You've got like
a good rotation. You know, if you're gonna you're cooking
(03:13):
for your loved ones, are you're cooking for a dinner party,
you should always have like you know, I think ten
to twelve dishes on your belt. They're just like rock stars, right,
and then you can just kind of put the rotation.
People ask for them that kind of stuff, right, So
that's the first part. But then kind of going back
to what you're talking about specifically with like chicken, um
it's the most popular search term in the culinary world,
you know, like chicken by far and away, like what
(03:36):
people are really kind of looking for out there. Boneless
skinless chicken breast is of course number one, UM, which
which to me and it's not my favorite cut? Do
you like boneless skinless chicken breast? I don't. I find
it similar to like a filet. I don't think that
the filet is the best cut of a cow, but
for some reason on menus at restaurants, it is always
(04:00):
like the one that's featured. And I feel like that
same way with chicken breasts. I I tend to like
the darker meat and the fattier meat, which is usually
thighs and legs. Yeah, for sure. Um, I'm with you.
Like boneless skinless chicken breast, especially in like the like
if it's a cafe, or if it's like a you know,
a cob salad, or if it's some sort of like
pasta dish. You know, boneless skinless chicken breasts is just
(04:20):
sort of like neutral and you know, easy to cook
and that kind of stuff. Um. But but it doesn't
have a lot of fat that is flavor, fats, moisture, right,
And so I think when it comes to cooking chicken,
I think if you had to kind of put it
into a category like thighs and number one my favorite,
like a chicken thigh is so bomb and you can
buy them like boneless skinless chicken thighs if the bones
(04:42):
and the skins kind of freak out because sometimes people
have a texture thing with chicken. Um uh. And I
think those cook up just as well as as a
chicken breast if you're gonna grill it or pan fry
it or make a chicken cutlet or you know, what's
really popular now is like, you know, like a Nashville
Hot chicken sandwich. You know, the chicken eyes are just
like the way to go. And I think that that's
(05:03):
my number one most delicious like part part of the chicken.
The second one is gonna be the chicken wing. The
chicken wing. I think I could. I could crush chicken
wings like I'm a chicken wing fained. Okay, here's the question.
Are you have flats or a drumming guy? No flats
all day all? Like I think the drums are cute
and all, but like the real flavors and the flats
and I could take and the and just so if
(05:24):
people are listening to this and either you know exactly
what Wells is talking about it you don't. So the
drum at is the part of the chicken wing that's
connected to the breast, right, and it kind of ends
at like the knuckle piece, and when you when you
butcher it down, it kind of looks like a little
chicken leg or a drum at, right. And the flats
is that flat part that has the two bones that
kind of runs all the way through. I think that
(05:46):
is the most delicious tender, you know. And I had
this method of like cleaning the entire chicken flat thing
out with with my teeth and kind of getting everything
and like perfectly cleaning two bones. Um. But when my
my team, each son Haydn I go to dinner because
he's a big chicken wing fan. Two that we just
kind of get messy with it right. Well, order you know,
order two dozen wings and a few different sauces, and
(06:09):
then you know, like prison style, we're just like kind
of just you know, face down, eating a big mess
of wings and just kind of loving it. Right. So,
I I think that those are two my two favorite cuts,
or the thigh and then and then the wing and
and then you know, when it comes to like the breast,
I think the breast is it can be really elegant.
I think it can be really really delicious. I think
a brine for a chicken breast is a great way
(06:31):
to handle that. And that's like a that's like a
like a ford you know, sorry, like like an eight
to one, like salt water solution. Um. So you have
just enough salt inside the liquid to kind of give
it a little bit of flavor to it, uh, and
then you can throw some citrus, some garlic, fresh herbs,
and then through osmosis, the moisture from the brine itself
(06:53):
will get absorbed into the chicken from because of the salt,
only the same way that if you have either one
too many salt and margaritas or one too many dirty
martiniz the next day you kind of feel a little puffy, right,
like water, salted water will get absorbed into the chicken itself,
and then that's gonna be extra moisture, that's gonna be
extra flavor, uh, and and and a delicateness to it,
(07:16):
so it's seasoned from the inside out, which I think
is really really nice. And then I think when it
comes to cooking, because I I can make a boneless,
skinless chicken breast make you cry just so incredibly delicious,
so it really kind of feels like a filet mignon
and not something just kind of hammered and overcooked. So
that's time and temperature, right, So you so you want
to take the I think brining chicken breasts a way
(07:38):
to go for sure, right, So let's just assume we're
gonna brine it, and then then after maybe two hours
in the brine, which is gonna be plenty and and
you you could weigh the chicken before and after, and
the brine chicken breast is gonna be heavier because it's
gonna absorb the salted water, and again it's gonna translate
all that flavor to the inside the chicken breast and
it's just gonna be delicious. So the next thing I
gotta do is you gotta pad it dry, right, you gotta.
(08:00):
It's got to be as dry as you can possibly
get it on the outside. So you just, you know,
let it hang out on a paper towel. Did you
wash it out of the package as well as you
wash it off the water, because sometimes it's like a
little slimy, you know, And and that that just depends
like like I don't wash my chicken, right, um um.
But but I I get impeccably fresh chicken from really
good sources and usually just a grocery store that I
(08:21):
feel really comfortable with, and that kind of thing. Now,
when when you get chicken, I do think I'm gonna
I'm gonna splitch gears. We're gonna finish talking about how
to cook the chicken breast for a second, but I
want to answer your question because I think this is
important so when it comes to handling protein, we have
I have a few just like plastic cutting boards that
I put on top of my pretty wooden cutting boards
if I'm handling raw protein, right, because it's not so
(08:43):
much about the the chicken itself, the the you know,
the moisture of it would make you sick necessarily. What
would happen is that the protein that's inside the liquid
in the water would settle inside of a cut board,
and then that bacteria on something that you probably wouldn't cook,
(09:04):
like a piece of toast or something, or or you know,
some fresh vegetables like that could possibly make you sick
from a bacteria standpoint, right, but rarely would like the
chicken itself make you sick. If you're eating cuts of
meat that are potentially that contaminated, then maybe you shouldn't
be eating them in the first place, or maybe you
should have a better source, because like most most chicken
plants are incredibly impeccably clean. You know, if you get
(09:27):
like a really kind of fresh chicken, of course you
want to check the cell by date when when you're
shopping for chicken. Organic air dried is another great way
to make sure that that the chicken is gonna be
healthier and cleaner. Uh, air cool chicken. That's a that's
a really kind of interesting label to kind of look
for on top of chicken. So when they process the chicken,
they have to bring the temperature, which is degrees back
(09:50):
down to something that's like you know, and in the
in the high thirties, low forties pretty quickly. So sometimes
in big vats. And this is where sometimes the bacteria
thing will kind of come in a conversation. Uh, they'll
cool the chickens in a big vat of just cold water,
and it's not really you know, it's not necessarily the
most sanitary thing where air cool chicken goes into a
(10:11):
cooler and gets blasted with air, so there's no the
possible of cross contamination is dropped down dramatically when it
comes to that, right, So I I think, but you know,
taking it back to processing kind of in your own kitchen,
I think having a plastic cutting board, right that is
sort of your protein board. And if you watch all
of our videos, if we're ever like cutting raw meat,
we will take the you know, white plastic cutting board,
(10:32):
put it on top of our pretty wooden cutting board.
And that's what we're gonna cut raw chicken on, and
then the cutting board goes into the sink, you wash
your hands, uh, you put the chicken on a plate
or something so it's not gonna touch any sort of
a kind of wooden surface, and then you're in good shape.
Then you're ready to cook something. But I think that's
probably the best way to make sure that you're gonna
just have like a safe, sanitary kind of cooking environment
(10:54):
when it comes to chicken. Um. But but for the
most part, like the chicken itself is not going to
make you sick, right, but it's the residue of having
it sort of having the protein uh water drip into
a wooden surface that's not necessarily gonna get cleaned, and
then that touches a row vegetable. That's where the cross
contamination is going to come from. Got ya all right?
(11:15):
Go back to your chicken chicken rest that's gonna make
you cry. So I think this is kind of like
one of those fun things to do because it just
it goes with everything. Right. You can have it for
dinner with mashed potatoes. You can slice it thin and
put it on top of the cops salad. You can
slice it thin and fold it into pasta. Um, you
you can, you can barbecue it, you can eat it
(11:36):
cold out of the refrigerator. It's really good too. So
time and temperature. So you and I have talked about
an incant wreath thermometer a couple of times, right, did
you get one of this for Christmas? Tell me you did? Beautiful?
So now, um, this is gonna be a little controversial too,
but there you go, boom, look at you, brotherly and
whipping it out, my friend. The instant wreath thermometer is
gonna it's gonna be that because it's got to be subtle, right,
(11:58):
So most like sites and resources will say you gotta
cook chicken north at one sixty sometimes one seventy and
and I think that's real hardcore dehydration zone. Right, So
that says on the back of the one that I've
got in the studio right now, a chicken, turkey and
poultry one sixty five one sixty five, one sixty five
is like with the north side of what what I
(12:21):
think is done. Because when you're in that that you're
basically drying the chicken out, right, So forty two one
forty is going to be your temperature danger zone right
when it comes to cooking stuff. Right, so anywhere between
forty two one forty, bacteria has a has a proclivity
to just like rapidly evolved and and so so anyways,
but but a north of one forty, you're kind of
in in and like really good shape. Now, nobody likes
(12:43):
a hundred forty degree chicken because that would look like
it's like medium, medium, rare whatever it is. Right, But
but once you kind of get into like the one
fifty five one fifty seven range, right, And I know
it sounds kind of subtle difference between that and one
sixty and one sixty five, but it all makes a
huge difference. Right. So okay, so we got our chicken
breast briant, right, We're gonna put it onto a paper towel.
We're gonna let it dry, and then you're gonna get
(13:03):
a nice big saute pan um um non stick if
you got it, if not, doesn't make a big difference,
And then you're gonna get it hot. You're gonna preheat
your pan, and then you're gonna add room temperature olive
oil to it and you're gonna let that come to
a slight smoke. Right, We're not gonna catch the house
on fire, but we want to have a little shimmer,
a little sort of like you know, it needs to
be hot enough to really begin to caramelize approaching right away. Okay,
(13:27):
So then so then you want you want to hit
the chicken breast, a little bit of salt on the outside,
a little bit of extra virgin olive oil on the outside,
a little pepper if you want to. And then and
then you want to because the chicken breast can be heavy,
you can grabbing with tongs. And then you want to
drop it into the sautae pan away from you, not
towards you, because you don't want to oil the splash
on You want the splash on the counter in the
back right. And then and then and then you should
(13:49):
be able to kind of give the pan a little
shake and it shouldn't stick. And which is kind of
like a magic trick that do in front of people
all the time. You create like a non stick surface
out of a regular saute pan. Would just like preheating
the pan, adding room temperature olive oil to it, right,
and and then and then you want to cook it right.
So so we're gonna get like a really nice what
they call my yard reaction, and that's where the proteins
(14:11):
and the amino acids will start to melt and form
this really delicious, beautiful brown crust on the outside of it. Right.
And then once you start to start to smell really good,
your nose is going to give you the first signal
that you're in you're doing something great, right, And then
sometimes I'll turn the temperature down a little bit, specifically
if it's still feel like it's starting to splatter a
little bit, right, and sort of turn the temperature down
(14:32):
just a little bit. And then we're going to cook
it through on the stove top in the sautepe pan
from beginning to end. Okay, So then once you get
a really really nice brown color, and we're talking about
you know, maybe maybe seven to eight minutes on one side,
don't flip it and flip and flip it because you
really want to have contact time with the pan itself. Right.
(14:53):
And then when you have seven eight minutes, you've got
a really nice golden crust on the outside. You also
wanna take your tongues. You're gonna flip it over and
then you're gonna cook cook the other side. Now you've
already cooked it. I would say probably more than halfway
through through the heat has transferred through the chicken breast
on one side, like it's it's pretty much halfway cooked
already on the other side. And then when you flip
(15:13):
it over, um, you've got a presentation side which is
gonna be the side you're looking at right now, which
is gonna be just a really pretty nice and golden brown,
And that's gonna that's the side that's gonna go on
on the plate, you know, kind of like brown side
um side up. Right now, you want to start robing
your chicken to make sure it's cooked to the perfect temperature,
right and then so you know, obviously the thickest part
(15:35):
is going to take the longest to cook. The tail piece,
the skinny you're part of the chicken breasts is gonna
take a little bit of less time to cook. But
you're looking for an internal temperature of about a hundred
and fifty degrees right and then so so anything north
of that, you're really just starting to dry your chicken out. Right,
So if you've had chicken, I'm sure you have, it
feels really dry, like a mouthful of puffy cotton. Yeah,
you know, it's just awful because there's no moisture in whatsoever. Right,
(15:57):
But if you, if you, if you once you kind
of hit that one ff that temperature zone, and then
you want to take it out and just kind of
let let it rest for a little bit and then
and then you slice it. It's gonna be perfectly cooked.
And then you're gonna be shocked about how much how
juicy the bird is, right and and even sort of
slicing it, and how how moist it looks it looks
(16:20):
and feels like and all that is just really kind
of perfect. It's the same thing I do with turkey
at Thanksgiving, Dude, Like it's it's just if you perfectly
cook at turkey. You don't really how wear chicken breasts.
You don't have to do a lot to it to
really kind of make it amazing. Then dude, finish it
and I squeeze a lemon juice. You know you can
hit finish it with like some fresh chopped parsley parmesan
cheese like and then and then hit it with finish
(16:42):
it with whatever you want, right, I mean, you know
the which is, you know, the wonderful thing about a boneless,
skinless chicken breast. It's so neutral you can do so
you can do anything with it, and it's just kind
of like a perfect yummy weeknight meal. I literally chicken breast,
a little bit of brine, right, you're gonna brine it
right then, and then you want to hit it with
um just great um um. You know, time and temperature
(17:05):
and be really smart about it. And then you know,
make sure you're using you insurree thermometer and kind of
getting some really really kind of fantastic uh, you know,
moisturize that, and then I think you've got something really great.
So you get to internal, you pull it off. How
long we're resting for, you know, seven to eight minutes
or so, you know, like before you before you cut
it and put it onto the plate, and then again
(17:27):
you don't even really have to do You can just
put it straight in a play or straight into a platter, uh,
and then and then rocket and it's ready to go.
So if you get a really nice eight ounce chicken breast,
you can cut that in half, and I think that's
food for two people plus a couple of a side
dish or two or salad or you know, a side
of pasta or potatoes or something like that. I think
you got a really, really nice one. I think that's great.
(17:50):
When buying a chicken, do you believe in buying a
whole chicken and then butchering it yourself or buying just
exactly what you want? Well? I think it depends, right.
I mean, like, so when you think about chicken, what's
the first thing that you think about? I think chicken wings,
chicken wings. I love chicken wings. Then obviously you're not
(18:13):
gonna buy a whole chicken. But I do like making
rice and soups and stuff like that. And so in
my mind, I like to butch your down a chicken
and then use that, um, you know, the cavity of
of the chicken to make cage right, the bones right, Yeah,
(18:34):
and and so you can do a lot with that, right.
A whole chicken is gonna give you some guests, right,
especially if you really like to make bone broth or
if you'd like to make chicken stock. Um. That's one
of the great things about you know, roasting a whole chicken, uh,
and then using kind of the carcass and the pieces
and the dripping seduced to to make something really really
kind of yummy and interesting, like a nice sort of
(18:55):
secondary dish out of it, like chicken noodle soup or whatever.
But I think, you know, it just depends on what
you when when you think about chicken, Like what do
you what do you think about immediately? Right? Is a
beautiful whole roasted chicken exactly what you're thinking about? Um?
Do uh? Do your family like you know, mixed pieces
and parts like I like thighs, they like breasts, some
(19:16):
of us likes legs. That I think getting a whole
chicken and broaching it down it's probably you know, the
best way to go. You know it just you know,
sometimes you go to the grocery store and it's like, dude,
it's already cut, it's in the package. You know, I
gotta do a season. It's ready to rock and roll.
And I'm and sometimes like, you know, the convenience of
all that is exactly what what the the recipes call for. Sometimes,
like you know, things can be you know, too too
(19:38):
difficult to make it make sense. But dude, I love
a perfect roasted chicken, like four hundred degrees for an hour. Um,
I think that that's like, you know, if you it's
my dead on perfect, fantastic recipe. I've been using rocking
for years. Uh. If you fill the cavity with you know,
a lemon cut in half ahead of garlic cut in half,
you know, fresh time, fresh lemon, fresh stage, salt and pepper,
(20:00):
tie the legs together so it fits so it looks
more like a football instead of you know, stead of
sort of floppy and open like really kind of so
it cooks nice and evenly four degrees for an hour,
perfect every single time. And again you're looking for you
know about a one internal temperature. Uh, and I think
that's great. And then this other thing that we've been
rocking lately, which is which is kind of cool. Do
(20:21):
you like grilled chicken? You like barbecue chicken? Absolutely? Absolutely right.
So one thing that we've been doing is kind of
like this reverse here chicken, which is which is just fire.
It's so it's so great, Like I don't think I'll
barbecue chicken any other way ever. Again, this is the
new new. Are you ready for this? Late on me?
This is the new new? Okay, So you're gonna take
(20:42):
either whole chicken, cut it up into ten pieces, or
you're gonna buy frier parts, which is gonna be legs
and thighs whatever it is. Right now, we like to
make a little sort of seasoning mix out of like salt, pepper, lemon, zest,
crushed garlic, you know, fresh sage, fresh rosemary. Chop it
all up, right, and then you just want toss the
chicken and it's like really really nice season mix. Put
it onto a sheet pan, and then we're gonna bake
(21:04):
it in the oven as low as it can possibly go,
like two hundred degrees for about an hour. Right, and
and so we we were we we've been playing around
with this. This is sort of a hybrid of my
famous fried chicken recipe that it's on Food and Wine magazine, Um,
but it crosses over in so many different other outlets
other than just fried chicken. Right, So, grilling chicken raw
(21:28):
to cook on the grill, you're gonna get hot spots,
it's gonna burn, and you're gonna get flare ups, right
and and and you're gonna dry it out. It's it's
it's difficult to to get it right, even even for
me necessarily. Right, it's not gonna be not every piece
is gonna be perfect until now. Right, Because now, if
you park, cook the chicken for about an hour at
(21:50):
the lowest possible temperature you can possibly get down and
ankle look pretty right, you can. You're gonna, you're gonna,
you're gonna say, okay, you know, I was listening to
two dudes in the kitchen and I pulled off the
first part of this recipe and it ain't much. Look
at what's going on here, it's not the point, right, Like,
so you want to part cook the chicken, especially at
a low temperature, right, because like moisture turns into a
(22:11):
vapor at too twelve, right, So that's where anything higher
than that you're really gonna start to get mass evaporation.
Especially if you're talking about three seventy five four degrees
five degrees like grill five, you know, four and fifty
degrees like grill hot, you're just gonna get massive operation
on moisture. Right. But if you can cook it slowly
at a low temperature for about an hour, par cook
(22:35):
it for about an hour, you're gonna all the fat's
gonna stay in place, and you're gonna retain a bunch
of moisture. And two hundred degrees is hot enough to
cook something, right, So it's gonna start to cook. And
then and then you want to cook it until if
you know, playing with your instant real thermometer, you want
to go for about a hundred and thirty degrees undred
forty degrees medium medium rare, you know what I mean,
(22:55):
if you have to think about it as a steak.
And then this is where this gets super fun. So
now you can throw on any kind of marinate on
top of that, right, you can throw on any barbecue sauce,
karake sauce, you know, honey mustard, you know, French vinigrette. Uh,
you could you could dust it with like a like
a barbecue dry spice and grill it like that. Right,
(23:16):
But now we're we're gonna instead of going from raw
to cook, which could take easily ten to twelve minutes,
we're gonna cut that down to about six minutes. And
and so you're gonna you're gonna start grilling the chicken
right with the you know, straight straight out of the
oven onto the sheet pan and then straight onto the grill.
And you're gonna start to mark it right, and you
can start to cook it, and then you're gonna start
(23:38):
to mop it right. And and now you're you're the
only thing you're really doing is kind of finishing the
chicken all the way through and then really thinking about
the exterior of the chicken, right, the sort of like
the the mopping of the chicken, the glazing of the chicken,
the caramelization of the sugars, and the sauce to really
kind of make it nice and sticky and golden brown. Right,
(23:59):
So you know, barbecue sauce, you know, like I said, like,
you know, really kind of great. Like we did one
not too long ago with like a pacada butter, which
is just insane. So I think that kind of park
cooked chicken, I think to me, like that's the new new, right,
So it's like what could we call it, like reverse
here chicken. So it's like a whole chicken, breast cut
up in pieces, really good nice herby citrus, garlican marinade,
(24:22):
bake it until you get about one thirty and then
finished on the grill, and then you can take it
to a million different directions however you want to. But
it's the best juiciest chicken that I think you'll ever cook.
It's one of our what we call our benchmark recipes,
which we think if a recipe hits that benchmark status,
it's as good as it gets until we top it, right,
(24:43):
And I think reverse her Chicken on the grill is
just banging. You gotta make that new a TikTok my man. Well, yeah,
I feel like we did it on Instagram. You know
what I think we gotta do. Man, I think we
gotta we gotta start really cooking on on with this
little thing we're doing now. It's in the catch fire.
I was at the restaurant the other night at Miller
and Lux and like a couple of tables because I
(25:04):
always kind of walk out in the dining room and
say hi, and people like the love in the podcast,
you know, such good feedback. You know, we had this
one couple, so they crushed like four or five episodes
on a car ride not too long ago. And so
I think we're doing some good stuff. So I think
you and I we gotta start like doing these like
maybe cook along things like on Instagram. You know, I'm
in my kitchen, you're in yours. Yeah, yeah, we should
(25:26):
do Alive. Well I still alive, bro. That works. Two
dudes in the kitchen live. You gotta take the show
on the road. That's right. Uh. Speaking of social media,
I'm not sure if you've seen her on TikTok named
Bomi and it's at cooking, cooking, call on me. Yeah. Man.
She was a successful like makeup artist on TikTok and
(25:49):
then the pandemic hit and she pivoted over to cooking
traditional Puerto Rican diitions and she's absolutely exploded on social
media and coming up in just a couple of minutes
after the break, we're going to have on me on
the show and we're gonna talk everything order Reacan cooking,
and I'm so very excited for it. Quick break, we
(26:10):
come back, We'll have owe me on. Two Dudes in
a kitchen. All right, welcome back to two dudes in
a kitchen. It's now two dudes in a kitchen with
a beautiful young lady. It's oh me hopper, How are
you doing good? How are you guys? I'm doing great.
You went from successful makeup artists to TikTok star. Tell
(26:33):
me how that works. That's what a pandemic does to you.
And you're stuck in the house with Yes, no, I
was stuck at home like everyone else, of course, you know,
taking care of our bodies. Taking care of our health,
and my boys were all on zoom calls from school.
I have four boys, by the way, three of which
(26:54):
were in school, and I was trying not to lose
my mind up and here, up and here. So what
I did was I decided that I was going to
record myself just cooking my traditional Puerto ricanditions. And before
I knew it, I had over a hundred thousand followers
in less than three months. Yeah, we were looking at
(27:17):
your numbers before we brought you on. Over half a
million followers on TikTok, almost three hundred thousand on Instagram,
over fifty thousand on YouTube. My question is, did you
do like makeup tutorials on social media beforehand? Uh? And
was that also as popular I did. I did do
(27:37):
makeup tutorials on my Instagram page, which I had had
for years, but I never had the popularity that I
have been cooking Go Home Me And honestly, I believe
there's so much too. The fact that in the makeup world,
I felt like I needed to fit a mold and
I needed I needed to kind of be very cautious
(28:00):
with how I expressed myself because of course it was
my business. It was the way that I attracted clients,
it was the way that I operated business. So I
was very cautious with that, where with cooking Cohomie, I
just said, I took a pill of effort all and
I was like, let's just do this, Let's just do
it the way that I how I am. I think
(28:23):
one of my favorite things about your videos is, I
mean the food looks delicious. Uh, it's like very approachable,
Like it's not like crazy, uh James Beard Award winning,
like needed no way too much about cooking. But it's
also a Spanish lesson, Like I feel like I'm learning
(28:44):
Spanish the entire time I'm watching your video. So my
entire channel is Spanglish. It's it's a little bit of
Spanish a little bit of English, because neither of them
are very good looking for me, so I speak both.
But I tried to do it in the same way
that my grandmother taught me. I was raised with all
(29:05):
the amazing women in my family, my grandmother, my aunt's,
my mom. They all cooked in the kitchen. There was
always a party, someone was always thinking and dancing, everyone's
trying each other's foods, and that was just how I
learned I learned in that atmosphere, and so I figured
if I can learn like this, many others can also
learn like this as well. Now I love Puerto Rico.
(29:29):
It's one of my favorite places in the world. And
now I live in California, I don't get a chance
to go as much as I did when I lived
in New York City. And I was in New York
City for about fifteen years, and I'd go to Puerto
Rico at least once a year, if not twice a year.
And it was just kind of my island, right, I mean,
I just like a old San Juan. I could I
could literally live there. It's one of my favorite places
in the world. And uh, and then you know, like
(29:50):
the entire island is so interesting. Um you know, like
a junque you're from the rainforest. It's in the center
of the island, ncle Own on the west coast. I
think it's one of the the most beautiful like surf capitals
of the world. Aguadia. You know, like my is like
all these amazing places that they're just so like you know,
rural and interesting and and and then and then there's
(30:13):
the food, um, which has this kind of like beautiful
smash up between you know, Latin American flavor profiles, but
then something it feels very Caribbean all the same time, right,
and so so talk about that for execut because I
I think Puerto Rican food definitely has its own identity,
but I think it's it's coming into its own and
I think it deserves a, you know, a pretty clear definition,
(30:34):
like what is Puerto Rican food? Oh my god, I
absolutely love this question. And first of all, thank you
so much for shouting out all of the best spots
in Puerto Rico. There's so many more, but Ponce in
the South like the most beautiful m production of the world.
Like I've been all over Puerto Rico and love it.
I love that. I love that. And yes, the food
in Puerto Rico, we are in the Caribbean, and we
(30:55):
are heavily, heavily influenced by our Spaniard, our African Entino roots.
And when you're talking about our foods, there's so much
of it that you can grab from each of those
and when what you see now, right, what has really
made it so popular is the fact that we've kept
(31:16):
so much of those traditions and continue on adding to them,
so there's more fungo. But then you've got yuka. There's
no there's you know, everyone is always adding to it
and making it their own. And that's really what I
intended to do in the kitchen when I'm cooking. That's
what I love to show in your kitchen, your your boss.
(31:40):
Let's do it up, but let's not lose tradition. I
love that. A lot of pork, a lot of plantains,
you know, a lot of really good, deep saving flavors.
Oh yeah, oh my god, like single. If you don't
have pork, it's come on, what are we doing here?
What are we doing here? Yeah? Exactly. It just you know,
it's food that kind of makes me happy, and it's
(32:02):
it's a culture that I think is just so kind
of warm and welcoming. You know, every time you go
to Puerto Rico, if it's not like on your list
of places that you're thinking about traveling to from a
vacation standpoint, you should because the weather is fantastic, like,
the climates amazing. The music is spectacular, Like there's like
that kind of Puerto Rican sort of like Latino jazz
(32:24):
kind of thing which is just so so amazing. And uh,
and then of course you get into the food. And
I also love the culture too, because like everyone stays
up late at night, right, there's like definitely like sort
of like a kind of a vacation vibe everywhere. And
uh and and the foods just so amazing. So we
love your TikTok videos. We love like kind of celebrating
that particular culture in the food. And and when when
(32:46):
you've been producing videos, uh, similar to me, like when
when when you write recipes, somethings just climbed to the top.
There's no real rhyme or reason of why things just
become like crazy popular. Um, what are some of the
blockbuster recipes that you've cranked out? You know, there is
no secret sauce or secret recipe to a specific recipe,
(33:08):
you know, doing doing the best. Um. I believe when
I put something in simple layman's terms, where it's just
get from point A to point B as easy as possible,
that is when people react and and love the most.
That's when they love it the most. My Moreo which
is more fungo with sautage shrimp and like garlic buttery sauce.
(33:32):
That thing took off like one point five million views
My Past Dayles video I took a recipe that usually
takes up to two days to make. It's a very
traditional Christmas recipe past dayles and I took my grandmother's
recipe and I tried to show it as authentic and
(33:53):
clear as possible. And that video did so well, And
it was six minutes long, which in the world of
social media, six minutes is a very long time. But
people were engaged the entire time. And I think it's that.
I think it's every time I explained something as simple
as possible, that's when people love it the most. So um,
(34:15):
then let's talk about mon Fogo for a second. I
think it's kind of like the dish of Puerto Rico
in a lot of ways. Right, it's the dish I
think a lot of people sort of recognize as like
purely Puerto rican Let's start from scratch, like what is
that more fungo is planting mash planting seasoned with garlic,
butter oil, and for grinds, you could do bacon. Look
(34:39):
at and then and then what do you do with that? Exactly?
So you like you fry the plantains. It's kind of
crispy on the antide. Yeah, so you're gonna fry your
plantains and you're going to get a very crispy plantain.
But then you're going to mash it up and that's
going to create the actual mash consists and see kind
(35:00):
of like a if a potato and a duca had
a baby. So that's what you're going to end up getting.
And it's beautifully seasoned with everything that I just mentioned.
And we're talking about ripe plantains, right, like yellow with
the black, not the green ones. Right, No, we're talking
the green ones. Although, like I said, because things have
evolved so you know so much now people make it
(35:25):
with the yellow, people make it with the duca, they
make it with the green. They even make it with
all three, and I mean that's amazing too. Growing up,
what was your favorite Puerto Rican dish what reminds you
of home? The most home for me is vienna komba alau.
So it's codfish and it is seasoned with olive oil
(35:49):
and vinegar and all of the onions and garlic and
peppers in a vinegrette almost but it's almost like a
soft fry, very soft fry in the beyond us, which
would always be grown in my grandmother's backyard. So you've
got your green bananas ducca, you know plantings, all of
(36:11):
those grown right in our backyard. That reminds me of home.
And this is a dish that has deep Spanish ancestry
to write if you think about it, because cod is
not a traditional fish that you're gonna find in the Caribbean. Yes, yes,
it is definitely one of our Spaniard recipes. Okay, So
if I'm going to a Puerto Rican restaurant tonight, what
(36:32):
do I absolutely need to order? You absolutely need to
order your more fungo with ca that's going to be
your number one and some good rice and beans never
hurt nobody. What am I drinking with it? Some Puerto
(36:53):
Rican wrong I call it. I call it pirate bourbon? Yes,
so good YouTube? All right? Oh me? So this uh,
this episode is all about chicken. We were talking about
chicken before we brought you on. Um I guess my
question is like, do you have any chicken hacks? Is
there a Puerto Rican style of chicken that you absolutely love? So?
(37:19):
I absolutely love Boio alcaldo. So when you're thinking of
a Spanish rice pot, you put your entire whole chicken
in that rice pot. It doesn't go in the oven.
You don't gotta do anything in the air. Fire is
just gonna go right on the stovetop with a little
bit of butter, and you're gonna cook it on the stovetop.
It is incredible. A whole chicken and a caldero as
(37:42):
juicy as it gets, and it homey and yummy and
delicious and feel it feels like a like a family favorite,
you know you just want. Yeah, it's a warm hug.
It goes straight from the oven, straight to the table.
Can't tear it apart. Everybody gets spoon. I think it's
delicious now, Like I I like the condiments, um like
Puerto Rican condiments. When it comes to stuff like that,
like what do you put on rice and beans? Frito sofrito.
(38:07):
You have to have safrito when you're thinking about any
Caribbean dish, any Latino food, by the way, because all
Latinos have their own version of sofrito, but Puerto Ricans
really have sofrito down to a science where it's a
mixture of seven vegetables. You've got your peppers, your onions, garlic,
Puerto Rican small sweet peppers, cilanthro coolan thro, which is
(38:31):
Cilantro's cousin that all together combined into this paste kind
of like a chimmy churi. But you're always going to
soft fry at first. That's why it's called sofrito. You
stopped right first before throwing anything in your pot. And
it is delicious. And don't you have your own sofrito
uh like sauce for sale? Yes? I do. I started off,
(38:58):
It's crazy, this has been a whirlwind where you know,
I that recipe went viral for me my self free
to recipe and viral and out of that recipe. I
remember during COVID, we I was attending a class where
someone was kind of giving us tips on how to
reopen after the COVID, right, and I had my makeup
(39:20):
studio that I was trying to reopen after COVID, even
though I was already doing the make up, the cooking tutorials,
the cooking videos. And someone recognized me from that class
and said, wait a minute, what are you doing trying
to open up your makeup business? Like I see you
cooking all the time and it's doing really good. What
are you doing here? And she was the person who
(39:41):
put me on and said, you really need to like
make make this. You have to make this, and she
helped me through the whole process. And I locally, we
have a shared kitchen called Hope and Maine where small
businesses like myself can go in and create a product
from beginning to end as if it were a baby.
(40:04):
And I was able to sell my Sofrito here locally
in Rhode Island, where I'm from, and it did amazing.
It's sold out so many times. And now we're in
the middle of reproducing and making it better. But yeah,
do you have some mother sauces or marinades in the
works that we need to know about. Oh? Yeah, so
(40:26):
out of Ba Sofrito. Sofrito has this releases this gold
juice I call the gold juice. It's a mamonie. That's
that's a mohol. So I take that juice and I
add some beautiful flavors to that and that's my marinade.
So that's coming soon. Yeah, like that like to me,
like the Moho marinades. It feels very very Porto Rican,
(40:48):
very Caribbean. And it's like this like garlicy citrus juice
thing that you inject and pork uh and then cooking
on the cajaccino low and slow until it's like nice
and melty and it just tastes like cilantro and onion
and sofrito and citrus and melty pork fat and it's
just fabulous. Like it's not it's not really spicy per se,
(41:08):
but it's zesty and it's got so much flavor going on.
Tyler is my Puerto Rican brother from another Yeah, but
for sure, for sure. I mean I just I I
feel like, for you know, for years, like we just
go to Puerto Rico just because I just really loved it.
And then I was you know, you know, inviting friends
come down with me and they were like, oh my god,
this place is crazy. I'm like, yeah, Puerto Rico is it.
It's just so fantastic and laid back and chill, and
(41:30):
I always think the food was fantastic, and yeah, I
love Puerto Rico. Oh me, It's been so wonderful talking
with you. And now I'm officially hungry and thirsty for
some pirate rum. I don't know what that is, but
I need it. Yeah, like like really good dark Puerto
Rican rum is just some of the best stuff in
the world. It's like sugarcane alcohol, right, and then they
(41:51):
you know, they stored and charred barrel and god, it's
just so delicious and smith especially if you can kind
of get like twenty year old Puerto Rican rum. I
think it's really special Tyler's. And since you love going
over there so much, if you ever go to the
center of the island, to the highest points, you have
some of the best restaurants with the best lag mariemonte.
(42:12):
It's like their own homemade moonshine. It is absolutely incredible.
Well that sounds like a good time. Wells you down
with that? Yeah, let's get freaking moonshine. That's that's a vacation.
I need that immediately immediately. I'm online. Oh if for
those people out there that don't follow you on social media,
where can they go and find you? You can find
me on all platforms as cooking Gong on Me, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook,
(42:36):
and YouTube. Awesome. Well, thank you so much. Yeah, it's
congratulations with all of it. It's just it's so much
fun to watch and I just love, like, you know,
out of out of the pandemic, you know, everyone's passion
really sort of rise at the top. People make you know,
real clear decisions on what they want to do and
who they are as a person and what they're gonna
do now, and like, you know, there's no better time
to be yourself. U. Sometimes when you have your back
(42:58):
up against the wall from a creative perspective and you're
doing it, you're crushing it. And it's so much fun
to watch a cook. Thank you so much, and I
really appreciate the opportunity to be here with you guys today.
Thank you. All right, see on me, all right, take care.
She's awesome. Yeah, she's she's fun. Her. No, I want
to go to Puerto Rico now, Puerto Ricos. Grab you
(43:18):
been there, man? No, I've never been there. Puerto Rico
is awesome. So um you know, uh, and you know,
living in California, you know, everybody goes to Compas and Lucas, right,
and everybody goes to Hawaii and you know or what
a b arta like in Mexico right on the West coast,
and so the Caribbean thing to me, it's like, you know,
it's very like East Coast centric sort of choice to
(43:40):
go because we you know, go to Jamaica, bunch and
and all these sort of things. But but Puerto Rico
is fabulous. Man. It's just a good place to go
get lost. It's it's relatively inexpensive to go have a
great vacation. The foods fun, the music scenes great. The
economy is a little banged up. I mean they've had,
you know, series like really just vicious hurricanes kind of
going back and forth without a lot of like ol
(44:00):
kind of government intervention that they should they should have,
you know, some some injection of you know, funds, just
because it's it is an American territory, right, those are
American citizens, right, and they deserve it. Um. But it's
a real super fun place. Do you need a passport
to go to Puerto Rico? No, man, No, it's a
us amazing. Yeah. I just like just you're I think
(44:20):
you you know, I think when you leave, I think
you have to declare any sort of like fruits and
vegetables that kind of stuff, like you're coming out of Hawaii.
But other than that, you're good dude. It's palm um.
All right, Well, I'm gonna go book a flight to
Puerto Rico and we'll do the next episode from there.
I guess that sounds great. It sounds great. Well, I
mean happy two thousand twenty three, my friend, I mean,
I think we're we're so excited about cranking out so
(44:41):
much good content this year. We got some fun trips
planned up to um T B D as we get
a little closer to it. But it's gonna be a
fun year, my friend. Yeah, years three and uh, we'll
see all you guys next week. Come hungry, take everybody later.
Al Right, guys, thanks for listening. Follow us on Instagram.
Two Dudes in a Kitchen. Make sure to write us
(45:02):
a review and leave us five stars. We'll take that
and we'll see you guys next time. See you next time.
It's Two Dudes in a Kitchen with Tyler Florence and
Wells Adams and I heart radio podcast. All right, I
hope you guys are hungry because it's time for another
episode of Two Dudes in a Kitchen. I'm Wells Adams
and that is Tyler Florence. Man, how are you, sir?
I'm doing good. Welcome to Uh we're officially in it now.
(00:22):
And yeah, I have all my resolutions I failed on
and so whatever, yeah whatever, who who cares? I mean,
I think for the most Partice we talked about this
last episode as far as like, you know, no New Year,
New you and making the best of situations and that
kind of stuff. And I think, you know, keep it simple.
(00:43):
I I think you know, you want to have some
resolutions that are attainable and doable and uh. And like
I said before, I think one of the most important
things you could ever do that requires very little effort.
It's just be more positive about your life and about
things that are kind of coming around you, right, like,
so to shake off the negativity and and try to
try to find the positive side of things, right, try
(01:05):
to find the happiness, try to make yourself happy, make
yourself a happy person because the energy that you throw out,
if it's if it's good, honest, like really good positive energy,
you're gonna get that back to enfold and you're gonna
see how your life story it changes. And and no
time at all. It just doesn't take a lot of work,
you know, just to just to be happy, just to smile. Yeah. Well,
one of the things that makes me happy is eating well.
(01:26):
And you know, I have stuck to this resolution, which
is to be a better cook in and the way
that I'm doing that is visa V my good friend
Tyler Florence over there. Um, So today I want to
really break down on intended I guess the chicken. I
want to talk about making chicken, best cuts of the chicken,
(01:49):
best practices in butchering and then seasoning and then cooking.
So I'm kind of putting you on the spot here
because I don't know if you knew we were going
to talk about this, But I feel like every episode
we should focus on kind of one staple in the kitchen.
And I think chicken is the number one staple out there,
(02:11):
so it definitely is. And and and I didn't I
wasn't really crystal clear what we're gonna jump into. But
I think it's kind of great. And first of all,
committing to cooking, I think is the first step to
really kind of owning your kitchen space and feeling comfortable
in your kitchen spaces. And I'm gonna cook, right And
I think that you know, the most important thing when
it comes to cooking and starting cooking, especially of a
(02:31):
new year, from a resolution standpoint, it's just to pick
a cookbook, right, pick a lane, you know, pick a
culinary lane, like, because there's chicken dishes everywhere if you
like chicken specifically, right, Like you could say, I really
love the flavors of Mexico, I really love the flavors
of Spain, or I really love the flavors of the
American South, or really love the flavors of whatever, right, Italy, France, whatever.
(02:52):
Find a cookbook or finding like a digital resource, and
then just kind of like find a couple of good,
simple recipes that you feel like are attainable. You know,
chicken is always a great play to start, just because
you know, you know everyone's gonna love it and you
get your hands on it and it's relatively easy to cook.
And then and then just kind of jump into it,
and I think your mastering four or five, you know,
really good chicken recipes on your belts, You've got like
a good rotation. You know, if you're gonna you're cooking
(03:13):
for your loved ones, are you're cooking for a dinner party,
you should always have like you know, I think ten
to twelve dishes on your belt. They're just like rock stars, right,
and then you can just kind of put the rotation.
People ask for them that kind of stuff, right, So
that's the first part. But then kind of going back
to what you're talking about specifically with like chicken, um
it's the most popular search term in the culinary world,
you know, like chicken by far and away, like what
(03:36):
people are really kind of looking for out there. Boneless
skinless chicken breast is of course number one, UM, which
which to me and it's not my favorite cut? Do
you like boneless skinless chicken breast? I don't. I find
it similar to like a filet. I don't think that
the filet is the best cut of a cow, but
for some reason on menus at restaurants, it is always
(04:00):
like the one that's featured. And I feel like that
same way with chicken breasts. I I tend to like
the darker meat and the fattier meat, which is usually
thighs and legs. Yeah, for sure. Um, I'm with you.
Like boneless skinless chicken breast, especially in like the like
if it's a cafe, or if it's like a you know,
a cob salad, or if it's some sort of like
pasta dish. You know, boneless skinless chicken breasts is just
(04:20):
sort of like neutral and you know, easy to cook
and that kind of stuff. Um. But but it doesn't
have a lot of fat that is flavor, fats, moisture, right,
And so I think when it comes to cooking chicken,
I think if you had to kind of put it
into a category like thighs and number one my favorite,
like a chicken thigh is so bomb and you can
buy them like boneless skinless chicken thighs if the bones
(04:42):
and the skins kind of freak out because sometimes people
have a texture thing with chicken. Um uh. And I
think those cook up just as well as as a
chicken breast if you're gonna grill it or pan fry
it or make a chicken cutlet or you know, what's
really popular now is like, you know, like a Nashville
Hot chicken sandwich. You know, the chicken eyes are just
like the way to go. And I think that that's
(05:03):
my number one most delicious like part part of the chicken.
The second one is gonna be the chicken wing. The
chicken wing. I think I could. I could crush chicken
wings like I'm a chicken wing fained. Okay, here's the question.
Are you have flats or a drumming guy? No flats
all day all? Like I think the drums are cute
and all, but like the real flavors and the flats
and I could take and the and just so if
(05:24):
people are listening to this and either you know exactly
what Wells is talking about it you don't. So the
drum at is the part of the chicken wing that's
connected to the breast, right, and it kind of ends
at like the knuckle piece, and when you when you
butcher it down, it kind of looks like a little
chicken leg or a drum at, right. And the flats
is that flat part that has the two bones that
kind of runs all the way through. I think that
(05:46):
is the most delicious tender, you know. And I had
this method of like cleaning the entire chicken flat thing
out with with my teeth and kind of getting everything
and like perfectly cleaning two bones. Um. But when my
my team, each son Haydn I go to dinner because
he's a big chicken wing fan. Two that we just
kind of get messy with it right. Well, order you know,
order two dozen wings and a few different sauces, and
(06:09):
then you know, like prison style, we're just like kind
of just you know, face down, eating a big mess
of wings and just kind of loving it. Right. So,
I I think that those are two my two favorite cuts,
or the thigh and then and then the wing and
and then you know, when it comes to like the breast,
I think the breast is it can be really elegant.
I think it can be really really delicious. I think
a brine for a chicken breast is a great way
(06:31):
to handle that. And that's like a that's like a
like a ford you know, sorry, like like an eight
to one, like salt water solution. Um. So you have
just enough salt inside the liquid to kind of give
it a little bit of flavor to it, uh, and
then you can throw some citrus, some garlic, fresh herbs,
and then through osmosis, the moisture from the brine itself
(06:53):
will get absorbed into the chicken from because of the salt,
only the same way that if you have either one
too many salt and margaritas or one too many dirty
martiniz the next day you kind of feel a little puffy, right,
like water, salted water will get absorbed into the chicken itself,
and then that's gonna be extra moisture, that's gonna be
extra flavor, uh, and and and a delicateness to it,
(07:16):
so it's seasoned from the inside out, which I think
is really really nice. And then I think when it
comes to cooking, because I I can make a boneless,
skinless chicken breast make you cry just so incredibly delicious,
so it really kind of feels like a filet mignon
and not something just kind of hammered and overcooked. So
that's time and temperature, right, So you so you want
to take the I think brining chicken breasts a way
(07:38):
to go for sure, right, So let's just assume we're
gonna brine it, and then then after maybe two hours
in the brine, which is gonna be plenty and and
you you could weigh the chicken before and after, and
the brine chicken breast is gonna be heavier because it's
gonna absorb the salted water, and again it's gonna translate
all that flavor to the inside the chicken breast and
it's just gonna be delicious. So the next thing I
gotta do is you gotta pad it dry, right, you gotta.
(08:00):
It's got to be as dry as you can possibly
get it on the outside. So you just, you know,
let it hang out on a paper towel. Did you
wash it out of the package as well as you
wash it off the water, because sometimes it's like a
little slimy, you know, And and that that just depends
like like I don't wash my chicken, right, um um.
But but I I get impeccably fresh chicken from really
good sources and usually just a grocery store that I
(08:21):
feel really comfortable with, and that kind of thing. Now,
when when you get chicken, I do think I'm gonna
I'm gonna splitch gears. We're gonna finish talking about how
to cook the chicken breast for a second, but I
want to answer your question because I think this is
important so when it comes to handling protein, we have
I have a few just like plastic cutting boards that
I put on top of my pretty wooden cutting boards
if I'm handling raw protein, right, because it's not so
(08:43):
much about the the chicken itself, the the you know,
the moisture of it would make you sick necessarily. What
would happen is that the protein that's inside the liquid
in the water would settle inside of a cut board,
and then that bacteria on something that you probably wouldn't cook,
(09:04):
like a piece of toast or something, or or you know,
some fresh vegetables like that could possibly make you sick
from a bacteria standpoint, right, but rarely would like the
chicken itself make you sick. If you're eating cuts of
meat that are potentially that contaminated, then maybe you shouldn't
be eating them in the first place, or maybe you
should have a better source, because like most most chicken
plants are incredibly impeccably clean. You know, if you get
(09:27):
like a really kind of fresh chicken, of course you
want to check the cell by date when when you're
shopping for chicken. Organic air dried is another great way
to make sure that that the chicken is gonna be
healthier and cleaner. Uh, air cool chicken. That's a that's
a really kind of interesting label to kind of look
for on top of chicken. So when they process the chicken,
they have to bring the temperature, which is degrees back
(09:50):
down to something that's like you know, and in the
in the high thirties, low forties pretty quickly. So sometimes
in big vats. And this is where sometimes the bacteria
thing will kind of come in a conversation. Uh, they'll
cool the chickens in a big vat of just cold water,
and it's not really you know, it's not necessarily the
most sanitary thing where air cool chicken goes into a
(10:11):
cooler and gets blasted with air, so there's no the
possible of cross contamination is dropped down dramatically when it
comes to that, right, So I I think, but you know,
taking it back to processing kind of in your own kitchen,
I think having a plastic cutting board, right that is
sort of your protein board. And if you watch all
of our videos, if we're ever like cutting raw meat,
we will take the you know, white plastic cutting board,
(10:32):
put it on top of our pretty wooden cutting board.
And that's what we're gonna cut raw chicken on, and
then the cutting board goes into the sink, you wash
your hands, uh, you put the chicken on a plate
or something so it's not gonna touch any sort of
a kind of wooden surface, and then you're in good shape.
Then you're ready to cook something. But I think that's
probably the best way to make sure that you're gonna
just have like a safe, sanitary kind of cooking environment
(10:54):
when it comes to chicken. Um. But but for the
most part, like the chicken itself is not going to
make you sick, right, but it's the residue of having
it sort of having the protein uh water drip into
a wooden surface that's not necessarily gonna get cleaned, and
then that touches a row vegetable. That's where the cross
contamination is going to come from. Got ya all right?
(11:15):
Go back to your chicken chicken rest that's gonna make
you cry. So I think this is kind of like
one of those fun things to do because it just
it goes with everything. Right. You can have it for
dinner with mashed potatoes. You can slice it thin and
put it on top of the cops salad. You can
slice it thin and fold it into pasta. Um, you
you can, you can barbecue it, you can eat it
(11:36):
cold out of the refrigerator. It's really good too. So
time and temperature. So you and I have talked about
an incant wreath thermometer a couple of times, right, did
you get one of this for Christmas? Tell me you did? Beautiful?
So now, um, this is gonna be a little controversial too,
but there you go, boom, look at you, brotherly and
whipping it out, my friend. The instant wreath thermometer is
gonna it's gonna be that because it's got to be subtle, right,
(11:58):
So most like sites and resources will say you gotta
cook chicken north at one sixty sometimes one seventy and
and I think that's real hardcore dehydration zone. Right, So
that says on the back of the one that I've
got in the studio right now, a chicken, turkey and
poultry one sixty five one sixty five, one sixty five
is like with the north side of what what I
(12:21):
think is done. Because when you're in that that you're
basically drying the chicken out, right, So forty two one
forty is going to be your temperature danger zone right
when it comes to cooking stuff. Right, so anywhere between
forty two one forty, bacteria has a has a proclivity
to just like rapidly evolved and and so so anyways,
but but a north of one forty, you're kind of
in in and like really good shape. Now, nobody likes
(12:43):
a hundred forty degree chicken because that would look like
it's like medium, medium, rare whatever it is. Right, But
but once you kind of get into like the one
fifty five one fifty seven range, right, And I know
it sounds kind of subtle difference between that and one
sixty and one sixty five, but it all makes a
huge difference. Right. So okay, so we got our chicken
breast briant, right, We're gonna put it onto a paper towel.
We're gonna let it dry, and then you're gonna get
(13:03):
a nice big saute pan um um non stick if
you got it, if not, doesn't make a big difference,
And then you're gonna get it hot. You're gonna preheat
your pan, and then you're gonna add room temperature olive
oil to it and you're gonna let that come to
a slight smoke. Right, We're not gonna catch the house
on fire, but we want to have a little shimmer,
a little sort of like you know, it needs to
be hot enough to really begin to caramelize approaching right away. Okay,
(13:27):
So then so then you want you want to hit
the chicken breast, a little bit of salt on the outside,
a little bit of extra virgin olive oil on the outside,
a little pepper if you want to. And then and
then you want to because the chicken breast can be heavy,
you can grabbing with tongs. And then you want to
drop it into the sautae pan away from you, not
towards you, because you don't want to oil the splash
on You want the splash on the counter in the
back right. And then and then and then you should
(13:49):
be able to kind of give the pan a little
shake and it shouldn't stick. And which is kind of
like a magic trick that do in front of people
all the time. You create like a non stick surface
out of a regular saute pan. Would just like preheating
the pan, adding room temperature olive oil to it, right,
and and then and then you want to cook it right.
So so we're gonna get like a really nice what
they call my yard reaction, and that's where the proteins
(14:11):
and the amino acids will start to melt and form
this really delicious, beautiful brown crust on the outside of it. Right.
And then once you start to start to smell really good,
your nose is going to give you the first signal
that you're in you're doing something great, right, And then
sometimes I'll turn the temperature down a little bit, specifically
if it's still feel like it's starting to splatter a
little bit, right, and sort of turn the temperature down
(14:32):
just a little bit. And then we're going to cook
it through on the stove top in the sautepe pan
from beginning to end. Okay, So then once you get
a really really nice brown color, and we're talking about
you know, maybe maybe seven to eight minutes on one side,
don't flip it and flip and flip it because you
really want to have contact time with the pan itself. Right.
(14:53):
And then when you have seven eight minutes, you've got
a really nice golden crust on the outside. You also
wanna take your tongues. You're gonna flip it over and
then you're gonna cook cook the other side. Now you've
already cooked it. I would say probably more than halfway
through through the heat has transferred through the chicken breast
on one side, like it's it's pretty much halfway cooked
already on the other side. And then when you flip
(15:13):
it over, um, you've got a presentation side which is
gonna be the side you're looking at right now, which
is gonna be just a really pretty nice and golden brown,
And that's gonna that's the side that's gonna go on
on the plate, you know, kind of like brown side
um side up. Right now, you want to start robing
your chicken to make sure it's cooked to the perfect temperature,
right and then so you know, obviously the thickest part
(15:35):
is going to take the longest to cook. The tail piece,
the skinny you're part of the chicken breasts is gonna
take a little bit of less time to cook. But
you're looking for an internal temperature of about a hundred
and fifty degrees right and then so so anything north
of that, you're really just starting to dry your chicken out. Right,
So if you've had chicken, I'm sure you have, it
feels really dry, like a mouthful of puffy cotton. Yeah,
you know, it's just awful because there's no moisture in whatsoever. Right,
(15:57):
But if you, if you, if you once you kind
of hit that one ff that temperature zone, and then
you want to take it out and just kind of
let let it rest for a little bit and then
and then you slice it. It's gonna be perfectly cooked.
And then you're gonna be shocked about how much how
juicy the bird is, right and and even sort of
slicing it, and how how moist it looks it looks
(16:20):
and feels like and all that is just really kind
of perfect. It's the same thing I do with turkey
at Thanksgiving, Dude, Like it's it's just if you perfectly
cook at turkey. You don't really how wear chicken breasts.
You don't have to do a lot to it to
really kind of make it amazing. Then dude, finish it
and I squeeze a lemon juice. You know you can
hit finish it with like some fresh chopped parsley parmesan
cheese like and then and then hit it with finish
(16:42):
it with whatever you want, right, I mean, you know
the which is, you know, the wonderful thing about a boneless,
skinless chicken breast. It's so neutral you can do so
you can do anything with it, and it's just kind
of like a perfect yummy weeknight meal. I literally chicken breast,
a little bit of brine, right, you're gonna brine it
right then, and then you want to hit it with
um just great um um. You know, time and temperature
(17:05):
and be really smart about it. And then you know,
make sure you're using you insurree thermometer and kind of
getting some really really kind of fantastic uh, you know,
moisturize that, and then I think you've got something really great.
So you get to internal, you pull it off. How
long we're resting for, you know, seven to eight minutes
or so, you know, like before you before you cut
it and put it onto the plate, and then again
(17:27):
you don't even really have to do You can just
put it straight in a play or straight into a platter, uh,
and then and then rocket and it's ready to go.
So if you get a really nice eight ounce chicken breast,
you can cut that in half, and I think that's
food for two people plus a couple of a side
dish or two or salad or you know, a side
of pasta or potatoes or something like that. I think
you got a really, really nice one. I think that's great.
(17:50):
When buying a chicken, do you believe in buying a
whole chicken and then butchering it yourself or buying just
exactly what you want? Well? I think it depends, right.
I mean, like, so when you think about chicken, what's
the first thing that you think about? I think chicken wings,
chicken wings. I love chicken wings. Then obviously you're not
(18:13):
gonna buy a whole chicken. But I do like making
rice and soups and stuff like that. And so in
my mind, I like to butch your down a chicken
and then use that, um, you know, the cavity of
of the chicken to make cage right, the bones right, Yeah,
(18:34):
and and so you can do a lot with that, right.
A whole chicken is gonna give you some guests, right,
especially if you really like to make bone broth or
if you'd like to make chicken stock. Um. That's one
of the great things about you know, roasting a whole chicken, uh,
and then using kind of the carcass and the pieces
and the dripping seduced to to make something really really
kind of yummy and interesting, like a nice sort of
(18:55):
secondary dish out of it, like chicken noodle soup or whatever.
But I think, you know, it just depends on what
you when when you think about chicken, Like what do
you what do you think about immediately? Right? Is a
beautiful whole roasted chicken exactly what you're thinking about? Um?
Do uh? Do your family like you know, mixed pieces
and parts like I like thighs, they like breasts, some
(19:16):
of us likes legs. That I think getting a whole
chicken and broaching it down it's probably you know, the
best way to go. You know it just you know,
sometimes you go to the grocery store and it's like, dude,
it's already cut, it's in the package. You know, I
gotta do a season. It's ready to rock and roll.
And I'm and sometimes like, you know, the convenience of
all that is exactly what what the the recipes call for. Sometimes,
like you know, things can be you know, too too
(19:38):
difficult to make it make sense. But dude, I love
a perfect roasted chicken, like four hundred degrees for an hour. Um,
I think that that's like, you know, if you it's
my dead on perfect, fantastic recipe. I've been using rocking
for years. Uh. If you fill the cavity with you know,
a lemon cut in half ahead of garlic cut in half,
you know, fresh time, fresh lemon, fresh stage, salt and pepper,
(20:00):
tie the legs together so it fits so it looks
more like a football instead of you know, stead of
sort of floppy and open like really kind of so
it cooks nice and evenly four degrees for an hour,
perfect every single time. And again you're looking for you
know about a one internal temperature. Uh, and I think
that's great. And then this other thing that we've been
rocking lately, which is which is kind of cool. Do
(20:21):
you like grilled chicken? You like barbecue chicken? Absolutely? Absolutely right.
So one thing that we've been doing is kind of
like this reverse here chicken, which is which is just fire.
It's so it's so great, Like I don't think I'll
barbecue chicken any other way ever. Again, this is the
new new. Are you ready for this? Late on me?
This is the new new? Okay, So you're gonna take
(20:42):
either whole chicken, cut it up into ten pieces, or
you're gonna buy frier parts, which is gonna be legs
and thighs whatever it is. Right now, we like to
make a little sort of seasoning mix out of like salt, pepper, lemon, zest,
crushed garlic, you know, fresh sage, fresh rosemary. Chop it
all up, right, and then you just want toss the
chicken and it's like really really nice season mix. Put
it onto a sheet pan, and then we're gonna bake
(21:04):
it in the oven as low as it can possibly go,
like two hundred degrees for about an hour. Right, and
and so we we were we we've been playing around
with this. This is sort of a hybrid of my
famous fried chicken recipe that it's on Food and Wine magazine, Um,
but it crosses over in so many different other outlets
other than just fried chicken. Right, So, grilling chicken raw
(21:28):
to cook on the grill, you're gonna get hot spots,
it's gonna burn, and you're gonna get flare ups, right
and and and you're gonna dry it out. It's it's
it's difficult to to get it right, even even for
me necessarily. Right, it's not gonna be not every piece
is gonna be perfect until now. Right, Because now, if
you park, cook the chicken for about an hour at
(21:50):
the lowest possible temperature you can possibly get down and
ankle look pretty right, you can. You're gonna, you're gonna,
you're gonna say, okay, you know, I was listening to
two dudes in the kitchen and I pulled off the
first part of this recipe and it ain't much. Look
at what's going on here, it's not the point, right, Like,
so you want to part cook the chicken, especially at
a low temperature, right, because like moisture turns into a
(22:11):
vapor at too twelve, right, So that's where anything higher
than that you're really gonna start to get mass evaporation.
Especially if you're talking about three seventy five four degrees
five degrees like grill five, you know, four and fifty
degrees like grill hot, you're just gonna get massive operation
on moisture. Right. But if you can cook it slowly
at a low temperature for about an hour, par cook
(22:35):
it for about an hour, you're gonna all the fat's
gonna stay in place, and you're gonna retain a bunch
of moisture. And two hundred degrees is hot enough to
cook something, right, So it's gonna start to cook. And
then and then you want to cook it until if
you know, playing with your instant real thermometer, you want
to go for about a hundred and thirty degrees undred
forty degrees medium medium rare, you know what I mean,
(22:55):
if you have to think about it as a steak.
And then this is where this gets super fun. So
now you can throw on any kind of marinate on
top of that, right, you can throw on any barbecue sauce,
karake sauce, you know, honey mustard, you know, French vinigrette. Uh,
you could you could dust it with like a like
a barbecue dry spice and grill it like that. Right,
(23:16):
But now we're we're gonna instead of going from raw
to cook, which could take easily ten to twelve minutes,
we're gonna cut that down to about six minutes. And
and so you're gonna you're gonna start grilling the chicken
right with the you know, straight straight out of the
oven onto the sheet pan and then straight onto the grill.
And you're gonna start to mark it right, and you
can start to cook it, and then you're gonna start
(23:38):
to mop it right. And and now you're you're the
only thing you're really doing is kind of finishing the
chicken all the way through and then really thinking about
the exterior of the chicken, right, the sort of like
the the mopping of the chicken, the glazing of the chicken,
the caramelization of the sugars, and the sauce to really
kind of make it nice and sticky and golden brown. Right,
(23:59):
So you know, barbecue sauce, you know, like I said, like,
you know, really kind of great. Like we did one
not too long ago with like a pacada butter, which
is just insane. So I think that kind of park
cooked chicken, I think to me, like that's the new new, right,
So it's like what could we call it, like reverse
here chicken. So it's like a whole chicken, breast cut
up in pieces, really good nice herby citrus, garlican marinade,
(24:22):
bake it until you get about one thirty and then
finished on the grill, and then you can take it
to a million different directions however you want to. But
it's the best juiciest chicken that I think you'll ever cook.
It's one of our what we call our benchmark recipes,
which we think if a recipe hits that benchmark status,
it's as good as it gets until we top it, right,
(24:43):
And I think reverse her Chicken on the grill is
just banging. You gotta make that new a TikTok my man. Well, yeah,
I feel like we did it on Instagram. You know
what I think we gotta do. Man, I think we
gotta we gotta start really cooking on on with this
little thing we're doing now. It's in the catch fire.
I was at the restaurant the other night at Miller
and Lux and like a couple of tables because I
(25:04):
always kind of walk out in the dining room and
say hi, and people like the love in the podcast,
you know, such good feedback. You know, we had this
one couple, so they crushed like four or five episodes
on a car ride not too long ago. And so
I think we're doing some good stuff. So I think
you and I we gotta start like doing these like
maybe cook along things like on Instagram. You know, I'm
in my kitchen, you're in yours. Yeah, yeah, we should
(25:26):
do Alive. Well I still alive, bro. That works. Two
dudes in the kitchen live. You gotta take the show
on the road. That's right. Uh. Speaking of social media,
I'm not sure if you've seen her on TikTok named
Bomi and it's at cooking, cooking, call on me. Yeah. Man.
She was a successful like makeup artist on TikTok and
(25:49):
then the pandemic hit and she pivoted over to cooking
traditional Puerto Rican diitions and she's absolutely exploded on social
media and coming up in just a couple of minutes
after the break, we're going to have on me on
the show and we're gonna talk everything order Reacan cooking,
and I'm so very excited for it. Quick break, we
(26:10):
come back, We'll have owe me on. Two Dudes in
a kitchen. All right, welcome back to two dudes in
a kitchen. It's now two dudes in a kitchen with
a beautiful young lady. It's oh me hopper, How are
you doing good? How are you guys? I'm doing great.
You went from successful makeup artists to TikTok star. Tell
(26:33):
me how that works. That's what a pandemic does to you.
And you're stuck in the house with Yes, no, I
was stuck at home like everyone else, of course, you know,
taking care of our bodies. Taking care of our health,
and my boys were all on zoom calls from school.
I have four boys, by the way, three of which
(26:54):
were in school, and I was trying not to lose
my mind up and here, up and here. So what
I did was I decided that I was going to
record myself just cooking my traditional Puerto ricanditions. And before
I knew it, I had over a hundred thousand followers
in less than three months. Yeah, we were looking at
(27:17):
your numbers before we brought you on. Over half a
million followers on TikTok, almost three hundred thousand on Instagram,
over fifty thousand on YouTube. My question is, did you
do like makeup tutorials on social media beforehand? Uh? And
was that also as popular I did. I did do
(27:37):
makeup tutorials on my Instagram page, which I had had
for years, but I never had the popularity that I
have been cooking Go Home Me And honestly, I believe
there's so much too. The fact that in the makeup world,
I felt like I needed to fit a mold and
I needed I needed to kind of be very cautious
(28:00):
with how I expressed myself because of course it was
my business. It was the way that I attracted clients,
it was the way that I operated business. So I
was very cautious with that, where with cooking Cohomie, I
just said, I took a pill of effort all and
I was like, let's just do this, Let's just do
it the way that I how I am. I think
(28:23):
one of my favorite things about your videos is, I
mean the food looks delicious. Uh, it's like very approachable,
Like it's not like crazy, uh James Beard Award winning,
like needed no way too much about cooking. But it's
also a Spanish lesson, Like I feel like I'm learning
(28:44):
Spanish the entire time I'm watching your video. So my
entire channel is Spanglish. It's it's a little bit of
Spanish a little bit of English, because neither of them
are very good looking for me, so I speak both.
But I tried to do it in the same way
that my grandmother taught me. I was raised with all
(29:05):
the amazing women in my family, my grandmother, my aunt's,
my mom. They all cooked in the kitchen. There was
always a party, someone was always thinking and dancing, everyone's
trying each other's foods, and that was just how I
learned I learned in that atmosphere, and so I figured
if I can learn like this, many others can also
learn like this as well. Now I love Puerto Rico.
(29:29):
It's one of my favorite places in the world. And
now I live in California, I don't get a chance
to go as much as I did when I lived
in New York City. And I was in New York
City for about fifteen years, and I'd go to Puerto
Rico at least once a year, if not twice a year.
And it was just kind of my island, right, I mean,
I just like a old San Juan. I could I
could literally live there. It's one of my favorite places
in the world. And uh, and then you know, like
(29:50):
the entire island is so interesting. Um you know, like
a junque you're from the rainforest. It's in the center
of the island, ncle Own on the west coast. I
think it's one of the the most beautiful like surf capitals
of the world. Aguadia. You know, like my is like
all these amazing places that they're just so like you know,
rural and interesting and and and then and then there's
(30:13):
the food, um, which has this kind of like beautiful
smash up between you know, Latin American flavor profiles, but
then something it feels very Caribbean all the same time, right,
and so so talk about that for execut because I
I think Puerto Rican food definitely has its own identity,
but I think it's it's coming into its own and
I think it deserves a, you know, a pretty clear definition,
(30:34):
like what is Puerto Rican food? Oh my god, I
absolutely love this question. And first of all, thank you
so much for shouting out all of the best spots
in Puerto Rico. There's so many more, but Ponce in
the South like the most beautiful m production of the world.
Like I've been all over Puerto Rico and love it.
I love that. I love that. And yes, the food
in Puerto Rico, we are in the Caribbean, and we
(30:55):
are heavily, heavily influenced by our Spaniard, our African Entino roots.
And when you're talking about our foods, there's so much
of it that you can grab from each of those
and when what you see now, right, what has really
made it so popular is the fact that we've kept
(31:16):
so much of those traditions and continue on adding to them,
so there's more fungo. But then you've got yuka. There's
no there's you know, everyone is always adding to it
and making it their own. And that's really what I
intended to do in the kitchen when I'm cooking. That's
what I love to show in your kitchen, your your boss.
(31:40):
Let's do it up, but let's not lose tradition. I
love that. A lot of pork, a lot of plantains,
you know, a lot of really good, deep saving flavors.
Oh yeah, oh my god, like single. If you don't
have pork, it's come on, what are we doing here?
What are we doing here? Yeah? Exactly. It just you know,
it's food that kind of makes me happy, and it's
(32:02):
it's a culture that I think is just so kind
of warm and welcoming. You know, every time you go
to Puerto Rico, if it's not like on your list
of places that you're thinking about traveling to from a
vacation standpoint, you should because the weather is fantastic, like,
the climates amazing. The music is spectacular, Like there's like
that kind of Puerto Rican sort of like Latino jazz
(32:24):
kind of thing which is just so so amazing. And uh,
and then of course you get into the food. And
I also love the culture too, because like everyone stays
up late at night, right, there's like definitely like sort
of like a kind of a vacation vibe everywhere. And
uh and and the foods just so amazing. So we
love your TikTok videos. We love like kind of celebrating
that particular culture in the food. And and when when
(32:46):
you've been producing videos, uh, similar to me, like when
when when you write recipes, somethings just climbed to the top.
There's no real rhyme or reason of why things just
become like crazy popular. Um, what are some of the
blockbuster recipes that you've cranked out? You know, there is
no secret sauce or secret recipe to a specific recipe,
(33:08):
you know, doing doing the best. Um. I believe when
I put something in simple layman's terms, where it's just
get from point A to point B as easy as possible,
that is when people react and and love the most.
That's when they love it the most. My Moreo which
is more fungo with sautage shrimp and like garlic buttery sauce.
(33:32):
That thing took off like one point five million views
My Past Dayles video I took a recipe that usually
takes up to two days to make. It's a very
traditional Christmas recipe past dayles and I took my grandmother's
recipe and I tried to show it as authentic and
(33:53):
clear as possible. And that video did so well, And
it was six minutes long, which in the world of
social media, six minutes is a very long time. But
people were engaged the entire time. And I think it's that.
I think it's every time I explained something as simple
as possible, that's when people love it the most. So um,
(34:15):
then let's talk about mon Fogo for a second. I
think it's kind of like the dish of Puerto Rico
in a lot of ways. Right, it's the dish I
think a lot of people sort of recognize as like
purely Puerto rican Let's start from scratch, like what is
that more fungo is planting mash planting seasoned with garlic,
butter oil, and for grinds, you could do bacon. Look
(34:39):
at and then and then what do you do with that? Exactly?
So you like you fry the plantains. It's kind of
crispy on the antide. Yeah, so you're gonna fry your
plantains and you're going to get a very crispy plantain.
But then you're going to mash it up and that's
going to create the actual mash consists and see kind
(35:00):
of like a if a potato and a duca had
a baby. So that's what you're going to end up getting.
And it's beautifully seasoned with everything that I just mentioned.
And we're talking about ripe plantains, right, like yellow with
the black, not the green ones. Right, No, we're talking
the green ones. Although, like I said, because things have
evolved so you know so much now people make it
(35:25):
with the yellow, people make it with the duca, they
make it with the green. They even make it with
all three, and I mean that's amazing too. Growing up,
what was your favorite Puerto Rican dish what reminds you
of home? The most home for me is vienna komba alau.
So it's codfish and it is seasoned with olive oil
(35:49):
and vinegar and all of the onions and garlic and
peppers in a vinegrette almost but it's almost like a
soft fry, very soft fry in the beyond us, which
would always be grown in my grandmother's backyard. So you've
got your green bananas ducca, you know plantings, all of
(36:11):
those grown right in our backyard. That reminds me of home.
And this is a dish that has deep Spanish ancestry
to write if you think about it, because cod is
not a traditional fish that you're gonna find in the Caribbean. Yes, yes,
it is definitely one of our Spaniard recipes. Okay, So
if I'm going to a Puerto Rican restaurant tonight, what
(36:32):
do I absolutely need to order? You absolutely need to
order your more fungo with ca that's going to be
your number one and some good rice and beans never
hurt nobody. What am I drinking with it? Some Puerto
(36:53):
Rican wrong I call it. I call it pirate bourbon? Yes,
so good YouTube? All right? Oh me? So this uh,
this episode is all about chicken. We were talking about
chicken before we brought you on. Um I guess my
question is like, do you have any chicken hacks? Is
there a Puerto Rican style of chicken that you absolutely love? So?
(37:19):
I absolutely love Boio alcaldo. So when you're thinking of
a Spanish rice pot, you put your entire whole chicken
in that rice pot. It doesn't go in the oven.
You don't gotta do anything in the air. Fire is
just gonna go right on the stovetop with a little
bit of butter, and you're gonna cook it on the stovetop.
It is incredible. A whole chicken and a caldero as
(37:42):
juicy as it gets, and it homey and yummy and
delicious and feel it feels like a like a family favorite,
you know you just want. Yeah, it's a warm hug.
It goes straight from the oven, straight to the table.
Can't tear it apart. Everybody gets spoon. I think it's
delicious now, Like I I like the condiments, um like
Puerto Rican condiments. When it comes to stuff like that,
like what do you put on rice and beans? Frito sofrito.
(38:07):
You have to have safrito when you're thinking about any
Caribbean dish, any Latino food, by the way, because all
Latinos have their own version of sofrito, but Puerto Ricans
really have sofrito down to a science where it's a
mixture of seven vegetables. You've got your peppers, your onions, garlic,
Puerto Rican small sweet peppers, cilanthro coolan thro, which is
(38:31):
Cilantro's cousin that all together combined into this paste kind
of like a chimmy churi. But you're always going to
soft fry at first. That's why it's called sofrito. You
stopped right first before throwing anything in your pot. And
it is delicious. And don't you have your own sofrito
uh like sauce for sale? Yes? I do. I started off,
(38:58):
It's crazy, this has been a whirlwind where you know,
I that recipe went viral for me my self free
to recipe and viral and out of that recipe. I
remember during COVID, we I was attending a class where
someone was kind of giving us tips on how to
reopen after the COVID, right, and I had my makeup
(39:20):
studio that I was trying to reopen after COVID, even
though I was already doing the make up, the cooking tutorials,
the cooking videos. And someone recognized me from that class
and said, wait a minute, what are you doing trying
to open up your makeup business? Like I see you
cooking all the time and it's doing really good. What
are you doing here? And she was the person who
(39:41):
put me on and said, you really need to like
make make this. You have to make this, and she
helped me through the whole process. And I locally, we
have a shared kitchen called Hope and Maine where small
businesses like myself can go in and create a product
from beginning to end as if it were a baby.
(40:04):
And I was able to sell my Sofrito here locally
in Rhode Island, where I'm from, and it did amazing.
It's sold out so many times. And now we're in
the middle of reproducing and making it better. But yeah,
do you have some mother sauces or marinades in the
works that we need to know about. Oh? Yeah, so
(40:26):
out of Ba Sofrito. Sofrito has this releases this gold
juice I call the gold juice. It's a mamonie. That's
that's a mohol. So I take that juice and I
add some beautiful flavors to that and that's my marinade.
So that's coming soon. Yeah, like that like to me,
like the Moho marinades. It feels very very Porto Rican,
(40:48):
very Caribbean. And it's like this like garlicy citrus juice
thing that you inject and pork uh and then cooking
on the cajaccino low and slow until it's like nice
and melty and it just tastes like cilantro and onion
and sofrito and citrus and melty pork fat and it's
just fabulous. Like it's not it's not really spicy per se,
(41:08):
but it's zesty and it's got so much flavor going on.
Tyler is my Puerto Rican brother from another Yeah, but
for sure, for sure. I mean I just I I
feel like, for you know, for years, like we just
go to Puerto Rico just because I just really loved it.
And then I was you know, you know, inviting friends
come down with me and they were like, oh my god,
this place is crazy. I'm like, yeah, Puerto Rico is it.
It's just so fantastic and laid back and chill, and
(41:30):
I always think the food was fantastic, and yeah, I
love Puerto Rico. Oh me, It's been so wonderful talking
with you. And now I'm officially hungry and thirsty for
some pirate rum. I don't know what that is, but
I need it. Yeah, like like really good dark Puerto
Rican rum is just some of the best stuff in
the world. It's like sugarcane alcohol, right, and then they
(41:51):
you know, they stored and charred barrel and god, it's
just so delicious and smith especially if you can kind
of get like twenty year old Puerto Rican rum. I
think it's really special Tyler's. And since you love going
over there so much, if you ever go to the
center of the island, to the highest points, you have
some of the best restaurants with the best lag mariemonte.
(42:12):
It's like their own homemade moonshine. It is absolutely incredible.
Well that sounds like a good time. Wells you down
with that? Yeah, let's get freaking moonshine. That's that's a vacation.
I need that immediately immediately. I'm online. Oh if for
those people out there that don't follow you on social media,
where can they go and find you? You can find
me on all platforms as cooking Gong on Me, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook,
(42:36):
and YouTube. Awesome. Well, thank you so much. Yeah, it's
congratulations with all of it. It's just it's so much
fun to watch and I just love, like, you know,
out of out of the pandemic, you know, everyone's passion
really sort of rise at the top. People make you know,
real clear decisions on what they want to do and
who they are as a person and what they're gonna
do now, and like, you know, there's no better time
to be yourself. U. Sometimes when you have your back
(42:58):
up against the wall from a creative perspective and you're
doing it, you're crushing it. And it's so much fun
to watch a cook. Thank you so much, and I
really appreciate the opportunity to be here with you guys today.
Thank you. All right, see on me, all right, take care.
She's awesome. Yeah, she's she's fun. Her. No, I want
to go to Puerto Rico now, Puerto Ricos. Grab you
(43:18):
been there, man? No, I've never been there. Puerto Rico
is awesome. So um you know, uh, and you know,
living in California, you know, everybody goes to Compas and Lucas, right,
and everybody goes to Hawaii and you know or what
a b arta like in Mexico right on the West coast,
and so the Caribbean thing to me, it's like, you know,
it's very like East Coast centric sort of choice to
(43:40):
go because we you know, go to Jamaica, bunch and
and all these sort of things. But but Puerto Rico
is fabulous. Man. It's just a good place to go
get lost. It's it's relatively inexpensive to go have a
great vacation. The foods fun, the music scenes great. The
economy is a little banged up. I mean they've had,
you know, series like really just vicious hurricanes kind of
going back and forth without a lot of like ol
(44:00):
kind of government intervention that they should they should have,
you know, some some injection of you know, funds, just
because it's it is an American territory, right, those are
American citizens, right, and they deserve it. Um. But it's
a real super fun place. Do you need a passport
to go to Puerto Rico? No, man, No, it's a
us amazing. Yeah. I just like just you're I think
(44:20):
you you know, I think when you leave, I think
you have to declare any sort of like fruits and
vegetables that kind of stuff, like you're coming out of Hawaii.
But other than that, you're good dude. It's palm um.
All right, Well, I'm gonna go book a flight to
Puerto Rico and we'll do the next episode from there.
I guess that sounds great. It sounds great. Well, I
mean happy two thousand twenty three, my friend, I mean,
I think we're we're so excited about cranking out so
(44:41):
much good content this year. We got some fun trips
planned up to um T B D as we get
a little closer to it. But it's gonna be a
fun year, my friend. Yeah, years three and uh, we'll
see all you guys next week. Come hungry, take everybody later.
Al Right, guys, thanks for listening. Follow us on Instagram.
Two Dudes in a Kitchen. Make sure to write us
(45:02):
a review and leave us five stars. We'll take that
and we'll see you guys next time. See you next time.
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