@ForkReport - Hour 1

Technique of the Week: Prime Rib Tips. Melissa Luna - Egg N Bird. 

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Hey, it's Neil Savedra. You'relistening to KF I Am six forty the
Fork Report on demand on the iHeartRadioapp. Hey, Kayla, Yeah,
Neil, did I tell you Idon't eat club sandwiches anymore? No quit
cold turkey. Don't laugh at thatash name. That was not lack wordy.
I got freeling a ring out ofRobert. Let me teach you had

(00:28):
it here. Let me teach youwho had it? Nan, Let me
teach you at it. It's aculinary Let me teach you at it.
Let me t can't I am sixforty live everywhere on the iHeart Radio app.

(00:51):
Hey everybody, it's the four Report. Yay, all things food,
beverage and beyond. I am yourwell fed host, Neil Savandra. How
do you do? Happy Saturday toyou, gorgeous day. It's eating up
again. Just nice socow weather,a little bit of beautiful puffy clouds here
in Burbank. I hope you're enjoyingyour day so far. Let's get into

(01:12):
it. Today is National Prime RibDay. I didn't bring any Just FYI
if everybody got all excited, butit is. It's not difficult to make.
But there are some things you shouldknow about. So I thought for
Technique of the Week, we'd getinto doing Prime rib. One of my

(01:34):
favorite food writers working off of thescience of food writing is there Serious Eats.
Serious Eats is a website that youcan go to great stuff there Kenji
Lopez hyphen Alt. He's been onthe show before, but it's been a
long time. He also has abook out there called Food Lab, which

(01:56):
I highly recommend if you are oneof those geeky food people like likes know
the science and things. So whatI did is I kind of broke down
his article in a way that wecan use it on the air for you
today, and then his recipe notonly what to do, but why to
do it this way. It allcomes down to a reverse seer. I

(02:16):
will talk about that in here,but a reverse seer is non traditional.
It is the tradition now, butit used to be that the belief was
you seared first. How many timeshave you heard the term you sear in
the juices. You're going to searthe outside and it's going to sear in

(02:37):
the juices. Well that's not true. You really can't sear in the juices
because there's always going to be enougharea for juices to get out of,
and the issue was searing. Firstis the temperature of the cut. So
if you take even if you letit, bring it out and let it

(02:57):
rest, you bring it out ofthe fridge. It's been there at thirty
eight degrees whatever it is sitting inyour fridge. You bring it out and
people say, let it come toroom temp. It's not going to come
to room temperature. It's just notthe amount of time you'd have to leave
it out for it to come toroom temperature. It would be bad.
It'd be white way longer than twohours. So you can let it kind

(03:19):
of warm up a bit, butit's not going to make that much of
a difference, to be honest withyou, no matter how many wonderful chefs
tell you that. The key tothe reverse here is that you are cooking
roasting basically the chunk of meat.In this case, it's a prime rib
roast, and it's bringing it upto temp in the center. You want

(03:40):
that center to be the proper temperature, and you're bringing it there at a
lower heat. It's going to makeit easier to seer off more quickly.
Afterwards. Why, well, there'sso much liquid i e. Water that
is in that meat when it comesout of the fridge and you put it

(04:02):
if you were to go to seerit. Now you're battling the temperature of
the cut and you're trying to getthat mayard reaction. I say it all
the time, what is that?Well, it's certain amino acids and the
sugars that are making this wonderful browncrust on the outside. It's gonna take
longer to do that, some twentyminutes or more to do that, and

(04:24):
then you're gonna change the integrity ofthe first couple of layers of that meat.
Now layers is the wrong term.Really, it's about I don't know,
inches measurement of meat. And bydoing that then you're not gonna be
able to get the most amount ofthe meat at the core temperature. So

(04:46):
if you want it medium rare,which you should, then you're gonna want
the most amount of that meat thatroast to be medium rare one five or
so. You don't want it tobe different gradients of gra and brown going
into that medium rare. So todo that, you bring up the vast
majority of it to that temp aroundone twenty or so. And then you

(05:13):
sear it off at the end andit takes like eight minutes, so it
cuts down the time less chance ofit overheating the meat. That's the key
of it. That's what breaks thisdown for the most part. You want
to start in with a bone inmarble rich beef. The marbleization is exactly
what it sounds like. It's thewhite part. Okay, that's your fat.

(05:35):
The red part is the lean.Together you and your wife will eat
the plate clean. So the marblerich beef is that fat rich beef.
You want to see those thin veinsof that fat bones as far as bone
in. Really it's as a wayto insulate the meat. It helps heat

(05:58):
it more more evenly. That wholething about closer to the meat, the
sweeter, or the closer the bone, the sweeter the meat. That's not
true, doesn't add flavor, doesn'tchange things that way. It just helps
keeps things juicy and sulated and cookingevenly. And for those of you like
to nonym or have animals, youcan do that as well. So that
marbling is going to be the key. That fat streaking through the meat,

(06:20):
it's gonna make it rich and tender. You want about three quarters of a
pound per person. Unless you've gottons of meat eaters like myself, go
for that whole pound, not yourselfout. Seasoning is simple, keep it
very simple. Salt and pepper,they're your friends when it comes to this.
If you've got time, you canseize that the day before. Let

(06:42):
it chill uncovered in the fridge.Why not only do the flavors sink in,
but the surface dries out for betterbrowning. That's what we're talking about.
Don't be afraid to cook it justa tad more than you think.
Medium rare to medium is the sweetspot for well marbled prime rib. Now

(07:04):
this is enough time to do lessfat. You want things fat, You
want them flavorful, you want themjuicy. If you want to kick things
up a little bit with a sauce, you can try a red wine based
a zoo or something like that.You can cook it up with oxtail.
You can do all kinds of thingsthat you want. But if you want
the good basic eats, you wantto break that down simply so, whether

(07:27):
you're dealing with prime or select cut, you can have fresh or dry age,
corn stuffed, grass fed, grassfinished. All those things are wonderful,
but if doesn't matter. If youdon't cook it right, your prime
rib ain't gonna cut it on itsown. You want the final results to
be deep brown, crispy salty cruston the outside, warm pink medium rare

(07:55):
center, just like me, deepbrown, crispy salty crust on the outside,
warn't pink medium rare in this center. So the gradient between brown crust
and that juicy, medium rare interior, you want that to be minimal.
You don't want a bunch of gradientsof dunness, no gray, no overcooked

(08:16):
mess around the edges. That's noone perfect prime rib. Retain as much
of that juice as possible, Nodry, sad, weird colors and shades
in between. Get to that lovelypink center using dry aged beef. If
you want to up your level andyou got a little bit of folding money,

(08:39):
dry aged beef. The reality isit ain't cheap, so whether you
buy it or you do it yourself, and some people are into that.
I haven't gotten to that level yet, but I am curious about it.
You're going to drop some money,so twenty five to thirty bucks a pound,
but it will up the eat factor. For sure when you come back,
I want to get into the battleof heat and moisture. That is

(09:01):
all cooking is. In the particularcase of making the perfect prime rib roast,
it is a battle, for sure. We'll get to that as we
talk about prime rib on Technique ofthe Week. Because it is National Prime
Rib Day coming up in just alittle bit, we'll get into a couple
of folks. Melissa Luna is gonnastop by from Eggen Bird. A US

(09:22):
couple decided to leave the States,go to Italy and bring American food there.
I gotta tell you the story becauseit's so reverse of what we're used
to do here in the States.It's a neat story to think about our
buddy Mondo talking guac coming up ina little bit as well, and how
you can get your hands on someof his award winning guacamole. So go

(09:46):
nowhere. You're listening to the ForkReport with Nil Savedra on demand from KFI
AM six forty. We're talking aboutprime rib today. Why because it is
National Prime Rib Day, And Ifigure, why the heck not. It's
such a wonderful cut, it's delicious. Why not talk about it for Technique
of the week, let's get backinto it. My notes today are an

(10:07):
amalgamation of a couple of things experience, but also really Kenji Lopez a one
of my favorite food writers from SeriousEats. I basically rewrote an article he
did on this and you can findit there at Serious Eats because I learned
so much from him. No sensein reinventing the wheel. So you can

(10:30):
go back and listen at your leisureif you didn't hear the first segment at
the iHeartRadio app and just look forthe fork Report podcast. So let's talk
about cooking temperature. This is thebattle between heat your temperature in the battle
of moisture, because you want somuch of those juices there, so you're
aiming for that pink, perfect center. Of course, there's some numbers you

(10:54):
need to know. First Up onetwenty five fahrenheit. That's the sweet pot
spot for medium rare. It's hotenough to cook through still keeping those juices
and the pinkness and all those goodthings in tact. The problem is if
you go any higher, you risklosing all those flavorful juices because the meat
starts to tighten up. It isa muscle and it will push those juices

(11:18):
out. However, that's not you'renot going to get high enough to get
that and be able to get thecrust because you're not going to be able
to get that Mayard reaction we talkedabout. So at three hundred and ten
degrees fahrenheit, that's that magic numberfor kickstarting that browning and deliciousness that comes

(11:43):
with that. But if you gotoo high, you're going to get a
browned exterior all that those mouth youknow, watering aromas, but it's going
to start to overcook from the outside. If you want a perfect brown crust
without sacrificing that pink juicy you wantto crank the heat up to four hundred
degrees, aiming for maximum browning.But then now you can see where you're

(12:07):
battling between temperature and the juiciness.So since the roast cooks from the outside
in, you got to think aboutby the time you get that center to
one twenty five, it's going thoseouter layers are going to be a problem.
So balancing the perfect crust with ajuicy center not easy, an easy
feet at all, and that's whereKenji Lopez Alt's recipe is perfectly balanced.

(12:31):
You do that reverse here that wetalked about the last segment. Get that
a great crust, and you canhave the beautiful medium rare by getting that
at the very end. So let'sbreak it down. Prep time's about ten
minutes, cook four hours and fortyminutes. Resting time roughly thirty minutes,
so five hours twenty minutes, dependingon the size. One standing rib roast

(12:54):
prime rib three to twelve pounds.This works for this, just a few
bones works for a bigger rack.There, kosher salt, freshly ground pepper.
That's really it. Maybe some oliveoil. Preheat your oven lowest possible
temperature your oven will go. Ifyou can get it to one fifty great,

(13:15):
you might need to go higher becausesome ovens don't go down that low,
and that may be two fifty.You can get it to two fifty
fine. You want to season yourroast generously with salt and pepper. Place
it that site up on a vrack, a roasting rack pan that you
know so well from doing your turkeys. Why a rack is fined on a

(13:37):
rimmed baking sheet as well. Popit in an oven. Let it cook
until the center reaches your desired donethis that's between one twenty and one twenty
five for rare, one thirty formedium rare, and one thirty five from
medium to medium. Well, Idon't particularly like that. If it takes,
it's going to take around five anda half six and a half hours
at two point fifty, about threehalf to four hours for that. So

(14:03):
once it's cooked to perfection in thatcenter, you take it out of the
oven, loosely tinted with aluminum foil, let it cool down in a warm
spot for about thirty minutes or so, up to an hour or so,
and while it's rating resting, rather, you want to crank that oven to
its highest setting, anywhere from fivehundred to five point fifty. A lot
of ovens don't go that high,so you want to get it as high

(14:26):
as you can, and about tenminutes before you're ready to serve it,
you ditch the foil. You popthe roast back in the hot oven.
You let it get nice and crispyon the outside. About six to ten
minutes, you take it out,you carve it up, and you serve
it piping hot. You don't needit to let it rest again because the
inside is already rested, and that'sit. Any size rows two ribs,

(14:52):
six ribs. Plan on about onepound per guest. Each rib adds about
one and a half to two pounds, So for top notch results, try
and go for that dry age ifyou can afford it, prime grade or
grass fed roast. And that's theticket, all right, bonapatito, send
me pictures. It is the ForkReport on Neil Servader KFI AM six forty.

(15:13):
Stick around, we come back,Melissa Luna from Egg and Bird coming
in with some eats, I believe, So go know where you're listening to
the Fork Report with Nil Sevedra ondemand from KFI AM six forty. As
we celebrate food, the people thatmake it, the culture behind it,
cooking it home, going out toeat, tipping a glass if you in

(15:35):
vibe, if you don't, oryou are healing from an addiction, God
bless you. We support that bigtime. There's a lot out there.
As a matter of fact, thereis all kinds of great non alcoholic beverages
or zero EBV. Just check thelabels when you do that stuff. But
this is for everybody. Vegans,carnivores, come one, come all.

(16:00):
Speaking of which, Beach Life Festivalreturns to the sands of Redondo Beach,
Los Angeles, this coming weekend,so May third through the fifth epic performances.
You've got Sting Incubus, my MorningJacket Devo who had dirty Heads,
just as easy, Top all kinds, and more so much more. Get

(16:22):
tickets now Beachlife Festival dot com.Beachlife Festival dot com. Why am I
telling you about this? Well,I'm going to be out there broadcasting on
Saturday, so come out and sayhello. I think I'll be able to
bring some swag. We'll have tosee. I'm not sure where I'm going
to be located. And a bighuge thanks to the folks at the Portovino
Hotel and Marina. You can catchtheir beautiful, exhilarating brunch experience. I

(16:48):
checked it out myself. It looksawesome. Before the Beach Life Festival on
May fourth, you enjoy the livemusic, panoramic oceanfronch front Vista's lavish feast
and you can book online now atHotelportafino dot com. Gorgeous place right there
overlooking the marina. Keep listening foryour chance to win tickets to join me
at Beach Live Festival coming up alittle bit later. Thank you big time,

(17:11):
to the Portafna Hotel and Marina.They're going to be housing my butt
up next weekend for the Beach Livefestival, and I can't wait. It's
just a gorgeous, stunning property thatI'm looking forward to check it out.
All. Right, back in Januaryor so of twenty twenty one, you
got these big brains behind yogurt Land, right, they decide to spread their

(17:33):
wings wink wink hatch a new ideawink wink called Egg and Bird. We've
had them on the program many timesbefore. Their mission very simple, serve
up very tasty, fresh, excellentingredient grub without breaking your wallet. And
they're mixing things up with great combos, taste, textures, ingredients, always
bringing us something new, as theydo today, joining us again on the

(17:57):
Fork Report. Marketing manager A LissaLuna, Welcome, It's nice to see
you. Great to see you,so May would Pico rivera upland Cyprus.
Did I miss any We've got onecoming in October? Is it hatching in
October soon? Well, it's niceto see you brought some delicious grub again.

(18:21):
Tell us what's going on at Eggand Bird and what's new? Well,
we just hatched our new wraps.We've jumped on that wrap bandwagon that's
going on, and yeah, wheredid that come out? I loved me
a rap. I think wraps arewonderful. And they kind of came in
and then went out a little bit, and now they're coming back in fuego.

(18:41):
It's interesting that since we just launchedit and I looked around, I
was like, everybody else has wraps, so I kind of feel like we're
in the game here. Yeah,it's a it's just a smart thing.
It's less bready obviously, so you'regetting you know, people have said sandwiches
basically if you do them right,or a salad in bread, So a
wrap is kind of that. Youget all those great ingredients, the freshness,

(19:03):
the crispiness of lettuce and other freshgreens up against the protein in there,
and you can kind of, youknow, with a sauce. You
can sign serve from any way youwant, right, And we're giving our
guests the choice of fried chicken tendersor grilled chicken. Oh that's awesome too.
A lot of people don't want theextra breading. I like the breading,
I like the crunch, but goodgrilled chicken is a little healthy there,

(19:29):
right, and many how many saucesyou guys, you're obviously known for
your sauces. We have a coupleof housemade sauces especially are well known.
I didn't bring any today. Thecrack sauce is not here, oh thank
you. But I did bring oursignature clanchioli sauce and so that's in our
grilled avocado chicken wrap that we broughttoday. So I bet that will We'll

(19:51):
just go down very good. Thefruit. You kind of explain the food
at Egg and Bird and for thosethat want to check out more egg the
letter n bird dot com and thesame egg n Bird on all the socials
break down the philosophy of the foodat Egg and Bird and what you folks

(20:12):
are bringing to people. Well,we've taken the signature recipes of our owner
and their family generated recipes, andthen our R and D department takes that
and comes up with these items thatwe know that have great flavor. Right,
we have Korean inspired recipes there,got your Ktown rap, right,

(20:37):
Ktown Rap has some kimchi jam inthere. So we're trying to make sure
that it's something a little different thanwhat you would normally get in other kimchi
jam so low and slow to whereit just breaks down the elements, concentrates
the flavors and sticky ooey gooiness.Yes, it has a good pop at

(20:57):
the end. Wow, we shouldall be so lucky. All right,
we come back. We'll talk morewith Melissa. Melissa Luna, the marketing
manager from AIG and Bird again eggenbirddot com, egg the letter nbird dot
com and the same on their socials. Go check it out and see where

(21:18):
the locations are. If you're inMaywood, Pico rivera Len, Cyprus,
it's near you. Another one tocome, but we'll come back. We'll
take some of the food and talkmore with Melissa when we return. You're
listening to The Fork Report with NilSavedra on demand from KFI AM six forty.
Hey everybody, Neil Savadra with theFork Report. Howdy Howdy, Howdy,

(21:40):
Happy Saturday. It's beautiful out there. It's gonna be another beautiful weekend
next week, and it looks likeand you know where I will be.
I will be out there at thewhat an event Beach Life festival that is
that's so cal right there for you, so Cal beach Life festivals going to

(22:00):
be huge. They're doing everything theyIt returns there to the sands of Verdondo
Beach, Los Angeles, May thirdthrough the fifth. Massive performances by epic
bands like Sting, Incubus, MyMorning Jacket, devo Zzy Top, just
so much going on. You canget tickets now at Beachlife Festival dot com
Beachliffestival dot com. I'll be broadcastingout there live thanks again to the people

(22:25):
at the Portafino Hotel and Marino Marina. Rather they got their massive brunch there.
This experience really because of the beautyof everything. It's before the Beach
Live Festival on May fourth. Enjoythat. I'm going to be staying there,
so I'm going to be enjoying thatfor sure. Live music, panoramic

(22:45):
oceanfront vistas and that lavish feast.Give me some of that book online now
at Hotel Portafino dot com. Willbe giving you a chance to win tickets
and join me at the Beach LiveFestival coming up a little later. And
I'm looking at this right now.They also have what they call Beachlife Ranch.
It's very cool, so they havethe side stage experience and they've got

(23:07):
these great chefs and I'm looking overthem. Sunday they got Chef Jacob Ramos,
who's a local boy, by theway, born and raised here in
La Just this is the way youwant someone to learn cooking from mother and
grandmother. That's how you develop yourlove. And that's exactly what happened to
Chef Jacob, and he went outto study California School of Culinary Arts,

(23:33):
got his diploma from Cordon Blue andworking at the Patina restaurant group Massive.
Just looking at this guy's CV growinginto all these things and now being the
culinary focus and the beach life's ownchef here, just looking over stuff that

(23:59):
he's got going on. I wentin on this blue fin tuna, first
course, whiskey, ponzu sauce,avocado salad. Man, I'm listening,
Krispy scallops, uh huh, teraroot, Yeah, yeah, you got
me, jumbo lump crab cakes,sold wood grilled age, New York steak,

(24:21):
Fling for dessert, Krema Desktkatalan,and Wow, Saturday Chef Kevin Mihan.
I think has Kevin been on theshow before? Chef Ray Hayashi.
Wow, they got a great lineup there at that side stage experience.
So cool things going on there rightnow. We're talking with our friend from

(24:45):
Egg and Bird. Melissa has beenon with us before, Melissa Luna Overseas
the marketing and everything with Egg andBird, Maywood, Picico, Rivera,
upland Cyprus. Okay, so thesewraps, Oh my gosh, that is
like a workout. I'd say youshould have told me it was a two
hander. That's nice heavy. Okay, which one? These are the three

(25:10):
that are in front of me,tell us about these and I'll and I'll
do some taste it. Well,what we brought today is our bacon,
avocado ramp rap, grilled chicken,spring lettuce, bacon, the cilantroioli,
sauce, ranch, carrots, avocado, onions, lancho and on a flour
tortilla. And obviously I would loveyou to try the ktown rap okay fried

(25:37):
chicken, spring lettuce, soy garlicblaze, Korean glaze, the vinegar slaw,
kimchi jam and green onion. Mmboom. That's delicious. So it's
a beautiful thing. We just startedlots of our catering and off site catering

(25:57):
and love to bring this wherever anybodywants a party. The catering packages look
amazed balls by the way, fromthe chicken sandwiches to the wraps now obviously
crowd pleasers. They're massive, greatcombination of textures and colors. Looking into
this, you see those bright greens, the orange from those carrots, that

(26:21):
golden brown coming off that deep friedchicken is just wonderful. These are great
tortillas, right, and it's liketurning our sandwiches into wraps. Right.
But we've our R and D departmentshout out to our neurine issue. They
created some great flavors. Yeah,these are This is wonderful, has some

(26:42):
great sweetness to it, a tinybit of heat that creeps up on you.
Those tech that jam is magic reallydifferent. Yeah, I really really
dig that. Okay. And thisone here is our barbecue rant oh no,
the creal chicken avocado wrap. Okay, so you know the choice of
grilled chicken or fried chicken, andour special housemaids slantrioli sauce. Oh man.

(27:07):
Oh and that has some dark meatin it as well. Yes,
oh yeah, I meat. Ilike that combination. It's just a little
bit sweeter, a little fattier,has a little more depth of flavor up
against that bacon and everything. Whenwe launched our Kings of Wine, grilled
Chicken, Avocado Sandwich, and ourgrilled Chicken Bowl last year, we knew

(27:32):
we had to keep the grilled chickenon the menu and it just kind of
opened it up a little bit forfolks that are not fried chicken folks,
and it's kept us in the game. And a thigh or when you get
that dark meat, it just grillsso beautifully. You know, the marination
that they also use on that,it adds to that extra flavor. And

(27:55):
what's the Is this one different?Or did I get a double the barbecue
ranch because that has the cheese andthe ranch of the barbecue. This isn't
barbecue ranch, is it? Areyou sure? Yes? Okay? Because
she just ate one? Yeah,oh okay. Let's just bring everybody in
behind the scenes. For those thatare new to the program. When you

(28:18):
hear anyone say she ate them,they're referring to Kayla, who, yes,
the producer should be helping the host, but really she helps herself first
and then gets on to everyone else. So thank you. How'd you like
the barbecue? Yeah? It wasamazing? Right? Oh yeah, yeah,

(28:40):
sweet unlike Kayla. That is Ijust you know, I'm like Dan
rather, I'm just giving the newsman that's the truth. That's excellent.
And we also added and we broughtour avocado crunch salad that you can try
later on that right, threw herfreshness around wraps in a salad. I

(29:02):
think it's cute you brought me asalad. Yeah, we'll take pictures with
that later and give it to thecrew. No, that actually is a
gorgeous salad. And I love thatcombination that sesame seeds on top of the
avocado. Yeah, it just givesyou a nice little nuttiness, a little
a little chew little nuttiness on topof that that looks honey mustard dressing.

(29:22):
And you're good to go. Well, it's nice to see you, Melissa.
You know, normally when you popin we talk with Nick as well.
Nick Robertson. I heard he's gota new baby. We wish him,
he and his wife the best andthat he's doing well and give him
our kind regards. Will you appreciateyour time and welcome the us back.

(29:44):
We love to always come back.And anytime I hit up Kayla today,
I said, so they're coming backanything new, and she's like yep,
so always excited, always fresh,always wonderful. And we've got some giveaways,
okay, so we'll give those awaycoming up in a little bit.
You guys are always so generous tothe audience. We appreciate that. Again.
Eggn the letter nbird dot com.You can see do an event,

(30:11):
having kids over after a baseball game, whatever it is. Obviously we're getting
into pool weather here. Give thema call. They do catering as well,
and their food is just right freshand delicious. It really is good
to see you. You've been listeningto the Fork Report. You can always
hear us live on KFI AM sixforty two to five pm on Saturday,

(30:33):
and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadioapp.