-Turkey burgers, let's face it,
they're not that good.
[ Chuckles ]
The thing that you tuned in
to watch me make,
it's not that good.
It's the best turkey burger
I ever had,
but it's kind of like saying,
you know,
those are the best
jean shorts I've ever worn.
♪♪
My name is Andrew Ray.
I make a channel called
"Binging with Babish"
where I recreate foods
from movies and television.
Today, we are recreating
my first ever recreation,
the Chris Traeger patented
Traeger Turkey Burger
from "Parks and Recreation."
Chris Traeger challenges
Ron Swanson to a burger cook-off
to see if he can make
a turkey burger taste
better than a beef burger,
and he dresses it up and makes
this burger with papaya chutney
and black truffle aioli
and a Taleggio crisp
which is basically
just a long list
of bullshit foodie buzzwords
that I feel like the writers
were having a good time with,
so I was like, "What would
that actually taste like?"
I made it.
I really enjoyed it.
As they said in the TV show,
it tasted as good
as Beyoncé smells,
and now here we are at Vice,
a place where I tried to get
a job nine years ago and failed.
♪♪
Got ourselves an eggplant here.
We're going to oil
these lightly.
These guys are pretty absorbent,
so you kind of want
to be generous.
You want to get that flavor
in there.
We're seasoning this with a
little bit of salt and pepper.
It's good to season all of
your ingredients at every stage.
You're layering flavor,
and you're getting --
I don't know
if that's true or not.
Anyway, we're seasoning this.
We're going to throw it
in the oven...
for like 30 to 40 minutes,
375 degree oven
until it's nice
and brown and soft,
and we can puree it
and add it to our turkey.
Now we're going to make
a papaya chutney.
I'm going to go ahead
and peel this papaya here.
Becoming a YouTuber
is the new American dream.
Ask kids what they want
to be when they grew up.
It used to be like astronaut,
firefighter,
and now it's YouTuber.
You're basically just getting
paid to be yourself,
and it's a rare thing to be
able to do for a living.
I'm very, very grateful for it.
Just chopping this up
into manageable pieces,
so I'm going to throw these
in a small saucepan here
with some apple cider vinegar,
golden raisins, saffron.
I'm a home cook, and I try
to encourage other home cooks
to be adventurous
in the kitchen,
try new stuff and see it succeed
or see where it failed,
see where you made a mistake
and learn from it, you know?
That's important.
I'm just mixing this up here
a little bit,
let everybody get
to know each other.
We're probably going to cook it
for about 20 minutes,
let the papaya soften,
and then we can, you know,
just have kind of
a nice soft spreadable chutney.
My channel is very much
a happy accident.
I was feeling creatively stifled
and pretty depressed.
I went to therapy,
and I started getting help,
and then I decided, you know,
I just need to start
making things again.
The first test video
that I made,
I just made a smoothie
out of stuff
that I found in the fridge
just to see
if I could edit it together
in a compelling and fun way.
My favorite shows, I like
to put them on in the background
while I'm working,
and "Parks and Rec"
was on in the background.
I noticed this burger cook-off,
and I was like, "Huh.
What would that
actually taste like?"
And I was like, "Huh, maybe
I should do that on-camera."
Explore your passions.
You never know
what's going to happen.
He specified Taleggio
in the show,
and this is where I deviate
from the original
because it's just not possible
to make a cheese crisp
from Taleggio.
It's a soft washed rind cheese,
and it's just not going to melt
and crisp up the same way.
If you ever tried to do that
with Brie,
you'll know
what I'm talking about.
You're not going to make
a cheese crisp out of that.
good luck.
We have Parmesan
and some Fontina cheese.
When you melted aged cheeses,
the fat leaks out,
but we want that
to happen in this case.
It's going to make the cheese
solid sort of
like deep fry
in their own fat in the oven,
and then you end up
with a nice crispy guy.
Somebody needs to reinvent the
cheese grater because it's dumb.
Like, there's no good way
or, like, flattering way for me
to hold this where it looks --
Like, what's the pro way?
I guess, you know, to do it just
on the table,
that's the way to do it.
You want to grate into a bowl?
You're shit out of luck, buddy.
We're going to bake these
for 7 to 9 minutes
at 400 degrees
Fahrenheit.
We want it to be nice and deep
brown around the edges,
hopefully a little bit lighter
in the center.
You're going to see when
these come out of the oven,
it's going to be a nice thing
that you want to
put in your mouth.
We're going to make
some truffle aioli,
so this is an Americanized
shortcut aioli
that's really just a thin mayo,
and we're adding
some black truffle to it
to make it
all fancy-schmancy.
Crack on the flat of the table
like that, and look at that.
It still cracks open just like
I cracked it
on the edge of a pot,
and my yolk is most certainly
going to be preserved
even though
we're blitzing it up.
It doesn't really matter
in this case,
but if you're trying to keep
your yolks solid
then, you know,
listen to old Babby.
I'm also just going to add
a little squeeze of lemon.
One of the easiest ways
to make an aioli
is with an immersion blender,
so into the egg yolks we go
and slowly...
begin to drizzle this
down the side.
Oh, should I add
the black truffle?
I'm scared.
I'm scared.
I'm going to do it.
I'm going to do it.
I'm going to do it.
It's in. Okay.
If this breaks,
it's no longer my fault.
Come on.
Get in there.
Get chopped up.
Okay.
I see little black bits. Cool.
Now it's real black
truffle aioli. Rocking.
Okay, so, we got a nice,
thick, rich...truffle aioli.
♪♪
Here's the eggplant,
just came out the oven.
We want it to be soft.
We want it to be
something that we can scoop out
and add to the burger
just for some more
enriched flavors.
I'm going to chop this up
a little bit.
Does this work?
[ Tool whirs ]
Aah!
Okay. It works.
I want this to be a really fine,
smooth paste
because I don't want any strands
of eggplant in my burger.
It's a ghastly sound.
All right. Got a nice paste
here. Good stuff.
And the last thing
that we're going to do
is make the turkey burger,
one tablespoon soy sauce here,
Marmite, a yeast extract.
It's a disgusting yeast extract,
and we've got anchovy paste,
so I'm just kneading
this all together.
Again, ideally, you don't want
to overwork your meat too much,
but in this case, we got to
get these ingredients dispersed.
All right, we're oiling these
guys a little bit, boop, boop,
to prevent any stickage
down the line.
I'm making these pretty big
because we have pretty big buns
because haven't been hitting
the gym, right, fellas?
Because we have some large buns,
and because there's nothing
sadder in the world
than having a little meatball
in the center of a big old bun.
So, good. Those look like
some solidly-sized burgers.
And I'm just going to put
a nice divot in the center.
That seems like a good idea.
Boop, boop, boop, boop, boop.
I'll just mash these up
until it's going to be,
you know,
something spreadable.
We want something
that we can spread.
All right.
Look at that.
That's a chutney if I've
ever seen a chutney,
and I have seen a chutney
[clicks tongue]...
if you know what I mean.
I've seen chutneys.
That's what I mean. Anyway.
Always, always toast your buns.
You give me a burger
on an untoasted bun,
and we're going
to have words.
There we go. That's righteous.
I'm going to lube this guy up
and just go to town on him.
There we go.
Now, this is a good opportunity
to start seasoning.
that makes me happy.
Let's flip this.
That's -- As far
as turkey burgers go,
it's a pretty nice looking
turkey burger, you know?
I'm clocking doneness
on this burger,
so I'm going to take them off,
put it on the side,
so turkey burgers are done,
and now we just got
to put them together.
♪♪
Oh, my God. I didn't add
the fucking eggplant.
Well, son of a bitch.
[ Laughs ]
I forgot to add the eggplant,
so just don't add the eggplant
is my, um...suggestion.
You don't need to.
This is still going to be
a perfectly tasty burger.
We added all these
umami-boosting ingredients.
The eggplant might have
added structure.
It might have added a little
more body
and roundness to the flavor,
but this is still going to be
a perfectly beautiful
turkey burger.
Don't beat yourself up
too much for mistakes
even if you make them
on "Munchies." [ Laughs ]
All right. so we have
our toasted brioche bun.
On the bottom bun
goes the chutney,
and on top of that
goes our greens.
Burger goes on top
of the microgreens
and then our Taleggio
cheese crisp
and on top of that
black truffle aioli,
and there you have it,
the patented Traeger
turkey burger.
So, I'm going to go ahead and
give this a nice cross section.
Normally, I like to have
a cheese stretch,
but we got crispy cheese
in this case.
Eh, it's a good-looking
cross section.
♪♪
-That's actually not half bad.
It's definitely not nearly
as good as a beef burger,
and it is a mishmash
of flavors.
Like, these flavors don't belong
in the same burger.
This does not taste as good
as Beyoncé smells.
I've smelled Beyoncé,
and -- Oh, Jesus.
I assume she smells great,
and this tastes okay.
As far as a turkey burger goes,
I'm not mad at it.
What we learned how to do here
is not make the best
turkey burger in the world.
It's a pretty good
turkey burger.
What we did learn how to make
is how to make a cheese crisp,
how to make a papaya chutney.
The burger itself is moist
and flavorful,
better than most
turkey burgers I've ever had.
My cookbook,
the "Binging with Babish"
companion cookbook
is available for order now.
You can go to
bingingwithbabish.com/cookbook,
and my channel,
Binging with Babish,
Basics with Babish,
Being with Babish,
all available on YouTube
right now along with "Munchies."
Here's a burger for you guys
to split seven ways.
♪♪
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