- [Man] Still waiting for
RuPaul to do a cooking segment.
- I don't know if she will; I hope.
If she came in, I would go nuts.
Actually, no, I would probably just be,
act really cool and be like, hi, Ru.
Do you remember the old Brady Bunch movie?
She played the counselor.
When Marcia comes in, and
she obviously has her issues
with Jan, and then Ru just responds,
and you know what, girl?
You better work.
And then it's like [trills tongue].
[man laughs]
This is
when they should play this song,
but you can't play the
song for copyright reasons.
Anyways.
[light plucky instrumental music]
[garlic peels crinkling]
It's a quiet Monday in the test kitchen.
- [Man] Happy Monday.
- [laughs] I take a lot
of things back, but.
No one likes green bell peppers
in the test kitchen except for Priya.
And Brad.
Everybody's staring at me.
- [Man] Hey, there we go. [laughs]
[pestle banging on surface]
- Don't wear white when you make romesco.
I had a bit of an accident.
Okay. [claps hands]
Okay, romesco with steak,
steak with romesco,
or serving romesco with steak.
Either way, it's all about the romesco.
This sauce I started
making maybe 10 years ago,
and it's a sauce made with red peppers,
tomato, some form of vinegar,
usually sherry vinegar, and nuts.
You'll see it with almonds, hazelnuts,
occasionally pine nuts,
and then sometimes bread to thicken it.
I almost always omit the bread,
and with this recipe, I am omitting it.
I just like the saucy consistency you get.
I'm gonna start by just
doing a quick marinade
with the steak that
consists of the basics,
lemon and garlic.
- [Man] Yeah, I saw Kiss this weekend.
- [Andy] Ooh!
- [Man] Andy, who's your
favorite member of Kiss?
- You know what, I'm not a Kiss fan.
- [Man] Ooh, it's a little bit like drag.
- I don't think I listen
to a lot of hair metal.
That's the thing.
I'm peeling my garlic with a chef's knife.
- [Man] That's very heavy metal. [laughs]
[rock music]
- Yeah.
You do not need to use a microplane,
but it's me, so
duh.
I'm just trying to stay on brand.
I have two cloves of garlic,
and I'm just thinly slicing it.
You could crush the
garlic, but because this
is a quick marinade, I just slice it
to get that garlicky flavor
out, release that allicin.
Where's Brad when you need him?
I think Brad's on vacation.
I'm gonna add this to a baking dish,
and then I'm just gonna
take a little lemon.
Sometimes, I'll just
take a vegetable peeler
and just peel a few strips.
In this case, I think I'm
gonna just cut some rounds.
[knife hitting against cutting board]
So I'm pretty much
slicing half of the lemon,
adding that over, and then we
have some thyme and rosemary.
I was thinking we do rosemary...
Well, let's see, maybe I'll go with thyme.
I don't even do much.
I just bruise it like
this to release the oils.
I'm gonna add maybe upwards
of a quarter cup of oil.
[oil glugging out of bottle]
And then I have my skirt steak here.
I'm gonna season it.
It can take quite a bit of salt
'cause there's a good amount of fat,
but first, I'm gonna pat it dry.
I'm keeping it simple because of romesco;
it's a lot going on.
It has the sweetness from the peppers,
it'll have some heat,
it'll have a lot of texture
from the nuts, and so with this steak,
I'm just really keeping it
salt, not even any pepper.
I'm gonna add that to the marinade.
I'm wearing some weird pants today.
For one,
I'm clashing because I don't
have a solid-colored apron.
I'm wearing a striped apron and then,
I don't know, I bought these pants.
I don't know, it made my butt look good.
So I'm just gonna give this a toss,
and I'm gonna let this hang
out while I make the romesco.
I'm gonna let it sit at room temperature.
Again, super simple, the
lemon and the garlic,
and use whatever kind of herb you like.
I think thyme, rosemary, bay
leaf would be really nice.
So here are the ingredients
for the romesco.
You'll always see it with red peppers.
With this one, I add tomato, olive oil,
Spanish paprika, hot smoked,
a little bit of cayenne just
because I like the extra heat.
You could use a fresh
chili, though, if you like.
First, I'm going to just
get this tomato going.
I'm going to just cut it in half,
and I'm just gonna remove
the seeds, get in there.
Yeah.
This is someone's fantasy out there.
[crew member laughs]
- This is what every--
- Dirty, dirty, dirty, guys.
So I'm gonna broil this tomato.
It's one large tomato, skin side up,
and I'm gonna let that go until,
really, the skin is completely blistered
and charred and this flesh has softened,
and then we'll remove
the skins afterwards.
Okay, while that's happening,
I'm gonna just place
this bell pepper directly
on the stove top like this.
I'm gonna just turn this on high heat.
I would turn them every three minutes.
You want them completely
blackened and charred.
I like doing it this way
compared to under the broiler
because they really
become a lot more smoky.
The peppers will start to maybe
release some wisps of steam.
The flesh will be really tender,
and then we'll remove the skin,
and that'll be the base of the sauce.
My morning routine, I get up
probably around 6:30, 6:45,
if it's a good day, drink.
No, I drink, period, get
to the gym, do a workout,
put the face on,
and then I just put on a white T shirt
and some trousers and sneakers.
And that's it.
We got our tomatoes.
Their skins are nice and
charred, flesh is soft.
We'll let that cool for a bit.
Okay, these are almost there.
See how black I take them?
You want them completely blistered,
and that's gonna impart that smoky flavor.
But then we're gonna
transfer them to the bowl,
cover them with plastic wrap,
and then they're gonna steam,
and that's when their flesh
gets really soft and jammy.
So two things.
First is you cover it with plastic
so they can steam so the flesh
can soften like I mentioned.
But also, it allows for the skin
to separate from the flesh really easily.
- Meanwhile--
- Meanwhile,
I brought a mortar and pestle.
So I have a third cup,
third cup toasted hazelnuts.
I took them really nice dark golden brown.
Hazelnuts have this sweetness to them
that I really like that pairs
well with the red peppers.
So I'm just gonna coarsely crush them.
So I'm keeping these
hazelnuts pretty coarse.
I like just visually seeing the nuts.
Okay, so we have our hazelnuts.
I'm gonna add it to the bowl over here.
Okay, I'm gonna add two
tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
to this.
So we have our hazelnut mixture,
just oil, season it with salt.
Mmm, I'm eating this,
so yes, I double dip.
A lot of times, you'll
see the nuts pounded,
and then everything else is added to it,
and the nuts will help thicken the sauce.
I like having that, the red pepper sauce,
the romesco, and then lacing it
with the hazelnuts so you see it visually.
But if you don't get it,
you'll see what I'm talking about later.
Yeah, I'm going to California.
I like California.
- [Man] It's where you're from.
- It's where I'm from.
But I'm a New Yorker.
10 years.
- 10 years.
- 10 years, yeah.
- [Man] That's the official marker for--
- 10 years.
I felt like a New Yorker
as soon as I stepped,
or even before I moved here.
I was like, I belong here.
And then I went to school here, graduated,
been lucky enough to work here.
It's home.
Even when I'm wherever I am
in the world, in the country,
when I come back, it's
like a sigh of relief.
But it's not for everybody.
And if it's not, and you live here,
get the [beep] out 'cause
you're taking up space.
I'm gonna just slip the skins off
like that from the tomatoes.
If you were wondering, oh, Andy,
you didn't core the tomato, well,
that's because I was gonna just do this.
Cool.
- [Man] You need a little longer for 'em?
- Let's just do it.
Okay. [chuckles and whimpers]
Okay.
- [Man] All right, so
what are you doing now?
- So I'm just gonna
remove the stem like this,
and then I'm just gonna start peeling.
I'm being really cool
right now because this
is so damn hot, but you
would never know, right?
Okay, so we have our
peppers, skins removed.
I'm just gonna give them a rough chop
before I add them to the
[speaks in foreign language].
Okay, this might be too
much, but we'll go slow.
[pestle thudding in bowl]
[light pleasant jazz music]
30 minutes later, pesto.
Is that video ever gonna come out?
- [Man] 30 minutes later
is [speaks indistinctly].
[pestle thudding in bowl]
- Here's where we're at.
The peppers are mostly broken down.
You still see some pieces.
I'm gonna add the tomatoes,
one clove of garlic,
a bit more salt,
half a teaspoon hot smoked paprika.
It has a bit of heat.
It doesn't have that
much fiery heat to it.
That's why I add a bit of cayenne.
Two tablespoons sherry vinegar.
Quarter cup extra virgin olive oil.
The vinegar hits you.
I like it to be pretty bright.
It's sharp, it's sweet,
it's spicy, it's smoky.
We're serving it with steak.
We gotta cook that off,
but it can be served
with so many different things.
[steak sizzling in pan]
Remove the marinade.
I don't even know if the skillet
needs any additional salt.
[steak sizzling in pan]
We're gonna let this go for
about four minutes per side,
and then we'll pull it off, let it cool,
serve it with the romesco.
It's been about four minutes.
[steak sizzling in pan]
Let that go another four minutes,
and then we'll [makes slicing noise].
We're gonna let this sit for
about 10 minutes to rest,
and then we'll slice it up
and serve it with the romesco,
a little bit of parsley,
and a little bit of zest.
So you could see that the romesco
actually got a little bit,
it got even more red.
When you first combine the vinegar, oil,
and the cayenne and paprika,
it almost goes gray,
but then it comes back to being a lot red.
So don't worry, let it sit.
I'm gonna give this a taste.
Again, real time, it's only
been maybe five minutes,
and the flavors have just...
They really have gone
together a lot better now.
I think in the beginning,
you get that sherry vinegar.
Now, you get the garlic has mellowed out,
you get the sweetness from the peppers,
some acidity from both the
vinegar and the tomato,
and a wonderful, smoky flavor.
All right.
We're gonna slice up the steak.
Mm.
A little bit of lemon zest,
juice,
salt.
There you have it, steak with
romesco, romesco with steak,
and with a little bit
of parsley on top, zest.
A little bit of a maybe
somewhat deconstructed romesco,
but I love this look.
I love how red it is.
I love how loose it is rather than a lot
of romescos you see are a
little bit on the thicker side.
[man speaks indistinctly]
Chris, you want some steak?
- Yeah, yeah, I'll try some steak.
Is this your romesco that's all loose?
It's Andy's dream of romesco?
- Yeah, saucy, saucy romesco.
- [Chris] Saucy romesco?
What did you do to the tomato here?
- Just cut it in half
crosswise, removed the seeds,
and then put under the broiler.
I just wanted that flesh to soften
and to cut down some of its acidity.
I want my romesco with cooked
peppers, cooked tomatoes.
- I was just smiling because it's so good,
and everything stays so pungent,
just that brightness of the fresh oil.
It was just enough vinegar.
- Yeah.
I hope you guys make this recipe.
You don't have to serve it with steak.
You don't have to use a
mortar and pestle, I promise.
Don't wear a white shirt like I did,
and yeah, I hope you guys
make it; let me know.
[water spraying and hissing against pan]
- I'm good.
[man laughs]
Salted peanuts left--
- Salted peanuts?
- Salty [speaks indistinctly]
in the bottom of the thing.
Very upsetting.
- For, what is this?
[Chris speaks indistinctly]
- Kung pao, kung pao.
- [Andy] Dried chilies, peanuts.
- I'm gonna do some
fresh bell pepper, too.
Got me in a bell pepper zone right now.
- Okay.
- It's September,
fresh pepper, hot chili.
- [Andy] You're not gonna
chop the pepper, are you?
- The dried pepper or the fresh pepper?
- [Andy] Fresh pepper.
Are you gonna do big
chopped pieces like that?
- Yeah, like big daggers of pepper, why?
- Daggers are good.
- Daggers of pepper.
- Daggers of pepper, but
not squares of pepper.
[rapid whooshing]
- Ice picks of pepper.
- Okay, that's better.
- Yeah, yeah.
- Yeah, yeah, a la
Sharon Stone, Basic Instinct.
- Yeah, exactly.
