9 Seasonal Recipes to Celebrate the Flavors of Fall

[Music] hello this is chef john from foodwishes.com with roasted butternut squash soup that's right even if you don't have a calendar you can tell when it's turning fall the leaves change colors there's a little chill in there and twitter fills up with pictures and links to butternut squash soup recipes and it was seen a couple of those that reminded me i've never posted my version for this quintessential autumn soup so let's go ahead and get started with prepping what i call the world's most dangerous gourd and that's because the butternut squash is so big and so hard it's basically a severe cut waiting to happen so i'm going to show you what i think is the safest way to split this which is by cutting off the top here and then what we'll do is we'll take a large sharp knife and cut directly into the center of the neck just like this and please note my other hand is not getting anywhere close to this blade and is it going to matter that i didn't cut that exactly in half because i was paying more attention to the camera than i was to the squash no it won't be a problem at all and then once we split that through the center like that what we'll do is we'll tip it up like this and simply cut it straight down to split and for me not only is that the easiest way it's definitely the safest because at no time should any of your fingers be in the way so we'll split our squash in half and then we'll grab a spoon and scrape out the seeds and of course yes we could save those seeds and roast them but we're probably not going to do that hey we're busy making soup but if you want to go for it you are the lords of your gourds so feel free and then once our butternut squash has been split and scooped we can move on to prepping our roasting pan where we're not only going to roast our squash but we will also roast the other vegetables going in the soup so let's go ahead and drizzle a little olive oil into the bottom of the pan and then we'll dump in our onions and carrots and we'll give that a nice big pinch of salt and give that a little toss in the oil and i'm also going to toss in about six whole peeled garlic cloves all right don't slice them don't smash them too much just toss those in whole and then we'll place our butternut squash in cut side up and i'm also going to give that a little sprinkling of salt and then we're going to roast all of that in a 400 degree oven for about an hour or until our squash is soft enough to scoop so mine took about an hour but that's really going to depend on the size of your butternuts and how you're going to tell us how we usually tell we'll give it the old poka poka with a knife and as you can see those have been previously poked and then what we'll do is we'll let that stuff cool down a little bit and while we're waiting we're going to go ahead and make what is basically the secret ingredient to this recipe a sage brown butter so what we'll do is we'll melt about four tablespoons of butter over medium heat and you've probably seen this before first it melts then it foams up and then it starts to slowly but surely take on a little bit of a golden color and at this point it's not a bad idea to turn your heat down just a hair so we don't go too far because what we're trying to do is catch it at that perfect moment when it goes from golden to sort of a light nutty brown which is what we have right here and at that point we're going to quickly do two things we're going to turn off the heat and throw in a handful of sage leaves and even though the heat's off there's going to be enough heat in that butter to toast those leaves and infuse that butter with its gorgeous gorgeous flavor so we'll stir in our sage leaves and we'll simply leave that on the back of the stove until it's ready to add to the soup which is going to be pretty soon because once your veggies are roasted this is a very fast soup to put together so we'll go back over to our squash which have cooled down a little by now and what we'll do is we'll scoop out that flesh and yes we did get a lot of beautiful caramelization on those onions and carrots which is not only going to add flavor but it's also going to help give us a beautiful color not only do we want this soup to taste roasted we want it to look roasted and then like i said we'll scoop out our squash into that pan and please don't worry if you get a little piece of skin here or there we're definitely going to strain this soup so no big deal so we'll go ahead and we'll scoop out our nice soft squash at which point we are now officially ready to make the soup so we'll head over to the stove and transfer everything into a soup kettle and once that's been accomplished we'll go ahead and add our brown sage butter and then for a little touch of extra sweetness we'll do about a tablespoon or two of either honey or maple syrup and both will work beautifully here but personally i go with the maple syrup and the reason is simple i like canadians better than i like bees and then we'll go ahead and add our chicken broth and yes of course you can go with water or vegetable stock if you're one of them they're vegetarians there's nothing wrong with that hey if everybody ate meat it would be more expensive so to me selfishly they do serve a valuable purpose and we'll give that a stir and we'll turn our heat up to high and bring this up to a simmer and then what we'll do as soon as our soup starts bubbling is we'll turn our heat down to low and simmer this for about 45 minutes to an hour and even though everything's cooked and there really is no great scientific reason to cook it that long i do it anyway and i think it comes out better so i would love to explain why but i can't and after about one hour this is what mine looked like and at this point we're ready for final production so the first step to that is we're going to blend this very very smoothly and of course you can do that in batches in a blender but i find these stick or immersion blenders much much faster and easier so i'm going to blend mine for a few minutes until it's very smooth at which point i'm going to highly suggest we pass this through a strainer okay the blades of a blender or food processor are really never going to break down all that material as small as those incredibly tiny holes in our strainer so by passing that through even though it's going to look pretty much the same you're going to get something that on the pallet feels much smoother much silkier so we'll go ahead and strain our soup and we should be left with only the most fibrous bits and then once our soup is strained we're on to the adjustment phase first stop adjusting the thickness so i'm going to check this out with my ladle and it is very very close but i do want it just a hair thinner i mean we do want it thick and hearty but we don't want pie filling so if you need to add a little bit of water that's just you cooking and then the second adjustment will be to balance the sweetness with the following ingredients we're going to put a nice big splash of apple cider vinegar as well as a couple nice big pinches of salt and of course we'll bless this with a little shake of cayenne and as soon as we stir that in and the soup heats through we're done of course we're going to take a spoon and taste it because you may still need to adjust a little more salt so i gave mine a taste and it was perfect so i went ahead and ladled that up into a hot bowl and i'm going to garnish it very simply with a nice spoon of creme fraiche which you know you can make yourself right we have a video for that and i'm going to finish off with some chopped chives and that my friends may be the best autumn soup of all time just an absolutely gorgeous color and what i'm pretty sure you'll think is an incredibly deep rich satisfying flavor i mean butternut squash already have a beautiful earthy subtle sweetness that we've just accentuated a little bit with that maple syrup and the way those sweet flavors kind of play against that little bit of vinegar and that little bit of tanginess from the creme fraiche is just absolutely delicious but anyway that's it roasted butternut squash soup i was just about to say wait for the next cold rainy day and whip up a pot but you know what this stuff is so good no matter what your current atmosphere or conditions are i really do hope you give this a try soon so head over to foodwishes.com for all the ingredient amounts and more info as usual and as always enjoy [Music] pig in a pumpkin that's right i've always wanted to cook a pig in a pumpkin but i could never find a pumpkin big enough or a pig small enough so i finally just settled for cooking part of a pig in a pumpkin and the results were almost as delicious as they were beautiful since this really was one of the more visually stunning things i've made in a long time so with that let's go ahead and get started and the first thing i did was cut up some pork shoulder which is often sold in butcher shops as pork butt and why that is is not nearly as entertaining of a story as you'd think but anyway i have about four pounds of pork shoulder here which were formerly sold as two pork roasts which is why they kind of have these weird flaps since the butchers kind of tuck those in and then tie them up to make them look like one solid piece but anyway not withstanding a couple fatty flaps i went ahead and cut that into nice large chunks and then once that was set i transferred it into a large mixing bowl and proceeded to season it with a whole bunch of kosher salt and yes we do need that much i also tossed in some freshly ground black pepper and of course a little shake of cayenne as well as a little bit of dry thyme i hadn't planned on that but there was like a half teaspoon left in the bottom of one of my jars so i figured what the heck let's throw that in and then i followed that with something i did plan on adding which was some crushed fennel seed and then i finished up with a couple fresh items including some freshly chopped rosemary and some sliced shallots and then i went ahead and gave that a very thorough mixing and by the way of course garlic and or onions would have worked in place of the shallots or you could have used all three all right that kind of stuff's up to you i mean you are after all the chairman of the board for your pork stuff cord and this really is just a techniques video so feel free to season this any way you want and then once that's all mixed up i guess we could move to the browning stage but i actually decided to cover mine in parchment paper and pop it in the fridge overnight which will give our seasonings more time to penetrate that meat a little more deeply so i went ahead and covered that and popped it in the fridge overnight at which point we'll pull that out and then before we brown it i'm going to sprinkle over a couple tablespoons of flour and besides helping the meat develop a beautiful crust as we brown this i also thought that starch would help thicken up our cooking liquids which we would then use for a sauce later and yes i probably should have broken up that lump of meat first and then sprinkled that over but that's fine we'll just take the tongs and give it a mix until each piece is sort of semi-evenly coated and then once my pork chunks were floured i went ahead and browned up this meat over medium high heat and a little bit of olive oil all right you don't need too much because remember fat's going to render out as you cook these and i brown that very thoroughly on both sides and i should mention i did that in two batches so as not to crowd the pan and then besides browning up all our meat the only other thing we're going to have to prep is our pumpkin and we'll do that by first cutting off the top and to do that we will plunge our knife in very carefully to 45 degree angle two or three inches away from the stem and we're going to go very slowly just cutting around about an inch at a time and the reason we want to go in at a 45 degree angle is because if you cut straight down that top is just gonna fall straight down through oh and i should mention this is not a regular ornamental pumpkin that you make your jack-o-lanterns out of okay these kind are commonly referred to as pie pumpkins since they have more and sweeter flesh but anyway we'll cut like that all the way around and we'll remove what's basically going to be our lid and of course we're going to trim off the seeds in any of that sticky orange hair or whatever those fibers are called and of course we're also going to have to scrape out the inside nice and clean using a large spoon or regular spoon or what i really used between shots which was an ice cream scooper and that did take a few minutes and was by far the hardest and most annoying part of the whole operation but eventually i got that nicely scooped out and when done it should look a little something like this and then what we'll do once our pumpkin is sand seeds is place that into some kind of baking dish or pan and as you can see i did put a little piece of parchment paper in there although to be honest with you i'm not exactly sure why but anyway once i had my pumpkin pan i proceeded to fill that with my browned meat and i was not sure it was all going to fit because i just guessed at the amounts but as luck would have it it actually all fit in perfectly including any of those shallots and scraps from the pan as well as of course any accumulated juices if you throw those away we can't be friends and then after that i finished up by pouring in my braising liquid which was a couple cups of hard cider or as my european friends call it cider because apparently it always has alcohol in it over there as so many things do so i poured in a couple cups of that and then pressed on the top which did not quite fit but close enough and i figured is this roasted and the meat shrunk up a little that lid would settle down and then once i had that all situated to my liking i went ahead and transferred that into a 350 degree oven for almost four hours or until it looked like one of the greatest things i've ever seen come out of an oven i mean come on check that out and yes of course as that was roasting i was checking it with this cure which i'm just pretending to do here but do not under any circumstances stop cooking this until when you test it with a skewer or knife or a fork that meat is very very tender and then what i did was decide to let this rest a little bit and while it was sitting i decided to paint the outside with the rendered fat because even though we don't think something could look any better we always want to check so i brush some of that hot melted pork fat all over and believe it or not it became even more gorgeous and then i didn't film it but i did spoon off the rest of the fat and reserved any of the juices in the bottom so i could mix that with the juices inside the pumpkin to use that as a sauce later and then just because i thought it would look nice for the pictures i surrounded that with some brussels sprouts i had sauteed and butter and once that was set i went ahead and took a few pictures like 100 or so and it took a while but eventually i got tired of looking at it and i pulled off the lid so i could serve some up and see how it tasted so i pulled out some pork which smelled absolutely amazing and i also cut out a serving of the pumpkin which if you've never had before actually tastes a lot like butternut squash and i went ahead and plated some up with some nice buttery mashed potatoes and then i finished it off by spooning over some of the cooking liquids after skimming off some of the fat and i will admit it was not the most beautiful sauce because it had a bunch of particles from the cooked pumpkin this sort of made it look a little grainy which is why i decided to finish this by distracting everybody with a nice sprinkling of freshly chopped italian parsley and i will give you more info about the sauce in the blog post but anyway i finished up with some parsley and that's it my pig in a pumpkin was ready to try and as far as the cooking method goes i thought this was very very successful and although it was very subtle the pork did pick up a little touch of sweetness and on the other hand the pumpkin really picked up a ton of that pork flavor mostly thanks to all those sausage-like seasonings and by the way if we have any kids watching don't eat things off the tip of a knife unless you're playing pirate then it's okay so to summarize the pork was amazing the pumpkin was amazing the sauce was pretty amazing although like i said i'm gonna give you a little advice about that in the blog post i probably could have poured in a little more cider so i would have had a little more but anyway all in all an amazingly successful experiment and visually just a total seasonally appropriate showstopper in fact i thought this looks so incredible that even if you're not going to use this technique to braise pork i think this is probably how you should cook your stuffing for thanksgiving i mean not that grandma's casserole dish is not impressive but imagine walking to the table with this or if you don't get some oohs and oz with this you might need to be thinking about a different guest list but anyway whether you're going to use part of a pig or some other savory stuffable substitute i really do hope you give this a try soon so head over to foodwishes.com for all the ingredient amounts of more info as usual and as always enjoy [Music] creamy pork stew that's right do not let the generic name fool you while this recipe might sound a little simple the flavors are quite complex incredibly comforting and extraordinarily delicious and while i really was thrilled with how this came out it's also a very adaptable recipe and will work beautifully with all those gorgeous fall and winter vegetables at our disposal but anyway let's go ahead and get started and we're going to begin by cutting up some pork shoulder and there you can see mine i got about a two and a half pound piece which was sold as a pork shoulder roast and if you look carefully you can still see the string marks where it was all tied together and what we'll simply do here is take a sharp knife and cut this into about two inch pieces give or take no one's going to measure but you want to get them close so they cook evenly if you do happen to see a natural separation between the muscles like we had here you can cut through that first but it really doesn't matter just start cutting into about two inch thick slices and then cut those pieces into about two inch chunks and i don't want you to worry too much about trimming fat off i mean if you see a piece hanging off that's just pure fat go ahead but as you may have heard me say before i'd much rather skim than trim so a lot of that fat's gonna render out and we can skim it off the top as it's doing and by the way have i ever told you guys never ever buy pre-cut stew meat that pre-cut stuff in the meat case is gonna be more expensive and not as good so don't use it we're going to cut our own just like this at which point we want to season this thoroughly with kosher salt as well as some freshly ground black pepper and don't be shy that's a lot of meat so we'll season that generously and then let's go ahead and give that a toss solely for the purposes of salt and pepper distribution and as soon as that's been accomplished we'll go ahead and move to the stove where we want to brown this meat very thoroughly and a little bit of vegetable oil over high heat and because i have about two and a half pounds of pork i don't want to crowd this so i'm gonna do mine in two batches you will only be seeing one but the second batch remarkably similar to the first batch and of course one of the reasons we brown meats before we stew them is to add flavor but it's also almost always going to give your sauce a better color but that's really up to you you are the disco stew of this stew's hue but i assume you want it to taste great and have a beautiful color so i do recommend a fairly thorough brownie and then once we feel like our pork has been browned beautifully we will remove that to a bowl to rest we will turn our heat down to medium and then right in that same pot in that beautiful pork fat we will cook an onion which as you can see has been roughly chopped and we'll cook that stirring on medium for about three or four minutes or until it starts to turn translucent and those edges start to get a little bit golden and then once that's happened we'll go ahead and throw in some minced garlic and as usual we'll only cook this for about a minute stirring and as you can see on the bottom there we got a beautiful fawn forming which we are now about to deglaze with two of the most important ingredients so once our garlic just cooked for about a minute we're going to go ahead and dump in some vinegar i'm using apple cider but any wine vinegar will work also as well as some apple cider and we'll go ahead and stir that in and now at this point it's safe to raise our heat back up to high because eventually all this has to be simmering and while we're waiting for that to happen we can go ahead and add a few more key ingredients so at this point we're going to introduce two big nice spoons of dijon mustard and of course you can go ahead and use any style of mustard you want here as long as it's dijon we also want one nice big spoon of horseradish extra hot prepared horseradish preferably homemade oh yeah we have a video for that so a nice shot of horseradish and we'll stir that in and at this point we can dump our brown pork chunks back in with any and all accumulated juices i mean you have to add those back in that's mandatory and then of course to make any kind of decent creamy stew we need some cream so i'm going to pour in about a cup and a quarter of heavy cream i believe that's 32 percent butter fat if i'm not mistaken but don't quote me on it i'm not that great with percentages i'm only right about 40 of the time and wrong about 70. but anyway we're going to add our cream and then once we've added the cream i'm going to do a little splash of chicken broth we kind of want that liquid level just coming up to the top of the meat and then while we're waiting for this to come up to the simmer we can go ahead and add some herbs and for this i'm going to use a little bit of sage those are just some little tiny sage leaves i picked off and i'm also going to do a few time sprigs and a little bit of rosemary so those are going to be the fresh herbs i use but we're also going to add one dry bay leaf and we'll stir all that in and you will note i did not pick and chop those fresh herbs what i'm going to do is add them whole like that and after this is done simmering those stems are going to be easy to pull out leaving the herbs in the stew and i think i'm also going to give it one more shot of salt here and of course we're going to adjust later but i do think we want to add some here and then what we'll do is we'll wait for this to come up to a simmer at which point we'll back the heat down to low cover it and let it simmer very gently on low for 30 minutes at which point we'll take off the lid and we'll give it a stir and that meat's not really going to be getting tender yet so i'm not even going to check it basically we were just giving it a little bit of a head start before adding the rest of our aromatic vegetables so at this point let's go ahead and add our celery and our carrots and stir those in and once those were added a little voice in my head said hey you may want to heat this up a little bit more so i added a little more freshly ground black pepper plus a little bit of cayenne which i do enjoy now and then and then the good news here the rest of this recipe is extremely easy simmer this on low stirring occasionally until your meat is tender and sure if you want you could skim some fat from the top that's between you and your cardiologist i may or may not have skimmed a little bit off but we'll simply continue simmering until our meat is fork tender and of course you're not gonna guess or what some crazy people do just go by cooking times listed in the recipe you're gonna check with a fork and right here i could tell mine was just about perfect and once our meat is tender we're gonna toss in the last ingredient a handful of green peas and the peas are optional here as are any vegetable additions but i do enjoy them so i stirred some in and basically we'll let that simmer for another 10 minutes or so and we're probably done unless you decide on this one extra optional step i like to turn up the heat and reduce it to thicken it up a little bit so that's actually where you're seeing here the stew's done but i crank my heat to medium high and i'll cook stirring for another four to five minutes until everything just reduces a little more and thickens up slightly and then once our meat is tender and we reduce the sauce to how we want it you still of course have to check for seasoning which i did and i'm happy to report was perfect so there was really nothing left for me to do except ladle this up over some rice and like all great stews this would be good served over anything this is equally delicious over potato or pasta hey you could probably even get away with serving this over quinoa although you didn't hear that from me and then for a little final touch i decided to garnish with a little bit of fresh apple that i tossed with a little bit of fresh chive i thought it would look pretty plus provide a little bit of contrast with the temperature and the texture and that's it one of my favorite all-time winter stews is done so let me go ahead and dig in and that my friends is just such a delicious combination of everything taste texture temperature just so so good i mean as long as you season this properly and cook the meat until it's tender there's absolutely no way to screw this up seriously and i realize this time of year a lot of people are braising things in apple juice and cider but it's been my experience that they use too much we just used like a half a cup of cider which gave us just the perfect amount of that background sweetness that we wanted so i really did think this was perfectly balanced to my taste at least you of course are gonna have to adjust yours all right so i really do hope you give this a try head over to foodwishes.com for all the ingredient amounts and more info as usual and as always enjoy [Music] sweet potato gnocchi that's right i'm going to show you how to produce little pillows of pasta using a sweet potato which is going to be a lot of fun and pretty easy and since we're using the orange flesh sweet potato i was just about to say also nutritious but then i remember we're going to be saucing this with a bacon butter so i guess we'll put good for you in the maybe column but definitely fun easy beautiful and most importantly delicious so with that let's go ahead and get started by taking one large sweet potato and performing the old pokken roast which just means taking a sharp knife and pricking the skin all over before we roast this until it's completely tender which i like to do in the microwave since it's fast and easy but you could also of course do this in the oven okay really doesn't matter as long as when you're done it is very very very soft which we will know for sure by poking with a knife and then what we'll do once this is cool enough to handle although still very warm is go ahead and split that in half and then using a spoon we'll go ahead and scoop all that gorgeous orange flesh into a bowl oh and i should mention these orange ones are often sold as yams at the store purely for marketing purposes but they're not they're actually just orange flesh sweet potatoes and while any variety will work these orange ones are clearly the most beautiful and from what i hear the most nutritious and that's it once all that flesh has been scooped and scraped from the skin we'll go ahead and take a potato masher and smash this nice and smooth which you can definitely do in a food processor but it's been my experience that cleaning a food processor is way harder than this and while using the machine we'll get this a little smoother with just a couple minutes of mashing with a hand tool this is going to be plenty smooth and then once that's set we'll go ahead and add one optional ingredient a nice spoon of ricotta cheese and if you don't have it or don't want to add it this will still work but i do think these are a little nicer with a little touch of that in there we will also toss in one large beaten egg as well as of course some salt and definitely a few shakes of our good old friend cayenne pepper and then what we'll do is take a spoon and give this a very thorough mixing until all of those ingredients are thoughtfully combined and as far as simple everyday meditations go you really can't be stirring something together all right scientists can't explain it but it really does make you feel better but anyway once we have that well mixed and we're feeling nice and relaxed we'll go ahead and add some all-purpose flour and we'll continue mixing with the spoon all right sort of slowly at first if for no other reason than so we don't knock all the flour out of the bowl and then once that flour does start to get incorporated we can begin to stir a little more aggressively and basically we're going to keep stirring until the mixture comes together and we think we can switch to working it with our hands and by the way if you have to add a little more flour for that to happen go ahead and once we've reached that point we'll go ahead and transfer that from the bowl to our work surface which is the surface upon which we work and our entire game plan here is to just work in enough flour with some very gentle kneading and massaging until we achieve a dough that we're able to roll out into like half inch thick ropes and if the dough seems too wet and it's sticking to the table or to your hands just add some more flour until it stops doing those things and while it is true this stuff would be easier to work with if we added a ton of flour that would also make our gnocchi very dry and heavy and tough whereas what we really want with these is something that's moist and relatively tender so right about here my dough is feeling pretty good so i stopped and formed it into some kind of uniform shape at which point i dusted it with flour and then grabbed my bench scraper so i could cut it into quarters to begin the rolling process and since it had been a while since i made these with this first piece i made two major mistakes all right first of all i applied way too much flour which means there was not enough friction for this dough to grip the table and my hands so i didn't have enough of what we call in the business gription okay when you use that much flour the dough just kind of slides through it or as we say snow plows as i continue to just blatantly make up culinary terms and then the other mistake is this piece was too big as i think one-eighth of this dough is probably a much easier size to roll out so i cut it in half but anyway i kept at it and eventually i did obtain enough gripping to get this thing to roll out which generally we want to do in a direction from the center out towards the ends and sure there were a few hiccups along the way alright some spots still had too much flour while other spots were too sticky and needed more flour but as you know we never let the food win so i just kept at it and a couple minutes later i managed to roll this out into about a half inch thick rope or as my grandmother used to call it snake oh and for your information each roll i did after this one got a little easier and came out a little better so why didn't i film one of those well as the kids used to say to keep it real and once we do have that rolled out into a fairly uniform rope or snake we'll go ahead and dust the top with flour and then using our bench scraper which we should also flour we'll go ahead and cut these about every half inch to make some beautiful little gnocchi and if i thought my muscle memory was bad when it came to rolling the dough that was nothing compared to me trying to cut these i mean it really does look like i've never done this before but like i said the second one did go a lot better both with the rolling and the cutting which is why i'm going to show you to redeem myself a little bit oh yeah now we got the hang of it and no that was not sped up i'm insulted by your question and sure if you want to roll your ropes a little thicker and cut these into a little bigger pieces go ahead as long as they're fairly consistent the size is up to you i mean you are after all the chuck d of your gnocchi but personally when it comes to this sweet potato version i think nice little small ones are the way to go okay i just think the final texture is a little better and as we finish these what we'll want to do is transfer those onto some kind of floured pan making sure they're nicely spaced and not touching at which point i like to let them sit and air dry for at least 15 or 20 minutes before we try to boil them and of course you can make these ahead and pop them in the fridge but i was hungry so i decided to enjoy some right now and while those are resting we can go ahead and bring some salted water up to a boil as well as prepare whatever sauce we're going to finish these with which for me is going to be some bacon infused butter although it's really probably more like a butter infused bacon but anyway what i did was slice up a few strips of bacon and brown it up in a pan over medium heat at which point i transferred in some butter that we can just simply let melt or if we want we can actually toast it a little bit until it turns sort of a golden brown and takes on a little bit of a nuttier flavor all right brown butter is a very common sauce for gnocchi and i like to do it both ways alright it depends on my mood in any event once we're happy with our butter we can go ahead and turn off the heat and finish this by stirring in some freshly minced rosemary or with some other sweet potato friendly herb like sage or maybe thyme and that's it we'll stir that in and simply reserve that until our gnocchi are cooked which i'm going to go ahead and do right now and please make sure this water is well salted all right the water should taste like sea water or as the italians say making sure the water tastes like a sea water sorry i'm not fluent but anyway we'll go ahead and transfer our gnocchi in and then we'll give them a quick stir and as we do you're going to notice two things these are all going to sink to the bottom but also turn into the most beautiful orange color you've ever seen all right check that out and then what we're going to do is cook these for about three or four minutes or until they float okay that's how you can tell when they're done and if they do float you know you have a properly made gnocchi and if they don't float they're witches but don't worry they always float and once they do we'll go ahead and transfer those into whatever sauce we're using and we'll go ahead and turn our heat back onto medium or maybe a little higher if you want to fry these a little bit and that's it once these are heated with our sauce we are pretty much ready to serve and it's probably not a bad idea to give these a little more salt oh by the way if you did want to fry these a little more aggressively over higher heat you'll probably want to use a non-stick pan for that because these can stick but i'm not going to fry mine i'm just gonna cook these stirring for about a minute before turning off the heat and finishing up with some freshly grated parmesan and that's it my adorable little sweet potato are done and ready to serve up in hopefully a warm bowl and once i had spooned in was basically an appetizer sized portion and i went ahead and finished with a little more cheese as well as the obligatory sprig of rosemary for the pictures and after taking a few of those i grabbed a fork and dug in and those my friends really were lovely and i was very happy with how they came out okay because i was careful not to work too much flour in they were not super dense and dry and chewy okay they stayed nice and moist and tender and again i think one of the keys here is making these nice and small just in case maybe you worked in a little too much flour or maybe work the dough a little too much and as far as the flavors go that earthy subtle sweetness from the sweet potato works so well with the bacon and also that little touch of rosemary and of course copious amounts of butter and parmesan never hurts and while this really was an ultra simple way to enjoy these they don't really need a lot of help to shine but having said that these would work in your favorite pasta sauce whether that is a simple tomato-based marinara or maybe a rich and decadent gorgonzola cream sauce oh yeah that would be good or really anything you'd serve regular potato gnocchi with and right here i was trying to cut one in half so you can see the texture inside but they're too small so you'll just have to trust me and as fantastic and appetizers as this makes do not be afraid to use this as a side dish right especially since you can boil these ahead of time and then just heat them up in the pan of whatever you cooked as your main course whether that's a pork chop or piece of chicken or a steak or whatever but anyway whether you serve these as a side dish or as an appetizer or a main course the important thing is that you serve them which is why i really do hope you give these a try soon so please follow the links below for the ingredient amounts a printable written recipe and much more info as usual and as always enjoy [Music] truffled cauliflower graton that's right this only sounds like it's too expensive to make but i'm about to show you a great trick which is going to allow you to enjoy the magic of truffles without breaking the bank in fact this product is so affordable you could literally buy enough for this recipe with the contents of your average piggy bank and what is this mysterious too good to be true ingredient this truffle pecorino oh man this stuff's amazing it's a classic italian pecorino cheese studded with real black truffles and of course it tastes great otherwise we wouldn't be using it but the aroma of this stuff is just incredible which is pretty much how it works with a truffle most of the taste sensation you're getting is actually coming from your nose but anyway we're going to take a fairly modest sized wedge and grate it up and i'll go into detail on the blog about where to find this cheese it's pretty easy and of course all those little pieces of truffle are now being finely shaved which is releasing even more flavor and aroma so let's go ahead and grate that up and set it aside and what we're going to do is add that to our white sauce which is the next step so we're gonna start the sauce by adding some butter to a heavy bottomed saucepan set on medium heat and to that i'm gonna add some flour and sure you're supposed to wait for the butter to melt but i never do and what is the effect nothing so we're gonna stir that flour into the butter and eventually that butter melted and it came together and looked like this and then all we're going to do is cook this mixture which as you well know is called a roux for about two or three minutes just to take the raw edge off the flour and how do you know it's done it will smell like cooked pie crust oh yeah your nose is a very underrated tool in the kitchen and i'm not just talking about nose print cookies but anyway we're going to cook that roux on medium heat for two or three minutes at which point we're going to turn off the heat just turn it right off because the next step is to introduce the cold milk and i wanted to make the point that you can just dump everything in and stir you don't have to add it gradually as long as the milk is cold and the roo's hot you will not get lumps so that's what i was attempting to do here except the measuring cup slipped and i spilled some which was unfortunate but besides making a mess it really didn't cause any problems with the sauce the real problem is it's distracting you from the point i'm trying to make that if your milk's cold you can just dump it all in at once and whisk so we're just gonna dump all that in at once we're gonna whisk fairly vigorously until you think it's incorporated and then and only then will we turn our heat back on to medium-high and cook this stirring until it thickens and as you all know that's not gonna happen until this comes up to a simmer all right so here it's starting to get a little thick and you'll see a couple minutes later as this comes up to temperature and starts to bubble it will thicken up beautifully so that's looking good and at that point we can turn off the heat and it's actually a little tough to see the thickness with the whisk so let me switch to a ladle and right there you can see it a little better a beautifully thick and smooth sauce and at this point with the heat off we're going to go ahead and add the rest of the ingredients so let's go ahead and season this up i'm going to do that with some cayenne pepper and some salt of course and we're also going to want a nice pinch of nutmeg in this and of course i'm going to freshly grate mine it's much better so a little touch of nutmeg and we'll give that a mix and then last but not least we will add our already grated cheese and by the way your sauce didn't all of a sudden get lumpy pecorino's a pretty firm cheese and because we have the heat off here those shreds are not going to melt totally which is exactly what we want all right don't forget this is going to get baked so just add that stir it in and simply set it aside until you need it and it will thicken up as it cools do not be alarmed it's not going to cause any problems and we will reserve that until our cauliflower is ready so let's take a head of cauliflower and remove the core oh be careful cory things are a very common cause of cuts in the kitchen and really other than the very very center of the core you can use everything so once we've removed that we're just going to cut these into pretty big pieces i don't like it too small you don't want it falling apart so i'm going to cut mine about this size and if you're not sure how much you should be prepping i kind of like to fill the casserole dish as i'm cutting that way i know have the perfect amount but anyway bottom line you need enough rock cauliflower florets for one 9 by 12 or 9 by 13 casserole dish and then once our cauliflower is cut we're going to give it a quick blanch in salted water put a lot of salt in there you should actually taste the salt in the water and once that water's boiling and properly salted we'll go ahead and add our cauliflower in and set the timer for six minutes we're not really cooking this all the way through we're just taking the raw edge off so don't worry if it doesn't come back to the boil until the last minute or two of your timer and then once your timer rings we're going to drain that very very thoroughly this is obviously edited but let that sit and drain well at which point we're going to transfer it into a buttered casserole dish and by the way if you enjoyed me spilling the milk check this out as i'm dumping it in one of the pieces flies out which i try to catch thereby causing me to kick the tripod so yes if you're putting together the food wishes trivia game this might qualify as my clumsiest video ever but anyway we're going to transfer that cauliflower in and then i like to take a minute and take my tongs and kind of turn the pieces of vegetable so this sides up and the stems are down i think it just looks nicer and once that's set let's go ahead and dump over our truffled white sauce which as i warned you has thickened up no problem just dump it over take your spatula and spread it over evenly and again the waterier the vegetable you're going to make a graton out of the thicker this bechamel sauce needs to be so you'll see when it bakes this is going to be perfect and once we've spread that out nice and evenly we're definitely going to want to give it the old tapatapa and we'll even throw in an old shake a shaker which is going to settle all that sauce down and around our cauliflower and then before this goes in a very hot oven we're going to give it a very very light dusting of plain breadcrumbs cover the surface but not too much just a light dusting and then on top of the breadcrumb we're going to do a little bit of parmesan can you just use more truffle pecorino of course but for me the parmesan's a little nuttier a little more intense for the top just personal preference and what's gonna happen is that cheese is gonna fuse on to that bread crumb which is gonna fuse onto the white sauce which is all gonna fuse onto the cauliflower you gotta love fusion and then we'll finish off with a little drizzle of olive oil i also decided to give it one last little shake of cayenne mostly because of muscle memory and at that point it's ready to bake so let's pop that in the center of a 425 degree oven for about a half hour or until it's beautifully golden brown and bubbling so don't take it out till you see that but once it's bubbling and beautifully golden brown your truffled cauliflower groton is done and you can definitely serve yours just like this but because i gotta do a few pictures i'm gonna sprinkle a few chives on hey i got him in the backyard why not and if you've never had truffles before you're in for a huge treat and probably surprise it has a very earthy very subtle flavor and what's generally described as an intoxicating aroma and i agree i mean i'm just trying a little bite here from the corner and i'm pretty intoxicated by it and even though we parboiled it and baked it for a half hour those pieces of cauliflower should still be intact and not falling apart as you can see here although you know what that's gonna be easier to see if i put this on a plate sorry but i was sans entree so i didn't have any meat to serve this with but i can't even pretend to be concerned about that this was just so incredible but anyway that's it truffled cauliflower gratan if you're looking for a very memorable special occasion side dish featuring truffles that you don't have to win the lottery first to make then this is for you so i really hope you give this a try head over to foodwishes.com for all the ingredient amounts and more info as usual and as always enjoy [Music] roasted wild mushroom and potato salad that's right you love potatoes and you love mushrooms so why not put them together in a beautiful fall side dish and by the way relax if you're not watching this during the fall season as you can pretty much get these ingredients year round now in the old days you'd have to go out to the country and forage for these in the forest yourself which could be a little dangerous you don't know what's in those woods there could be bears wolves mountain lions tea party republicans who knows so it is nice you can find all this in the grocery store these days and i'm going to use four different varieties we have some king trumpet mushrooms some golden chanterelles these little brown ones are called namiko i hope i'm saying that right but probably not and then those little gray ones are called clamshell mushrooms and these are going to be very easy to prep the smaller ones we're not going to do much to except cut the tops off a little bit of the stem is fine on that but mostly we're interested in the tops all right and as far as the king trumpet goes there's no difference between the stem and the top so we can cut the whole thing into thick slices like that and then the chanterelles are fairly randomly shaped so just kind of chunk those up what is that like one inch pieces or so and then after i did that i realized you know what you should go back and cut those trumpet in half so they're a little closer to the chanterelles but having said that that's not a big deal here these mushrooms are all kind of different sizes and shapes and it's really not going to matter you'll see when these roast up they're going to be absolutely perfect all right so my mushrooms are prepped i got about a pound all together so we'll go ahead and set those aside and it's on to the potatoes which we need to roast so in a baking dish i'm going to toss in some small round yukon gold potatoes that as you can see we cut in half i'm going to douse those liberally with olive oil like really liberally which is fine because that oil is going to be part of the dressing later and besides olive oil is really good for you no one ever got fat eating olive oil okay and then we're going to give that a generous sprinkling of salt and then let's get in there with our hands or spatula if you're afraid to get dirty and give those a good mixing so they're all evenly coated with salt and oil and while i'm doing that i also like to turn them so they're all cut side up i just think they're going to roast better that way and at that point those are going to go in a preheated 400 degree oven for 30 minutes and while those are roasting we're going to go ahead and cook our mushrooms so in a large skillet set on medium heat with just a little bit of olive oil in there we're going to toss in some pancetta which they call italian bacon but bacon's usually smoked and pancetta is not so while it is a similar product it has a much different flavor i would say more of a porky flavor which doesn't make a lot of sense but that's all i got so we're going to cook that up not crisp though we just want to cook it to this point where it kind of looks like cooked ham so once it looks like that we're going to go ahead and dump in our mushrooms along with a nice pinch of salt we're going to crank our heat up too high and then we're going to cook these mushrooms on high heat until most of the liquid evaporates and they start to saute and because we're using quote unquote wild mushrooms we're not going to have as much liquid as you would if you just use button mushrooms for this but you know the drill they're going to go from dry to wet and then from wet to dry and once that excess moisture evaporates they will start to cook down they will start to look like that and that's pretty much what we're going for now if we were going to serve these like this we would definitely cook them more but these are actually going to get roasted with the potatoes in phase two which is happening right now so we're going to take out our potatoes those have been roasting at 400 for 30 minutes let's go ahead and give those a quick toss and then we're going to go ahead and dump in our mushrooms mix everything together and then finish by roasting everything until beautifully caramelized so go ahead and dump in those mushrooms mix it around you want to kind of distribute everything as evenly as possible and then we're going to pop it back in the oven but you know what i turned the heat up i turned it up to 425 i think in the official recipe we're just gonna have you cook it the whole way at 425 but we'll talk about that in the blog post so we're gonna pop that in at 425 for another 10 minutes at which point it's going to be getting close but probably not totally done so i'll give it one last toss and i'm going to put it back in there until the potatoes are completely cooked and very soft and everything is just beautifully browned and caramelized and what we're looking for is something like this so the potatoes should be very tender and golden brown and those pieces of mushroom should be very caramelized very browned which is going to give them this great chewy texture and earthy flavor just love roasted mushrooms at this point all we got to do is let our potatoes and mushrooms cool down a little bit we want to put our dressing over warm potatoes and mushrooms not super hot so i'm gonna let those cool about 10 minutes and while those are cooling let's go ahead and chop our tarragon you know i have an almost unnatural love for tarragon one of our sweeter and more aromatic herbs just an absolutely brilliant pairing with mushrooms and potatoes so give that the old choppa choppa and by this time our potatoes should be just warm and it's time for final assembly and of all the different types of assembly final is definitely my favorite so what we're going to do here to those warm potatoes and mushrooms we're gonna sprinkle over some sherry vinegar and a good amount of it you see my fingers there instead of just pouring it i'm kind of dripping it over evenly and i'm using sherry vinegar i think that works best here but you can use any vinegar you want and then after the vinegar we're gonna go ahead and put on some finely finely minced garlic now you can do a variation of this recipe where you roast the garlic with the potatoes and mushrooms but i do like that extra sharpness of the raw garlic here at that point we can toss in our chopped tarragon i'm gonna give mine a little extra drizzle of extra virgin olive oil you may or may not need any you can toss it and take a look we might need it a little bit i'm also going to give it a little more salt and then it's time for the old toss and taste and please in that order so give it a good tossing and then take a couple nibbles and decide does it need cayenne does it need anything i decided i needed a little bit of freshly ground black pepper so when it comes to the seasoning you are in charge of the bravado of your potato so season that up until it tastes good and at that point it's ready to transfer to your serving platter although you know what i had to steal a bite first i mean look at that combination that beautiful meaty caramelized mushroom that tender creamy potato that pancetta and garlic and tarragon and oil and vinegar just magnificent so we're gonna dish that up on a platter maybe finish with a little more fresh tarragon and there you go roasted wild mushroom and potato salad for me the epitome of a fall side dish just an absolutely stellar combination so anyway go find some potatoes those are easy go forage for some wild mushrooms and buy forage i mean just walk into your supermarket produce section and get the ingredients to make this delicious side dish so i really do hope you give this a try head over to foodwishes.com for all the ingredient amounts and more info as usual and as always enjoy cider braised pork shoulder that's right we're going to use hard apple cider to make soft succulent pork while i think everybody would be interested in a recipe that's this easy and taste this delicious the people that i really want to pay attention to this are the folks that email me saying whenever they try to cook pork shoulder it doesn't get tender and my reply is always the same that's impossible so hopefully we're going to clear that up once and for all anyway that is the plan and to begin what we'll do is take one large piece of pork shoulder and cut it up into a bunch of smaller pieces so what i have here is about a three pound piece of boneless pork shoulder roast that my butcher tied up with some string to make it look a little more roasty and what we'll do is remove that and then look for any natural seams okay you see how this kind of naturally splits open that's where we'll make our first cut and then once that's been accomplished we'll start cutting this up into whatever size pieces we want and your options here range from not at all just leave it in one giant piece all the way to cutting it up into tiny cubes okay it really depends on what you want to look and feel like as well as how fast you want it to cook but as you're about to see not withstanding one or two small rogue pieces i'm gonna leave mine in fairly large sections i don't know maybe like three inch size pieces so i generally go through once cutting it into some nice big pieces so i can see what i'm working with and then depending on the size your shape i'll break those down until i have what you sort of see here and i believe i mentioned three inch pieces earlier but please do not focus on any specific measurement since when we use this low and slow cooking method everything is going to get nice and tender regardless of the exact shape and size so just try to get those close that's all we ask and then what we'll do at this point is generously season those with kosher salt and if we wanted to go for a thicker stickier sauce which i don't we would also dust these with flour but this time i decided to just go with salt since i think that's going to work best for this particular sauce this basically going to be a reduced cider but as usual that's your decision you are after all the you of what's really a stew and then what we'll do once our pork is seasoned is brown it very well on both sides and some kind of heavy bottom dutch oven and a little bit of vegetable oil and we'll do that over high heat and please do not rush this step okay definitely want to give it enough time to get a nice crust going so that's what i did and then i went ahead and flipped him over and then next on the itinerary once these are nicely browned we'll remove those to a bolder rest while we proceed to sweat some onions in these beautiful beautiful meat drippings so we will go ahead and delete the meat and toss in one large chopped onion along with of course the traditional large pinch of salt and a little bit of freshly ground black pepper and we'll give those a stir and cook them for maybe three or four minutes or until they start to turn translucent oh and we should also reduce our heat to medium and by the way whenever i use this white ceramic coated dutch oven the bottom always looks like it's burning but it's really not although we do have a nice dark brown caramelization which as many of you may know is called a fond and that's where a lot of the flavor and color of our sauce is going to come from but anyway what we'll do when our onions and pan look like this is toss in a handful of torn sage leaves and yes of course freshly torn and we will let those cook for just about a minute stirring them a couple times to infuse our fat with their very pork friendly aroma and flavor at which point it's time to add the second most important ingredient one bottle of hard cider and yes of course you can use alcohol-free cider in this but those generally tend to be sweeter so if you can try to use the real stuff preferably from france so we'll go ahead and pour in the entire bottle and give that a stir and of course that's going to deglaze all that goodness off the bottom and then what we'll do is put our heat back on high because we want to bring this up to a boil we also at this point want to add some apple cider vinegar which is going to balance the sweetness of the cider and the richness of the pork so we'll go ahead and stir that in and then once that's been accomplished we can reduce our heat to low and add our pieces of brown pork shoulder back in and no you can't substitute pork loin for this i can't even believe you asked it is way too lean to brazen cider even though technically this is stewing but cider braised pork sounds better so we'll go ahead and add our meat back in along with of course any accumulated juices if you throw those away we can't be friends and then what we'll do is place on the lid and let this simmer on low for one hour and it's never a bad idea to peek once in a while to make sure this is not simmering too hard all right we want a gentle simmer just some little bubbles here and there so that's looking good and like i said we will cook that for one hour at which point it's definitely not done okay all we're going to do at this point is take off the lid and flip everything over and then once we've done that we'll put the lid back on and continue simmering covered on low for another hour to two hours or until our meat is fork tender okay so all you people that say your pork mysteriously stays hard listen to me now and hear me later do not stop cooking until your pork is tender as tested with a fork okay so give it the old polka poka and if it still feels hard let it cook i mean why would you stop before it's tender it makes no sense but mine was and when yours is we'll go ahead and remove that with a strainer to a bowl we can also go ahead and put our heat back on high as well as add a nice big spoon of creme fraiche or a splash of heavy cream but as almost always the creme fraiche will taste a little better in my opinion and we have a video showing you how to make it it's actually pretty easy so we'll go ahead and stir that in and bring this up to a boil on high and then what we're going to do here is try to reduce this down by about half or until it just starts to thicken up slightly and as with all boiling sauces if it contains fat that's going to pool up on top and if you want you could skim that off okay that's really your business but i usually do skim off most of it and like i said we will let that reduce down until we have something that sort of looks like this which by the way is not going to be the final thickness because we are going to put our pork back in and cook it a little more and what i suggest doing before that though is giving the sauce a taste and adjusting with more salt if necessary or even maybe a shake of cayenne like i did and then as i said we'll go ahead and place our pork back in and we'll go ahead and make sure it's nicely coated with what should be an amazing tasting sauce and then what we'll do to finish this recipe off is let it continue simmering on low tossing or basting it with the sauce occasionally until we think it's perfect meaning that our pork has been heated through and perfectly tender as well as our sauce is reduced exactly as thick as we want it right you can go all the way down to a glaze if you want but i don't personally i don't want something too too thick i basically just wanted thick enough to coat the meat so i probably let mine go for another 15 minutes or so until i just couldn't stand waiting anymore at which point i stopped and served it up and this stuff is amazing on any kind of potato pasta or of course special but in a little plot twist i went with buttered rice and of course we're going to spoon over plenty of that ridiculously delicious sauce and then to finish up i top mine with an extra spoon of creme fraiche as well as some freshly snipped chives and that's it what i'm calling cider braised pork shoulder is done yes of course it took some time but that's why it tastes so good and the combination of that rich succulent sticky meat cloaked in that slightly sweet slightly tart cider reduction is just beyond description just an absolutely stunning combination and again the key here do not stop cooking until your pork is tender like this okay we don't want it totally falling apart we're not trying to make pulled pork here but it really should be soft and tender and by the way in case you're wondering that beautiful vegetable is delicata squash which i really should show you how to work with it is very much underused and amazing and i know it's not normal to get excited over squash but i gotta tell you this one's kind of exciting so possibly stay tuned for that but in the meantime i really do hope you give this cider brace pork shoulder a try soon so head over to foodwishes.com for all the ingredient amounts and more info as usual and as always enjoy [Music] apple butter that's right have you ever been eating applesauce and thought to yourself this is good but i wish it was like a thousand times better well my friends that is a very good way to describe apple butter and there's more good news the technique for making this stuff is very very easy except please don't confuse easy with fast okay while super super simple this takes many many many many hours but the results are so well worth it as hopefully you're gonna find out so with that let's go ahead and get started and first up we're going to cut up about five pounds of apples and my favorite variety for this would be granny smith but any classic cooking apple will work and what we'll do before we start cutting is go ahead and take out the core which if you have one of these cores is pretty easy since all you've got to do is sort of plunge that down through the middle and then once that core has been removed with hopefully all the seeds we will simply cut this into quarters and then you could if you want just start slicing these but i like to give them one more cut and then slice them into about one inch pieces alright so that's one way you can do these but let's say for the sake of argument you don't have an apple corer you could also do it this way okay we'll make one cut straight down next to the core right about where you think the seeds would start and then once that first slice is taken off we'll set it down on the flat side and then we'll make another cut straight down again close but not too close to the core and then we'll simply do that two more times and while you will lose a little more apple than the first method it is still a pretty fast and effective way to do this and you may remember this technique from such videos as ben franklin breakfast bowl oh and as you may have noticed we did not peel these so that's going to save us a bunch of time but that's not the only reason i also think this comes out tasting better and looking better and feeling better since it's gonna actually get thicker if we don't peel them so if you've been peeling apples all your life for apple butter i'm sorry but you really did waste all that time but hey now you know and then what we're going to do once we have our five pounds of apples prepped is go ahead and transfer them into whatever we're going to cook this in which could be a roasting pan for the oven or a heavy bottom stockpot for the top or as in my case into a large slow cooker which i think is by far the best and easiest method and once those have been transferred in we'll go ahead and add the rest of the ingredients which will include a little touch of white sugar just a mere cup and a half as well as a half a cup of brown sugar and i know that looks like a lot but it's roughly half of what most people use in case that makes you feel any better and then to that we're also going to need a little bit of salt as well as of course some cinnamon and then we'll finish up with some freshly grated nutmeg which i took the liberty of freshly grating earlier and then last but not least for our spices we'll do a little pinch of allspice which apparently tastes like all the spices put together and then in a little plot twist for some acidity we're going to do some apple cider vinegar okay a lot of people like to use lemon juice in this but personally i think the cider vinegar works out better and then we'll finish up with a splash of cold fresh water and that's it we'll go ahead and take a spoon and give this a mix and once all that's been stirred together it is now ready to cook and cook and cook for a really really a really long time and if we are using a slow cooker what i like to do is start it covered on the highest setting until it starts giving up its liquid and starts getting a little bit soupy which is going to take a little while i mean it's called a slow cooker for a reason so even on the higher setting this did take a good while to get to this point and then what we'll do once this mixture does come up to temperature and start to soften up and get nice and juicy is turn it down to the lower setting and let it cook uncovered for many many many many hours and exactly how many is going to depend on your slow cooker and other variables but as usual we're not going to go by time we are going to go by appearance but anyway what we want to do is cook this on low for as long as it takes until it looks like this at which point i'm going to grab an immersion blender and blend this smooth which really is quite a simple step if you have one of these stick blenders but if you don't don't worry you can just transfer it into a blender and then transfer it back of course being very careful it's hot all right we never want you burning yourself especially if you're going to blame me and we do want to get this pretty smooth but we are going to pass this through a strainer later or at least i am you do what you want but like i said i do want to puree this pretty smooth and that's it we're still not even close to being done since once pureed we're going to continue cooking this uncovered on low until it reduces even further and gets thicker and darker and even more intensely delicious and other than stirring it once in a while there's really nothing to do except wait and wait and wait some more okay so the only way to screw this up is impatience let it cook let it cook let it cook until it's at least as thick and dark as this and then what we'll do once we've determined it's cooked long enough is go ahead and pass that through a fine mesh strainer and while this step is technically optional it's only going to take a couple minutes and since you just spent like 10 hours getting up to this point that doesn't seem like that big of a deal but anyway you decide i mean you are after all the john sutter of your apple butter that's not really a butter raise your hand if you're disappointed there's no butter in this i know me too but it's fine don't worry we're gonna put butter on whatever we put this on first but anyway we'll go ahead and pass that through a strainer at which point we can go ahead and transfer that into whatever we're gonna store it in and please note you're not gonna be able to see the final appearance until it's fully cooled okay that color is gonna deepen and it's gonna thicken up and hopefully once fully cooled it should look something like this which i think is just absolutely gorgeous and at this point it's ready to serve on so many things or it may be a cheese biscuit or a piece of butter toast or in my case english muffin but no matter what you serve this on prepare to be blown away by its intense appley flavor alright you know those sticky brown juices that sort of bubble out of an apple pie that is this in a spread form all right when you make a batch of this it's basically like being able to have apple pie anytime you want and by the way if you stopped watching this video because you don't have a slow cooker you shouldn't have because in the blog post i'm going to tell you how you can do this without one but anyway that's it how i do apple butter it's always been a little shocking that applesauce is so popular in stores but you almost never see this stuff i mean who knows maybe it's too flavorful and they're afraid people can't handle it but anyway thanks to this video it doesn't matter because now you have the technology to make your own so i really do hope you give this a try soon head over to foodwishes.com for all the ingredient amounts of more info as usual and as always enjoy classic pecan pie that's right yes pee can you know what on second thought i should have went with pecan and we will actually that's not much better but anyway april is national pecan month or if you prefer pecan month i'm really not sure which pronunciation is correct probably neither but anyway i've never posted a classic version of this pie until now and of course the first thing we're going to need is a ready to bake pie shell and you can use one of our fabulous recipes to make this or you could buy it pre-made it really doesn't matter to me i don't judge you and i'll give links and more info about that on the blog but basically we need one nine and a half inch pie shell ready to bake and what we're going to need to do before we fill this is something called blind baking and to do that we're going to use these those are pie weights and some of this parchment paper so we're going to go ahead and take a round piece of parchment paper bigger than the pie of course and center that over the top kind of push it down a little bit and then we'll go ahead and pour in our pie weights and we'll go ahead and we'll try to distribute those as evenly as possible you really want to try to get them up against the edge and of course i realize a lot of you don't have pie weights to use in that case just go ahead and use your tart weights by the way dry beans also work perfectly so go ahead and spread those out all the way to the edge best you can kind of even them out possibly give them an old shake of shaker and what this is going to allow us to do is pre-bake this pie crust a little bit without it losing its shape so once we have that set we'll pop that in the middle of a 350 degree oven for 20 minutes and after 20 minutes we'll go ahead and pull it out and transfer those pie weights into a bowl and be very careful there's nothing worse than a whole bunch of small hot balls rolling all over your kitchen floor so watch what you're doing and once we've carefully and successfully removed our parchment and pie weights we're actually going to go ahead and pop that back in for another 10 minutes and that will finish the pre-baking phase and by the way one optional step since the oven's already hot i like to give my pecans about a seven or eight minute toasting beforehand so when i see there's about seven or eight minutes left in the timer i'll go ahead and pop the nuts in and then when the timer rings we'll go ahead and remove our pie shell which at this point should be a very very light golden color so our crust is ready our pecans have been lightly toasted and it's on to the rest of the filling which could not be simpler so into a saucepan we're going to toss a whole stick of butter and then three kinds of sugars some white sugar some light brown sugar and some corn syrup ooh scary but relax it's not scary this is just good old-fashioned like corn syrup this is not the same stuff as the evil high fructose corn syrup i consider high fructose corn syrup the margarine of sweeteners so do not eat or drink things with that in it next up we're going to toss in a little bit of flour a little bit of milk actually i was out of regular milk so i used almond milk so basically that makes me a hipster that's fine i was going to grow a soul patch anyway we're also going to need some salt a little bit of vanilla extract and yes that bottle right there is bourbon so i'm going to add a tablespoon of whiskey and you might be thinking why are you using your good stuff uh that's not my good stuff but anyway at that point we're going to go over to the stove and we're going to put that on medium heat and basically we want to bring this to a boil so i'm going to give it a stir and i have absolutely no idea why i'm trying to do this with a spatula so i'm going to go ahead and switch to a whisk here when it comes to whisking whisks are so much better so we're going to give that a stir as it comes up to temperature and eventually you'll see it bubbling around the outside around the outside around the outside and at that point i like to give it another stir and then in just about a minute or two you should see it come to a pretty much a full boil and as soon as we see that turn off the heat immediately all right so the heat's off we'll give it a stir and we're just going to let that sit there cooling on the stove a little bit for about 5 or 10 minutes and why we want to let that cool down just a little bit is because the next step is going to be to introduce this to some eggs and there they are i got three large eggs so we'll go ahead and we'll bust those three eggs in the yolks and we'll go ahead and give them a fairly thorough whisking and then once we've done that and our sugar mixture has sat for a few minutes we'll slowly drizzle it into the egg mixture start slow of course because you don't want to scramble these so i'm going to splash a little in stir it up splash a little more and stir it up and once the first half of that's been kind of stirred in semi-gradually you can go ahead and add the rest quicker and as soon as that's all mixed in we are ready for final assembly by the way make sure your oven is still on 350. so to get this ready for the oven let's go ahead and add our pecans to our pre-baked pie shell and by the way please use pecan halves not chopped pecans i'm sorry but i consider chopped pecans for this pie borderline unholy now once the pecans are in there let's go ahead and pour in our filling and that should just about come up to the edge of the crust and by the way you're going to want to make sure that every nut has been coated with that mixture so i do like to spatulate that a little bit make sure there's no dry ones on top and by the way if you can sneak a few more pecans in go ahead mine looked like it was just a hair under-filled so i put in a few more nuts so that's me and you adjusting the bottom line you want to fill that just below the top of the crust and at that point we're pretty much ready for the oven of course just to be safe we'll give it a couple old shake-a-shakers and a few old tapatapas and then we'll go ahead and we'll place that back in the center of our 350 degree oven and we'll bake it for about 40 to 45 minutes until it looks like this it should totally look amazing the crush should be a beautiful golden brown and if you do happen to give it a little jiggle like this you shouldn't see any wiggle in the center alright if your center seems a little soupy put it back in for a few minutes but once it is done i want you to make sure you let this cool completely before you try to slice it i like to go traditional and let mine cool in front of an open window and of course if you do that also i will give you the standard disclaimer watch out for bears and then of course once it's cooled your patients will be rewarded with a gorgeous slice of pecan pie which you could eat as is or a la mode which is of course french for with ice cream not really but in america that's what it's french for so i top mine with a little vanilla ice cream and that is almost too gorgeous to eat almost so let me take a bite here and there's just no words there's a reason this is such an iconic american pie and as you know i'm not a big dessert person but this really is a spectacular treat so anyway there you go classic pecan pie if chef john can pecan pie so pee can you so i really do hope you give this a try head over to foodwishes.com for all the ingredient amounts and more info as usual and as always enjoy

Channel: Food Wishes

Views: 232,528

Keywords: fall recipes, autumn recipes, autumnal, fall flavors, flavors of fall, seasonal flavors, pumpkin spice, pumpkin, squash, mushroom, cauliflower, gratin, stew, pork, pig, pork shoulder, pecan pie, potato salad, chef john, food wishes

Id: TSW5iuOxDZs

Length: 69min 33sec (4173 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 25 2022