(upbeat dramatic music) (ingredients mixing) (mixture sizzling) - How about a victory drink? I call it the Mississippi Queen. - Mississippi Queen? Why do you call that?
- Oh, you'll find out. - Hey, what's up guys. Welcome back to "Binging With Babish," where this week we are
celebrating 8 million subscribers. We're recreating the Mississippi
Queen from regular show. But first, I wanna give you guys a look behind the scenes
at the new studio. If that doesn't interest you, you can skip to the next chapter. Otherwise, follow me. (door opening)
Hello there! (laughs) Hi? (laughs) Oh, hey, couldn't hear you knock. - Want me to knock?
- No, I just make that up. - Okay.
- Yeah. Hey, what's up MTV cribs. This is my crab, let's check it. No! Well, hello! Welcome to the new Babish Studios, BCU HQ. Come on in? This is the brand center, nerve center. This is the nerve center of the BCU. This is the garden apartment of my house that I bought in Brooklyn, which I have, as you can see, I retrofitted into our studios. This is studio A, studio B's
downstairs, we'll get there. As you can see this was a
New York city apartment, and we converted it into our
play place, my play place. Right here, I have a pre-ferment going for some batch of bagels. You guys know how I feel
about bagels recently. So, keep an eye out. Fermata tequila that The
Rock himself sent me. I'm just kidding, Dharmana sent it to me, but The Rock probably
was not aware of that. This is a Viking six-burner
with (indistinct) technology. Watch this. (blows) (Viking lighter firing) It knows that it went out. (laughs) Hey! (laughs) See? So, Oh! Okay. All right, that doesn't work. Top of the line, Viking ventilation, which we haven't used yet,
and it was very expensive. So, (taps) whoops! Over here, we have the fireplace. Doesn't this make a handsome
addition to the background, the backdrop of recreating foods from the? (laughs) Yes! Jess is on camera duty
and girlfriend duty. Here. There she is. - Hello? - [Babish] Hello. This
is very poor lighting. You're not gonna be happy
with that, I'm sorry. - Back here?
- Better. - Down here?
- Go back. And angle your face up as high as you can. That's the one? - Does this work?
- That's it. - Okay.
- All right. Cut. We got it.
- Great! (laughs) - This is an oven. This has always been my
dream to have a dual oven. This is a Viking, everything's Viking. Lights. (laughs) There's fan because it's
convection, it's fan. It's a fan oven. Anyway, over here we
have Kendall's office. Kendall Beach is our new kitchen producer helping the show runs smoothly. She's helping me test out recipes, she's helping me get my
me's on plus, all-in plus. We'll meet her in a second. She's downstairs, helping out
Sohla who's making a cake. And I only know that
'cause I can smell it. It smells like cake in here. I wish you guys could smell it. One day! I am aware that it's a
little bit messy in here. I only moved here five months ago. Can you just cut me a little slack? Thank you. So, over here, we are in the BCU office, and you might remember
this familiar face... Oh, maybe not. This is Saywer-
- Trust me, it's me. - I appreciate you being safe.
- Of course. - Or you're doing important work, like looking at pictures of
Kelsey Grammar, swimming. Okay. Carry on.
- All right. - Cool.
- Cool. - And then over here,
we have my work station which is the... Oh, okay, I'm sorry. Let's just hide that. Okay. Yeah, no, we're good. This is where I work. (laughs) This is where I work. This is where I lay
down the VO right here. As you can see, I've improved
my setup a little bit. I've got Neumann, I know how
to pronounce it correctly. This is a Neumann something. We brought the TV back, the
big, stupid bleak, big TV. Just giving an idea about it is. (laughs) This is dumb. (laughs) So, that's the office. Saywer, always wear your protection. (Saywer screaming)
(crew laughing) - Bye, Saywer.
- Bye! - All right. Now, let's head downstairs where we will see the Sohla cre... Let's do that again. Hello there?
- [Sohla] Hello. What are you doing?
- This is unexpected drop-in for me in the air. - It's so unexpected. Wow! Is this live? - Is that my coconut oil
that I use for my feet? I'm just kidding. (laughs) - Do you like coconut oil?
- For my feet, no. For your consumption?
- Yeah, no, I do. - Yeah? - I like it as a cooking oil. - Mm-hmm?
- I like it as a coconut oil. Anyway, over here.
- [Jess] Hey, Sohla? - [Sohla] Hi. - That's Sohla, and this... Hey, this is Kendall Beach, she's the newest addition to the BCU. This is our new kitchen producer. She keeps the wheels turning and the everything humming like clockwork. - I try. - How do you like working at the BCU? - I like it a lot. I give it a ten out of ten - We just added cat sitter
to your list of duties, - That's true-
- Which I thought would bump it up to 11, 'cause you're like.. - Well, it that like a?
- Was that 9.5? - Yeah.
- Okay. - Yeah.
- All right, noted. It's still the best grade I've ever gotten Here. (laughs)
- Yeah. Yeah, that. - Back over behind Sohla here. (laughs) - [Jess] All right. Do you
wanna do any of the savory like the wheel?
- Yeah, the wheel. Okay. The wheel. (laughs) We keep the wheel over here. Here it is. (laughs) This is the wheel from Sohla's chef... Ah! (laughs) - [Jess] Bye, guys. - Bye!
- Bye! - [Sohla] Figuring out this. - [Jess] I believe in you. - Now, I have a small tear in my pants, but these pants fit really good. And you can only see it, if you were say, I don't know, a camera
following me upstairs. How about you of first? No, no, no, no! Not the pants. (laughs) Go, go on. So, now I'd like to show you the newest, newest addition to the BCU. She just joined us 72 hours ago or so, but be real quiet, tip-toe. Who's there, kitty. So, this little lady, is Buckwheat.
(Buckwheat chirruping) Yeah, I know.
- [Jess] Hey? - what's the big, scary thing? Oh, it's not that scary. - [Jess] Can you get closer to her? - Closer to her?
- Yeah, yeah. - Oh, my reap!
(Jess laughing) So, this is Bucky, Buckwheat, because she looks like buckwheat flour. And we named her before we
found out she was a girl, and she was shivering outside
our front door three days ago. We waited for her mom to
come back, but no dice. So, we set up her a little
apartment here in the bathroom. Give me a kiss? (mumbles) Thank you guys so much for helping me reach 8 million subscribers. I hoped you enjoy this little, look behind the scenes. I hope it don't look to weird, too weird in my bunched up apron. Bucky says hi. Bucky is thankful for all the belly rubs that you guys are sending
her with your minds. Let's get back to the episode, shall we? Well, let's let Bucky stay here. Come here.
(gentle ambient music) We wanna get back to our
regularly scheduled programming. (gentle ambient music continues) All right, that's enough
kitten cuddling for now. Let's make us a practically
poisonous Mississippi Queen. A good drizzle of each
chocolate sauce and soy sauce, and then not quite a
full jar of mayonnaise, but more than I'm used to in my cocktail. The generous helping of kimchi, a generous pour from a jar of pasta sauce. A bag of what looked to me
like muscles at the time, but in retrospect, I
think might've been clams but I ordered mussels. I really don't think it's gonna make that much of a difference. A plates of assorted sushi and sashimi. Don't forget the chunk of wasabi, and maybe a little bit more pasta sauce. And that's really all there
is to a Mississippi Queen. This thing is supposed to be so spicy that it makes rugby Mordecai
and Benson trip face. So, I think it needs a little bit of help. What we have here as a
bottle of Mad Dog 357, number nine, plutonium, the world's hottest hot sauce
at 9 million Scoville units, and costing $109 for one ounce. Basically, this is just
a 60% capsaicin extract, roughly 3000 times hotter
than Tabasco sauce, and more than four times hotter
than the hottest hot sauce I've ever eaten the last step. So, I'm understandably only putting in about a half a teaspoon, which alone will have the spice equivalent of 50 bottles of Tabasco sauce. Anyway, once we've got this
delicious looking mixture all mixed up, we need only add a cocktail umbrella and a straw. And there you have it,
The Mississippi Queen. Time to give it an
admittedly difficult tastes as it's a rather thick
mixture and kinda hard to pull through the straw. But eventually, I got myself a mouthful. And not only did it taste like
seafood burger special sauce, it was, as you might
imagine, base meltingly hot. There are just so many reasons that I can't recommend
making this at home. The gross expense, the gross
waste, the gross grossness. But the best thing about
it is the unbearable heat. So, now more than I've ever meant it, when I've said it before, I think we can do a whole lot better. This seems to be a play on a Bloody Mary. So, I'm gonna start with 32 ounces of high quality tomato juice, add a little bit of chili sauce for that slight shrimp cocktail vibe, a little rice vinegar in honor
of the dearly departed sushi, a little clam juice to replace, what I, in retrospect
realized were probably clams. A glug of soy sauce. And because it's gonna play
nice with all these flavors, a little fish sauce. And honestly, it let's
bring back the kimchi. If we liquefy it, it's gonna
taste really, really good in a Bloody Mary, I think. Plus, it just wouldn't
be the Mississippi queen without some stuff floating in it. In that spirit, let's peel and grate, maybe a quarter cup of
freshly grated horseradish. And in what I feel like
it's another fitting homage to the Mississippi queen, some wasabi. We got a lot of briny,
seafood flavors going on here, and I think this stuff's
gonna play real nice. Then we turned to the matter of heat, and I'm not eating that
Mad Dog 357 (beep) again. So, to bring a decent amount of heats and a good amount of flavor, we've got a whole seeded
and chopped habanero, plus, a little shake of
celery salt because why not? Some kosher salt and some
freshly ground pepper, and blitz until relatively smooth. You don't wanna have to
chew your Bloody Mary. And there we have it,
our base Bloody Mary mix, which I gotta say, really solid start. It's like a Bloody Mary
and a michelada had a baby, and it was raised in a sushi restaurant. But it just doesn't have
the psychoactive punch that I got from watching that scene. For that, I think we need mushrooms. What kind of mushrooms you ask? Well, let's just say that they're skinny, they're dried, and they're expensive, because they're just porcini
mushrooms, or are they? They are. Or are they? I'm kidding, they are. Don't read the mushroom dust
after you've ground them up into a fine powder, pass it
through a fine mesh sieve to catch any big old chunks, and blend it into your
Bloody Mary mixture. Now, you might be asking me, why are you doing this
outside of a mushroom joke? Well, dried porcini
mushrooms are a great way to amp up the umami and depth
of flavor in our Bloody Mary. And as I'm finding out,
they are really good at making geometric patterns
look more interesting. Last up, this beverage is going to provide the perfect environment for
some actual seafood contents. Here, I've got some shrimp
that I'm going to peel, and then de vein by
placing a shallow cut down the back of the shrimp and
removing its digestive tract. Yummy!
(smooth rock music) The scalps, we're gonna simply sear in a high smoked point
oil, like grape seed oil. Now, moving over a medium heat
for a solid minute and a half until a beautiful brown crust is formed, and then butter pasting like steak from maximum luxuriousness. Cooking for about three minutes total, or until the thickest one
registers 130 degrees Fahrenheit, at it's thickest points. Set those aside on a paper
towel while we do our shrimp, which we could steam or poach, but I'm just gonna saute them
very quickly on each side, and flipping occasionally
so they don't burn, and likewise, cooking to an internal doneness of 130 degrees Fahrenheit. Set those aside 'cause
it's time to assemble. Now, the only tributes missing
to our original cocktail are Manet's and chocolate. Two things I'm not really
thrilled to bring to the situation because I think we've got a pretty good Bloody Mary going on here. So, I'm gonna do a rim of Aleppo pepper and freshly grated chocolate, which I'm gonna tiny whisk together and use the Mayo to fix the mixture to my intended cocktail glass rim. Which is as close to my drink
as Mayo is going to get. And it actually tastes
surprisingly not terribly awful. That being said, it's time
to finally have a drink. We're breaking from the
cartoon in a big way, and adding a couple measures
of this clear Russian liquid, which is the only reason that
exists to drink a Bloody Mary. I understand virgin
daiquiris or pina coladas, but Bloody Mary's? Come on, pouring our
prepared Mary mix over top, giving it a little stir with
an elongated cocktail spoon. Make sure everybody's all
good and mixed together. Before beginning the rather
complicated garnishing process, so I'm gonna use a metal straw. And then we need some kind of vegetation, so I'm just gonna go with a celery stock. And our seafood must be
skewered before being tucked in with the rest of the bunch. And then once we got two
shrimps, two scallops on there, they're being nestled like
a savory brunch time bouquet into our awaiting drink. And even though this is a pretty
handsome Bloody Mary as is, we're gonna add one final touch, the little blue cocktail umbrella. And there you have it, a cocktail.
I would have gladly order after a night of one, too many party pitz. But how does it taste? Well, once I'm able to find my straw, I can tell you that it's the very model of a modern Bloody Mary. It is rich and spicy, and savory, and it plays real nice
with the included seafood. In fact, I don't know
why more Bloody Marys don't come with seafood, it's practically a
cocktail sauce cocktail. So, thank you guys so much
for helping me celebrate hitting 8 million subscribers and for your kindness,
generosity, and support. And I will see you next week. (upbeat music)
I need more buckwheat in my life
Wow celebrities are really just like us, I'm glad I'm not the only one with a tear in their pants. Congrats on 8 million subscribers! I make a recipe from the BCU at least three times a week and it has brought so much joy to me, my family, and my friends. This subreddit and Babish have really helped me discover a passion I didn't know I had. I look forward to what comes next!
The addition of clam juice made me realize he basically just made a caesar, since they use Clamato Juice rather than Tomato Juice.
Buckwheat is fucking adorable I hope she makes more cameos in episodes
As far as I'm concerned, Babish, Sawyer, Jess, Sohla, Sohla's husband Ham, Kendall, and Bucky all live in that house together and just make mischief and google David Hyde Pierce mustache pictures 24/7.
10/10 would boop Buckwheat's nose
So is Buckwheat with Babish a new series we get to see soon??
Amazing to see Andrew's success. I remember when his channel had 5,000 subscribers.
Just curious, but wouldn’t the addition of clam juice technically make this a bloody ceasar and not a bloody mary?