[Show clips begin] "It's Monday night it must be Frito pie with wolf-brand chili." "I made it just the way you like it,
perfect." "Well at least the brown Betty was good." "You must give me recipe." "oh man, you know I can't do that." "We are having spa-Peggy and meatballs."
"Did she say spa-Peggy?" "Well spa Peggy is a lot like spaghetti
I'm not sure what Peggy does different.. if anything." [Clips end] Hey what's up guys, welcome
back to Binging with Babish where this week we're taking a look at the favorite
foods of rainy streets own matriarch boggle champion and two-time substitute
teacher of the year Peggy Hill. Starting with a Texas favorite Frito pie. Which
requires wolf brand chili two cans worth this stuff is really really thick so, dig
it on out with a spoon. Looks.... lovely, and we're covering that and heating it to a
bare simmer. During which time we are needlessly measuring out our bag of
Fritos, about four cups worth I'd say, and buttering up a large glass pie
plates then believe it or not there is only one ingredient left in this thing
and that is cheese. and trust me I agonized over which cheese to use, Hank
Hill's favorite pepper jack or yellow American, the thing that I had really
imagined Peggy Hill would use. On the one hand she said I made it just the way you
like aka with Hank's favorite cheese but then again Peggy is incredibly stubborn
and stuck in her ways in the end I gotta go yellow American it's what I think she
would use. Do I recommend do you use it? No. I would use cheddar or pepper jack...
Anywho, we were starting by layering half of our chili on the bottom of our pie
plate, followed by half of our Fritos, followed by half of our cheese, five
slices. This is gonna give the Fritos some degree of protection against the
final layer of chili. During what would seem to be a pretty unnecessary stint in
the oven 375 for 20 minutes according to every recipe I could find. 20 minutes
later and it emerges looking darker and at this point we are applying one final
layer of cheese and of course Fritos. Then we're popping it back in the oven
for another five minutes just to get everything all melty and to crisp up the
top layer and that's it. We just got a let 'er cool off for five minutes before
scooping and serving. Now, I know you guys were probably expecting me to remake
this with homemade tortilla chips, and artisanal cheeses, and hand curated chili...but, Frito pie is a recipe that does not need improving upon except for maybe the
cheese this ended up being gluey and dry and kind of gross. So, bring
it to your next Texas potluck but do yourself a favor and use cheddar. Next up,
we're taking our best approximation at spa-peggy and meatballs if I had to
guess I'd say that Peggy made meatballs the same way that every mom did back in
the 90s. Store-bought ground beef, egg. breadcrumbs, splash milk, little
sprinklings each of: garlic powder, onion powder, oregano, and dried basil all the
usual meatball suspects. Like most things in life we are seasoning with salt and
freshly ground pepper and then it's time to mix this whole affair together by
hand, oh wait a minute, I almost forgot the most important part!
Just the right amount of parmigiano cheese and I'm assuming that she uses
this junk that comes in a bottle. Anyway, once we've got our meatball dough oh... did I just call this meatball dough? I guess that's what it is.... Once we've got
our meatball dough well kneaded, it's time to divide into small mouth size balls
and Peggy never makes any claims to be Italian so I'm guessing that she's
baking her meatballs instead of frying them. While those bake at 400 degrees
Fahrenheit for 15 to 20 minutes we're gonna make an ultra simple tomato sauce. I would have bet any amount of money that she would use jarred sauce but she
mentioned adding just the right amount of sugar. So, we're finally mincing an
onion sweating it adding garlic at the last second, sauteing for 30 seconds or
until fragrant and then adding a can of crushed tomatoes and then we're gonna
simmer that for at least 30 minutes. Now the only reason people add sugar to
tomato sauce is to attempt to combat acidity which doesn't actually work. But,
it does help round out and mask the acidity of undercooked sauces. So, once
you've got this seasoned with salt, pepper, and sugar to your personal taste
it's time to add the meatballs back to the sauce. It's both going to finish
cooking them and it's going to lend some of their meaty flavor. So we're making
sure these guys are well coated and we're covering and simmering for another
15-20 minutes. Once those are almost done it's time to get our pasta cooking I've
got some thin spaghetti here that I'm going to boil for one minute less than
is recommended to me by the manufacturer's suggested cooking
instructions, reserving a half a cup of pasta water towards the end of cooking
this is gonna help the sauce adhere to our now drained pasta. First, I'm going to
set aside the meatballs for a moment because we're gonna plate those up with
the spaghetti later. I'm gonna add most of the pasta water to the awaiting pasta
and then start adding the sauce.. Realizing halfway through that this got
to be a more efficient way than just scooping it out using my measuring cup
but.. onward and upward. We're tossing that all together and then preparing to
plate. We're scooping our spaghetti into a large serving bowl,
topping with our meatballs, and of course the requisite heavy snow of bottled
Parmesan cheese and before you can say the name of Arlen's most romantic
restaurant "That's Amore": you've got Spa-Peggy and meatballs. Which is of course
just spaghetti and meatballs but that doesn't really matter, does it it? All
comes down to how it tastes and how does it taste... well it tastes like spaghetti
and meatballs like every spaghetti and meatballs your parents have ever made
for you and you know what that's okay not only is a nice nostalgia trip but
what is that old saying if you can't handle spaghetti at its worst you don't
deserve it at its best. Plus, I hadn't eaten anything all day at this point now
it's really really hungry so congratulations Peggy you got yourself a
member of the 'Clean Plate Club' but I have absolutely no doubt that 'Apple
Brown Betty' will also join those ranks. We're starting with about a half a pound
of brown sugar to which we're going to add one teaspoon ,of ground cinnamon 1/2
a teaspoon ground ginger, 1/4 teaspoon ground allspice, and maybe 1/8
teaspoon of ground cloves. Along with a nice shake of table salt. We know for a
fact that she doesn't put any nutmeg in there because of that meddling
Minh Souphanousinphone.... Next up, we've got a peel core and sliced between 7 to 10 granny
smith apples..... It's gonna depend on the size of your recipe, the size your baking
vessel, all that good stuff. Just chop up the whole bunch apples, okay? I'm cutting
mine into slices you can cut yours into chunks, just live your life. One thing you
for sure don't want to skip is buttering your casserole or pie dish before
layering down about half of your apples enough to cover the bottom of the
casserole and then some. Then we're gonna sprinkle a whole bunch of brown sugar
mixture on top along with a sprinkling of bread crumbs.. I know this sounds weird
but this is how brown Betty is traditionally made and the bread crumbs
give the filling some body, while also giving the top a faux crust.
So we're layering in the rest of our apples, the rest of our brown sugar and
maybe solid three quarters of a cup of bread crumbs and then we're topping that
with a whole stick of butter sliced it thinly. You don't have to be as organized as
I'm being right now this is a very forgiving recipe and it will forgive you
of any baking sins you might commit. So, we're baking this at 375 Fahrenheit for
about 20 minutes covered followed by 15 minutes uncovered and we're left with
this: Apple Brown Betty in all of its sweet crunchy bubbly goodness.
I have a particular soft spot for this dish because I used to make it all the
time back in college because you might have noticed you only need a baking dish
and a knife to make it. Plus, it's only got like seven ingredients if you
include the spices, eight if you included scoop of ice cream on top and it's super
easy and economical way to get a homemade apple pie equivalent on the
table in under an hour. I hope you guys give this one a try
yourselves it's one of the things that first sort of encouraged me to try
cooking.... just promise me that you won't use it to try and poison Randy Travis.
My only two issues are with the Apple Brown Peggy. He didn't use orange juice and he used butter instead of margarine. Either way it was still fun.
Cotton yelling "Hank's wife"
God, I hope he does Bill's Recipes
I hope someday he makes something off of sugarfoot's menu. That episode where Hank and Strickland run an illegal food truck after the town Outlaws trans fats is one of my personal favorites.
"Two time substitute teacher of the year"
THREE time substitute teacher of the year. May-lahmo PEGGY HILL
Spapeggy and meat balls
Add Nutmeg!
Love me some Babish, also love that you can tell he's a big fan of the show.
For the Frito Pie, you would get extra Texas authenticity points if you just dump the chili and cheese into the actual chip bag, cut lengthwise, and served it like that.