Cheese Dips | Basics with Babish

[Music] basics with babish and my website basics with babish comm or brought to you by Squarespace head there now to check out all the recipes from the show kitchen equipment lists and more get 10% off your first Squarespace order with offer code babish whether you need a domain website or online store make your next move with the Squarespace alright so to kick off this dips episode let's make something that's maybe not really a dip more of a cheeseball pimento cheese to be precise into the bowl of a food processor goes four ounces of cream cheese eight ounces of sharp yellow cheddar particular ingredient a four ounce jar of diced pimento peppers a little dash of what's the Shire sauce and a little dash of hot sauce that's it real pimento cheese would often call for an additional quarter cup of mayo but we want something a little firmer for our cheese ball so we are processing scraping down the sides until we have a nice smooth cheese product and there it is ladies and gentlemen the caviar the South I don't know why they call it that but they do so we're gonna wrap this in plastic wrap and use this opportunity to shape it into a sphere this is after all a cheese ball I'm gonna place it into a bowl to help it maintain its shape while it chills out in the fridge for at least one hour during which time we're gonna chop up some bacon I'm only doing four slices here I would do about twice as much if I was you one hour later when we are pulling our firmed up ball out of the fridge and rolling in the bacon bits try to make sure that every viable square inch of real estate is covered but you can leave the bottom bare if you didn't chop up enough bacon like I did then we're gonna optionally garnish this with some finely chopped chives not that this bad boy needs much of a garnish I'd eat this entire thing with a spoon if it were socially acceptable but we're gonna surround it with little toasts or the cracker of your choice and there you have it an absolutely impossible to screw up surefire hits now let's say you find yourself with a four pound block of sharp cheddar cheese what do you do with it well I'll tell you what we're gonna do with about half of it we're gonna chop it up into about half inch cubes and use it to make some beer cheese dip which tastes about amazing as it sounds now we could go through all the fuss of making a roux but a nice shortcut is to use corn starch about 1 tablespoons worth that we're gonna sprinkle over the cheese and toss to coat much easier than making a roux if you ask me and then it's off to the stovetop where we are bringing one Mexican beard to the boil in a serving appropriate cast-iron pan and then slowly in batches introducing the cheese to the party whisking constantly and making sure that everybody is melting evenly at first it's gonna look like a watery berry mess but as you add more and more cheese that's a in four batches maybe add some freshly chopped red pepper a generous pinch of kosher salt and a healthy shake of cayenne you will find that you've made an opulence beer cheese dip without equal then of course throwing it under the broiler for a few minutes just makes it pretty but we've still got time to add some flavor and color so I'm gonna top this with some chopped onion and sliced jalapenos and there you have it nothing short of a nuclear powered party starter but what if we want to get back to the fundamentals of cheese that is queso fundido which literally translates to melted cheese which likewise is as awesome as it sounds it's also maybe the easiest thing in the world because I'm just gonna shred together eight ounces each of Monterey Jack and our giant block of sharp cheddar from earlier and place them in a broiler safe serving dish and then it's ready to serve I'm thinking we forgot one step though it's it's something we have to we have to melt the cheese into a 425 degree fahrenheit oven it goes for maybe like 12 minutes until this happens it becomes bubbly brown and melted from here you could top it with all kinds of things cilantro chopped onion Chari so or you could just dig in like the monster you know you are just make sure to serve immediately because you only have about 15 minutes until this becomes K so not so fun dido sorry but now it's time to move on to the daddy of all dips spinach and artichoke dip into a large bowl goes 8 ounces of softened cream cheese 8 ounces of shredded low-moisture mozzarella 2 ounces of shredded Romano and 2 ounces of parmesan then it's over to the stovetop to warm up our vegetables we're gonna preheat our nonstick pan with about a tablespoon of olive oil before adding some frozen spinach this has a lot of moisture in it that we don't want ending up in our dip so we're gonna cook all that out about four to five minutes over medium heat before grating in 3 cloves of garlic and adding our artichoke hearts I'm using jarred ones you can use canned ones it's fine we're just gonna cook those together for another one to two minutes until everybody's really gotten to know each other and then we're gonna add this mixture to our Utopia of cheese I like to do this while it's still hot so everybody gets all melty or even goes in the oven we are of course going to season with kosher salt and freshly ground pepper mixing until thoroughly combined and then placing into our ovens safe and serving vessel lastly topping with a generous grating of Parmesan cheese before placing into a 375-degree oven for about 20-25 minutes until browned and bubbly place on a heat proof surface with some toasts or crackers and serve I know you guys were probably expecting something with bechamel and artisanal hand cream to cream cheese but I've tried like a million spinach and artichoke dip recipes and this one is by far my favorite you can jazz or fancy it up in any way you like but appropriately with the name of the show sometimes it's best to get back to basics see you guys this time next week for the live stream cook along and last but not least this episode and many others have been sponsored by Squarespace because they've been an amazing partner in both bringing this show and my websites to life they've got a really intuitive easy-to-use platform that made it super easy for someone like me who has never done web design ever they have templates they do domains they have really good customer service it's basically a one-stop-shop for building a really slick website if you want to try it for yourself you can start your free trial today at squarespace.com and enter in offer code babish to get 10% off your first purchase [Music] [Music]

Channel: Babish Culinary Universe

Views: 4,575,973

Rating: 4.9556155 out of 5

Keywords: cheese, dip, party, appetizer, appetizers, beer, spinach artichoke dip, pimento, ball, bacon, queso, fundido, binging with babish, cooking with babish, babbish, dips, spinach artichoke dip recipe, pimento cheese ball, pimento cheese ball recipe, queso fundido recipe, queso fundido, pear qwerty horse, party dips, easy dip recipe, easy dip recipe for chips, dip recipe easy, dip recipe, beer cheese recipe, how to make beer cheese, how to make pimento cheese

Id: 9toK5UUGeok

Length: 6min 1sec (361 seconds)

Published: Thu May 02 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/Hydra_Master]

While these all looked good, I was kind of hoping for more than just variants of "melted cheese in a bowl".

[u/PM_ME_FINANCE_ADVICE]

If babish's excessive whiteness wasn't already super apparent, the fact that his "dips" episode is just four variations of melted cheese will tell you all you need to know.

[u/LouBrown]

2:42 mark: shaking cayenne out of an open jar straight into the pan? I also like to live dangerously.

[u/SgtAlpacaLord]

Where was the hummus, tzatziki or guacamole? Or any sour cream based dip for that matter?

[u/Enlog]

That beer cheese recipe is quite close to the macaroni and cheese recipe that I prefer. Albeit without macaroni, and with beer instead of milk. And with the corn-starch shortcut for the roux-

Look, all I'm trying to say is that that beer cheese dip could most likely make a good mac and cheese if you folded in some aldente pasta before broiling.

[u/JackBauersGhost]

We put some hatch chiles into our spinach artichoke dip for some extra deliciousness

[u/Beatlejwol]

All the complaints about cheese.

...have any of you actually had cheese??

That said, a part 2 of this for the lactose intolerant would be welcome.

Poor bastards.

[u/Codydan]

Does anyone know what that cast iron mini pot with handles he uses for the Spinach and Artichoke dip is "officially" called? and where to get it?

[u/Milhouse99]

Looks like you followed my advice and changed the square space voice over