- Go me! Look at me! As the kids say, thriving. Hi guys, welcome to this episode of "How to Lose Your Mind
in 72 Hours With June." It's almost Christmas and therefore we are doing a Christmas edition of "Budget Eats."
- Ho, ho, ho, ho, ho. - However, it is not any "Budget Eats." The theme here today is extravagance. Julia has given me a budget of $100.
(cash register dings) In exchange for that $100, Julia would like one appetizer,
one cocktail, one main, two to three sides plus a
dessert for four people. In case you missed it, I completely lost my mind making Thanksgiving "Budget Eats." Aaron says our walls are sweating. So, I can't wait to do it again this time. After all, Christmas is the season in which you eat until you
cannot move any longer, fall into a deep slumber and wake up when it's magically no longer
the (beep) show of 2020. That's the true gift of
the Christmas season. Now, personally I didn't grow up with a Christmas feast tradition, so I went on my Instagram. I polled all of you and asked you what defines a Christmas meal for you? And many of you just said family
and joining them over food. And what kind of food? Well, there's all kinds
of food it turns out. You guys really go all out and you go in all directions and I love that. We have some Chinese
food for my Jewish peeps, we have our Seven Fishes tradition
for the Italian families, Filipino, lechon and lumpias, Latin American, tamales
and ponche de frutas, meats of all sorts,
bubbling fountains of booze and mountains of cookies. The theme that tied
everyone's responses together was coziness, richness, excess, abundance, luxury and food comas surrounded by love. Julia has kindly requested that
I make a show-stopping piece of some sort as the centerfold
of our Christmas experience, to which I thought duck. I don't like duck that much. It's a little bit too fatty, too flavorful and just too much but that precisely is the
point of Christmas, isn't it? Of course, Aaron loves duck. That will be my Christmas
present to Aaron. I think my goal here with the $100 budget is not to buy more, it's to buy better. If I bought $100 worth of $1 produce and all of my usual budget hacks, I will never be able to finish cooking. I will die on this kitchen floor. Do you wanna see that? I don't know, I don't know
what you guys are into. Unfortunately, there's no
truly ethical consumption in our world but there
are smaller businesses that embody having more ethical and more responsible production practices. So, I took a walk to local farmer's market and I showed up too late. It was one p.m. All the meats were sold
out, unfortunately. As far as dessert, I also
knew that we were going to need chocolate and cocoa powder and believe it or not, the cocoa industry is
pretty messed up too. There's actually a
great website that gives you a list of all the chocolate companies that have committed themselves to producing chocolate
in a more ethical way by having a more transparent
sourcing process. So, if you wanna check that out, we'll have that link down below in the description box for you. I met up with William
from Raaka Chocolate. He gave me this whole
stash of chocolate products that were basically scraps that could not be processed further into bars for sale. There's a lot of chocolate. (gentle music)
(bags rustling) Smells so good. For my remaining produce, I just hit up my local grocery stores. I got a duck, I got some pork belly, I got a bag of salmon
scraps for only a buck. Still managed to do budget,
even when I'm given $100. I think it's just in my blood, you know? Two main things that I knew I wanted besides the duck and the buche de noel was my grandfather's pork
belly and potato stew. That is one of my most intense
childhood food memories. My grandfather just stewing
this soy-based braise to perfection until the pork belly skin was just velvet.
(tranquil music) And I thought this would be
a nice way to remember him. The other thing was the appetizer. I saw the Italian
tradition of Seven Fishes and I thought that would
be an amazing appetizer. I'm going to make some homemade crackers and I bought a ton of
tinned fish to go with it. Six tinned fishes means I won't have to cook that much for the appetizer. I'll just make the crackers
and I'll have my guests, AKA Aaron, dig at it and
try out all the fishes. So, here's everything that I got for $100. (gentle music) Merry Christmas. From my local farmer's
market I got some eggs, some butter, some Yukon potatoes and baby purple potatoes,
purple onions, garlic, a bunch of scallions, some
spearmint for our dessert, some purple cauliflower. For our meats I got a
whole duck, head attached. I got skin on pork belly. The skin is super important. It is the best part of pork belly and if you have not tried pork belly with the skin on you must try it. I also got some salmon scraps and then I went ahead and
splurged on some cheese. Cheese is always good. We just haven't had
cheese yet on this show. Today's the day to try all the things that we've not had money to try. I also got a nice, cute bottle
of olive oil from Portugal and for our canned
fishes I got canned eel, canned mackerel, canned tuna, canned sardines, canned
calamari, canned sprats. I wasn't really crazy about the idea of eating
vegetables on Christmas 'cause you know, what's the point? But we will have some. I got English cucumber, I got carrots, I got grape tomatoes and
a little bit of ginger as well as a honey crisp
apple, five limes, five lemons, and a whole bag of discounted oranges that don't seem to be doing
too good but we will make do. I also got a pomegranate. I thought that would be really
pretty on our buche de noel. You know, little berry like
things instead of cranberry. And I got a bottle of Martinelli's
Sparkling Apple cider. I don't drink. Aaron drinks. Maybe we'll pop a little
alcohol in his serving for him, but for me, sparkling apple juice. In addition, I grabbed
a bag of almond flour. I'm going to try to make
our desserts gluten-free because believe it or not, I actually am a little
bit sensitive to gluten. So, I'm gonna try to limit my intake. And finally, for the
filling in our buche de noel I grabbed a pint of cream. That brings us to a grand total of 94.54.
(cash register dings) I didn't even spend all of it, but that's because I
got chocolate for free. So you know, it all balances out. Now let's see what's hiding in my freezer and pantry, shall we? Okay, I think we've found
some real treasures here. I found two bags. This one is organic sugar
and this one is cassava flour and I believe I took
these from the free table back when I was still at
the Delish test kitchen. We'll use this in our cookies and cakes. This I'm thinking with our cheese, we can turn into a thing
that I've always wanted to make that I've never gotten to make and that's pao de queijo. It is a Brazilian bread, I guess. A cheese bread, a
gluten-free cheese bread. From my freezer I found
this passion fruit puree. It's so fragrant I can smell
it through the packaging. I think we can melt this down and cook it with some of our oranges and make a syrup for our sprinkling apple cider. And the last thing that I'm
so excited about is this. This is a bag of sticky purple rice that Lena got me two whole Christmases ago that I've never cooked (chuckles). So, thank you, Lena. I also found this very gross
looking sourdough discard. It's very old, smells pungent. It looks very questionable. It'll be fine. We'll put it in our crackers. I don't know what to say
except I'm overwhelmed already, so let's get started. Day one. Here's what we're gonna prep. We gotta prep the duck first. I think we gotta marinate it, maybe like a dry rub type of situation and dry it in the fridge
for one to two days. I mean, it's duck. How badly can I (beep) it up? For my duck we're gonna go
ahead and massage the bird. And then after that, we're going to blanch it
very quickly in hot water. We're going to pat it dry and then we're gonna coat the inside and outside of the bird
with some sugar and salt. After that, we'll make a soy based sauce, brush it over and let it hang in the fridge until it's nice and dry. That skin should crisp up
in the oven once roasted if we allow it to get dry in the fridge. We're going to bring
some water up to a boil. While the water is
heating, we're going to set up a little contraption that
can hold the duck in the fridge without letting any of
the sides touch the pan. I know a lot of you are starting
to hit the dislike button because you see a head of a duck attached to the body of a duck that
we're about to consume but if you're gonna eat meat, I think you have to come face to face with the fact
that you are eating meat. I think this is a necessary step for me. I cook the duck, I need to face the duck. Thank you, duck. I'm sorry we killed you. Hi, Mom. - Okay, (speaking in foreign language). Thanks, Mom. If Mom says I can keep it on, I'm just gonna, I'm
gonna keep the head on. I'm gonna keep the feetsies on and we're gonna roast it, we're gonna see what happens, I guess. - [Aaron] How is the duck life? - [June] Oh, it's pretty dead. Oo, the skin is tightening. (gasps) That's so cool. Now what do I do? It's so hot. - [Aaron] Is it ready to eat? - [June] Oh, God. Yeah. Oh God. Oh God. Oh, okay. Yep, yep. I don't know how to do this. I'm just going to go ahead and rinse out our duck with it
so that any impurities can be washed away. A little hot sauna bath. Should we name him? Aaron, do you wanna name our duck? - [Aaron] That's kinda sad, June. She wanted to name our duck. - [June] Can you actually
come support me right now? It's the first time that I've
had to like face an animal, like literally face an animal. - [Aaron] Didn't you work on a farm? - [June] We didn't kill, I didn't kill birds on the farm. I just- - [Aaron] You didn't kill this one? (June sighs) - Yeah, but... I know my mom said I could roast the duck with the feet and the head, but I think I'm gonna chop it off now. (sighs) I will still cook it and I will still make the full use out of this duck but I just, it's a little much right now. ("Psycho Theme") (Mary screaming)
(water splashing) (upbeat music) (June exhales) I'm going to mentally
collect myself for a minute and then we're gonna rub the duck with some salt and sugar inside and out. I'm going with about
two tablespoons of each. Just gentle massage. One tablespoon on the outside of the bird, one tablespoon each on
the inside of the bird. I'm kinda starting to fall
in love with this duck. I do feel like I'm
developing a relationship with it even though I murdered it. (June sighs) How strange life is. There you go little guy. You are seeing those in real time. I am way more distressed than I could have
anticipated about the duck and we're gonna let that baby rest for an hour and we'll glaze
it with our soy mixture. (June sighs) I just... (melancholy music) Dear ducky, I thought you were just food, but even in death, you taught
me what it means to feel. There is a lot of feelings
right now inside me. I don't even know how to process it. It's a great time to do dishes. Now I'm going to sanitize
the crime scene with vinegar. Hope it erases my sinfulness. I think I'm hyperventilating
(inhales deeply). Okay (chuckles). Well, while we're waiting
for this duck to sit in salt and sugar, I
think we're gonna go ahead and make some pickles because
duck tends to be pretty fatty. I think having some carrots, a little bit of onion and a little bit of cucumber pickled will go
very nicely with our roast duck. (water splashing)
(upbeat holiday music) To really spice things up, I'm going to be putting in one of these spicy hot peppers that Aaron's friend, Graz sent us. I think these will make
the pickles Aaron style. To make it less spicy, I'm just gonna trim off the membranes 'cause that's where
the spiciest parts are. In addition, I'm going to be putting in some of this beautiful
red onion skin for color. And then we'll just throw
in two teaspoons of sugar, a teaspoon of salt and
a little bit of vinegar, just enough to come up to about
halfway of the vegetables. I'm going to lid it. We're gonna shake it. And we're going to make sure
everyone is happy in there. So, the reason why you
don't need the vinegar to fill all the way up is
because as the veggies sit in it they're going to lose their moisture, the salt's gonna pull it out and then you'll magically
have more and more liquid and less and less vegetable volume. So, it'll all work out. We're just gonna let
this sit in the fridge and give it a nice little
shake every now and then and pretty soon it'll be pickles. Remember when I was like,
I have so many things stuck in my kitchen that I'd never used? Well, this is one of them. I think I bought this maybe two years ago because I saw it on the shelf
at my Chinese supermarket and I was like, "That looks cool. Let me bring it home, research." Never opened it. But apparently this
stuff is what gives a lot of Chinese roast meats and
other dishes their red hue. So, I think I'm gonna
crush about two tablespoons of this and put it in our
soy sauce glaze for the duck. For our duck soy glaze, I'm going to eyeball about
two tablespoons of soy sauce, one tablespoon of grated ginger, two cloves of grated garlic, two tablespoons of rice wine vinegar, one teaspoon of cooking wine, one tablespoon of my
homemade six spice powder but you can substitute five spice powder, a quarter teaspoon of white pepper, a teaspoon of ground black pepper, two teaspoons of ground chili pepper and one tablespoon of this
ground red rice yeast. It's been an hour so we're
gonna drain our ducky. We're going to wipe him down with a little bit of paper towel action and once he's all dry we're going to smear that soy sauce paste on top. He almost looks like he's
cooked already, isn't he? (mellow music) Is there space is the main issue. Okay. I did it. - [Aaron] It's done? We can eat?
- Yeah, let's eat it. Let's eat Ducky. Guys, I'm so exhausted already, but at least the duck is resting. Thank God. Okay, so next up we're going to make our sourdough cracker dough. I've never made it with
almond flour before so this will be quite a trip. So in a large bowl, I'm going
to take some almond flour, some of our cassava flour, a little bit of baking
powder, sugar, salt, and about three tablespoons of your choice of seeds or grains. You can put whatever
seeds you want in here. I'm going to be going with some sesame and a little bit of flax,
you know, for health. And I'm also going to be putting in some crushed fennel as well. I love that savory flavor of fennel. Perfect. We're going to drizzle in some olive oil and we're gonna dump in
our sourdough discard. We're going to go ahead and mixy mix this until everything's thoroughly
combined and well distributed. Then we'll go in about two
tablespoons of olive oil and we're gonna mix that in really well. Once the dough is evenly
distributed and it holds shape and it feels a little bit like pie dough, you can ahead and add in your sourdough starter and your water. Now, I just realized that sourdough starter isn't gluten-free but I can't let it go to waste. So, we're gonna drain off
that gross looking liquid and we're gonna use the
rest of that starter up. We're going to work that in with our hands until the dough forms. This is what you're looking for. It forms a solid block, it doesn't stick to your
hands, it crumbles a little bit but if you squish it, it holds shape. Put it in a resealable,
airtight container, let it rest in the fridge overnight and we'll roll it out
and bake it tomorrow. We're gonna make some dough. You're going to crack two large eggs and you're going to
separate out the whites. Then you're gonna put them in a bowl and whip them until they're soft peaks. (mixer whirring)
(mellow music) Then in another bowl
you're going to combine some almond flour with some sugar. Whenever I'm zesting citrus, I like to hold the Microplane this way so that you catch all the zest and you get to observe clearly which parts of the citrus you've already zested. You don't want any of the white parts because that's where the
bitterness comes from. We're going to put the zest into our sugar and we're going to rub it into the sugar until the sugar
looks like it's very orange. You're going to pour into the egg whites a little bit of almond extract, a little bit of orange blossom water and a little bit of
amaretto if you have it. And then you're going to fold
the dries into the egg whites until everything is nicely
combined, no dry spots remaining. It's going to look and
feel a little bit gluey, but that's fine. We're going to let this also sit in the fridge overnight
in an airtight container. But we're gonna make one more thing. We're gonna make some gluten-free
chocolate chip cookies with our endless Raaka Chocolate scraps. Do you want a piece with
white chocolate or black? (Aaron munches) Do you think this would be
good in a chocolate chip? (Aaron's hands clapping) - [Aaron] It would be incredible, yeah. - I cannot cook like this, Aaron. Go get yourself a blanket.
- I'm just in your way. - This gluten-free chocolate chip cookie is actually already on our site so you can click here for the recipe. For this one we're going to need about three ounces of melted butter along with a quarter cup of brown sugar and a quarter cup of granulated sugar. We're gonna plop in
one egg and we're gonna let that all mix together
until it's nice and smooth. We're gonna go in with a
splash of vanilla extract and then we'll dump in our almond flour, along with a little bit
of our tapioca starch, AKA cassava flour. We got a quarter teaspoon of baking soda, teaspoon of kosher salt. The best thing about a
gluten-free chocolate chip cookie is you don't have to really worry about over mixing
because there's no gluten that you can develop in this
dough since it's gluten free. (upbeat holiday music) Now, that looks great cookie dough. (music continues) So, we've made two cookie doughs, but I still have about a
cup of almond flour left and I would love to use it. I also have those two egg yolks left over and I feel like two cookies isn't quite the right number for holiday dessert. I feel like you need the magic of threes. So, let's make one more cookie. I know that one cookie that Aaron really likes
is snowball cookies. It's basically a very nutty
brown nut-based cookie that's very powdery, it's
coated in confectioner sugar. I don't have all purpose
flour but I have almond meal. So, in our very dirty cookie dough bowl I'm going to put some softened butter and some powdered sugar
and I'm just gonna whip it and cream it until it's nice and fluffy. Oo, that's messy. And then we'll fold in our egg yolks and then I'll put in a little bit of salt, maybe a little dash of pumpkin pie spice because Aaron loves that flavor profile. Oo, that definitely
just went into the salt. What is life? A tablespoon of our cassava flour, a little splash of vanilla and
our remaining almond flour. (mixer whirring) Tastes pretty good. I'm gonna pack it. We'll bake it and we'll
see how it turns out. Guys, I think it's time
to throw in the towel for tonight because I just
dumped pumpkin pie spice all over my kosher salt and this is all the salt
that I have in the house. So, now the salt is
pumpkin pie spice salt. - [Santa] Ho, ho, ho, ho, ho. - Welcome back, it's day two. I'm going to drink some
tea and then wake up. (June exhales) All right, I'm ready. We have a lot of things
on the agenda for today. We are going to be making
our pork belly braise. I'm thinking of putting
some potatoes in there, some goodies. We'll wing it. I don't... And then we're gonna move
on to the salmon soup. That should be easy and relatively easy to heat up tomorrow too
when we finally eat. Potato salad. I'm going to be making a version of what I remember my mom
making for me when I grew up which always has pieces of apples in it. Then we're going to be
prepping our yule log cake. We're gonna be baking off the cake. We're going to let that cool. We're going to frost it with
some whipped cream filling, then we're gonna roll it up and then we're going to
decorate the outside. Nothing's gonna go wrong of
course in that 80 step process. And then I'm thinking about
making a passion fruit syrup for the mocktail because I don't drink but we'll put in a
little alcohol for Aaron. After the passion fruit syrup, I'm going to move on to an orange glaze for the duck and then a
tuna salad for our appetizer and I hope that dog stops barking soon because it's driving me crazy. For our pork belly braise, I'm going to be cubing up all of the pork. My favorite parts of pork belly are these little crunchy bones right here. You let these stew long
enough and they turn into delectable crunchy bits. Flavor. And then I'm gonna be blanching those pieces in some hot water. We're going to set the pot with the pork and the water on a medium heat
and bring it up to a boil. Once it's out of boil,
we're gonna turn the heat off immediately and drain off the water. It's a trick that I learned
from my Asian mother. And she told me this gets rid of all the impurities and just the not so fresh tasting bits of the meat. After it's been blanched, I'm
gonna put those pork cubes in my cast iron Dutch oven because this is gonna be a big, long stew. I'm going to be putting in
half of an apple, diced. When I peel apples, I
like to preserve the peel. I think the peel has most of that apple flavor concentrated in it. I'm gonna go ahead and use
two different soy sauces here. One is a little bit fresher, lighter, your average soy sauce
that you usually get and this one I found
a couple of weeks ago. Mushroom soy sauce. It's got a little bit of like,
wise dinosaur taste to it. Does that make sense? Along with some mirin and water. With that, I'm going to
add in some aromatics, ginger, some garlic, as
well as white pepper, black pepper, citrin peppercorns and two star anise and
cinnamon stick, fennel seeds, another teaspoon of our
red yeast rice powder. After all of that is co-mingled
and nicely distributed, we're going to be adding in a pound of our potatoes, peeled, cubed. When it comes to potato sizes, it really does not matter. The more variation you
have, the more variation in texture you have when
you finally get to eat it so that some pieces are creamier and some pieces are slightly more solid. And it's just all good, you know? I love diversity. My grandfather used-
(horn honking) My grandfather used to-
(horn honking) Oh my God, this car outside.
(honking continues) Yes? Yes, Sir? I remember eating this dish as a kid and just remembering how
silky the pork tasted. My grandfather would
basically let this cook and simmer until all
the potatoes became part of the broth and the meat relinquished its essence into the broth as well and then the broth turned into the sauce that just coated every single bite and everything became one. So, after about an hour
and 20 minutes of cooking, the pork belly stew is perfect. The potatoes are tender and creamy. The pork is falling apart. I'm going to keep the lid off and I'm gonna let the sauce reduce until it gets a little bit stickier, a little bit more bodacious.
(bells chiming) For the salmon we're going to do the same blanching process
because I got salmon scraps. They're probably not high quality. They might not be that fresh. Once our salmon is blanched, I'm going to go into the
pot with some olive oil, a little bit of garlic,
a little bit of ginger. The ginger helps wick away
any remaining fishiness and it gives you that nice,
clean, healthful, fresh taste. We're going to let those aromatics toast for maybe 30 seconds one minute and then we're gonna go in with
some halved, grape tomatoes. I'm hoping that this will
give it some sweetness, some acidity, some nice body to the soup. Then we'll add our salt, salmon,
white pepper, black pepper and we'll just let it stew away until it smells fragrant and looks milky. The broth should turn this
slightly opaque color. That's when you know flavor is all in. After about 25 minutes
our fish stew is done. I'm going to take it off the heat, set it off to the side. I'm going to go ahead and start
prepping our potato salad. I'm going to rinse them really well 'cause I'm gonna keep the skin on and then I'm going to cube them. When it comes to cutting
these baby potatoes up, size does matter. I want them to cook at the same rate so that they're the same
texture inside the salad. These are frickin' gorgeous. I'm going to blanch them in water until they're very, very tender. I don't want them quite falling apart but just on the edge of like
completely disintegrating 'cause I like my potato salad with no crunch from the
potatoes themselves. I like my baby food textures and this is how smushy I like my potato salad potatoes to be. Very mush, very creamy,
very hot, hot, hot. We're gonna chop some
carrots, chop some onions, chop some apples, throw
it in with our potatoes and then we're gonna
make a mayo vinegarette. To make our mayo dressing,
I'm going to take mayo and combine it with one
chopped anchovies filet. I know a lot of you aren't into the fishy taste, but try
it, try it once, try it once. And we're going to whisk
it with some lemon juice, a teaspoon of sugar, a
little salt, a little pepper. And I think for Aaron's
sake maybe we'll just add in a little bit of chili in some form, huh? - [Aaron] How's your life goin', June? - Oh, you know, mayo everywhere. It's beauteous. We're gonna slap a lid on this, let it rest in the fridge
overnight and then come back to it and eat it tomorrow
when it's even better. Oh, I need a bigger fridge. Okay, I was gonna start
on the buche de noel and then I remembered. Do you recall yesterday at
the end of my very long day, I said, "Hey guys, we have
a cup of almond flour left. Let's make some cookies with it." That was supposed to be
for the buche de noel cake. However, I do still
have cassava flour left so I think I'm going to
be using that instead. I could use all purpose flour as the original recipe calls
for but what's the fun in that? Might as well try something new and if it fails, then
we learned something. The yule log that I'll all be making today is based off of a awesome
recipe by Mackenzie. So if you wanna make a tried and true one and not an experimental one
with cassava flour, click here. We have the recipe for you. For the first part of this dessert, we're gonna bake the cake. We're gonna take our eggs, we're gonna separate the egg
yolks from the egg whites. For reference, all of the eggs that I'm using are about 55 grams or so. Your eggs may vary. So, if you're a stickler for numbers, 55 grams per egg is what I'm using. We're going to beat them separately and then we're gonna fold them together to make this (indistinct) cake. A quarter cup of sugar is
going into the egg whites and a half cup is going
into the egg yolks. If you're baking at home and
you only have one hand mixer and you don't feel like
doing a washing in between, I'd recommend that you whip
up your egg whites first and then move on to the egg yolks. That way you don't
contaminate the egg whites with fat from the egg yolks. (mixer whirring)
(upbeat music) This is exactly what you're looking for. You wanna see that it's
holding a ribbon shape for at least two to three seconds once it falls into the bowl. (upbeat music) Cocoa powder, peppermint salt. Set aside. We're going to be pouring
the egg yolk mixture into the flour first and
folding it in very gently. Turn your bowl as you go. Under, over. Once all of your dries
are mostly incorporated, we're gonna go in with one
batch of our egg whites. We're going to add the
egg whites in batches. This way you don't deflate
all of the fluffy egg whites with this heavy, dense floury mixture. When you go in with your
second batch of egg whites, just be very gentle. This is the point at which you don't want to deflate your batter. It should be nice and silky smooth but still fluffy, almost like moose. Once it's on the tray,
even it out and push it to the ends of your baking sheet but don't go too crazy
because you don't want to deflate all those nice
little filmy air bubbles that will keep your cake afloat. Middle rack, about 10
to 12 minutes, maybe 15. I think I had like two pieces
of chocolate for breakfast so I'm ready for a snack. Let's make those potato chips. Very simple. On a sheet tray, I'm gonna dump
out all of our potato peels. I'm gonna toss them in a
little bit of olive oil, a little bit of salt, a little bit of chaat
masala and black pepper and then we'll let it roast
when the cake comes out until it's nice and crispy. (upbeat music) If your cake is already
releasing itself from the sides, that's a good sign. We're going to touch the surface of the cake to see if it has
a slight bounce back effect. If it bounces back a
little, you're good to go. We're going to let it cool
off for about three minutes and then we're gonna run an offset spatula around the edges of the pan
to fully release the cake. Then we're going to
dust the top of the cake with some powdered sugar,
invert a tray on top of that, flip it, release the parchment paper, dust the parchment paper with
some powdered sugar as well and then we're going
to flip that cake back onto the parchment and
roll that parchment up. This rolling process will help you prevent having cracks
later on in the cake. Hopefully I do not make a big mess in my kitchen while doing this because it can be messy. The golden window for rolling this cake up is within seven minutes
of coming out of the oven. Once you have it rolled up like this, let it rest seam side down on your tray until completely cool. In the meantime, we'll
make our whipped cream. Fun fact, this is my favorite part of any cake making process. That little bit that
gets stuck to your pan that has all of the oils that you sprayed the pan
with, it's delicious. (upbeat music) - Potato chips, you say?
- Yeah, mm hm. - [Aaron] These almost
look like potato skins. - [June] They are potato skins. - [Aaron] So they're potato skin chips? - [June] Yeah. - [Aaron] Do you know that
I love skin of anything? Duck skin, pig skin, potato skin, chicken skin.
- Well, you're getting all three. - [Aaron] June skin. - [June] Ew. (Aaron chuckles) - [Aaron] Oh my God. - [June] What do you, what? - [Aaron] They're so good. - I think they taste pretty good but they're like really astringent in my throat.
- Yes. - And I don't know
- It's rather weird. - if I like that. - [Aaron] Very unusual. - All right, well you can eat or dump. I don't know if we're rating those chips but if we are rating those chips, they only get a five out of 10 from me. The raspiness in my
throat after eating them, the astringency is very strange. Not sure if worth it,
but the texture, perfect. All right, onto the next
portion of our buche de noel which is the whipped cream filling. This is very straightforward. Just whipped cream, powdered sugar, a little bit of peppermint extract and a little bit of gelatin. Now, if you're making this a day ahead you want the gelatin in there so that the whipped cream
doesn't start weeping. Sometimes whipped cream
weeps if you leave it alone. Whipped cream too, feels alone and lonely. I'll also add a pinch of
our peppermint salt in there just to give it a little oomph. At the beginning of quarantine I had to develop a homemade
marshmallows recipe and the only store that had gelatin had it in these bulk boxes. So, I still have 30 envelopes in here. I'm gonna take one of
them, I'm going to bloom it in a little bit of water, two teaspoons of gelatin to
two tablespoons of cold water. After five minutes, it's
gonna look like this and then we're going to microwave
it for five to 10 seconds until it all melts into one liquid form. The goal here is not to cook
it, it's just to melt it. So, do not let it boil. Everything should be clear. There should be no clumps in there and if there are any clumps at this point, just strain it out. Once your whipped cream is at a soft peak, stream in your gelatin and keep whipping as you're streaming. This way, the gelatin won't set into clumps as it whips
around the whipped cream. You'll notice that once
you stream the gelatin in, this whipped cream sets very fast. Aaron, do you wanna
taste some whipped cream? - [Aaron] You know my answer. - Mm! - [Aaron] Whenever you ask me
if I wanna taste something- - This is so good. Is that peppermint-y enough? - [Aaron] Mm, I could go a little heavier on the peppermint actually. But-
- Oh my God. - [Aaron] It also needs some chili. - You have no taste buds. Go away.
(Aaron laughs) Go. For the record, I think
this tastes amazing. I'm going to set this
bowl of deliciousness in the fridge to let it
chill down a little bit and then we'll frost our
cake once that's cool, too. Next up as the sun sets down on us, let's make some passion
fruit syrup for our mocktail. I'm going to be using
half a packet of this plus the zest and juice
of a couple of oranges as well as our apple peel from earlier and I also found some
frozen cranberries leftover from our Thanksgiving challenge. (upbeat holiday music) With our remaining oranges I'm gonna go ahead and make an
orange sauce for our duck. So, I'm just going to
juice our remaining oranges and then in our pot, we're also gonna put in some sugar, some soy sauce, as well as a piece of ginger sliced, two star anise, one quarter
teaspoon of white pepper. This is the orange sauce
with a lot of orange juice. - [Aaron] Well, your videos are gonna be more or less successful
when everybody gets the vaccine and the world goes back to normal? - [June] Less, obviously. - [Aaron] Mm hm. - [June] This is the relatable content. - [Aaron] Are you afraid of that? - No, because my work
does not represent me. This is our cran, apple,
orange passion fruit syrup/jam, and I'm just going to lid it and we'll keep it in the
fridge until tomorrow. Oo! It is incredibly tart but would go great with the Martinelli's. Our soy orange sauce has reduced nicely. We're going to strain it
and put it in a jar as well. Okay, I think we're finally
ready to frost our cake. The whipped cream is chilled. The cake is chilled. Let's roll. (upbeat holiday music) To make it more Christmas-y, I'm going to be putting chopped chocolate inside of our whipped cream
for a stracciatella look. Now we're gonna roll it up using the parchment as tightly as we can. I'm going to transfer that to the fridge and let it set for another
hour before we can decorate it. Next, I'm going to mix our
tuna salad for tomorrow. That way it can sit overnight because tuna salad always
tastes better the day after. The tuna is gonna be a very simple recipe. We're just gonna drain that can of tuna, mix it with some mayo, put some of our quick
pickles from yesterday in along with a little bit of sugar. And it's not really a tuna salad until I have a little bit of
cracked black pepper in there. So, that's gonna go in as well. Well, at least that one was easy. Hang on tight. We're almost there (chuckles). To make sure that tomorrow
goes as smoothly as possible I am going to make the pao
de queijo dough right now so that all day tomorrow
we will just be baking, baking, baking, baking, baking. I'm super excited to see
how this one will turn out because I've never made this
before, but I love eating it. It's a chewy, cheesy gougeres of sorts. It's like a puffy cheese bread. What's not to like? So, basically in a pot,
we're gonna bring together some cream, some water,
some butter, some olive oil and then they're all
gonna come up to a simmer. Once that is hot and boiling,
we're going to pour it into a bowl with salt
and our cassava flour. We're going to let that come together and we're going to let it mix, mix, mix until it's nice and smooth
and a little bit cooled down. (bright holiday music) (mixer whirring) (June sighs) At which point we will crack in two eggs, one at a time until that
dough looks nice and silky. (mixer whirring) All right, well, that's
obviously not gonna work. Aaron? My hands are really gross.
- June? - Can you put some black pepper in here? Keep goin'. Yeah, buddy. And because it's cheese bread, we gotta have a lot of cheese. About a cup and a half or
two cups of both of these. This one smells like a
waxy Pecorino Parmesan mix and aged Gouda just smells
amazing all the time. (bright holiday music) You really can never have
too much cheese, you know? And to make it extra celebratory,
I'm going to be using some of this truffle salt
inside our pao de queijo. So cheesy! I don't know why I keep lying to myself. I've been saying I'm so
close for two hours now but we only have one more
thing to do for tonight and that is to frost our buche de noel. So we only have a little bit of butter and we have a
tiny bit of cream left, not enough to make a buttercream frosting as the original recipe dictates. However, we do have a
crap ton of chocolate thanks to William. So, I'm thinking we melt some chocolate. (microwave whirring)
(bright holiday music) I like to do the chocolate out when there's still chunks in there because the vessel itself is very hot so the carry over heat will continue to melt the chocolate as
long as you keep stirring. So, just keep stirring. It'll get smooth eventually, I promise. We plop the butter in, let
it cool down a little bit and then we stream in the whipped cream for a slightly whipped ganache frosting. How does that sound? Sounds great to me. Let's do it. (mixer whirring)
(bright holiday music) If you ever noticed that
your chocolate looks a little bit broken just add
in a little bit more cream. Unfortunately, I'm mostly out, but that should help a little bit. We're gonna trim off the ends so that we have nice even slices tomorrow. Also an excuse for me
to eat this right now. Breakfast, lunch and dinner. (bright holiday music) All right guys, it's 7:51 p.m. I think on done coating my
buche de noel in ganache and I think I'm going to go
crash forever (chuckles). I'll see you guys tomorrow. - [Santa] Ho, ho, ho, ho, ho. - of the lights that I
taped up are starting to fall apart and I feel that. I don't know how we're gonna
get through this, but we will. Here's what we got. We're gonna roast the cauliflower and prep them for frying later. I think fried cauliflower is one of the most delicious things. Then we're going to portion
and bake the crackers, we're going to portion
and bake the cookies and then we're going to
bake the pao de queijo. I'm also thinking of flattening some of them into a tortilla shape and making them as a stove top pancake. Experimental time. We'll see what happens. After that we're going to roast the ducks with the cauliflower
greens stuffed inside. I think that will make a
delicious vegetable side and we won't have to toss
away the cauliflower greens. Then I'm going to steam some rice, that rice that Lena gave
me two Christmases ago. I soaked some of that in
water last night hoping to just put it on the stove
and it'll cook itself. We're going to cut up some crudites with our leftover vegetables, some tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots, onions, maybe a little bit of cauliflower, too. After that we'll reheat everything. And then we'll make our mocktail while decorating our buche
de noel and then we'll eat. And then I will just collapse. Oh my God, collapsing sounds great. Some days you just don't
feel like doing anything and today is one of those days. Still gotta do it. For our beautiful cauliflower, I'm just going to preheat my oven to 375. I'm going to chop them into florets, toss them in the little bit
of olive oil, salt, pepper, and additional spices of your choice. And then we're just gonna let them roast until they're mostly tender
but not completely soft because we're gonna be coating them in a slurry later and frying them. For our greens, I'm going to peel the stem of the cauliflower, chop
it into small pieces and combine that with the chopped greens. So, for my greens, I'm going
to pick through the leaves. If any of them look too damaged I'm going to toss those bits away. And because these leaves
can be quite tough, I like to slice them down the middle, halve the stems so that they're easier to break down and chew later on. Then I like to stack everything, roll them up and sliver
them into thin slices. This way they can cook much faster and they won't be
laborious to chew through. (upbeat music) We're going to add a little bit of onions, a little bit of garlic, a
little salt, a little pepper and then I went ahead and mixed in some of the pork stew into the greens, kind of like a slightly five spice collard greens experience. I'm going to throw that on
a sheet tray and let it bake in the oven so that it wilts a little bit and we can stuff it all
into the small duck. The duck was small to begin with. It got even smaller in the last two days. Twenty-five minutes at 375 and this is exactly what I'm looking for. A nice crunchy tenderness and
lots of little golden bits. And we do like our golden bits. On our collards I'm going
to go with a little bit of Sriracha and a little bit of hoisin. Next up, for our crackers we're going to use what
remains of our cassava flour, dust our board with it,
roll out the cracker dough to about an eighth of an
inch to a quarter inch thick. I like to use my bench
scraper to make sure that the edges are as even as they can so that you
have nice little slices. This also helps you compact
the dough more efficiently. Now we're gonna slice them
into your desired shapes. No surprise here. I think this dough definitely works better with all purpose flour
rather than almond flour. Almond flour has no gluten. It has no pull and it's
a lot more crumbly. However, through sheer
persistence and willpower, I believe you can do it. Lay them out on a baking sheet and bake at 350 for about 12 to 15 minutes depending on how soft
or crisp you like it. If you want a little bit more flavor, brush the top of the crackers before baking with a
little bit of olive oil and then top with some additional
spices, if you so desire. Usually when I'm using all purpose flour in these crackers they take
about 16 to 18 minutes. However, because of the high
fat content in almond flour these only took about 12 minutes. So, if you're using a
nut-based flour for these, keep an eye on them, check
in at eight or 10 minutes to see how they're browning. And also because of all
of my chaotic energy I forgot to put salt on top before baking so we're gonna put it on right after. I'm also going to bring out our duck so that it comes to room
temperature before we roast it. This ensures even cooking, no
burnt skin, no raw insides. It's all even, all good. For the amaretti cookie I'm going to portion them one tablespoon fulls of rounded balls of dough
and then I'm gonna roll some of them in organic sugar and some of them I'm
just gonna leave plain. (upbeat music) 325 for about 20 to 25 minutes until they're nicely
golden on the outside. (upbeat music) So, if you're like me and you only have a few sheet trays around and you're handling a big
baking project like this, never, ever, ever
portion your cookies onto a hot tray because that will cause the bottoms to cook prematurely and it will lead to burning. Instead, what you can do is
peel off your parchment paper, use a towel, take the tray and rinse it in the sink with cold water. You get to cool it off,
and then you dry it off and then you can bake another tray of cookies in like two minutes. Easy. Now, when it comes to parchment I reuse mine over and over and over again until it becomes burnt and
crinkly and no longer of use. There's no need to throw
it out after one time. For our snowball cookies
I'm going to portion them the same way we did the amaretti and they're gonna bake at
350 for about 15 minutes. After they're out, just until
they're cool enough to handle, but still very warm we're gonna roll them in some powdered sugar
for that snowball effect. If you're doing this right
and the snowball is still hot, you can see that the powdered
sugar sinks in a little bit. You can always go back in for a second dip if the sugar disappears. Then you have a truly sugar bomb. For our gluten-free chocolate chip cookie we're going to portion the dough about a tablespoon and a half per ball and then we're going to flatten it just a tiny bit to help it spread and then we're going to stick it with more chocolate because
I have so much chocolate. Aaron also likes a little bit
of salt on top of his cookies so we're gonna sprinkle some of that on and then we're gonna bake it
at 375 for about 12 minutes. (tray thudding) I like doing this so that
it compresses the cookie, squishes out all of the excess air that blew up during the baking process and gives you a much chewier end product. I think I deserve a cookie, y'all. It's gonna be a long day. I roasted the cauliflower greens until they were pretty crunchy and crispy, almost like roasted Brussel sprouts. I wanted to concentrate the flavor of the greens as much as possible and also remove as much of
the moisture as possible so that it doesn't have to
like, moisten the duck skin once it goes into the duck. It also just makes for great snacking. It's getting so hot in here. Pao de queijo (chuckles). We're gonna turn our
ovens up to 400 degrees. We're going to scoop them
out on our sheet tray, spaced apart about two inches. If you ever find that the
dough is too sticky to handle, just dampen your hands,
it will release perfectly. And then we're gonna bake them
for about 20 to 25 minutes until they turn a nice even, golden color. Since it's my first time baking it, I'm gonna check in at
about 10 or 12 minutes to see how it is and turn it halfway. Hopefully it's beautiful (sighs). These flat pao de queijo
look very promising. (upbeat holiday music) I'm taking the pao de queijo out. Oo, they look nice and golden. Man, I really wish you could smell this because it smells like, amazing. (upbeat music) Mm. That's soft. It's warm. It's chewy. It's cheesy. It's perfectly toasty. Next up, we are gonna
prep our ducky friend. I've no doubt that if I
were to leave that rub on during the bake, it would all burn. So, what I'm gonna do
is take a paper towel, dampen it and we're going to do our best to gently wipe it all off without getting the skin soggy or too wet again. So, for our duck, I'm going to clip off the neck and then I'm
going to put its feetsies and the neck inside the
carcass along with our stuffing so that they can all cook
together without burning too much. To prevent the skin of the
duck from sticking to my rack, I put a piece of our leftover parchment from our cookie bake on top and then I slivered it with a knife. That way the fat has somewhere to drain but the parchment will protect the metal from sticking to the skin of the bird. I tied up the legs so that
they weren't too far apart but still enough so that all of the leg could get exposure to the oven heat and then I tucked the fat
from the tail over them to protect them from
overheating and burning. For the wings, I clipped off the tips. I put that inside the carcass as well. I used toothpicks to secure
the loose skin flaps as well as the wings and the legs so
that they get a little bit more pinned to the body and don't come loose during the bake. And I said I was going to cook the head of the duck so I did, but I know you guys didn't wanna see it so I put the head of the
duck in some parchment with a little bit of soy sauce
and a little bit of mirin and then I salted it just a tiny touch and it's gonna roast in
there and then I'll eat it and you'll never know what it tastes like. (duck sizzling) Do you hear this? It's not even like five
minutes into the bake yet and it's already fat sizzling everywhere. I don't wanna clean this up. As the duck continues to intimidate me from the comfort of the oven, I'm going to be working on a crudites platter where I just cut up all of our remaining veggies and then I'm going to be
steaming some of Lena's rice and we'll heat up all of our
stews and soups from yesterday. Whenever I make any form
of glutinous or sticky rice I like to rinse it, put it in a strainer, put the strainer over a pot of boiling water and
literally just steam it. There's no water touching the actual rice. It's gonna go for about 20 minutes. I'm going to spoon off some
of the fat that's on the tray. I hope you like duck fat, Aaron. (upbeat holiday music) After about an hour and
a half at 350 degrees the duck is fully cooked. At this point, I'm just
going to turn the oven up to 400 degrees and let it blast
for about five to 10 minutes until the skin is nice and crispy. The only thing that's
left for me to cook now is the fried cauliflower. I'm trying very hard to be
enthusiastic right now but like, this is just too much cooking
for one person, y'all. To make our fried cauliflower I'm going to add our
remaining cassava flour to a large bowl and then I'm gonna go in with half a
teaspoon of baking powder, salt, black pepper and Nalla Karam as well as a little bit of MSG. You know I love my MSG. A little bit of water. Then we're going to
toss in our cauliflower, coat it until it's all evenly coated. To avoid getting burnt duck
bits in our cauliflower, I'm just going to strain
the oil into the pot. We're gonna let everything get nice and fried and crispy and
golden and delicious. The golden rule of frying is that if you see the bubbles start
getting less and less vigorous it's time to fish your
things out of the pot. (upbeat music) Because I don't have enough duck oil, I'm tilting my pan so that
all the oil drains to one side and this also gives you a clearance where you can shift your done fried items to one side of the pan and let it drain. Guys, let's do something crazy. I still have a lot of duck fat in the pan. Let's fry our sticky rice. (rice sizzling) On top of the fried black rice we're gonna put a little bit
more of that Indian spice mix and then we're gonna give it a nice little toss with the spoon. We're gonna decorate our buche de noel, but first we need a pomegranate. This was taught to me by
my ex pastry chef, Diana. She taught me a lotta things but basically you make a square cut and then you use your thumb against the stem to push this bit out. You take each of the vertices and you make that diagonal slash so that you create a point at which you can basically
peddle the pomegranate out. There we go. To decorate our buche de noel, I'm just going put some
sprigs of spearmint around it and some pomegranate seeds, some powdered sugar on top for that little holiday
wintry forest look. What's a snowy Christmas song? ♪ Snow bells jingling
and snow time ringling ♪ ♪ Snow outside ♪ ♪ While it's snowing look at the snow go ♪ If anyone wants to give us voice lessons, hit us up in the comments. Aaron, are you ready to eat all of this? - [Aaron] Yeah, I think
I've eaten two bites of cookie today and it's almost five. So yeah, I'd say I'm ready to eat. - There are a lot of things to eat. Let me show you all that we have cooked over the past three days. Is enough for $100, Julia? Is it? All right. Lovely Aaron is going to narrate for us all the courses that
we have, but first a drink. Okay, Aaron, what is our
cocktail/mocktail of the day? - It says sparkling apple cider mint julep with passion fruit syrup and a splash of alcohol for Aaron. - Aaron. Okay, so funny thing is,
I've never had a mint julep but I know it has mint in it and a little bit of rum
and a little bit of sugar. So, we're gonna take a jar. We're gonna put some mint
down in the bottom of the jar and then we're gonna smash it. We're gonna put our puree down the middle and we're gonna smash that in too and then we're going to... And then we're gonna pour
some apple cider in there and we're gonna give it
a little swishy swish. Y'all, I've been cooking way too long. Just give me my (beep) drink. - Yeah. The menu says splash of alcohol for Aaron but are you sure you don't need one? - I just... Oo, this smells nice. (June slurping) - [Aaron] Did you invent
apple cider mint julep? - I don't know, did I? (glasses clinking) - [Aaron] Happy holidays, June. - All right, chef ratings
on the cocktail/mocktail? - [Aaron] It's some of my
first calories of the day, so 10 out of 10.
(bells jingling) (June chuckles) - This is the way to do it. You starve him.
- Yeah (chuckles). - Starve him. - [Aaron] It's really great. I usually go for whiskey, heavy cocktails, you know, stuff with bitters. Brown liquids, although this
is brown of its own sort. Not too much sweet, fruity
stuff but this is great. It's very refreshing.
- I like eating the mint. - [Aaron] Yeah, of course you would eat the veg out of a cocktail. - All right, now we're gonna
have Aaron read the menu. So, let's take a look at our nine courses. Our mocktail/cocktail? - [Aaron] Sparkling apple cider mint julep with passion fruit syrup. Pao de queijo. - [June] Oo! - [Aaron] Canned Seven Fishes,
tuna salad, potato salad, crackers and crudites. Roast Peking duck with
cauliflower greens stuffing, pickles and orange sauce. - [June] I put one of Graz's
peppers in this pickle. - [Aaron] So, you're trying to kill us? - [June] Yes. - [Aaron] This is tomato salmon soup. Grandpa's five spice pork belly and potato braise with
glutinous sticky rice. - [June] I have one bowl of
steamed black glutinous rice and then I have one bowl of fried glutinous black rice. - [Aaron] Fried in what, June? - [June] Duck fat. - [Aaron] Duck fat, the finest fat of all. Duck fat fried cauliflower bites. Chocolate peppermint yule log using cassava flour,
stracciatella whipped cream and ganache frosting. - [June] Just so you guys know, it is pitch black outside right now. - [Aaron] These are restorative cookies including almond chocolate chip, pumpkin spice snowball cookies and orange blossom amaretti. Hold that. - [June] Holding. - [Aaron] Do I know how to cut it? No. Am I going to cut it? Yes. Let's get some stuffing in there. - [June] Which side are you going for? Oh, wings. You're just tearing? Oh my God. Aaron, what the, are you doing? - [Aaron] You suggested this yesterday. Don't pretend you didn't say let's just tear a wing off and eat it. I have no idea what I'm doing (laughs). Easier than I thought. - [June] Very nice. - [Aaron] Should I take a bite? - [June] Take a bite. - [Aaron] Just like that? - [June] Just like that. Do it!
- But it's been weeks you've been making this
meal and I just bite it? - [June] Let's do it. (Aaron munches) - Mm. Oh, sweet sustenance! (June chuckles) So, most family holiday meals
are like around a table, you know, "Pass the salt, please. Please, Sir."
- Mm, oh my God. - "May I have the salt shaker?" - Mm, yum.
- But here we are, standing in the kitchen
tearing into a duck wing. - [June] Yeah. - [Aaron] Thank you, Mr. Duck. I'm sorry you're so delicious.
- Thank you. Huge disclaimer is that this
is not Peking duck, okay? This is not baked in (indistinct) at all. There's no skin crispiness, none of that, but it is a delicious duck nonetheless. - [Aaron] Is that the famed
Graz chili right there? - [June] It is. - [Aaron] Jesus. Mm. No, it's way more tender
than I was expecting. You cooked this perfectly.
- What do you mean? I did? - [Aaron] Mm hm. Oo, yeah, I love that. - Mm. - I thought I loved the wing but, man. - After all this work
I'm gonna give myself a 10 out of 10 on this duck.
(bells jingling) It's frickin' fantastic.
- Yeah. This whole thing here, this is a 10 bowl right here.
- Mm hm. Is that the stuffing? - [Aaron] Yeah. I like everything. - Go me! Look at me! As the kids say, thriving. The meat of the duck isn't so
moist that it's like juicy, but it's just moist enough that it's soft and it's
very pleasing to bite into. Then you pair it with the clean and crisp scallion and cucumbers. It wicks away all the
fattiness of the duck and it just leaves you
with a very satisfying bite that's both savory and sweet. - [Aaron] That's a lotta
words to say it good. - I think these pickles are part of the reason why Aaron
gave me a 10 out of 10 because he finally got his
spicy on the first go around. Thanks, Graz (chuckles). - Do you think my haters
would wanna see me eat this? - [June] Yeah. - Wanna see me get punished? This is for all the haters. Enjoy. (suspenseful music) Oh, it's not so bad. (dramatic music)
(June laughs) (Aaron laughs) Actually, yeah, a lotta the heat... Okay. I was gonna say a lot
of the heat got seeped into the rest of the
pickles but I'm feelin' it. - [June] What's our next course? - Pao de queijo. - We have the traditional one that's in this little pocket ball form and then I made like this pancake thing that's kind of cold and dry
now but it's still good. - Yeah, cheesy. - Mm. It's so good. Oh my God. - I've only had pao de queijo a few times. This is the best one I've had. - Woo! - Out of like three, so. - I'm still first place out of three. - It's first place, yeah. - I'm gonna give myself an 8.7 on that one.
(bells jingling) - I don't know. I'm trying to find ways
to not give you a 10, but it's like this is exactly
what I wanted from a pao. I would say, I guess the
only thing I can think of is, it's not like a shoe
pastry inside, you know? - Oh.
- It's not a hole inside. - Got ya.
- It's just, yeah. - Yeah, it's a little bit dense. I was hoping that it would have a little more aeration inside
but it's not like bread-y. - But I think a proper
pao de queijo should be like a shoe pastry with
the big pocket inside. But other than that
little technical detail, it tastes amazing. What's your grade, Chef? - Boop. - That's not a number. - Yeah, it is. - Aaron's not giving me a grade so we're gonna go with mine, 8.7. Yes? - [Aaron] But after only
a six hour break lying in bed and moaning, I've recovered from the chili
and I'm ready to try the soup. - [June] Let's try the soup. - Please Sir,
- Why did you choose - may I have some soup?
- the smallest... Oh my God. - [Aaron] Because we have an
incredible amount of food. Did you see all this? Are there bones in the salmon? - There might be. This is a scrap bag, so. That was my eyeball. - [Aaron] It got straight in your eye? - Uh huh. - [Aaron] Of course it did. I know a good broth when I see it. - Did you see it? - [Aaron] I saw it. I'm kinda used to this kind
of soup being chicken soup and I've had this as a Chinese dish before but it's still kinda hard to get over the expectation that it's
going to be chicken soup and then that fish flavor hits. - Mm. For me, the soup is an 8.5 outta 10 because I grew
(bells jingling) up eating it and it tastes exactly like I'm used to it tasting. What do you give it, Aaron? - [Aaron] I'm going to
give it an objective grade of nine and a personal grade of six. - Okay. I don't know what to do with that. - [Aaron] I think if you used
your incredible chef talents to make this as a chicken soup instead, this would be the most
hearty, heartwarming, curative chicken soup ever. - But it's not a chicken soup. - [Aaron] It is what it is. - I say it's pretty good. If you liked that fishy richness, then this is your-
- 7.5, the average personal objective. - Okay, Aaron gives it a 7.5
and I think it's pretty good. So, and it only cost me like
a dollar and a half so, mm. Fried cauliflower. These are obviously not
crispy crunchy anymore but there are some crispy bits. I wish that the slurry
was a little bit thicker so then it could have gotten
crispier, but it didn't and now we have just duck
fat, comfy cauliflower. - It's not bad. It's cauliflower. It's nice having some
proper veg in the meal. - Mm hm. - It's just sort of like, I'm lookin' at all this delicious
fat over here, you know? - Mm hm. Why would I wanna eat vegetables covered in fat when I could
eat fat covered in fat? - Moderation, balance? - I don't know.
- Variety? - Nah, get outta here. - Despite the lackluster texture, the cauliflower is very well cooked. It's nicely tender, but it's not mush and then we seasoned it
with this amazing spice. If you can find it, get this. It's nicely spicy and salty
and just overall delicious and I really taste it in the cauliflower and it's very complimentary to the usual toastiness
of roasted cauliflower. I'm gonna give the cauliflower's a seven.
(bells jingling) I think it tastes pretty great. It's not overly greasy, even
though we fried it in duck fat. It's actually quite nice,
but it's just a lot of work. I roasted the cauliflower,
then I slurried it and then I fried it and then I drained it. Just, I don't know if I would do it again. (bells jingling) You give it a five? Right now I feel like Julia in an episode of "Julia Eats Everything." You want pork belly? Pork belly cooked
- Okay, June. - until it's fallen apart, basically - [Aaron] It doesn't
even feel like anything. It's just air. - I feel like my grandfather's
had way more shape to it and it doesn't
look like dog slop but... - [Aaron] Dog slop? - Mm. - [Aaron] We love dogs. - So, the pork has turned so soft it's just a creamy texture in your mouth. All of the richness has
escaped into the broth which has thickened with the potatoes and it's just like a massive saucy stew. - Even the cartilage in this
is like not even hard to chew. - You got a cartilage piece? Those are my favorite. Mm!
(Aaron munching) - [Aaron] And after that
unfortunate vegetable break we're back to good food. - What's your grade? - Is this five spice? - It's a homemade six spice. - Six spice? That's one extra.
(June chuckles) Then I have to bump it up
1.4 being one extra spice. So, I will give
- Oo! - it a 8.5 instead of 7.5.
(bells jingling) - That's pretty high.
- Mm hm. - I'll give this an 8.5, too. Consensus. What do you wanna eat next? - We don't have much left, but
I am already extremely full. - How many people do you
think this would serve? - I don't know, like everyone (laughs). (June chuckles) - You okay? Did you die? (chuckles) Food coma? We forgot to try the crunchy
black sticky rice that I fried. (rice crunching) Oh my God! Oh my God. - That bumps it up to a 9
(bells jingling) for the whole dish. - Oo, what vegetable would go great with anis?
- Oh. - I think tomato. Try a tomato. Does that work? - Mm, mm hm. - Wow. - All you Michelin three
star chefs watching, and I know many of you watch June, (June chuckles) your next dish should be anis and tomato. - Tomato tart with powdered
anis in the pie crust. - Is it anis? How do you pronounce it, YouTube? Comment below. - Aaron, I got this
local purple cauliflower which you ate fried and you didn't like, but it's so crunchy and tender. It's so good. He doesn't like it. Guys, I don't know if I can eat anymore. - [Aaron] I'm approaching
a critical level. - I'm gonna eat the potato salad. Just a bite. Don't you hate potato salad? - [Aaron] Yeah, I don't
know what I'm doing. - Mm. Try one. Try a bite. - [Aaron] Okay, that's fine. - Yeah. Okay.
- What are the little, so, it's carrot and then what are these? The white cubes? - Carrots and apple. - Oh. - My mom always puts apple in it. - Well, you didn't mention
there was good food in this. (June chuckles) You know the only thing
potatoes are good for? - [June] Uh uh? - Fries. - What do you give this? - I'm gonna pretend the potato isn't here and I'm gonna say
- Okay. - it's a carrot apple salad and give it an eight.
(bells jingling) - So, Aaron,
- June? - These are gluten-free crackers. Actually, not gluten free. They have sourdough.
- Surely these are store-bought of some kind.
- No. - 'Cause they look, don't
these look professional? Like something out of- - You're trying too hard to sell it. - No, I'm serious. It actually looks like, professional. It looks like a packaged snack food in a good way.
- Mm hm, eat it! These are meant to go with our fish but... Do you like 'em? - [Aaron] Hell yeah. That's a good ass cracker. - I think so, too. - Ass cracker. - Get away.
(Aaron laughs) Do you wanna try these fishies, decide which one's your favorite? - [Aaron] I did. I'm feelin' it now. (June laughs) - [June] It's my job. Either you come with me or you don't. Fish, fish, fish, fish, fish, fish. - [Aaron] All right,
I'll try the tuna salad. - [June] Okay. - [Aaron] Quality tuna salad. Pretty standard. I think I've made things
along similar lines. - [June] Mm hm. Smoked sprat. - [Aaron] I'm going to
try the Panasonic fish. - [June] One other thing. I made sure to buy all of the fish from different countries of origin so that we're getting a taste of different countries as we're going. - I can't get this off
my fork so I'm gonna... That works. June, tinned fish is so good. You coulda just done the whole meal like, only tinned fish and I'd be super happy. - Okay, can I get a combo
score for the entire appetizer including potato salad, almond crackers, almond multi seed crackers, tuna salad, and five canned fishes? - [Aaron] Combo score, this is a 10.
(bells jingling) Mm hm.
(June gasps) For sure. - Did you just say a 10? - [Aaron] It's got a wide
variety of flavors, textures. It showcases your chef skills
with this fantastic thing. It awakens the palette. - Mm. That's what appetizers are supposed to do. - [Aaron] Why did we eat this last? I'm serious, this is my favorite thing you've made so far.
- No! - Yeah.
- Really? - [Aaron] This is my favorite
thing out of the meal. (water splashing) - Julia, how do you do this? How do you do this every time? Mm. You wanna do buche? You wanna do the buche? - [Aaron] What are you
saying to me right now? Oh (beep), God! That's so much food (laughs). I thought this was just our desserts and then I looked over
and saw this gigantic log. - Julia said she wanted a show piece. This is like a-
- That's true, that's a real show piece, yeah. - It is beautiful, isn't it (sighs)? No. Okay. - [Aaron] Do you guys see
how precarious this is? - [June] We don't have a proper kitchen. Plate please. - [Aaron] Trying to get a piece of cake and ganache.
- Mm mm, mm. - [Aaron] Mm. - Mm.
- Mm, mm. I don't wanna vomit, that's it. - Please try it. - [Aaron] Grudgingly. - Here. What do you think? - [Aaron] Great flavor. I wish the cake dough was a bit denser. - Mm.
- More like fudgie - Mm.
- instead of caky. - [June] Mm hm. - [Aaron] But that's just
how you made it, so it is. - Yeah. - [Aaron] The flavor is great. - [June] Mm hm. - [Aaron] The whipped
cream is nice and light. Not too sweet.
- Mm hm, mm hm. - [Aaron] I like that it's more of like whipped cream
and not a buttercream. - [June] Mm hm. - [Aaron] Love the ganache. That's a peppermint ganache too, right? Is everything peppermint? - Everything is peppermint, yes. - [Aaron] Hell yeah. (June laughing) - I think I killed-
- June? (June laughs) - I think I killed Aaron.
- Cooking. (June chuckles)
(Aaron chuckles) - We still have cookies.
- We still have a whole pile of cookies. (June laughs) There's a pile of cookies. - Wait, you didn't rate the yule log yet. - It's, you know, it's food. I just spent three days making it, dude. - Yeah. Maybe if I didn't eat
eight courses before it I would have appreciated it more. - I don't normally like
chocolate mint stuff but this one is really nice. The whipped cream is super light, super creamy and super bodacious because of that gelatin.
(bells chiming) It adds a layer of body to it. I mean, the chocolate ganache is amazing because Raaka Chocolate is amazing. It's smooth, it's velvety and melts just when you want it to and not before and the cake is fine. The cassava flour worked out great. I love this. I love this. I'm gonna give this a 12
(bells jingling) out of 10 for 12 days of Christmas. I don't know what Aaron wants. - [Aaron] Christmas is one day, dummy. - Do you have a grade from me or not? - Uh, eight.
(bells jingling) - Not bad, I'll take it. It's cookie time. Normally I would be ecstatic, but like, it is really uncomfortable
to eat this much guys, even just (sighs)... Snowball pumpkin spice. We got some citrus zest amaretti. We got some chocolate chip. They're all gluten free.
- Oh my God. - What? Can I have a bite? I don't want one... - June?
- Mm. - You made the perfect cookie for me. I know you don't call yourself
a pastry chef (munches), (June laughs) but these are expert. - I'm only gonna give the snowballs maybe like a 6.5.
(bells jingling) They're a little bit dry for me. I think I over baked them, plus we were very experimental with it. I didn't really have ground
nuts to put in it and, what are you eating? - Chocolate chip. - You ate without me?
- Mm hm. - What do you think? - It's so soft. This is like those Toll House
chocolate chip fudge cookies or whatever that they
advertise on the box like, the softest cookies (beep) cookies you'll ever eat in your life. - I think they're a little under baked. - Well, that's what makes them so fun.
- You like 'em? - Yeah, they are under
baked, but that's part of it. It's part of the deal. - Are you gonna go for a sugar amaretti or no sugar amaretti? - I just gotta say, this
is my plate right here. You know me too well. Other than like Middle
Eastern pastries like baklava, this is my desserts on a plate right here. I cannot give this plate anything but a 100 out of 10.
(bells jingling) - Holy shmoly! Mm. It's like moist, light, but still super fulfilling.
- Yeah. - It's not like wafer-y or airy at all. It just turns into like gummy goodness. All right, out of those three cookies which one is your favorite? - It's impossible. Absolutely impossible to say. They could be sold in the
finest bakeries of Paris wherever they have the best-
- How much would you pay for this plate? - The whole plate?
- Mm hm. - Oh, I don't, that's gotta be a... - I feel like it's a
good two to three pounds. - Yeah, at least 10 trillion dollars. (June laughs) - Guys, I've lost track of time, I've lost track of what
day of the week it is. I don't know who I am anymore and I truly don't know what the best thing that I tasted here was however, I will say that buche de noel, I wanna go back for more even though my stomach
has exploded inside of me. What do you think? - The number one highlight
of the whole meal, absolutely the grape tomatoes. - Get outta here!
(Aaron laughs) - No. So, the highlights for me because they're so different
and I can't pick just one. This was incredible. I can't say how much that impressed me. The duck, super tender. The glaze was amazing and the pickles that went with the duck were perfect. The pao de queijo was the
best pao de queijo I ever had and just the best cheesy bread
I've ever had in general. - "Cheesy bread." - "Cheesy bread." And then the desserts were
like, can I say (beep)? - No, you cannot. - Can I say censored
explodingly good (chuckles)? - Mm hm. - Just, yeah. The whole meal was incredible
and it was eclectic. I think this was the most
eclectic, weird but in a good way. I love weird things. You're weird. That's why I like you. I just love weird things. This was a weird, fun, exciting meal. Yeah, this was fun and I think this is the best Christmas/ actually mid-November I've ever had. - [Santa] Ho, ho, ho, ho, ho. - Guys, it has been a delight. I'm leaning on my cupboards
because I will fall if I don't. I have no words. Merry Christmas, happy holidays. I hope you're staying safe. I hope you're staying healthy. I hope you're staying sane. Look out for each other. Take care of each other and stay hydrated even though those trucks
are so noisy outside. See ya next time. (upbeat holiday music)
