Pro Chef Learns How to Carve a $1,500 Leg of Ham | Bon Appétit

Molly tries interview is that my cue is it a problem that I'm dressed like the chair you ask me every time what I think we're gonna do next and the whole point of the show is I can't know what we're doing next so again I have no clue if you want to give me a clue I'm still outside in the hall peruse this time it's a little later in the day you ready yes I'm ready shall we good morning where's my blue box where's my present I had a couple of nice place of hotel food should I open up my first envelope yep guess the price 190 per pound 30 per pound 95 per pound oh-ho based on visuals I would say this is the most expensive it's a little bit darker in color which makes me think it might be further aged and therefore more expensive it's really hard to tell but I think this one might be 95 per pound and this one the 30 per pound should I even [Music] pretty porky funky salty it's pretty fatty in the mouth and it's definitely pork forward I wish this were cut thinner oh I really don't prefer that it's kibble II nothing much milder in flavor buttery let's flip them over 95 per pound okay this is fair mean jamon iberico characterized by juicier slices and intense flavors be I was right okay the fair mean c'mon Beata made from free-range pigs that eat only acorns for the last four months of their lives nutty flavor and then jamon serrano made from commercial breeds like the do rock pig cured for 8 to 24 months [Music] did you get a whole leg where's the leg per usual I was given a bunch of presents Wow lots of clues and taking on a wacky scavenger hunt yeah mo to learn everything there is to know about come on uber co-developer I don't really eat it like much mostly because it's so expensive and I can't afford it I mean it's a hundred and ninety dollars per pound I'm ready for my next clip a telescope this is so silly spy your prize i legit don't know how to use this oh my god is that Alex Fellini wait it looks like I'm still a me hungry for more your tools await you on floor 24 and yeah Moe revived me down here like good vibrations Moo spooky oh my box yes is there gonna be a live Pig under here Oh animal I thought there'd be like a little baby tingle it under there Oh new knives you guys okay this looks like the classic Iberico knife it has like these little indentations so that the ham releases from the blade chef's knife and a boning knife okay let's cut this mother up oh the envelope I forgot about the envelope I got so excited about the ham number three learn about Haemon I'm guessing I need to go over here this is a janky table I just want to touch it [Music] [Applause] it's important to Orlando that his pigs get enough exercise the pigs should eat the lotus acorns that gives the ham its nutty flavor so for something to be jamon iberico de bellota it needs to be a certain breed pata Negra be fed exclusively a diet of a corn which is below cha and then it goes through this super long aging process three years drying out the amount of time that this particular kind of ham will spend packed in salts it seasons the meat draws out moisture and then preserves it so that it doesn't go bad so it spends one week covered in salt and then the salt gets brushed off and then goes to hang for a couple of months and then it goes to that more moist hot storage for three years so from the time that the pig is slaughter to the time that it's actually on the market and out in the world it's it's been maybe four years yeah I mean time is money so it makes sense I am ready to carve the ham oh I'm so sorry ham and tow come on baby yeah I come back into the Test Kitchen and then there's Toma hi I'm Molly job I miss them in jail Sergei was it Gemma Gemma yeah from Barcelona you work at the spa yeah yes I'm the master carver over there Master Karger mm-hmm how do you become a master practising they are to carve the whole thumb all the way and get the mostest lysis of doing it like around ten years now he's trained under masters and despite the fact that he spent ten years pretty much exclusively slicing Iberico ham he still thinks that there's room for growth you never finish learning so that's what's giving me you still feel like you haven't totally mastered the art of slicing him it's like sushi rice yes it is different yes this is one it's Serrano it's secure more or less for 14 months this one goes for a 190 pound at this Vanya it's nice I can also increases the price when you have it hands nice say I want the whole ham mm-hmm then how much would it cost make 1,500 more or less weight I feel like this is gonna get like kind of greasy so I'm gonna put an apron on yeah that's good okay sorry an apron on I'm not nervous you're nervous oh my god get out of here okay well it depends this cost $1,500 if you were to just walk into the shop and ask for the whole ham but if it's hand slice which is what he does he's a master hand slicer it's $200 a pound you'll come over there some knives then I would recommend you to put some gloss but the knife I like no you can move this that help you to keep making the cut yeah but this one you can rotate it okay first you have different parts in the ham you have here the hip then you're gonna have here the bone and here is gonna be the knee that's the biggest part of the meat called Martha and the Contra Martha and the Punta what is Matheny methods like a big piece of thumb something every part of the cam has different flavors for the Martha you start from the top you get to the bone flip it you got the whole thing then you have like a profile of me you have to pull it sideways so you use continuous nothing like this when I go to a butcher shop or to a charcuterie spot and I asked for like a pound of prosciutto thinly sliced I'm not specifying like please can I have it from this specific region of that ham these different zones that you are supposed to tackle in a specific order that was super interesting for me makes sense yeah okay Martha Graham Martha okay so the printer is at the bottom when it's hanging when it's curious falls down to that point I think I might be here for the contest I like around this part what is that called it's a can Yeti it's a tougher meat but the flavor it's very complex but it is funny I know 321 I don't know is it joined maybe yes oh we cool it can eat yeah it's this polymer yes yes yes oh well the pork has an extra piece of leg oh honey I didn't oh man she greasy perfect from this bone you get like two fingers these two fingers below this yeah and we're gonna make an incision just to open it up and then with the chef's knife you go until you feel the bone and you won't look at all that fat it's just leaking out fat so now you flip it in this side now around the hip you can use the tip to go around this is such a weird way to hold the knife I mean I just don't know I mean I used a knife all day every day he like almost would jab into it and sort of like carve around whatever bone he hit to release the meat from the bone you see we have this cat we have this cat we're gonna clean all these nasty stuff that we have on top of the ham okay we want to clean the whole thing under sit that's gonna take a while so the first thing you have to do before you carve into the ham is cut off all of the rancid fat because anything that's been exposed to the air in the drying or curing room has gone rancid all these yellow things you don't wanna eat it we're just taking out the yellow part for now do you still like to eat I love it you know you're looking for the next calm that's gonna tell you something else same like humans we're all different bodies so you're looking for the hip bone you have to kind of look like this and going it's like a curve like that yeah perfect and then they go in here yeah be careful with the other oh no and we have to go around the other part you see the bone face the hardest part for me was not really being able to visualize the anatomy of the leg for Jean like he can sense it he's like in the half a centimeter we're gonna hit this button follow follow the follow the hip but I was like I don't know exactly how deep this part of the bone goes got a nice clean cut how deep should I carve around it that's the kind of thing that just takes like years and years of experience we're cleaning the [ __ ] out of these eating the shams I mean what do you do I remove it all of the Narsee outside rancid skin Oh Rancic and Rancic mad Ranson and then we're exposing the meat below yeah exposing the the gem of the inside now exactly two hundred dollars a pound twenty dollars a pound a pound call me when you start slicing I'm gonna slice you up some hand for sure now when you have it here you need to make like thin slices like this okay then you come cover the ham like this at the end of the day when you're done we carved off [ __ ] on a fat put it aside which is kind of gnarly and saved it you want to take that fat and place it back over the ham to continue to preserve it so that another layer doesn't become rancid you can have like a slice of this patinated yes prove it bro this is perfect pure fat Guzman and you leave it in your mouth do let it melt like butter hmm that's pretty tight so oh you got a card for me yeah can you pocket number four cut the ham yeah like cut the cheese is this the matter right here yeah my sucks I'm not that is the matter they need to slice it small good enough to put it in your mouth and enjoy the section of that all the parts taste different exactly you need to give the customer the whole experience oh he's got the big dog kid over here exactly has a lot of years this is the older one that he's been using for how long two years two years and look at how much of the knife has a chiseled down and this is the new one someone ate a lot of knife well basically when you sharpen it you have yeah [Music] you have to keep the knife flat just as lies when the knife is coming to you normally you need to see there I'm not bigger than this okay yeah we can say is kind of learning to drive with a sports car what do you think about this one either would you pay $200 a pound for that no oops neither would I solve easy no nobody's rushing yeah yeah don't let the ham sense your fear you see the news max yeah yeah this happens because you are as nice in both ways I recommend is nice it and stop you control the homeless lives relax I know I'm like really tensing up you really have to relax yes I feel like that was a really good one oh that was pretty crow mm-hmm not master level but pretty proud very close let me know what you think just gonna stand here and just hand me slices thank you my pleasure oh it's getting better is it I should get a little deeper you're like drunk off America I like when it's like speckled and has one line I don't want like 5050 that was but it's gotta be thin thanks that's a lot yeah honey they were doing a little cocktail tasting figured there's a lot of ham sitting right here so maybe we could slice them up for the for the little appetizer yeah oh my god I wrote a situation wait okay I have better hurry up so when your start getting the hipbone you have to go around don't go to the so always the knife getting to the bone don't go like this you can cut it straight and take it out like this so they're even exactly you have a straight line then you have this part you have to cut it like every time you see a bone if you do it properly you're doing the slices and the bone is clean totally according to John a great ham slicer will get the maximum amount of yield out of a very expensive product you want to have to do some plating it's about not having to waste any of the precious ham you have the skills there nothing is just to focus in the task that looks like a perfect slice exactly this is what we like two straight lines it's very flat it's almost done by Machine keep crowd away from us I mean that's beautiful any calls the battery when you played it together all these lines they get together it's like concentric circles that's cool at all so we have the Contra math on we're gonna slide from here to here okay look for the kneecap just mark it where it's at it's more lean you don't care yeah the way the knife moves through it is really different more friction in this part and now you see we're getting to live here but not here what you don't want is to carve away at the same place over and over again and then be left with like a large notch in the ham that then wastes a huge amount of meat on either side because none of those big stacks can turn into slices so basically the way that gentleman taught me to do it was to cut a slice and then start a quarter of an inch higher or further up the leg on the second slice constantly shaving away little by little you're fixing it that is a really hard thing to bear in mind keeping that super level plane and I don't think I've mastered that and I probably never will but it's all tasted good thank you so much you're very well everything awesome and I'm keep it loose relax thank you chill out then everything is gonna be good so don't worry about it and the most important is to enjoy and that's it that's the whole point okay will do I'm gonna turn it over practice time make a full plate of ham do I have a time limit okay let's just keep in mind that that man has been honing his craft for ten years I just want everyone to be aware of that [Music] yes it's a spiral where all of the fat in the flesh lines up so that it makes like a snail so that's about six seven eight nine 10 11 12 13 14 15 17 9 20 1 2 3 I'd say it's about 60 slices in 20 minutes so that to many so I want to be cutting parallel to the femur bone [Laughter] Morocco it's really thick that's all right I can't be bothered no one talked to me for 20 minutes okay I'm gonna try and make even rectangular slices like this guy and then yeah I'm seeing done so don't talk to me I noticed he was doing a little more like wiggle waggling oh this is a great one hello if someone gave you a slice of ham that look like this would you know that it wasn't cut by a master be real [Music] oops that's what's up you kind of have to just let the knife do the work for D pretty very precise work the more that I've repeated the motion over and over again the more consistent all the pieces were you sort of get into this like Zen flow where you're just carving and carving and there's a certain amount of satisfaction that you got out of the consistency but also I respect the ham I want to where's Raph oh I'd look rapo to come down here and see how I'm like actually just mastering this oh I hit a bone okay you have to follow the curve of the bone and then you backhand it yeah I know what I'm doing I'm feeling way more confident I can got the hip jomi it's Molly check out my ham spiral please rate it on a scale of one to ten be honest it's been sent and are you impressed with my plating skills mr. plater so fatty I always like kind of rub it on my lips before what you did what do you mean you Oh Wendy that because it's like it's almost it's like lip balm like a little obvious a lubricant but sure yeah then then kiss the hobby I have a task for you okay Wow oh look it's number six make the world it's expensive ham sandwich I'm also gonna judge it okay yes um like go to town transport me to Spain oh my god how cute without me Wow I got presents this fun yeah look at this big block of manchego green olives tomatoes olive oil is this the bread I should feel nice thank you Joe if you have an hour to make a sandwich that's ridiculous is way too much time should I put truffles on I would say less is more of a dish that's what I think too maybe a little olive oil good bread maybe a little garlic or maybe ditches of bread and maybe [ __ ] olive oil maybe just eat the ham I might call open-faced I mean you don't want that much breath I really wanted the ham to shine I didn't want to make a hoagie I wasn't comfortable with the idea of just smashing a bunch of bread together with this beautiful product do you know what I want to do kind of like a mash-up of pan con tomate a and like griddle the bread rub it in garlic and tomato this tomato is like gonna float this and then tons of ham I'm here for the fat and maybe like a few shards of manchego that'd be good [Music] mmm-hmm I love the grilled bread actually I'm gonna see if it would benefit from a little bit like fruitiness of this olive oil it doesn't need fat certainly but there's also so much bread there that it can handle it it felt right what I just did okay I have a plan maybe I can't ask Alex Delaney with making me a perfect Spanish cocktail to go with it Delaney he's the drinks man here's the plan I think that in order to eat the world's most expensive greatest ham sandwich it needs to be paired with beverage the perfect complement to my perfect end of it you ready for 30 you got it's literally when I have to go bring everything out sighs yeah great this is so fun I can't wait to see what he comes up with we got some like Spanish tunes going Q of the Spanish tunes you're gonna keep my eye on the prize perfect going ham hamming it up I want to have a party I'm trying to party that looks gorgeous thank you did anybody hear that never to be repeated look it he's even gonna get rid of it it's gorgeous I mean it's undeniably gorgeous what more validation do you think gell-mann pretty much he's my boy so what I landed on is a version of pan con tomate say I want to give it a little bit of height because it's like open-faced there's nothing like I'm not putting anything oh sorry it's open-faced oh sorry I mean I just don't think that this ham wants to fat slices of baguette like that's not what it's about such a crowd around me right now it's a spectacular moment I feel like I need to get a good photo of this before you guys hell yeah Oh a funny moment [Music] okay I present to you the world maybe not most expensive but most beautiful and delicious ham sandwich made with you mine Andy okay I have to say I do you like the smoky element from the grilled bread uh-huh I like almost the inconsistency of your slices which sounds Shady some are a little more than some are a little more thick but I like that how each bite is slightly different why do you think I didn't do that on purpose maybe I did this is crazy but I feel like it needs flaky sauce do you agree it does I do because there's so much fat it needs a touch of salt it's a really sexy sandwich right that's why I made it for you like this because I feel like you appreciate sexy food yeah the Herberger should be at the forefront in the store and this case is okay share your work well that's easy because I made enough for everyone all right here's the first step take one sip out of this all right mmm delicious bounce lemon juice it's not but it's to me it feels the the ultimate European American crossover this is ultimately refreshing a little bit bitter a little bit sweet a little bit tart it's what you want sitting out in a Plaza in Barcelona but Fiona eating her ham saying okay and tell them what you call this I didn't invent this I know a place in Baltimore called wet city minutes but it's called spaghetti spaghetti Delaney coming in with his somewhat trashy spaghetti is a perfect example of what I mean when I say I like fancy foods in unfenced the environments perfect I guess what 15 seconds a minute let me cut you a flat meals list I'm not trying to eat a bear oh yeah anywhere other than in the Test Kitchen with my friends drinking some trashy beer it was delightful thank you what am I in the ham it was just a little hmm and then if you want I think they pair really well with these olives really good thank you you're welcome oh my God he's so hot okay going at 26 okay well this is quite a party guys okay when are we ready mate we'll let you know I just made a signature snack here with real with hand sliced jamon iberico for you I already tried it I know I just got a text from gentlemen Wow very good for first-timer I would give a six plus I wish I did something that nice first day good consistency another trick for plating make sure you show the nice part of the slice I guess I didn't show the nice part and then thank you so much it was a treat for me and then a few minutes later four minutes later distance should be more even I guess I feel good about the strides that I made over the course of the day so I'm going to doing this for six hours I'm coated in a layer of like pork fat grease right now it's just kind of gnarly but also kind of awesome I think my overall take away even when building the sandwich was that it's kind of the best eaten on its own like I feel like you enjoy all elements of it and the subtleties of the flavor the different parts having different flavors and different ratios of fat to me and you don't really get to experience that when it's paired with other things so I understand why it's so highly coveted as something that you just eat by the small bite-size slice and now I'm gonna go have a fun cocktail that's it wrap well I'd almost like giving me a really [ __ ] hard time about this ham so I just wanted me to know that I'm not a half I'll put this drop as office we'll see what he says later I think he's gonna love it

Channel: Bon Appétit

Views: 4,155,783

Rating: 4.826972 out of 5

Keywords: ham, molly, molly baz, molly makes, molly bon appetit, molly tries, expensive ham, iberico ham, most expensive ham, molly expensive ham, iberico, molly learns, pro chef, professional chef, molly carves ham, iberico pork, jamon iberico, worlds most expensive ham, how to carve, how to carve iberico, how to carve ham, jamon, ham cutter, carving iberico, carving inberico ham, how to carve iberico ham, iberico jamon, carve iberico, molly carves iberico, food, bon appetit

Id: 0olmZzsF4Xo

Length: 30min 12sec (1812 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 26 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/SobchakSecurity79]

I’m a simple guy. I see Molly Baz and I upvote.

[u/jondabomb]

Can we talk about how her ham was $1500 and the one I got was $99?

[u/scottswan]

I'm addicted to ba, especially Clair's gourmet makes.

[u/tunersharkbitten]

Mods, I know this isn't DIRECTLY related, so if it isn't, just let me know and I will delete.

[u/iveo83]

I was arguing with my uncle that I saw this for $100 at Costco and he said no they are $1000+. I'm kinda sad I didn't buy it now...

[u/xtpex]

I have to admit when I first saw this at Costco, I had no idea what I was looking at.

[u/RollLeft]

I wish I saw this before I dropped the Franklin. Been shaving that Jamon for 2 weeks each morning for breakfast. Have not yet mastered slicing that thin reliably. The stand needs to be secured to the counter so both hands are free to manage the 12" knife. On the bright side portion size is self limiting. The tempting taste is countered by the effort and time to carve and chew it.

[u/titsassbeer]

She is cute

[u/pacman22777]

I’m pescatarian but this was very entertaining