Pro Chefs Make 8 Different Freezer Meals | Test Kitchen Talks @ Home | Bon Appétit

freezer challenge take 1 take 1 take 1 oh I just put freeze challenge yeah I'm gonna freeze cooking meals out of my freezer is one of my absolute favorite things to do I hide so many treats for myself there I feel like during these times treating your freezer is your pantry which I've said many times is just a great strategy ok yeah so go to the freezer please don't look in here ok let's begin I'm so excited we're gonna use CEA's and hot dogs 2 things that are always in our freezer anything can be a taco and a hot dog taco two powerhouses together what a meal ok so I'm gonna start with my like spice blend situation so I'm gonna do cumin black peppercorns and then like a teaspoon of Szechuan peppercorns oh this is gonna be tasty so just a little smash that's good I'm also gonna add to this a couple of tide Chili's so I'm gonna slice into little rings I'm gonna use two these are very very spicy very spicy preheats must skillet it's nice and hot I want to get some color on these dogs hot dogs they need charge ok I've got 3 dogs they're not even thawed it totally doesn't matter I want to cut it on an extreme bias or should we do Pam what do you think about matchsticks matchsticks we're gonna do matchsticks that sounds really exciting the first thing I did when I learned how to julienne was Julian hot dogs of course alright look at this these beautifully prepped dogs huh ok I have some Realty cilantro I am going to use it like a veg cook it down a little no one will know how we'll see it was I'm adding some oil and now our julienned dogs are coming to join the party Oh 6 platters I'm getting them in like one nice layer and then I'm gonna kind of let them hang out because I wanted to get some good colors while this Browns I'm gonna start warming up another skillet back here to warm up Mike yes and the tortillas have only been hanging out for like a minute while it prepped all my stuff and they're totally fogged already and I actually feel like they hold a lot better in the freezer your freezer should never be without fur - you never hear dogs give them a little slip they're getting crunchy and curly this is gonna be so good Wow look at these dogs and I'm gonna leave behind as much fat as possible because I want this now deliciously hot dog flavored fat so blue might spices and stuff in and I'm gonna throw some scallions in there big pinch of salt and my spices and chilies and this is just gonna go for about 30 seconds we just want to get those spices to toast my cilantro now now I'm lowering the heat I don't want to burn those spices okay dogs are going back in amazing who's gonna do a little tamari oh so delicious sesame oil and a little toasted sesame seeds our taco filling is ready didn't even that that saw anything look at that okay we've got our warm tortillas little smoosh of mayonnaise you need that moisture and now our mala hot dog filling all right there are my tacos I hope people understand how amazing these are you want to taste the hot dog taco well done these are out of control you're out of control you're out of control it's really good that's a good amount of heat kind of really spicy but then those Szechuan peppercorns do that like numbing things kind of cools you down I love charred scallions and the texture of the sesame seeds and hot dogs are great things it's like really quick satisfying protein that you can make a whole build a whole meal around I can't believe I'm here talking about how great hot dogs are everybody knows this already I use my freezer as a place to keep building blocks for meals one of the things I always have in there is pork chops a lot of people don't know this the freezer is a great place to store butter and I also have some wine whenever there's any left over just pop that into the freezer and then I always have backup butter the freezer is a great place to store butter it will store it indefinitely and I just pull these up from the freezer every time I need one the other things I need for this meal are all really pulled from my pantry or my kind of evergreen produce so first thing I want to do is I just want to season the chops kosher salt I've got a 10-inch cast iron and I want to cook off some greens so this happens to be Tuscan kale any kind of kale is great it's to go with that I'm just gonna do it super simple I've got a couple cloves of garlic I'm gonna use more garlic for the chops and I'm gonna thinly slice this the old olive oil bottle out garlic in and while that garlic is heating up I mean just gonna smash some of these garlic cloves and have them ready for the pork chop later I'm gonna season my garlic with some black pepper and I also have a level pepper if you don't have a leper you can of course use crushed red chili flakes oh my god it already smells so good a little more salt this is my special burner so everybody have a special burner but we're gonna start pretty much the same way for the pork chops even though they are beautifully fatty I still need a little olive oil to get things started otherwise they will just kind of stick and get dry and charred and it's a real bummer here comes like seven people if you were in the D&D world you'd be munching on a cookie Oh at the D&D Clubhouse oh so what you're saying is you would like a cookie okay why don't you let me grab that sir okay just like it is an all-day restaurant I'm literally running a restaurant all right I'm gonna turn these over whoo a little bit of fat got on the burner you can see they're browning but they're not like crazy dark brown yet and that's a good color for that first turn oh yeah I would say we're about halfway there play two more turns very good two to three minutes per side probably three to four turns one more turn things are happening mmm okay just gonna take them both out now we're gonna butter based I'm just gonna add the chops back to the pan I'm gonna add a big piece of butter and I'm gonna add that whole garlic and then the time I'm just gonna crush that up a little bit until the aromas are released and I'm just gonna push the chops over to one side of the pan and tilt this down so the rendered work fat and the butter are kind of pooling at one edge and then using the spoon to pick the butter up with the garlic and send it down okay so the chops need to rest for five or ten minutes just for all those juices to redistribute which is a perfect amount of time to make a pan sauce so first thing I've got these capers what did I say it wine I'm gonna do about half of this okay now that that's reduced about halfway I'm going to add horseradish anchovy just one it's gonna dissolve right in there and now a little more butter and some lemon juice mmm okay last thing is the chives hmm okay mmm it's very lemony I added a little bit of water just to kind of dilute it a tiny bit and then also while the pork is resting we have juices that have escaped and I'm just gonna add those two do you happen to know your son's DND character name and class and we want to know your son's alignment what's your DMV name turtle master and what's your rank [Laughter] turtle master ok chops are ready so I'm just going to cut the rib bone off and then if you're sharing chops it's good to slice them before you put them on the table ok Gorge now what happens everybody's playing video games you know what I haven't had much of is a dinner to myself hmm gum thank you for letting me cook dinner for myself I really need it this time worked out I was worried that everything in my freezer was gonna be like you know braising meats or like steak but I found some ground pork I found some onions that I caramelized and I found some English muffins so that's all thawed and ready to go and I'm gonna make some pork burgers so the first thing I'm gonna do before I make my burgers is I'm gonna make some special sauce which is kind of a non-negotiable for me so I've got some Glen dia peppers you didn't have one dia peppers I would use pickles that's kind of like my go-to let me get that into a bowl and mayonnaise little squirt of ketchup and I like to add a splash of Tabasco or like another vinegary hot sauce yeah add a little pinch of salt a little bit of black pepper and that is there a special sauce over here the only thing I really need to do is just butter my English muffins someone to give it a good toast first we've got this cast-iron pan I like to preheat it for at least 5 minutes just so like the whole thing is nice and hot so the first thing I'm gonna do is take our English muffin and we're just gonna get that in there just to toast it alright so we're in a good place there I'm just gonna flip it on to the pork so I've just got these kind of like mmm pork meatballs you don't need to shape them there's gonna take this just slap it right down into the pan really squish it with a smash burger you just tryin to squish it as much as possible so you get it nice and thin and also get as much crispy surface area as possible plenty of salt and then you know this is just wild style but I'm just gonna put some of these caramelized onions right on top it's really only going to take 3 minutes on the first side it's probably more like two I'm gonna use the back of this to really get under there yeah there you go they got some nice browning on that side yeah there you go so I'm gonna season this side also then I'm gonna get my American cheese on that I was smart I took them out of the package before I had to do this one-handed yeah duck so it's like that's gonna take another minute or so and by that point the insides gonna be like almost totally cooked through and then they're ready to eat so I'm just gonna stack these guys on top of each other get that on to our little sizzle platter and we are ready to make a burger we've got our toasted English muffin and we've got our special sauce down gonna move this Doble patty put the top on and that is a double pork burger you want to see it you wanna get closer to it I'm gonna bring it to you [Music] yeah how about that all right do I get to eat it now great I've been really craving a burger this week and even though this is not beef I think it's gonna be just as good hmm tastes so good mmm there's a little bit of spice when those go into your peppers mmm my god Oh boom I proved three things from it we said today I had some vegetable broth on some chicken broth and I combined them together and I'd be melting them on a pot right now I also had some frozen ramen and ramen is something that I always have in my freezer because you can literally cook it from frozen throw it in the pot of boiling water and there your ramen is ready and then throw some vegetables the core ingredients are from the freezer I am NOT a cheater like when we did your sandwich I'm like the only one who use everything from the pantry I must say that so there is a lot of downtime in this recipe what do you want me to tell you stories about my childhood stories about my hearings what are you hearing we call them chiral is the crystals that come in like the chandeliers so they were made by an artist for my mom many years ago in Argentina okay you have your broth melted then you're gonna get a skillet put it on the heat and this mix has broccoli and some zucchini carrots cauliflower I love cauliflower you can use whatever you want anyways she will do so okay this is going this broth is about to boil I'm gonna add a little salt so now to give it a little flavor a little bit of olive oil a little bit of salt a little bit of pepper so these guys look pretty good to me so I'm gonna go ahead and get my ramen it says you can feel desired texture is attained all right let's see if my desired texture is attained whoo this is looking good don't do this at home okay mmm I attain the desired texture guys mmm I'm so hungry right I'm gonna turn the heat off I'm gonna do this really quick we don't want to leave them in there too long because I'm gonna get soggy when I warhead and put some of the berries a little bit of a rough top it off with some green onions and then I got those microgreens that I like because they have like a nice crunch all right so I think the freezer challenge if oh my god this looks delicious that's it brought a ramen with a steep fried veggies all from my freezer Bon Appetit so the two things that I found in my freezer were frozen green beans and grid unsweetened coconut so I thought that could be the base of a really really good vegetable dish my friend they Joel she will cook most vegetables in a combination of coconut garlic in chili it's a South Indian technique that her dad taught her and I kind of swear by that at home to put it on any vegetable it'll taste really good I'm gonna use coconut oil just to give it that like extra coconutty flavor and then once that's heated up I'm gonna add my two garlic and some chili flakes give it a little toast oh yeah so yeah it's starting to brown up get fragrant so now I'm gonna add a half of a chopped small yellow onion all right so now I'm just gonna toss these in the coconut oil and leave them be and then we'll add everything else all right now we're gonna add our cut green means and we're gonna add our coconut I'm just gonna toss that around just make sure your beans get nicely coated and I'm gonna add a little salt all right thank you for being my sous-chef mom this is like the best the best I could ask for dad is cameraman Mama's sous-chef these beans will cook pretty fast you're just looking for them to be cooked through don't want them to be super mushy you want them to kind of maintain their crunch I'm just gonna again put these in a single layer in the pan and I'll let these cook for another couple of minutes smells pretty good right dad all right our green beans have been cooking for a couple of minutes they look done I'm just gonna throw a little bit more salt give them a quick toss turn the heat off finish with some generous squeezes of lime I like it really lively more like me than my mom would say and just mix it up you're done you can eat that with rice you can have it with roti I'm gonna give it a taste it's kind of hot mmm oh my god it's so good hits all the notes you want it to fatty salty tangy little brightness from the lime green beans are nicely cooked there's still a little crunchy it's kind of hard to believe that we put that together in like all right I feel like I was like 10 minutes start to finish if that and that's kind of the beauty of good freezer meal you can just you know summon some bags of frozen stuff out of the freezer everything's all there for you you just gotta throw it in a pan throw it in the oven you know this is kind of a perfect example of that I'm gonna keep eating it it's inspired by New England clam chowder there are no clams because I did not order clams instead I'm going to be using a combination of shrimp and hake please don't look in here I peeled the shrimp before I froze it and then instead of tossing the shrimp shells I put them in a small pot I cover them with water and then I put like half an onion a celery stalk a couple of black peppercorns a bay leaf some salt and I just cooked at a simmer until the liquid just became like a really delicious shrimp broth and this is going to be the the real flavor base of the chowder so the first thing I'm going to do is melt some butter to this I'm going to add my chopped leeks a little bit of fennel celery and green garlic I'm going to season it with salt also and pepper once that's done I'm going to add my potatoes these can just go directly into the pot and I'm just gonna stir in the potatoes just to coat them and then I'm going to add my pint of shrimp stock I'm going to add maybe a half a cup more water at this point almost everything is in here except for the fish just because it'll cook in two minutes maybe less so I'm just gonna bring this to a boil and then reduce it down to a simmer I'm gonna let that cook until the potatoes are completely soft so potatoes have been cooking for about 12 minutes the liquid has reduced a fair amount at this point so I am gonna top it off with just a little bit of water so that my fish has enough room to poach I am going to salt my shrimp and hake and now that I'm back up to a simmer I'm just going to slip these right in here and just give them a stir and then I'm just gonna bring this to a gentle simmer because the seafood is gonna cook so fast you don't really want to walk away I expect this will take about three minutes for the shrimp and the fish to cook through it smells so good I'm very excited so this is more or less what we're looking for with the shrimp it's bright pink it's cooked through it's not translucent and then with a fish you want to just press it with the back of a spoon or a fork and just check that it's cooked on the inside which they say so I'm gonna reduce the heat down now and the very last thing I'm going to do is add my cream but I also have this milk and I have to use so I'm gonna add a bit of milk and then the last thing I'm going to do is add a lot of cracked black pepper and I'm also going to check this for salt needs a tiny touch more and that's ready it smells so good I'm so excited to be this last thing I want to do is add a couple of garnishes one is a few more grinds of black pepper never too much pepper fresh squeeze of lemon on top and then I'm also just going to finish it with some chives and that is freezer chowder let's give it a taste I cannot tell you how much I want waster crackers right now that is like the one thing that would make this even more perfect it is just as good this is gonna make a great lunch yes I planned it so that I would end the shoot at my lunch time so I'm gonna make you something that I actually I make this pretty often it's like my once a week fried rice I keep chorizo and rice cooked rice in the freezer at all times I usually just double the amount that I'm making and then I freeze half of it this is a really great way to use up leftovers as well like when you add the soy sauce the ginger the garlic and then incorporate the rice and the eggs into it it all of a sudden become something else so that's what I'm gonna make you today so I'm all set up back here I've got my giant cast-iron skillets you definitely want to get your pan just screaming screaming hot I'm using half a cup of oil and it seems like a lot and it is actually a lot but it's called fried rice and so every component of the dish is gonna take a little bit of oil I'm gonna drop that in first and it's just in a roll I'm gonna break it up the other thing that I have that I'm really excited about is huitlacoche it's a type of fungus that grows on corn here in Mexico it's got a almost like a porcini like flavor you know just a package of eight ounces of mushrooms or four ounces of mushrooms will work just as well and then you can just like leave them undisturbed I'm gonna give them a little bit of sea salt that will help them caramelize and also help them cook a little bit faster well that is going I'm gonna crack my eggs if I'm doing an all veg fried rice I'll usually do four eggs just to give a little extra protein if I'm doing a lot of meat I may only do you two that's what this has done it smells so good and then when it starts to release the liquid you can just scrape up any of the chorizo bits that are on the bottom just add it a little more salt and then I'm just gonna put that directly into my bowl with the sausage now I'm gonna add another couple of tablespoons of oil and we're gonna add the vegetables this is just all sort of up to you and what's in your fridge I was feeling Sodano today so that's what I got that's about two tablespoons of grated ginger and about four garlic cloves sliced and half of a white onion and then all of this is just going in there so I'm gonna go ahead and season it and then just let it sit well that's a strong Serrano once your ginger your grated ginger touches the bottom of the pan it's gonna want to stick so that's when you want to start moving things around that is a really strong tornado in Mexico fried rice is probably more common than most people think there are actually a lot of Chinese immigrants in the north of the country and so a lot of the marinades and a lot of the food across the northern states has influence from the Chinese immigrants in Mexico so now I'm going to add more oil and I'm gonna add the eggs so it's not even like 30 seconds and I'm gonna go ahead and pull it I'm gonna add the rest of the oil no I'm gonna break up this rice this you just want to let it sit there for mmm probably about a minute or two just to fry the the underside you want it to be crispy you want the rice to dry out all right I'm getting a little color on the bottom now I'm gonna add everything back into the skillet add my soy sauce toss everything around it smells so good and then once this is dried out a little bit and all the other soy sauce is evaporated it's all done I'm like super excited about this all of my favorite things the heat the huitlacoche the chorizo mm-hmm Wow hmm not sure oh no still spicy when I was told about the freezer challenge I knew that didn't have too much stuff in the freezer I knew I had a lot of ice cream BRR add peas and a steak I keep any bread that I don't use in the freezer for this it's gonna be like kind of a somewhat mushy creamy pea situation that gets really Irby and has some heat through some chili flakes that goes on top of fry bread so first I'm gonna slice some bread up I'd say like some nice thick slices slight angle or not it's actually hot out here so I'm wearing a tank and I was working out so please don't make fun of me please don't at me please give me a break thank you very much all right I'm just gonna use one skillet for this whole thing but first I'm gonna fry out the bread I'm gonna go medium high this is one of my favorite things probably on the planet just like simple fried bread I'm gonna take about 1/2 cup chopped herbs this could be any herbs as long as it's tender this is kind of leftover parsley I had some mint and some tarragon and then this is a pretty small lemon so I'm just gonna zest the whole thing okay I'm gonna grate 2 cloves of garlic into this what you're creating here is like a garlicky lemony herby almost like salsa verde I would say oil feels hot so I'm gonna add the bread and then just with tongs I'm just gonna press it down sometimes I'll turn the pan around in case there's some uneven heat going on I'm use an electric these days the man doesn't have stove tops I don't know what to tell you but you're looking for a neatly golden color underneath ah nice look at that I'll flip that over yeah looks nice I like putting a little bit of salt I'll set this aside for now let that pan cool for a bit I'm gonna just slice one small shallot up all right pans on the stove we're gonna go meet him heat a little more oil so I'll just add that okay so I want the shouts to get soft hold it Brown you're sweating them take a look my skin natural all natural I'm gonna add my Peas I completely thawed one bag full half a cup of cream heavy cream okay I'll start mashing these a bit well that's cooking down I'm gonna add a little bit of oil to this a little bit of salt to this a little bit of salt to that the peas are already cooked so what you're trying to do is just kind of heat them up as quickly as possible okay they seem to be doing pretty nice I'm gonna turn them off they're nice and tender they're creamy I still think a little bit more salt maybe a little cheese I don't let up sorry mr. really good it was like a perfect snack or it could be like a side dish with or without the bread for dinner I'm probably gonna save these piece for dinner whoops you can try a bite you're nice right really cool

Channel: Bon Appétit

Views: 1,985,515

Keywords: test kitchen, test kitchen talks, gaby melian, sohla el waylly, christina chaey, carla lalli music, andy baraghani, priya krishna, amiel stanek, rick martinez, frozen food, frozen meal, gaby makes, sohla makes, christins makes, andy makes, carla makes, amiel makes, rick makes, gaby bon appetit, sohla bon appetit, christina bon appetit, carla bon appetit, andy bon appetit, priya bon appetit, amiel bon appetit, rick bon appetit, freezing food, food, bon appetit

Id: YMEVC5hGw0c

Length: 27min 55sec (1675 seconds)

Published: Sat May 30 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/definitelybad]

so funny seeing the onions that priya's mom cut for her, that's exactly how my parents cut veggies. just kind of sliced up with no rhyme or reason. some are diced and some are strips, it's a party

[u/Rated_PG-Squirteen]

-I definitely did not have Sohla makes hot dog tacos on my BA Bingo card.

-Amiel's pork smashburger looked mouthwateringly good.

-I saw this in a YT comment. Priya's mom was definitely her sous(pervisor) chef.

-Turtle Master. That is all.

-Andy with the patented no-look chopping AND sticking the tongue out. lmao

[u/copiedrightinfridge]

Andy looks great in this video lmfao, also him shading “the Man” sent me 😂😂😂

[u/Halo4356]

Sohla's hairtyle was ON POINT today!

[u/Font-street]

1) Sohla's creation is hella random (hot dog + mala + taco???) but by the end of it I'm drooling and I just-- dang, lady, your mind is amazing.

2) Does Cosmo play Dungeons and Dragons?? *In Discord?? Can that kid be any cooler??? (also agreed with the editor, he's def chaotic good.)

3) the way Carla says, "And now... a little more butter. " is just so cheeky lol.

4) also Gaby is just so cute her earrings are amazing I love her.

5) and as an Asian person with chilly parental relationship, I must say it's really heartwarming to see Priya's parents helping her in her videos. And of course having her own camera person also helps Priya's videos to look a lot more like standard BATK videos.

[u/[deleted]]

This has taught me that my freezer is understocked. I particularly liked Andy's and Sohla's recipes as they felt a little more accessible, but still offered something a little different! Christina's chowder did look incredible, even if I'm not fortunate enough to have fish in my freezer right now

[u/[deleted]]

Cilantro as a bulk green is blowing my mind

They should really really try to integrate more 'non-ideal' ingredients/environments/etc even when things go back to normal

[u/denn_r]

I bought an ungodly amount of butter from costco on a whim, but thanks to Carla, now I know I can freeze it so it can keep.

loved the video.

[u/RunnerBakerDesigner]

Carla's chops are mouth-watering.