$340 vs $25 Po' Boy: Pro Chef & Home Cook Swap Ingredients

Argh and then a hook was in the windshield

and they were running for their lives.

Okay, here we go.

Hi, I'm Frank, I'm a professional chef

and these are my $340 po' boy ingredients.

Hi, I'm Lorenzo and I'm a home cook

and these are my $25 po' boy ingredients.

Lorenzo's gonna hate me on this one.

Okay, this is gonna be fun.

I went cross eyed for two seconds.

So I was planning on making a fried oyster po' boy

with saffron rouille, giardiniera and Creole chips.

I had a dozen Wellfleet oysters to shuck and fry.

Ooh, I have to shuck my own oysters.

That's gonna be a first.

And all the fixings for a homemade mayo

that I was going to make into an earthy saffron rouille.

I was gonna marinate some Kumato tomatoes

in basil oil and sherry vinegar.

I mean, Frank, we're friends.

I know for a fact

that Lorenzo does not like making bread from scratch

so what are we doing today?

We're making bread from scratch.

I have to make bread as well.

Frank, you're making me go crazy.

With Lorenzo's ingredients,

we have things you might find in your pantry

or a local grocery store.

These might be on the simpler side

but with some technique, we can make them better.

If I had to guess, this would all cost about $25.

I'm good, what can I say?

I say 258-ish.

No, that's a lot of money, you guys.

Frank, you're nuts.

So this is Chef Frank's recipe book.

So I'm making fried oyster po' boy

with saffron rouille, giardiniera and Creole chips.

So obviously the first thing I have to do

is shuck these oysters.

I have never done that before in my life.

So I sent Lorenzo some Wellfleet oysters.

They're local to the east coast.

Before Lorenzo gets to the frying part,

he's gotta shuck those oysters

and man, sometimes that's a chore.

Frank, it'll take you up on this challenge, sir.

Lorenzo, here's how I shuck oysters.

Give yourself a nice cradle made with a towel

to hold the oyster so it doesn't slip.

Make sure that you have an oyster knife.

This is a shucker.

I don't know.

Okay, oysters, I'm coming for you.

[Frank] Get into that hinge

and then use leverage to pop that top off.

Unhinge yourself.

Weird 'cause there's still a little bit more there.

It was like a fake hinge.

Don't use your muscles.

I know you got some muscles there

and you're tempted to use them.

Use that leverage.

Ah.

Leverage, leverage.

Frank said leverage.

Hey, it worked.

Thanks, Frank.

[Frank] Once you get that top popped off,

we can scrape the top off, scoop the oyster out.

Leverage.

Did I do that every time?

I did?

Lorenzo was gonna make a very straightforward

shrimp po' boy boy.

The po' boy I was gonna make,

it's just a fried shrimp po' boy.

Easy peasy.

Lettuce, mayo.

A little bit of spice.

Delicious no doubt but I'm a chef.

I gotta mess with stuff.

I'm gonna do three little mini hors d'oeuvres

or canapés from all the same ingredients.

Little shrimp po' bites if you will.

For the first recipe, I'm doing shrimp lettuce wraps.

First thing I'm gonna do is add salt to our poaching liquid

and then I have some lemons

and what I wanna do is just squeeze the lemon juice in

and save the rinds for later.

Lorenzo gave me some frozen peeled and deveined shrimp

so the shrimp go into our poaching liquid.

I'm just gonna give 'em a quick stir

and we'll just wait for them to cook.

I'm about to make bread

and I think Frank knows I don't bake.

Thanks, Frank, I appreciate it but the joke is on you.

I have always wanted to make my own bread.

What I'm gonna do is I'm gonna combine my two liquids,

warm milk, warm water, sugar and yeast.

A little salt.

This is my oil and then my flour.

So I'm gonna let this go for about 10 minutes.

My shrimp are not fully cooked

and that's when I take them out

because they will carryover cook.

I'm gonna throw these in the fridge,

let them chill down before we make our salad.

Looks good, smells good.

10 minutes has passed.

I greased my bowl a bit.

Oh my God, it's like Play-Doh, I love it.

So I am gonna let this do its thing

and rise for one to two hours and see what happens, guys.

See you in a minute.

So I saved my lemon rinds from our poaching liquid

and I'm gonna make a preserved lemon.

I'm gonna season my water with salt.

The boiling is gonna soften the rinds.

It's gonna take a little bit of the bitterness out

and the salt's gonna give us some seasoning.

It's gonna add a nice pop of lemon,

a little bit of astringency

because there's some oil in there

and the skin's a little bitter but I like that flavor.

The bread is alive and it is beautiful.

Oh, it feels so cool.

It's very light.

Okay, before we get all sneaky, I'm guessing the size.

And this is the key here.

When we shape it into our loaves,

we're gonna let it rise again

so that our loaves get nice and light and fluffy.

I'm gonna cover it

and we're gonna let these guys rise again

for about 15 minutes.

These have been simmering for about 20 minutes.

Let's take them out

and I'm just gonna put some of that liquid over them

and let them sit in the fridge until they are cool.

It's been 15 minutes.

Look, it really did rise again

but I still have to roll this out

into kind of a baguette shape.

I'm just pinching away.

Pinch, pinch, pinch.

I'm going to score the bread.

These are gonna rest for about 45 to an hour.

And then we're gonna brush 'em with some water,

throw 'em in the oven so we have some steam

and get that nice crusty outside.

[Lorenzo] I'm gonna throw these all in the oven

for about 30 minutes at 375.

Now's the time to make the shrimp salad

for my lettuce wraps.

So the first thing I'm I wanna do with the shrimp

is take the tails off and now what's great about this

is we can just chop these babies up.

And what I wanna use on these preserved lemons

is just this rind part.

So what I wanna do is get on the edge of my board,

push down on my knife a little and kind of shave.

Look at how nice and thin that is.

So we're gonna take this and we're gonna julienne it

and then we're just gonna chop it into a nice fine dice.

We're gonna grab some scallions.

The only thing I'm really gonna cut off is my ends

'cause usually they're a little dry.

You can use those in stock if you want to.

This can go right in.

A little fresh lemon juice.

The preserved lemon's gonna give us a little bitterness,

some of that bright lemon flavor

and the lemon juice is gonna give us some acidity.

So yes, we're gonna use both.

Don't come at me.

And then we're gonna grab some of our fine mayonnaise

and then some of the magic Tony Chachere seasoning.

So Tony Chachere's is a famous Creole seasoning

from New Orleans.

He's got the big ears.

If I had some glasses, I might look like him.

We're gonna add some salt to our salad as well

and then we get to mix this up.

This does need to sit in the fridge for a little while

not only to chill but to get those flavors to come together.

So I am going to get started on the saffron rouille

but the first part of that is making my own mayonnaise.

Thanks again, Frank.

Before you get all worried

that your arm is gonna wanna fall off from whisking mayo,

it's gonna be a blender mayonnaise

so you get to use a machine.

The wonders of technology.

I think I can get started

but I have to separate the eggs first.

I just need three.

Thank goodness you've given me more than three

just in case I FUBAR.

I'm just gonna get the yolks.

I love Dijon mustard.

Salt, apple cider vinegar, oh my gosh.

Let's blend you up.

You don't wanna go too high speed.

This will heat everything up and it'll break your mayo.

I added salt and I'm trying to stream this as slowly.

Mayonnaise is an emulsion.

You're basically taking two things like liquid and oil

that don't normally go together

and you're forcing them together

and having them stick together kinda like me and Lorenzo.

My shoulder is numb.

There you go, we have mayonnaise.

So Lorenzo gave me some romaine lettuce.

I'm gonna take these outside leaves.

They're a little darker, not as tender.

I'm gonna put them aside for another dish.

I'm gonna cut off the base.

The inside leaves are gonna be the shell

or the outside wrap to my lettuce wraps.

I'm also gonna do some diced tomato for this.

So let's get some Ruffles out.

He gave me that nice Tony Chachere seasoning.

And now we can actually put everything together.

A little bit of our tomato on top.

I have my potato chip garnish that I'm gonna put on later,

not right now 'cause I want them to stay nice and crisp.

Po' bite number one done.

Po' bite number two coming up.

Okay, it is time to make my saffron rouille.

I've got saffron here but I have to bloom it

and in order to do that, I need a little bit of warm water.

It's gonna basically flavor our water

so that when we mix it into our rouille,

it's gonna be beautiful yellow color.

Let's start with this mayonnaise.

I need a cup.

And now I just combine all this stuff.

Scallions, parsley.

Garlic.

Whole grain mustard, paprika, lemon juice.

We need some salt.

I love freshly ground pepper.

Worcestershire sauce.

And then hello, hot sauce.

Lord have.

It's delicious.

I don't feel well.

Okay, so I'm just gonna stir this up.

For my second recipe or po' bite,

I am making a shrimp escabeche.

An escabeche is basically a close cousin of a ceviche.

Ceviche is raw fish.

Escabeche is cooked.

So I have some more of my frozen shrimp

that Lorenzo gave me.

I have my poaching liquid from earlier.

It's got a shrimpy flavor now

as well as a lemon and salt flavor.

Just give 'em a stir.

It's called saffron rouille so let's add the saffron.

Saffron is one of the most expensive spices

because it's only harvested once a year

from a very specific flower.

There's no machine that can do this.

You have to basically pick out the saffron from the flower.

We have completed the saffron rouille.

All right, these are looking good,

not necessarily cooked all the way through.

Let them continue to cook.

So let's throw these in the fridge

and when they're cool, we can make our escabeche.

I am making a mixture for Creole seasoning.

Let's start with some thyme, cane sugar.

I love smoked paprika.

Couple teaspoons of regular paprika.

This is gonna be garlic powder.

Some onion powder and cayenne.

The Creole seasoning's not only gonna flavor our dish,

it's gonna give us a nice little pop of heat.

Let's of course always add some salt and pepper.

Ya got to, boink, boink.

There you go.

I've got myself some Creole seasoning.

My shrimp for the escabeche have cooled.

So let's get started.

I'm gonna take my tails off.

So we're gonna cut these shrimp a little different

than our shrimp salad.

I lay it on its side.

I'm gonna cut it through the center and put it in my bowl.

Watch your fingers when you do this.

Try not to cut them off.

You can see that I get all my fingers out of the way.

My fingers on top are flat.

The more surface area we have with the shrimp,

the more flavor that stays attached to the shrimp.

So Lorenzo gave me some dill pickles.

I'm gonna use a little bit of the juice

'cause the juice has some acidity to it,

it has some sweetness to it

and then I'm gonna take some of those pickles out

and chop them up and put them in.

And then we have some tomato.

I'm gonna dice it up.

I'm gonna hit this with a little bit of lemon juice as well

just to give it some acidity.

I'm gonna add some of my hot sauce, some black pepper.

I just wanna chill this down, let everything sit,

get to know each other and then we can plate it up.

I'm gonna make some marinated Kumato tomatoes.

It happens to be in the middle of the winter

where I am right now.

That's why we're gonna marinate them

to kinda boost some of those natural tomato flavors

that aren't really that prevalent in the winter.

Ooh, aged sherry vinegar.

A little bit of that.

Never in my life have had a chance to use this.

This is infused basil oil.

Tomatoes and basil naturally go together

so we got some basil oil.

It's gonna give us some sweetness.

[Lorenzo] Smoked sea salt, that's different.

This is the Creole mix that I just made a second ago.

So now I'm gonna make a slaw for my escabeche.

Is it really a slaw?

Nah, it's no cabbage but I'm using those outside leaves

that I saved from earlier from our romaine.

They're a little tougher than those inside leaves

so they'll stand up a little bit better to the dressing.

The slaw lobby is gonna be like, that's not slaw.

We have some scallions.

Again, just take the ends off of both sides.

I'm gonna use a little of the pickle juice, not the pickles.

Salt, pepper.

Some of that same nice Louisiana Hot Sauce

and I'm just gonna give it a little dash of mayonnaise.

and this is my lettuce slaw for the shrimp escabeche.

Now I am going to make my giardiniera

which are basically pickled vegetables.

So first thing you do is add some white wine vinegar, water,

couple tablespoons of salt.

This is my cane sugar again.

Our version today, we're using some green cauliflower,

some celery, some carrots,

some beautiful little pearl onions.

We got some fresh oregano.

We got bay leaf, we got some black pepper

and we're gonna spice it up a little bit

with Calabrian chilies.

[Lorenzo] It smells spicy.

So everything together

is gonna make this really beautiful pickle

that is gonna complement those oysters.

I'm going to now add a little bit of olive oil on top.

And my giardiniera is done.

I'm just gonna pop this into the fridge,

let it sit there, cool off and let it do its work.

So we gotta make some crostini for our escabeche

and Lorenzo gave me some hero rolls

that have been split down the middle.

Crostini are usually just pieces of toasted bread

that you're going to put a topping on.

I'm gonna put a little bit of mayonnaise on them.

The mayonnaise has a large amount of fat.

It also has some acidity and some flavor to it

so I think that that's why this works so well

for things like this

and we're just gonna put it and let it toast

on the mayonnaise side.

We are at the fry time.

No.

Take that out.

First, let's get started on the marinade

which is just basically buttermilk with some hot sauce

and some Creole mustard.

Easy mixture and now we're gonna whisk away.

Last step is I am going to add these oysters that I shucked.

Yum.

The mayonnaise is not only gonna help it get crisp,

it's also gonna kinda put a little rain jacket on our bread

so it doesn't get soggy when we put the escabeche on top.

And while they're still hot,

we're gonna go back to old Tony.

If I put everything together now,

everything gets soggy and I don't want that.

So for right now, we're done with po' bite number two.

We can go onto po' bite number three.

So my oysters are marinating so in the meantime,

I am gonna put together my dry ingredients.

It is gonna be flour and a cornmeal mix.

Pepper and then salt.

And I am moving and shaking, folks.

I am ready to fry.

For my third recipe or po' bite,

I am going to make a shrimp fritter.

The first thing I need to do is throw in my shrimp.

So I'm just gonna run it under there

until I start seeing that the shrimp are softening a little.

Get your excess water off and we're good to go.

All I really wanna do here is take off the tail

and I'm just gonna do a rough chop.

We're gonna throw some scallions in there

right into the bowl.

We're gonna take a couple of eggs.

The eggs are gonna give us some binding power

and bring it all together.

Some of our Tony Chachere's Creole seasoning,

some Louisiana Hot Sauce, some black pepper, salt.

I'm gonna add like a dollop of mayonnaise.

And now I have some plain breadcrumbs.

Originally, we were gonna bread our shrimp with this

but we're gonna use this as a binder for our fritter.

After it sits for a little while, I'm gonna fry it up.

We are here.

I'm ready to go, how about you?

Our oyster marinade has some flavor added to it.

You want some of that liquid to stick onto the oysters.

Take them out right into your dredge.

Don't shake them off.

You want some of that liquid to stick on

because that's gonna be part of the flavor.

The fritter batter has sat in the fridge for a while

and you can see that it firmed up a lot

and that's what I wanted.

For the shape of our fritters, I'm gonna do a quenelle.

So I'm just gonna put a little bit of oil

on one of my spoons.

You're just forcing the batter against the other spoon

so you get this like nice little football shape

then you can just drop it in.

So we basically want these to be cooked through

so that our shrimp is cooked

and they're a little light brown on the outside.

Beautiful golden brown

but guess what I need to do immediately?

I need to season you up while it's still hot.

The fritters are fried, it is time to plate.

Let's open up some chips.

No sandwich is complete

without some sort of chips on the side.

The chips here we're using traditional chip from New Orleans

called Zapp's and we're gonna flavor it ourselves

with our Creole seasoning.

Time to plate my po' bites.

First thing I'm gonna do is get the chips,

crumble them on to my lettuce wraps.

I'm gonna pick the nice one

and it's gonna go on the plate right here.

Lorenzo, you're also using some caperberries here.

They have the really nice flavor of capers

but with a little bit of crunch

'cause they got the seeds in 'em

'cause it's the fruit of the plant.

I am so proud of this.

This is a beautiful roll that I made.

I'm gonna start with the saffron rouille.

Add some lettuce.

I'm gonna add some giardiniera.

Some tomato and the star of the show, my oysters.

And then I top with caperberries.

So now we can assemble our escabeche

and what I'm gonna do is take that slaw that I made

and I'm gonna put it on the bottom.

A nice little piece of shrimp on top.

A little bit of our pickle.

I am adding mount chip.

Last but not least, we're gonna get our fritters up here

and I think I'm gonna be generous

and put two little fritters on here.

And that is po' bite number three on the plate.

And here's my take on Lorenzo's po' boy recipe.

And this is my take on Chef Frank's recipe.

Hey, buddy.

What's up, what's up?

How ya been? How are ya, man?

Good seeing you, it's been a while.

Good to see you, yeah, you looking good.

I feel fit, I'm feeling good, yeah.

I wish I can say the same.

Oh my Lord.

That looks so good.

[Lorenzo] What the heck?

[Frank] That looks absolutely delicious.

[Lorenzo] And this looks absolutely Frank.

Get that in my face as soon as possible.

Really?

Frank, I just have one question.

What are those?

We have coined a phrase for it.

It's called po' bites.

So it's like a po' boy but in little bites

and since they're hors d'oeuvres,

we should go with mine first.

Cheers. Yeah, cheers, man, chi-chi.

That is delicious and it was light.

Knowing what was in it, it's hilarious.

It was really simple, right?

It's just po' boy ingredients.

Po' bites.

Po' bites.

[Frank] So our second po' bite

is a shrimp escabeche crostini.

So nice, so nice.

Wow, I'm excited.

Pat myself, pat myself on the back.

You deserve everything here.

[Frank] Now the last one we have is a shrimp fritter.

Oh my gosh.

I have a feeling it's gonna taste like a shrimp toast.

You know, shrimp toast?

Yeah, I think it will.

[Lorenzo] I like that. I love shrimp toast.

[Lorenzo] Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Chin chin.

Oh my God.

Shrimp toast.

Shrimp toast. Mm.

That is so good.

So we finished the appetizers.

Yes, sir.

Main course.

[Frank] Oh my gosh. You ready?

I'm ready but I'm a little nervous.

I can't wait to see what you did.

I think I did it justice.

It looks good, I hope it tastes good.

I think it looks gorgeous, look at that.

I'm going all in. Okay.

All in, ready?

This belongs on the cover of a magazine here.

[Lorenzo] Thanks, man.

[Frank] Good job, buddy.

You're the best though.

You know what we need?

[Lorenzo] Hm?

We need a beer.

We need a beer.

Where is our beer?