00:00Hi, I'm Jamila, and I'm in the Bon Appetit Test Kitchen
00:02to have a super-secret conversation about Chris Morocco.
00:05Once again, we're putting Chris's super-taster abilities to the test.
00:09This is Sheldon Simeon's Loco Moco.
00:12I'm challenging Chris to recreate this dish in just one day.
00:16He'll be able to taste it, touch it, and smell it,
00:19but at no point will he be able to see this dish.
00:23At the end of the day, we'll come back to see his final creations,
00:26and I'll be the judge.
00:30I'm feeling okay.
00:38The mask has a little bit of a funny smell, you know,
00:40so I'm working through that.
00:44I don't know.
00:45It's like a savory meaty, but like right down the middle.
00:49I'm feeling what seems to be the lacy edge of a fried egg,
00:53trying not to break the yolk such that you then get egg yolk
00:56running around all over everything else,
00:58which I think could really kind of get in the way of deciding
01:02what other elements might be here.
01:04Crispy egg, almost like a mushroomy,
01:08but the shape, like what is that?
01:11Very firm, very savory, very deep, like mushroom jerky.
01:17Soy sauce or Worcestershire sauce in there,
01:19something that's really doubling down on the umami forwardness.
01:23Let's start with like portobello mushroom,
01:25but it feels like it could be the sort of the main kind of stock
01:28of like a trumpet mushroom as well.
01:30Those get kind of big.
01:32Where is like all this sauciness coming from?
01:35Not quite gravy because there's not quite enough of it to be gravy.
01:39So that seems to be like a very sweet little slice of onion.
01:45I'm also getting like little bits.
01:46It feels like there's kind of black pepper all over this.
01:49It seems to be a beef burger.
01:51There's definitely like a good bit of fat to this patty.
01:55Oh God, what is this?
01:57Is this rice?
01:58No, is this grits?
02:00There's like a dairy kind of flavor to it,
02:03like almost like these grits were cooked in milk
02:06or a combination of water and milk,
02:09but also like finished with butter.
02:12Grits are great.
02:14God, the texture.
02:16This kind of slightly wet, moldable, putty-like consistency.
02:22And yet within it, you know,
02:23there are some of these like bigger bits of grain
02:25and smaller bits of grain.
02:28Or is it rice?
02:29Oh God.
02:30Improbable as it might be,
02:31I would say like this is like a rice-based grit.
02:35Flavor-wise, it's giving me like something pretty neutral.
02:38What would you even call this?
02:39Is this like a breakfast burger?
02:41Something about that is sort of like very coastal American South,
02:46where you have a lot of like rice culture,
02:48kind of narrows the aperture a little bit for me psychologically.
02:53All right, I'm done tasting.
02:54Time to make a grocery list.
02:57Mushroom breakfast burger with rice grits, eggs, butter.
03:02There's only a handful of mushrooms that get that big,
03:05but not in a frilly way.
03:07Either large cremini or small portobello mushrooms.
03:14I'd also love some small trumpet mushrooms.
03:18I'm thinking ground beef,
03:20something in the kind of ground chuck, 20% fat or even 25%.
03:25Something like a Carolina gold American long grain white rice milk.
03:34I feel okay.
03:35Trying to remember if I've ever felt such a complete
03:39and utter lack of clarity around what a dish was,
03:43while feeling like I had a reasonable grasp on what was in it.
03:47Jamila Robinson, our editor-in-chief, is my judge today.
03:50It's like always intimidating to be judged by your boss,
03:53so that'll be interesting.
03:57I have a progression like rice, burger mushroom, egg, pasta.
04:03We move the bowls, move bowls.
04:05I think we're going to turn rice into grits.
04:09So we've got just like a standard long grain rice.
04:12So we're going to throw this in here.
04:13I don't want to like turn it into powder,
04:15but I want to break up these grains a little bit.
04:18Why doesn't my starting ratio be like one cup,
04:22the long grain rice with three cups of liquid,
04:2650-50 between milk and water and butter in there,
04:29frankly, as well.
04:30And a good bit of salt there.
04:32I'm going to bring this to a simmer.
04:35Meanwhile, let's talk mushrooms.
04:37What if we did a mix just for fun?
04:39King trumpet, really even thin slices of mushroom here.
04:43And then a few creminis.
04:46I love a mushroom.
04:48Let's take a check in on our liquid.
04:51Just going to get some black pepper.
04:53I'm trying to end up in like a drier place
04:56between a porridge and just fluffy cooked rice.
04:59I want to kind of whisk them in
05:01so that things don't immediately clump together.
05:03Let's just keep that at a slow roll.
05:05This is a sweet onion, very little bite to it,
05:10even in its raw form.
05:12Some kind of chunky slices here.
05:14We're already getting some sticking.
05:16It's like those finer pieces are sort of settling down there.
05:19Okay, so new plan is we're just going to cook rice
05:22and then see what we need to do with it
05:24to get it to the texture that I was experiencing
05:27in the original dish.
05:28Slightly wet, moldable, putty-like consistency.
05:32So I've got rice version one,
05:35sort of doing more of like rice grits approach.
05:38And I have rice version two,
05:41just evenly cooked whole rice grains.
05:44Let's move it to the back burner.
05:46Porridge is coming along nicely.
05:47Burger seemed simple.
05:49Beef chuck, seasoned with salt and pepper.
05:51Sear off the patty.
05:53Just want to make sure I'm getting some good contact there,
05:56get some good flavor development.
05:57If you're going to start joining up
05:59any of these cooking processes,
06:01for me, it's like burger plus mushroom
06:04because the mushroom are almost acting as the sauce.
06:07So that's looking pretty good.
06:10So rice grits, let's see how they're coming along.
06:14Not bad, honestly.
06:15For the burger, I just want to get a nice sear,
06:18probably more closer to like medium.
06:20Frankly, that moment where those juices
06:22start percolating through,
06:24usually a pretty good sign like you're at about medium rare.
06:27How long you go past that is usually the question
06:30I'm sort of playing around with.
06:31The main mistake people make is like,
06:33they're not usually cooking one burger,
06:35they're cooking four.
06:36And the pan doesn't stay hot enough.
06:40That's looking pretty good to me.
06:41We've got good color on that second side.
06:43I'm gonna let the burger rest over here.
06:45I want to pour out a little bit of this.
06:48All right, so I'm now cooking the mushrooms
06:50in that leftover beef fat.
06:52Like a lot of like this fat,
06:53like it's gotten sort of like the extra crispy bits
06:55of black pepper.
06:56Sometimes like it can make a dish
06:58a little bit overwhelming.
06:59In the initial phase of cooking,
07:01they'll pretty much absorb whatever fat you throw at them,
07:04but you have to resist the temptation to totally soak them.
07:09Once they start to break down and soften,
07:12they basically start to exude that fat back
07:15into the cooking environment.
07:17And we're getting really nice golden brown color there.
07:19Mushrooms lose a lot of their volume as they cook.
07:21So it's always good to start with a little more than less.
07:25Once we have like a little initial kind of browning,
07:28I'll start to season a little bit.
07:31I don't know, rice won.
07:33Don't count it out.
07:35It's like Jon Hamm in Baby Driver, you know?
07:38He's not dead.
07:40So now I'm gonna throw some onion right in
07:43with the mushroom.
07:44Butter in too.
07:46That's gonna help kind of soften
07:47and start to break down those onions to an extent.
07:50All right, so this is rice version two.
07:52I'm just gonna flip this, turn it off,
07:54let that steam out for 10 minutes.
07:56Let's get crazy.
07:57Let's throw a little chicken broth in there.
07:59Adding the broth is gonna deglaze
08:01and pick up some of the crispy bits
08:02in the bottom of the skillet.
08:04It's gonna add a little bit of body.
08:06That's gonna cook down and reduce
08:07into just sort of like a clingy dressing.
08:10A little bit of Worcestershire,
08:11just amping up that savory quality to the mushrooms.
08:14A similar thing used in a small quantity
08:17might be like a soy sauce.
08:18If I'm situating this dish
08:21as coming from coastal American South,
08:24does it really make sense for me
08:25to put soy sauce in it though?
08:27Not necessarily.
08:28Whereas Worcestershire sauce,
08:30maybe we've picked up all those brown bits
08:33that were in the center where we cooked our burger.
08:36I wanna cook this out though
08:37until it's like it's clinging, you know?
08:40Like stage six clanger.
08:42So we're making a sunny side up egg,
08:46lightly crispy.
08:48I like to baste with like a little bit of oil
08:50just to kind of cook that little ring of white
08:52that always stubbornly insists on not cooking through.
08:58These are our elements.
09:00If you take like a hot, freshly steamed rice
09:03and you mash some butter into it
09:05and you throw some salt in it as well,
09:07like where does that net you out, you know?
09:09What are you doing?
09:10Try this.
09:13There's this like rice element
09:15in the bottom of this dish.
09:16Yeah.
09:17Like that like doesn't really wanna break down
09:19and I don't know why you do it anyway.
09:21You're gonna combine all these things
09:22with like a mushy grit?
09:23No, I have to pick a lane here.
09:25Yeah.
09:25What seems more plausible?
09:26I can't imagine all this stuff going on top of that.
09:29It's gonna sink in there and be like a mush.
09:31Sink in there?
09:32Yeah.
09:33Reeling it back.
09:34Really?
09:35Okay.
09:36That's my opinion.
09:37Am I misleading him?
09:38Maybe just make some rice, come back to that.
09:40Okay.
09:41Just my opinion.
09:42I'm like getting a vibe like rice grits
09:46were not the right path
09:48but maybe some buttery rice
09:50that's a little bit clingy and clumpy could be.
09:52So let's kind of like go for that.
09:54This is the rice that I simply steamed
09:57and then put some butter and salt in.
09:59So we've now got burger element, onions.
10:03We have mushrooms and then we're gonna do egg.
10:07So this is my first attempt at the dish.
10:10This is a breakfast burger with mushrooms,
10:14rice and a sunny side up egg.
10:16This doesn't look like anything I've ever had.
10:19That's for sure.
10:20Maybe my egg is a tad too crispy.
10:23Is that possible?
10:25Nice medium cooked burger.
10:26These pieces of mushroom feel a little too small.
10:29And then about our rice,
10:32it's buttery but it doesn't hold together.
10:34And I got so much guff about the rice grits.
10:37Maybe we can safely assume it's not that
10:39in the original dish.
10:40Let's talk scores.
10:41Ingredients, not feeling amazing.
10:44I'm gonna say 60%.
10:46Technique, I feel a little bit more confidence.
10:49I would say 70.
10:50Appearance, maybe that's where I'm closer to like an 80.
10:54Taste, 70%.
10:56There's something weird going on with the starch.
10:58And I think the mushrooms could be better.
11:01Here are my actual current scores.
11:03Okay, this isn't like so bad.
11:05One thing generally speaking is off with my ingredients.
11:08There could be a technique consideration
11:10that is coupled with that.
11:11The next tasting is all about ingredients.
11:14It's all about that starch element
11:16and really dialing in the mushrooms.
11:19Honestly, I don't feel terrible seeing those scores.
11:26Here we go.
11:26Tasting number two.
11:29Smells the same.
11:30Still mushroomy.
11:32You know, like the nonspecific meatiness.
11:34So moving down.
11:36Again, this like crispy side.
11:39Just like a very deep level of browning here.
11:41These are some big pieces.
11:43It got like super crispy.
11:45It's the fact of it not being symmetrical
11:48that makes me think it's not portobello, not cremini.
11:52That to me is like a cross section of a king trumpet.
11:55All king trumpet?
11:56I'm standing by my decision to put Worcestershire in there,
12:00but I almost feel like there could be
12:01some soy sauce in there too.
12:03I don't know how I missed this on the first pass,
12:04but there is actually sauce on here.
12:08Very buttery textural sauce.
12:11And I'm wondering if that's the sort of like
12:12the saucy element that went with the mushrooms.
12:15I'm wondering if in the first tasting
12:18that clumping together of the rice
12:21was because there was this really rich meaty sauce
12:24kind of clumping it together.
12:26It's projecting a lot of fat.
12:28It's been thickened possibly with some sort of starch.
12:32The rice just seems like good old short grain white rice.
12:36So now I'm just looking for, is there anything in the burger?
12:39I am getting like a little tickle of garlic.
12:41Maybe it's like more of that onion
12:43finely chopped and put in there.
12:45I'm actually feeling pretty good.
12:46The sauce and the rice almost tasted like one thing,
12:50whereas it's two distinct elements.
12:52So a lot of our process is gonna be the same
12:55other than mushrooms are gonna come
12:57out of the skillet entirely.
12:58We're gonna build the sauce in there.
13:00Sauce is gonna come into the dish
13:02just for the final plating.
13:04This is medium grain rice.
13:06I don't even know what to say regionally
13:07for this dish, to be honest.
13:09If there's soy sauce in it, I understand it even less.
13:12Same technique on the rice,
13:14but I'm using the shorter grain rice,
13:16which is gonna have more of a tendency
13:18to wanna clump together.
13:19I just threw a pinch of salt in there.
13:21Meanwhile, let's cut some vegetables.
13:23This is going to be fine diced onion
13:26for the burger itself.
13:28Super fine dice of garlic as well.
13:31Putting aromatic elements in my burgers
13:33is something I don't do.
13:34I'd rather keep the burger plain as is
13:37and add other flavors and elements around it.
13:40Let's do our sliced onion
13:43for part of the aromatic base for the gravy.
13:46Mushrooms.
13:48King trumpet mushrooms have such great flavor,
13:52but also very grillable, very searable.
13:55They're so big.
13:56Checking on the rice.
13:57Just wanna bring it to a simmer.
13:59So we'll do low and we'll time 20 minutes.
14:02Salt, pepper.
14:04We gotta cook these burgers.
14:05So I'm looking for that little bit of smoke there.
14:09Oh, I hate putting raw onion burger.
14:12It's just so annoying.
14:13Like the additional sugars in the onion
14:16make those bits that are now getting like so dark.
14:18You can see how much fat the meat is giving off.
14:21I mean, it's really, it's quite wild.
14:23You wanna make sure you have enough heat going for you
14:25so that as the juices start to release,
14:28coats flip, you can kind of get out ahead of that.
14:30Still be putting on a good sear with that second side.
14:33One and two.
14:34I poured out a good bit of the fat.
14:36So I'm just laying in these mushrooms.
14:38Salt.
14:39Get a really good sear on them.
14:41Might as well just get the butter in here.
14:43Melt it.
14:44Get a little zhuzh on these mushrooms.
14:47Getting started on our onions here.
14:49I wanna calm the heat down.
14:51Get them a little bit like melting, tender.
14:54I'm gonna do two cups of broth.
14:56Let that cook out.
14:58Gravy is just a really ultra flavorful liquid.
15:02Often a meat based broth that is thickened
15:07to a consistency that's gonna coat a spoon.
15:10Basically, you just have to figure out
15:12how do you wanna thicken it?
15:13Do you wanna start with a roux?
15:14Usually a flour based roux
15:16that's gonna be sort of the beginning
15:18of the cooking process or a slurry,
15:21which is typically how you would use cornstarch,
15:23which comes in at the end of the cooking process
15:26when flavors are where they need to be,
15:28but you just want something to be thicker.
15:31Let's put a little bit of soy and Worcestershire in.
15:33The teaspoon of each.
15:35Worcestershire definitely lifts the flavor up a bit.
15:39So I'm just mixing equal parts cornstarch and water.
15:42If you just put raw powdered cornstarch into this,
15:46it'll start activating and binding
15:48in all kinds of unpredictable ways.
15:50That was about half of it
15:52and that seems like it's probably enough.
15:54I need to bring it to a simmer to fully activate it.
15:58So presto chango, we've got gravy.
16:01So it was like running right off our spoon before
16:05and now it's clanging.
16:06Nice and concentrated.
16:08I'm gonna turn that off.
16:09All right, so we've got egg coming up.
16:12When you're making sunny-side up eggs,
16:15basting with oil is a great way
16:16to kind of cook through the top
16:18without making your yolk cloudy and flipping it.
16:21Great.
16:22So we can assemble.
16:24We wanna just get a good scoop
16:25of our Rice Grits burger patty
16:29and then we've got our mushrooms.
16:32All right, so now we do our sauce.
16:35Just wanna make sure I kind of go
16:36until we're getting some sort of pooling down on the side
16:40and then last, certainly not least, our egg.
16:44There it is, final dish.
16:47What an interesting journey.
16:48Just based on my scores for my initial pass at the dish,
16:52I'm not wildly far off.
16:54Hopefully I got a little bit closer
16:56and yet I have no idea what this dish is
16:58or where it comes from.
17:00Let's talk scores.
17:01Ingredients, let's say that we got up to a 75.
17:05Technique, with the gravy enhancement,
17:08let's say we're at 85.
17:10For appearance, again, the enhancement of the sauce,
17:14let's call it 95.
17:15Taste, we'll see.
17:16There's whatever this is called,
17:18but it's where it comes from
17:20that I'm most curious about.
17:22Having Jamila, who is my boss,
17:24judge me is gonna be certainly an interesting experience
17:27in and of itself.
17:28I'm very curious to see how that goes.
17:30Hey, Chris.
17:31Hey, Jamila.
17:32How are you?
17:33Did they already tell you about the Rice Grits thing?
17:35All the things, but I want to present to you
17:39Loco Moco.
17:40What?
17:41Loco Moco.
17:42This is a dish that is traditional to Hawaii.
17:45It's a comfort dish.
17:47This one is from Sheldon Simeon.
17:49It's what you'll find at a diner on all parts of Hawaii.
17:53Essence of Loco Moco is rice, ground beef, gravy, mushrooms,
17:59and the egg on top as a stack.
18:00Besides the grits, what was your biggest challenge?
18:04It was really just not having perceived
18:06that there was a sauce
18:07that was independent of everything else.
18:09Oh God, what is this?
18:10Well, what I've learned about this dish
18:12is that all of these elements are separate.
18:15The gravy is cooked separately from the beef patty,
18:19cooked separately from getting that caramelization
18:21on the onions and mushrooms.
18:23And then of course the fried egg on top.
18:25Is it a trumpet mushroom?
18:26It probably could be a trumpet mushroom
18:28or whatever you might encounter.
18:30This is Chef Simeon's very specific take on this dish.
18:34Trumpet adds a little bit of that chef's flavor
18:36and that chef's character.
18:38You add it worst to sure.
18:39Have you ever seen this before?
18:44Kitchen bouquet.
18:45You know what's so funny?
18:46The only time I've ever used that
18:48was it is a food stylist's hack ingredient
18:52for getting phenomenally deep color on a turkey.
18:56Is there soy sauce in addition to that?
18:59Or is it just that?
19:00There's soy as well.
19:01So let's talk about the patty.
19:04Some of the key things that weren't in the patty
19:06were things like garlic salt.
19:08It had panko crumbs in there.
19:11There was a little mayo.
19:13I know you're making a face,
19:15but I like a patty with some chopped onion.
19:18Oh, I hate putting raw onion burger.
19:21And another ingredient,
19:22you use cornstarch to thicken the gravy.
19:25Sheldon Simeon's recipe calls for just making a roux
19:29with flour, very, very traditional.
19:31I had a 50-50 shot with that one.
19:33You really nailed so much of the flavor
19:36and even getting the rice,
19:38even after having some issues with the rice.
19:41Also on technique that I think is so important
19:43is that you've got this nice hard sear on the mushrooms
19:47and that's something that Sheldon Simeon's recipe
19:49really calls for.
19:50And the other thing I think is really important
19:52is the gravy.
19:53Even though the thickening agent was different,
19:56the texture of the gravy is so beautiful
19:59that it feels like you nailed it there.
20:00Nice, okay.
20:01And let's taste it.
20:02Okay.
20:02Oh, look at that color.
20:06That's delicious.
20:06Try his and then, you know, we can kind of see here.
20:11I think the biggest difference that I get
20:13is really just in the quality of the patty.
20:15It's not meatloaf,
20:16but it's heading a little bit more in that direction
20:18in terms of like a little bit finer texture.
20:20The meat's been worked a little bit more.
20:22The garlic salt.
20:23Yeah, you taste a lot more garlic in this one.
20:26Should we talk about the scores?
20:28Sure.
20:28So for ingredients, you gave yourself a 75,
20:31but I'm going to give you a 78.
20:32You actually got more of those ingredients.
20:35Okay.
20:36Technique, you gave yourself an 85,
20:38but I'm giving you a 90.
20:40Appearance, I mean, look at this.
20:41You've nailed it.
20:42I love the edginess on your fried egg.
20:46You gave yourself a 95,
20:47but I'm going to give you the 98.
20:48For taste, what do you give yourself?
20:50I think this is one of the closer ones that I've gotten.
20:52I'd push like maybe like 90.
20:54I'm going to give you the edge here
20:56and give you a 92.
20:57I'll certainly take that.
20:58So overall, you gave yourself an 86,
21:00but I'm going to give you an 89.
21:01Very good.
21:02Flirting with an A.
21:04That was really close.
21:05Wow.
21:05That's probably the best I've done in a while.
21:07So good.
21:08So cool.
21:08Thank you for doing this.
21:10Loco moco, everybody.
21:11Loco moco.
21:12I honestly felt pretty great today.
21:15We worked through the rice situation,
21:18getting that much closer on the gravy.
21:21Really gratifying.
21:22I really liked the dish.
21:24Totally new to me.
21:26Mayonnaise.
21:27Didn't see that one coming.
21:28He's got very perky looking mushrooms.
21:32Very perky.
21:33Done.
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