The Chef Show on Netflix via Media Center — Episode 6
In the fifth episode of The Chef Show, Jon Favreau and Roy Choi team up with celebrity chef David Chang to reclaim the wonders of Korean food.
The fifth episode of Jon Favreau and Roy Choi’s The Chef Show is all about the cultural bonds one has to food. Here they cook a variety of foods that give them a sense of home and family.
With Ugly Delicious chef David Chang joining the show, we also get to learn more about Korean food—the myths, the wonders, and the deliciousness.
Salsa Verde
Inspired by fellow director Robert Rodriguez’s cauliflower rice and pizza in the previous episode, Favreau decides to do his own take on cauliflower fried rice with a salsa verde, and roast pork.
To make the salsa verde, Favreau and Choi put a variety of greens on the grill—jalapenos, serrano peppers, and spring onions. Though Choi would have kept the jalapeno seeds, Favreau takes them out because his children don’t like spice that much. The grilled vegetables are then put in a mixer with orange juice, garlic, pepper, and cilantro. The result is a vibrant and verdant salsa verde that leaves Choi smacking his lips.
Roast Pork
Alongside the salsa verde for the cauliflower fried rice, Choi and Favreau make the marinade for the pork. Like most of Choi’s recipes, this marinade requires a large number of ingredients. It looks delicious but this marinade may be difficult to replicate at home. If you do wish to attempt it, you would be wise to plan well in advance.
Before putting the marinade on the pork however, the pork needs to be seasoned thoroughly. Favreau expertly seasons it before massaging the marinade into the body. The result is a delicious and juicy pork belly.
Cauliflower Kimchi Fried Rice with Pork Belly
Choi and Favreau challenge each other to a fried rice cook-off. While Choi uses regular rice, Favreau uses his cauliflower rice for the dish.
For his fried rice, Choi uses sesame and canola oil, to which Favreau adds scallion, garlic and ginger. Choi immediately leaps in to season it though Favreau doesn’t add that much seasoning at home. It’s definitely going to taste better this way!
Favreau then starts on his fried rice, adding a fair amount of oil before adding in his vegetables and pork, and then finally the rice. Usually Favreau cooks the cauliflower rice before adding it to the final dish, but he’s doing it differently now according to Choi’s instructions. He tops it off with the salsa verde.
There is a lot oil and salt in these dishes—Favreau and Choi periodically add more for flavour and texture. I doubt we can replicate this anywhere but in a professional kitchen.
Both the fried rice dishes look delicious but Choi is beginning to wonder whether Favreau’s will be better than his. Well, when they’re both done, Favreau and Choi compliment each other on a job well done. Favreau insists that Choi’s rice has a better texture than his, but when David Chang shows up, he is full of praise for both dishes. They certainly look great!
Seaweed Soup
Miyeok Guk, or seaweed soup, is known as Birthday Soup because most Korean families have it for birthdays. However, both Choi and Chang profess to have hated it as children—they would have the broth and leave the seaweed because they didn’t like the texture of it. Chang plans to make a different version of it though for Favreau and Choi.
The base of the seaweed soup is oxtail stock, a very gelatinous ingredient that needs to be boiled down. In a separate pan, Chang adds a large amount of butter which will be used to brown a number of vegetables and sliced oxtails. The stock is then strained into it.
Though Chang and Choi keep insisting that they hated seaweed soup, it’s looking great. Of course, this version is quite different from the kind the grew up eating. It’s been tweaked but still remains true to its Korean roots.
Roy’s Kalbi
Next up is Kalbi, the Korean barbecue beef short-ribs. Choi’s marinade includes a lot of delicious ingredients—mirin, garlic, orange juice, green onion, among others—and tastes brilliant. Chang is surprised by the addition of the orange juice—the fruit juices used by most Koreans he knows are kiwi, pineapple, or the traditional Asian pear. But Choi was inspired by the Mexican influence in his hometown of Los Angeles, and that’s really where the orange juice came from. The resulting kalbi is tender, cooks beautifully, and tastes delicious.
Braised Kalbi Stew
With the kalbi done, Choi turns to making another marinade, using apple and orange juice, in which he adds gorgeous pieces of short rib. It boils for two hours and tastes absolutely wonderful. This is the kind of stew that you have on special occasions because beef is considered expensive by most Koreans. In fact, most Korean food doesn’t have beef, explain Chang and Choi. The country is very mountainous so cattle is scarce.
A few more vegetables are added to the stew and once it is completed, it is ready to be served with rice. Three very happy cooks tuck in.
Tips for Home Cooks:
- To decrease the intensity of the spice levels of jalapenos, remove the seeds entirely.
- The major difference between home cooking and professional cooking is that chefs season the ingredients every step of the way. That’s a lot of salt for a home cook, though!
- To get a good crust on your pork, you need to roast it at a low heat until the last 20 minutes of cooking time, at which point, you turn the heat up very high.
- Steep your meat overnight in plain water to clean it of all impurities.
Final Thoughts
This was one of the most meaningful episodes of The Chef Show yet. As Favreau astutely mentions, culture lives through food and seeing the chefs make dishes that they loved, or disliked, in their childhood was fascinating.
Food is a communal thing—it’s best enjoyed with friends and family, and this episode highlights why that can be so special, and alienating, especially for immigrants who often struggle to find their place in the countries they inhabit. A fantastic watch and a great way to kick off the second half of the season.
The Chef Show is streaming on Netflix internationally.