The Chef Show Season 1 Episode 8: Chef Film Recipes Review

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The Chef Show HOLLYWOOD, CA – APRIL 23: Producer Jon Favreau (L) and actor Scarlett Johansson attend the Los Angeles Global Premiere for Marvel Studios? Avengers: Infinity War on April 23, 2018 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Rich Polk/Getty Images for Disney)

Scarlett’s Pasta (Aglio E Olio)

Now it’s time for the famous Chef pasta, which Favreau and Choi have named Scarlett Pasta, because Scarlett Johansson still talks about eating it during her scene in the film . It’s quite a popular dish on Instagram, notes Favreau, because it’s so simple to make. Follow along, home chefs.

Favreau has a ton of parsley to get through and before he’s even half done, Choi has already got the pasta cooking. But Favreau doesn’t need to feel too bad—Choi takes it upon himself to finely slice garlic and it doesn’t go well. Slicing the garlic with a knife takes ages, and using a mandolin is cumbersome because the garlic is so tiny. Please, we don’t want to see blood on The Chef Show!

In two separate pans, Choi adds oil and then fries the garlic, adding salt and chili pepper for flavour. He also begins to add chopped parsley before Favreau reminds him that they usually add it at the end. So, one pan gets parsley while the other doesn’t.

It all starts to cook very quickly, making poor Favreau rather frantic, as he’s terrified the garlic will get bitter. But Choi remains calm, and dunks in the pasta along with some of the pasta water and a knob of butter. A little shaved parmesan, and Choi and Favreau are demolishing the pasta. It looks so good and we can definitely make this at home!

Chocolate Lava Cake

While making Chef, Favreau and Choi asked other chefs the one dish that they absolutely didn’t want to make, and they all unanimously said chocolate lava cake. It’s too 90s and overdone—like a pop song that’s played too often. Which is exactly why they decided to include it in the film.

For this dish, Andrew Rea, host of YouTube’s Binging with Babish, joins Favreau and Choi. They make the ganache, Favreau and Choi melting chocolate, then slowly adding the cream. Only after that process is completed does Rea realise that they were supposed to heat the cream before adding it. Choi had mentioned that earlier. Oops. It goes into the fridge nonetheless.

In a bain-marie, Favreau melts butter and chocolate while Choi works on the brown sugar and eggs. They add in the melted chocolate and its ready to be put in bowls. The ganache, now hardened, is scooped out and added into the melted chocolate, then put into the oven.

While that’s cooking, the trio have an emotional moment. Rea recently got a tattoo of the twirling pasta fork used in Chef, and Favreau is so moved that he gifts Rea the actual instrument from the film. Rea gets all choked up. How lovely.

The lava cakes only cook for nine minutes and it looks gorgeous on the plate with some whipped cream and berries. They can’t wait to cut into it and are delighted when the molten ganache gently oozes out. Stunning!

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