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Hey, it's Francis. This week, we're taking you back to a full episode we did last year, the one and only Sola El -Wehly.
Have a listen. I'm Francis Lam, and this is The Splendid Table from APM.
Sola El -Wehly has been many things in her career.
She was the pastry chef of one of my favorite restaurants in my neighborhood, which I know Doesn't matter a whole lot to a whole lot of people, but it's where I learned that she was brilliant and maybe a little bit devious.
But after leaving the restaurant world, she became a writer, recipe developer, and eventually a bonafide cooking video superstar at Serious Eats, Bon Appetit, in the Babish Culinary Universe, and now at the New York Times.
She makes ingenious recipes, indulges in her deep sense of nerdiness by cooking ancient historical dishes.
She teaches her audience how to take pro techniques and make them feel completely comfortable at home.
And I knew people loved her work, but I knew it was really serious when I saw one of her fans once post, quote, I would lay down my life for Sola.
And now Sola is a bestselling cookbook author with a book called Start Here that I can assure you was engineered for maximum impact at five pounds, 600 plus pages and step by step photos for every recipe.
It's like a culinary school on your shelf.
And we are spending the whole hour with her this week, talking about that book, taking your questions and more.
Hey, Sola, it's great to see you.
Hey, good to see you too.
You know, so many people know you from your cooking videos.
And I so love how you've done so many different types of videos and they've really kind of showcase your personality, personality, your life, you know, from your love of teaching people to cook, you know, I love the ones where you work with your husband, Ham, and, you know, certainly showing off your deep nerdiness for history and just like nerdiness more generally.
But, you know, it occurred to me that I have followed your work for so long and we've known each other for a little while, but I don't actually know how you got into food and cooking.
So how'd that happen?
Well, we're going to go back.
take it back I'm gonna take it back well um I well I I grew up in a house with really good food so that was the beginning my mom is a very good cook and uh I spent a lot of time with her in the kitchen um not just because I liked cooking but also because it was the one place where we really got along because I I was uh I didn't totally always get along with my family uh because they're very conservative.
But the one place where we could put everything aside and click was in the kitchen.
So that was really the start.
I guess it's when I realized that you can really connect with anybody over food.
But I never thought it was going to be a career, not even a little bit.
It was an emotional connection you had, and you recognized that.
I liked cooking, and I fantasized about having a restaurant in the same way you fantasize about being in a band.
like you don't really think you're gonna ever get a grammy you just pretend to receive one in the bathroom yeah sure thank you thank you everyone oh my god i couldn't have done it without you my amazing producers and god and god yeah thank god i i especially because my family's so conservative i didn't think food was going to be a career but um i i went to school for for economics i really hated it and then i dropped out i did eventually go back i have to say that on the record so my aunts and uncles no no no family who's listening no but um yeah i really really hated anything besides food like
it's the only thing that i did that i that actually wasn't miserable and then i felt like i could be good at um so i i did work in like assorted food related jobs while i was in school you know like some chain restaurants coffee shops uh you know stuff like that things you do just to get through school but i i really wanted to get into like fine dining um i think after i graduated i was like super lost um really depressed i graduated in 2008 so it's like not the best time yeah not the best time.
So I just like backed back into like, all the restaurant jobs, I was working at a pub.
And I really just, I really liked the restaurant environment, which a lot of people hate, but it just really worked for me.
I feel you on that.
I mean, like, I had a similar story in the sense like I had an emotional connection to food from an early age, but never thought it could be a career, never thought it would be, you know, a professional path.
But same thing, actually, it was while I was in college, edge i started working at restaurants um and like a catering service just to you know exactly the same thing so i can pay my rent but did love the environment and love the camaraderie and yes i think we all know it can be super problematic it can be you know like the difference between something being harsh and tough and you feel great with your team because you pulled it through together and an environment that feels abusive or feels you know like the people are being taken an advantage of you know that's a continuum right so it really
just depends on the place or even the day where where your work life fell in that matter but like yeah i had a similar experience to you which is like it was really hard and i there are days when like i can't do this anymore and there are so many days where i'm like oh my god i love this yeah yeah but i knew i wanted to go beyond like the cheesecake factory yeah sure or go beyond getting fired from the cheesecake cake factory so i really wanted to get into fine dining because i like grew up watching that pbs show great chefs of america no great chefs of the world great chefs yeah and and i really
wanted to be one of those chefs with a paper hat making souffles and stuff uh i like fantasize about having a french restaurant um so i i wanted to get into fine dining i read about about this story that Grant Akits got his job at the French Laundry by basically harassing Thomas Keller.
Yeah. So Grant is the chef owner of Alinea, which is, you know, one of the great restaurants in the world.
And Thomas Keller at the French Laundry.
Yeah, totally. Yeah, so that was my initial tactic.
I'm just going to go harass people.
Yeah, yeah. I actually had like a stack of resumes and I walked up and down Ventura Boulevard Boulevard because I thought that was a fancy restaurant at the time.
I'm from the valley.
I didn't know, you know, I grew up going out back steakhouse.
I thought that was fine dining.
So I didn't realize that Ventura Boulevard restaurants weren't fine dining, but in my mind at the time they were.
So I walked up and down Ventura Boulevard harassing all the chefs while they're trying to get ready for service, trying to get a job.
Did not really work.
I even asked, I was was like please just let me wash some dishes for free it totally that did not click for me so i ended up going to culinary school okay it felt like a good uh good stepping stone into fine dining which it was um i i firmly don't recommend culinary school to anybody but it's it's tough because trying to get into a lot of these spaces having something like that on your resume really does help.
Right. But most chefs don't do background checks so you should probably just lie.
It's too much debt.
It's so much debt. You know this is going on the air.
It's so much debt. Like I want to save the young people, you know, from you're going to get so much debt from these schools and then just die in it because you make $8 an hour working in a restaurant.
There is a real disconnect.
I think we could have a whole conversation just about this for sure.
But anyway, I definitely want to talk to you about your book because your book, you know, I don't know if you were intending the anti -culinary school thing to be like, you can just buy my book because my book is basically a culinary school between two covers.
My book was inspired by how much I hated culinary school.
Yeah, nobody go to culinary school.
Don't get into debt.
Definitely don't take out a loan.
You're going to be like, oh, it's just $20 ,000.
And then before you know it, you're buried.
Yeah, for $40. Buried alive.
You could have Solo's entire culinary school in your brain.
Yeah, boom. Wow, such a great deal.
Okay. I totally want to get to that.
But we also have a lot of callers who really want to talk to you.
So we have Eric on the line.
And let's check in with Eric.
Is this live? This is live.
Whoa. He's a real human.
Hello. Hey, Eric. Hi.
Hi, Eric. Thanks for the call.
Well, I can get prize -winning black rabbits from a local farmer here in Broad Run, Virginia.
Oh, wow. With the carcasses weighing about five pounds.
Oh, wow. Big ones. So I tried using Elmer Fudd's Haasenfester recipe, but it was pretty tough.
And so what's the best way to cook rabbit, especially deboning the ribs and spine, but still being able to get the meat?
Oh, wow. Okay. So, Sola, I don't recall you having a rabbit chapter in the book, but being a lover of fine dining, have you cooked with rabbit before?
I have. And I think of rabbit as just like really difficult chicken.
Like first get really good at chicken.
And then a lot of the anatomy is the same.
A rabbit's body is just longer, but you break it down in a similar way.
You'll find the joints in the same way.
And it has a lot of the same issues that you have when you're cooking chicken, but exaggerated.
so you know in a chicken the breast meat is very lean and the dark meat is a little bit tougher but that's like the that contrast is like leveled up in a rabbit so white meat on a rabbit gets really dry really fast and while the leg meat can be more tough because rabbits are running around they get a lot of there's a lot of power in those muscles yeah yeah yeah they live a life so i think the best way to cook a rabbit is to break it down um separate it i don't like to cook at home because I do find that it's harder to get like really good out of both the the light and the dark meat so I would break
it down I recommend being really delicate with the loin um I I like to keep the the bones in while cooking because I feel like it just kind of prevents it from overcooking and for that go for like something uh more more gentle like a like a sear maybe not grill you know focus on like stovetop sear butter base situation just until you you get to know how to cook that loin better and then the the legs i would definitely brace give it some time to get really nice and tender yeah and always dry brine i everything should always be dry brined especially rabbit because it does have these like extra fun
challenges oh interesting so do you mean just like salt it as if you were seasoning it to cook but then let it hang out in the fridge overnight before you actually cook it uh -huh yeah Yeah, cover it in a nice layer of salt, pop it on a rack, throw it in the fridge and then that salt is going to be drawn out from the moisture in the meat, form a concentrated brine on the surface where it gets sucked back in, seasons the meat, tenderizes the muscles, breaks down the fat.
It's going to just like make it a little bit more foolproof.
Also, oh, whenever I'm not sure what to do with something that kind of reminds me of chicken, just fry it.
there's really no i mean okay people are going to get on my case about this there is such a thing as bad fried chicken but like i've never seen a chicken like a fried chicken so bad that wasn't like actually like set on fire or burned that i wasn't like i was sad to eat that you know so i guess that's a fair approach but i would say this about the uh the loin the white meat I think um it is very chickeny for sure but I don't think it's exactly the same as chicken so if you're getting these wonderful rabbits and you really want to highlight the fact that you're eating rabbit and not chicken I would think
for the for the you know just in general I would do sort of more mild mannered um accompaniments and and and cooking techniques right like Sola you said dry brine the breast or the loin um and then you can like sear it and then like baste it with butter.
So cook it somewhat gently and really just kind of enjoy the flavor of the rabbit that way.
To my mind, like I would just enjoy it for what it is and like light vegetables, spring vegetables would be super nice.
But the legs, I do like a really nice braised rabbit leg with like mushrooms, bacon, some stock, onions and you know, braise them to a tender and serve that with pasta.
like fresh pasta, I think is super nice.
Making me hungry now.
Great. Well, thank you so much. Thank you.
Thanks for the call, Eric.
Talk to you later. Bye -bye.
We'll be back with more of our conversation with Sola El -Wehly, author of Stark Here.
I'm Francis Lam, and this is The Splendid Table from APM.
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i'm francis lamb and this is the show for curious cooks and eaters we're spending time today with one of the modern stars of the culinary world sola l whaley let's get back to it with her you were a pastry chef at first weren't you no i was savory oh okay um I started out savory because that's just what happened back then.
It feels like I was in the kitchen such a long time ago because it has changed so much in the last, like, 15 years.
But when I started, there was a lot of times where I was the only girl.
So they would just be like, oh, just go make a cake.
You can do that, right?
Which, you know, to their surprise, I couldn't at the time.
i remember i i was ex -turning at del posto i was on the asaji line which is like their yeah it's a fancy italian place that doesn't exist anymore yeah because of the controversy um you guys can look it up it's fun no i was working on like the asaji line which is where you make all these little snacks like we made like little um what's arancini little fried rice balls and stuff yeah and then and some chickpea things i'd barely remember but uh they were short on pastry so they just assumed because i was a girl that i knew how to make shoe and then they just pat a shoe and i had never made a girl
make some powder shoe oh yeah i i didn't even know what it was they gave me this recipe and they're like okay go make 4 ,000 pate a choux in a tilt skillet which I had not done before so I just wasted like 80 eggs you know so you shouldn't assume you should assume nobody knows how to do anything but yeah so that that's really how I got into pastry I just kept getting thrown at it and I did like it very much so I rolled with it you know sometimes you just roll with the punches and it ended up being really really fun.
And I think it kind of gave me a leg up because now I feel comfortable with both.
And did you know the book is half pastry?
I did know that. Whoa, crazy.
300 pages of pastry.
Yeah. So I know you just mentioned, you know, working on a tilt skillet, which is, you know, a kiddie pool thing that you cook in, in a commercial environment.
But like, uh you don't use those anymore and actually i think that brings us to our next caller hello hey may where are you calling from hey um i'm calling from port angeles washington hi may oh right on what would you like to talk about yeah so i have a quick question i'm just wondering what appliances or kitchen tools do you both consider must -haves for um us amateur chefs out here okay so well i think when you're starting out you could pretty you could get away without having anything that you need to plug in you can i think in the beginning all you really need is i recommend a solid cast iron skillet
um and like get to know how to season it it's very affordable like 20 bucks you can get a 10 inch cast iron skillet and pretty much cook anything in it as well as a dutch oven which um they what if you're buying a new dutch oven it is very expensive so i've actually never bought a new dutch oven it's very easy to find used dutch ovens at like stores or even you can you could get a new dutch oven at like a ross or marshalls that's like the last season's color oh sure yeah yeah yeah that's super smart and it's like so affordable so don't Don't be intimidated by like the $300 Dutch ovens.
It doesn't need to be that way.
And a cutting board. A cutting board and a knife.
I believe that is all you need.
And you can cook most things with like cutting board, knife, Dutch oven, skillet.
Oh, of course, some spoons.
But you don't need to worry about appliances.
Like you could get away without a blender or a KitchenAid.
I don't even own a rice cooker.
It'll be okay. Fair enough.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
My only personal exception to that is I can't live without my rice cooker.
I can cook rice on the stove.
I can cook rice in the oven.
But I just feel like I'm doing something wrong to my ancestors if I don't have a rice cooker.
So that's my only beef with that.
Your ancestors did not have a rice cooker, Francis.
I don't know what you're talking about.
We've been using rice cookers in China since...
What, 10 ,000 years ago?
Since 10 ,000 BC before white people had electricity we figured out rice cookers that you just can't convince me otherwise um but I I totally agree I mean actually I feel bad now because now I pigeonhole myself as like hello I'm Chinese I should talk about a wok and like I do have a wok but actually I rarely use my wok because I I cook everything in a cast iron skillet and sauce pans i do i do really love my sauce pans um for sauce pans like i i love my i bought this thing on sale once in a department store i was in my 20s i was like maybe 20 so i've had this thing for many more than 20 years and it
was a little one quart um like all clad sauce pan i'd never owned anything all clad i was like oh my god i can buy an all clad thing it was only like 30 on sale like what do you do with a one quart saucepan i love that saucepan i use it almost daily anything i want to cook for myself i can pretty much cook in a one quart saucepan i made rice actually that saucepan like that's amazing a small saucepan is so useful like boiling eggs yeah uh making rice not in a rice cooker i did it i did do it the other day Because I was making basmati rice, and my friend Kushboo was like, don't use a rice cooker
for basmati rice. Now you're offending my ancestors.
Okay, fair. So I did make the basmati rice in the one -quart saucepan.
So what do you have that you're like, is this the right thing?
Is this the wrong thing?
Or what do you feel like you're missing?
I think right now what I'm missing, I feel like I'm missing a really good knife set.
I have a saucepan I have the cast iron skillet that's a little new for me so I'm still figuring out how to season it and would love any tips or tricks there but yeah I think what I'm missing is just a really good knife if y 'all have any recommendations well I don't think you need a full set because I feel like with those sets you usually don't end up using most of the knives I think go for or a chef's knife a serrated um and a and a pairing or a petty and you could pretty much do everything I prefer a petty knife which is like six to eight inches long versus a pairing which is more like four inches
because you can kind of use it for butchering fish meat it can do a lot um and then for the chef's knife it really I believe a chef's knife is whatever you feel comfortable cutting with um so it doesn't have to be you know the german like wrapped up in a bag very fancy no yeah start start start simple and i think you should aim for whatever knife you feel comfortable sharpening because all knives go dull no matter what kind of knife you get it will get dull so you want to focus on something you can you can comfortably sharpen that's so helpful thank you yeah so i i i'm a little bit disappointed
sometimes because like i i i'm not like a very materialistic person but i have a little bit of like i have a very small like collectors kind of like side to me like i'd love to get more of these and wouldn't it be nice to get something nice and new and and you know i'm like oh i cook so i should buy kitchens i'm like you know every time i buy a new knife i'm like i don't need that I buy a new pan I don't need that you know I don't use it I use my one quart saucepan I use a five quart saucepan I use a dutch oven I use a cast iron skillet I use the three knives you mentioned and like that's kind
of all I ever use ever I think we're getting into a deeper conversation what hole are you trying to fill with all this stuff i'm personally really good questions i'm pretty anti -stuff which is uh annoying for some people look i appreciate you saying that i have also seen what your kitchen looks like so you cannot come at me with that you have an entire restaurant speed rack in your new york city apartment i didn't buy most of it what hole are you filling by pretending to be someone you're not how about that okay uh we're gonna let you go while so and i fight it out um and pull our therapist into
this uh cool but thank you so much for the call no thank you both so much uh so i loved you in the big brunch have a good one thank you have a good one yeah you too thank you we have another caller Let's go right to her, and hopefully this won't get into our deep -seated emotional issues.
Hey, Melanie. Hello.
Hey, Melanie. Hi, Melanie.
Thanks for the call.
What do you want to talk about?
Well, I've been wondering why my last attempt at making pavlova was unfortunately such a disappointment.
I knew about not attempting to make egg white meringue type dishes on a cloudy overcast day.
And even though this was a bright, sunny, beautiful spring day, the pavlova came out sticky and real chewy instead of the wonderful, dry, crunchy way that it does come out when it's done right, comes out right.
And so I didn't know if it was the new gas oven that I just bought or if that had anything to do with it.
If you had any advice on what might be the issue there.
That's an interesting question.
Well, Melanie, I have to say, first of all, I love a pavlova.
So typically a pavlova is a baked meringue, meringue, a very light meringue with some often a fruit sort of sauce or a compote, or sometimes there's like a lemon curd or something and usually some cream.
And so you have this like really nice meringue with that yummy tasty thing it's on top of.
I have to say, I love a chewy pavlova.
And in fact, I much prefer a chewy pavlova over a crispy dry one.
However, you want a crispy dry one and And Sola can get you there.
So, Sola, what's the problem?
Okay, so tell me about your pavlova recipe.
What kind of sugar was in it and did it contain any starch?
Well, I believe it was powdered sugar, confectioner's sugar, that does have some cornstarch in it.
Okay, cool. That's my preferred sugar for pavlova.
us so i don't think it was the recipe there's two things that could have happened um the first is if you under whip it so if you don't whip the sugar and eggs till stiff peak it won't like really bake up crisp like that so if it if it was more of like a soft peak when you when you baked it you might end up with something more chewy um and then the other thing is uh even if it was a clear day, it could have been humid.
Really, the enemy of pavlovas and anything with that much high concentration of sugar is humidity.
So perhaps it was humid that day, even though it was clear out.
Those are the two main things, the under whipping and the humidity.
The other thing could be because you said it was a new oven, maybe the air circulation wasn't the the same as your old one so i always after i bake it i leave the door cracked open with a wooden spoon and that kind of lets some of the moisture out and actually i have a i have an old oven that doesn't really let the air circulate very well so i i pop open my oven a couple times while i'm baking just to make sure all the moisture can uh have somewhere to go during the baking process i don't know if that helps oh that's interesting yeah thank you that's great suggestions so So actually, if you wanted
to go for a crisp meringue versus a sort of chewy or sticky meringue or vice versa, is it like a bake time thing?
Is it you actively whisk less if you want the chewy version?
Like is it in the recipe?
Would you see it in the recipe that you're like, oh, this will obviously be the one versus the other?
I don't know if you can tell from the recipe.
So I think a perfect pavlova for me is where the outside is crispy and the inside is like a marshmallow, kind of pillowy and soft. And that what distinguishes a pavlova from just a regular meringue is there's always a little bit of starch, which helps you get that like pillowy inside.
So I like making pavlovas with powdered sugar because you already get that starch in there.
Instead of some recipes, you make your meringue with granulated sugar and then you fold in the starch, which is kind of hard to do.
So you might end up with like pockets of cornstarch in there.
so that's that starch will help you get that like pillowy texture um but when if you intentionally want like a chewy meringue i like yeah you're with like a crisp crust like a chewy in the inside i i feel like it's about maybe just baking it less perhaps um when when i'm going for like that that that crisp outside pillowy inside i bake it until it's set enough that you can peel it off the paper like you'll be able to like get your spatula underneath the meringue and like it should easily peel off so you know that the outer outer shell of the meringue is set but it won't be totally dry it'll feel
a little bit soft and then when you let it sit out at room temperature it'll kind of stiffen up a bit more so i think it's a little little bit about bake time um and a little bit about whipping and it's one of those things where it's like kind of just getting all those details ironed out which is unfortunately what baking's all about you know yeah all right well thank you so much for the call melanie yeah thank you i'm wondering now after hearing all this maybe it's because of where i live now in southern virginia where the humidity is high no matter what.
It seems like whether it's a bright sunny day or not.
So that may be the culprit of the whole thing.
Yes, Virginia, it's tough.
I'm not going to stop trying to make it though.
It's so yummy, the fresh fruit.
So thank you again for your help.
Appreciate it. Thank you.
Yeah, thank you. Sasha, are we just like out of luck if you live in a humid environment?
Can you just not make this dish?
i feel like yes not everything's meant for everyone it's fine sorry in the winter is it less humid like in december um no surprisingly not i i mean i'm just getting that from the you know the internet weather but when i see humidity 86 six percent and the sun is out i'm curious you know what is it but they obviously know how to measure it so wait i have a workaround for you okay uh you know the the fully dry crisp meringues that you can buy in the box yeah yeah those those try making like a eaten mess with those that's like where you take those meringues and you crush them up and you layer it
with fruit and whipped cream and then some of it some of the meringue will start to melt and and maybe kind of give you that like pillowy vibe um but uh because i think it'll be a little bit tough in virginia to make uh pavlova unless you have like a dehydrator but don't go buying a dehydrator just try the store -bought meringues yeah okay we literally told the last caller you don't have to to buy anything but a cast iron pan it's like now we're like oh go get a dehydrator I just don't really do that okay well thanks again all right Melanie well thank you so much for the call yeah thank you thank
you all right bye -bye I you know I I feel I didn't feel like you were doing this but I felt a little bit um shamed by my preference in pavlova but that's okay I love a pavlova I think a pavlova is a wonderful dessert It's one of the greatest in the world But I really especially like it when It's just a little chewy and sticky in the middle It's great, make it in the summer It'll be chewy for you Yeah, I'm just going to go buy one I'm not going to make it That's why we need pastry chefs Long live the pastry chef We're spending the hour with one of America's favorite cooking video stars and author of the cookbook,
Start Here, Sola El -Waley.
More coming up. I'm Francis Lam, and this is The Splendid Table from APM.
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I'm Francis Lam and this is the show for curious cooks and eaters we've got our good friend and cooking video star Sola Elwele on today let's get back to it with her we have another caller this is Angela hey Angela how are you?
hi Francis I'm doing really well How are you?
I'm great, thanks. You're here with Sola.
And what would you like to talk about?
Well, I would like to say thank you.
You are both on my imaginary best friend list, so it's so amazing to be able to talk to you.
And I have a question about ice cream.
And my question is, I've been substitute teaching at a low -income elementary school, and I heard this really interesting conversation.
conversation so I pulled a Francis lamb and just asked a question and listened instead of asking the children to go back to their tables they were saying um one of them said he had a freezer under his bed this is a seven -year -old and the freezer was full of um ice cream of all the flavors in the world and he was allowed to eat any of them that he wanted to I kind of waited to see what the little girl would do if she'd call him a liar or what you know what was going to happened and she leaned in with her eyes wide and said me too you know and i thought that's amazing that she just joined his fantasy
and you know and so i thought i do have an ice cream maker i wonder it's a really food insecure school um what would be a flavor that they haven't tasted that i could make that you know i could take it into the class and they could taste something to seem really interesting.
This is, okay, we might be on real best friends list soon because this is an amazing question and I love that you want to do this.
This is so amazing.
Thanks. But okay, what would be a really interesting, well, you, okay, so an interesting flavor, but you want to be like something that wouldn't be like so off the wall that you're just like, why are you doing this?
Exactly, yes. um but cool and delicious and sola what you got hmm i mean so there's this youtube series where they would ask kids to draw a food and then a chef would try and make it and sometimes they They would draw things like, I want to like a dragon cake with gummy bear eyes.
And maybe they can help you brainstorm.
Include some audience participation.
But my favorite flavor of ice cream is actually vanilla.
Thanks for the help, Sola.
Do you have like a vanilla hack?
I mean, maybe they would love that too because they're seven.
So that would be sort of a gentle flavor.
Well, I think when you make vanilla with like a really good vanilla bean, I like to get vanilla beans online because they tend to be fresher from somewhere like Regalis or Halea vanilla.
When you buy it online, it's like really fresh and really sticky and super aromatic.
And it's like completely different from the one you get it in the store in like the little jars.
I think it's the greatest smell in the world.
It is incredible. And you don't actually need very much. You can make a quart of vanilla with like half a bean.
And I think it could be cool to like, I don't know, let them smell the pods, you know, do a little teaser.
Okay. I love that. They would love that.
Let them smell the pods before you make the ice cream.
And I always recommend like I'll make my base with the seeds and the pod and then I like let it steep overnight.
So it gets like really intense.
tense. And I feel like when you let vanilla like really steep and, and, and I prefer to do when I'm making a vanilla and I really want to taste the vanilla, I do an eggless base.
So it's just milk, cream, a little bit of corn syrup, uh, sugar and milk powder.
Um, and, and I like doing that like eggless base.
So nothing gets in the way of the vanilla flavor.
It's just like the vanilla and the milk and the cream, and then let it steep overnight, maybe even like two nights.
and then that that aroma really like permeates.
And I feel like it tastes like orchids and marshmallows.
To me, it's like, really the best flavor.
Most vanilla ice creams out there are Madagascar vanilla, but you could try like Tahitian vanilla or Mexican vanilla.
And I know it's just vanilla and vanilla gets like a bad rap, but I really do love it.
And it'll be unlike any vanilla ice cream they could buy.
I love that. And I love that you added steep overnight too, because that's the kind of, you know, things that are left out of cookbooks.
And like Francis said something just offhand about peeling the stems of broccoli, and that's the kind of thing that a lot of people don't write down.
So thank you for the, you know, sleep overnight tip.
Oh, yeah, that's a good one.
And actually, I love Sola's, I mean, you'll need an actual recipe, but her idea of using an eggless base, where that does include corn syrup and milk powder, Those are two kind of magic ingredients that I would not skip because the corn syrup, you know, also another thing that gets a bad rap.
You're not using it like, you know, an industrial food processor does.
Like, don't worry about two tablespoons of corn syrup in your homemade ice cream.
That really, really helps the texture of the ice cream.
And the milk powder, A, adds a little more milk flavor, but the protein in the milk powder also helps to keep your ice cream texture really super smooth and creamy.
And I think it also keeps it so you can keep it longer in the freezer, right?
It sort of stabilizes the texture so it doesn't want to get sort of icy and grainy in the freezer as easily.
But how much ice cream are you going to make, Angela?
The teachers have about 24 students in the class.
So I could easily, you know, make a couple gallons and then bring in little ice cream cones and do it in class.
And I love the idea of sharing the smell of the pods with them.
So and I love the idea of corn syrup, too, because we are in corn country and I feel like the corn syrup could sort of hold hands with the unfamiliar and introduce the kids in that way, something they know and something they don't know.
That's cool. Hey, you know.
OK, so you're making a lot of ice cream.
If you're, like, a home ice cream maker, it probably makes, like, a quart at a time.
Right. If you're making several gallons, and you're making ice cream for, like, a bunch of weekends, stashing it in your freezer, I would say corn ice cream.
I've never met anyone who doesn't love sweet corn ice cream.
I've never heard of this.
But so many people, the first time they have it, like, it blows their mind that you can make.
Like, yeah, I mean, literally make ice cream that tastes like corn.
So I let go because I can't think of a recipe off the top of my head.
Oh, I love corn ice cream.
Corn ice cream is very good.
So I like to both make a puree with the fresh corn.
This would probably be better in the summer when the corn is, like, really sweet.
But could it work with, like, frozen corn?
Because frozen corn is often still pretty sweet.
I don't think so. Okay, well, well.
i tried because when when you blitz the blitz up the corn the frozen corn has like a little grittiness but but you you want to shave off the kernels and you're going to put the kernels and the cobs in there cook it all together also go eggless here um and then once you've got like give it that overnight steep again once you've gotten all your flavor from your cobs you want to take them out and like really use your hands to squeeze every bit of ice cream base off of it and then you're going to puree it to to blitz up the corn like kernels um and pass that through a fine mesh strainer uh and it's
it's very tasty and and i feel like with corn ice cream you need a little extra salt it really brings out that corn flavor so it's going to be kind of like a little salty savory corn ice cream situation i've never heard of anything like this oh that that'll will be really good in corn country it'll be no one on this planet does not fall in love with sweet corn ice cream the first time they taste it it it's it's just magic magic magic wow okay why would you add the cob though what does the cob do for it oh there's just a lot of flavor in the cob like you don't want to let it go to waste yeah yeah
okay something i do sort of maniacally during summer is when i buy fresh corn and i use the corn i i store all the cobs like I'll I'll just like wrap it in plastic wrap if I had three if I had three you know cobs of corn that night I'll just take the cob wrap them in plastic wrap and then one day my wife opened the freezer and be like why did you take a quarter of the freezer in corn cobs please get rid of these and I take them all out and I boil them in water and the corn stock is terrific I use it in place with vegetable stock and place with chicken stock.
It has just such a nice, mellow corn flavor.
It's great. That's amazing.
I've never heard of anyone doing that around here.
That's how you know we're fancy, because we use all the garbage that people throw out.
I love that. Well, thanks so much for the call, Angela, and I really hope you make really wonderful ice cream, and the kids love the vanilla, the experience of all the vanilla, or if you want to wait until the summer and make them corn ice cream.
I just love that you're doing that that's really wonderful okay I'll send you a picture thank you so much alright bye bye oh my god I love that okay so I want to get back to you Sola now that we've done several pastry calls in a row and you were a pastry chef and half your book is pastry but I don't want to focus only on that because like you said women so often get typecast as pastry chefs in the restaurant world but there's something that was really interesting about the intro to your book and how you talked about being a particular kind of learner.
And you're not really one to memorize facts or memorize the steps.
You know, like that's not really your strength.
But for you, when you learn about the why, you're like, tell me why this is and then I'll get it.
And I kind of feel like pastry and baking is like sort of famously or stereotypically this world where it's all about precise measurements and precise techniques.
So you got to know exactly one thing, next thing, third thing, and that's the only way to do it.
But talk to me about your approach to writing your book, both the pastry side and the savory side, and how much you want to focus on the why rather than the what do I do next?
next um well i guess the the first thing i did was figure out what i thought the core techniques i wanted to focus on would be so each chapter is a technique um and that just like narrowing that down took forever because i really wanted to be what was essential to the home cook so there's a lot that's left out because like there's no i initially had a frying chapter but but, like, you don't need to fry.
There was a lamination chapter.
What do you mean I don't need to fry?
You can eat really well without deep frying ever, you know?
So once I figured that out...
Respectfully disagree.
Please continue. Then it was just like...
Then I guess my primary focus was really how to teach people those techniques through the text and through the recipes.
So every recipe is meant to really, like, teach you more about the technique.
So, there are dishes in there that are like good weeknight dinners, of course, but it's really a teaching book.
So, every recipe is meant to teach. And then the text as well.
I really wanted to break down every single one of these techniques as much as I possibly could, like the science, the hows, the equipment, because I really want you to get it like i really want you to leave the book like after the searing chapter i want you to know everything about how to sear so that anytime you find a recipe where they're searing you like get it you you you're not like blindly just following a step to like pat your meat dry you understand why you know that like oh i need dry meat to make browning happen because the enemy of brown is wet you know so i really wanted to explain all
the whys because i think it just Just makes it easier to know what you're doing, whether you're following a recipe or not.
Yeah. I don't know.
But I also love – so a lot of – it's not the first book to want to teach basic cooking techniques in a sort of systematic way.
But a lot of times I do find when folks write those books, they feel like, well, if I'm teaching beginner – beginner is maybe a weird word. But like basic techniques that people want like basic recipes to go with them.
And I love that your approach is like we're not doing that.
They're basic techniques, but the recipes themselves are not basic at all in terms of flavor or creativity.
So there's one that really caught my eye that I'd love for you to talk about.
And it's the Bastia -inspired phyllo chicken pie.
Oh, yeah. Tell us about that dish and what the lesson, what the technique lesson is there.
Well, first of all, I really love Bastia.
But the traditional one, it's like a long -braised pigeon.
and it's it's it's a difficult recipe if you want to make it like fully traditional wrapping pastry and it's like yeah very spiced and it's moroccan right it's a it's like a beautiful moroccan pie yeah and what i love the most about it is it's got like this sweet savory thing happening um but i wanted to capture the flavor of like a really long braise by just focusing on like the point of this recipe is to teach you how to brown meat ground meat in particular um um ground meat can be hard to brown sometimes because it is very wet and i feel like getting it like really crispy brown sometimes you
end up drying out the meat um that's totally true like yeah i had never thought about thinking like searing a steak or a pork chop as long as the pan is hot and the and you've dried the surface and the meat like it's usually gonna work but yeah Yeah, often when you're browning ground meat, like it releases a lot more juice.
So the way I like to brown my ground meat, which I highlight in this recipe and like in all my like old recipes, I do this as well.
I put the ground meat in the pan in like one even layer and then just like leave it.
Because a lot of recipes tell you to like break it up and toss it into crumbles.
I just like let it stay put.
That's like the main lesson.
and just like let it stay put let it brown and then it browns really deeply on one side and then the other side stays a little bit moist and then you go in and break it up afterwards and add your spices and your garlic and all of that so the lesson there was just like how to brown meat but like from that you get this like really cool recipe that is also a shortcut to bestia yeah and and hopefully it like teaches more people about those flavors because i think it's like like, a really cool flavor combo, because in a lot of Western cuisine, you don't use warm spices like cinnamon in savory food
as much as you do in, like, Middle East and South Asia.
So it's, like, a flavor combo that I think you already got cinnamon, so just, like, now you got more ways to use it.
Yeah. Actually, why don't you walk us through the recipe really quick?
So you've browned this ground chicken, and what are the spices you're adding to it?
it uh so it's spiced with uh garlic ginger turmeric cinnamon and black pepper okay and then what my favorite part is so you have your little spiced meat mixture you put it in phyllo fold it up after you bake it you sprinkle it with powdered sugar and it sounds wild but the sweet savory thing is really it's really delicious it's crispy the buttery phyllo it's crispy and there are raisins into two right there's raisins yeah little pops of of sweet yeah oh that sounds so good right on well thanks so much for coming by and congratulations on this monumental book yeah thanks for having me sola l whaley
is the author of the new york times bestseller start here instructions for becoming a better cook and she left us with her recipe for that bestia inspired philo chicken pie Find it at splendidtable .org And that is our show for the week Come make something new this week, will ya?
Talk to you in a few APM Studios are run by Chandra Kavadi and Joanne Griffith And The Splendid Table was created by Sally Swift and Lin -Mozito Kasper It's made each week by technical producer Jennifer Lukey Producer Erica Romero Digital producer James Napoli and managing producer Sally Swift. I'm Francis Lam, and this is APM Studios.
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