Foodie Flicks

Watch Bittman Make Sweet Potato Salad - Foodie Flicks

by Monika Bartyzel, Posted Oct 9th 2009 @ 11:00AM

Whether you read the New York Times or not, you know Mark Bittman. He's the Minimalist, the man who's vegan until dinner and the popular writer who has published a number of ultra-handy cookbooks. Recently, he wrote a blog post about Sweet Potato Salad, taking the predictable white-potato-and-mayonnaise variety and turning it into healthy, colorful fare. Thanks to YouTube, you can watch him make it.

This is not your everyday cooking show. I mean, the guy turns pitas into turntables! But he gets down to business -- after a hilarious rap-star opener -- and relays the intricacies of his sweet potato salad. Rather than slopping a whole bunch of mayo in a bowl with veggies, this salad gets an updated oil-and-lime splash with some spicy Southern sass.

And maybe it's less than hygienic, but I dug watching him dip his finger into the dressing, licking it and then just wiping it on a tea towel. It's not the most PC prep etiquette, but it's a lot more realistic than 20 shots of the cook cleaning his hands.

Has Bittman charmed you with his modern potato salad? Tell us in the comments.

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Seed Art - Foodie Flicks

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by Monika Bartyzel, Posted Oct 2nd 2009 @ 3:00PM

As foodies, we're automatically inclined to take every morsel of what's given to us and deposit it right into our mouths. But food is also ripe for art -- not just the Alinea-type awe inspired on the plate, but as ingredients for inedible creations. This week's Foodie Flicks heads to Cooking Up a Story to celebrate the seriously impressive seeds and deets of Portland's Cathy Camper.

When some artist friends decided to enter the Minnesota State Fair's juried arts show, Camper took a different route. She entered the seed art competition, set up to promote the seeds and crops of Minnesota. But she didn't take the tacky route and recreate Elvis or lather her portraits in shtick. She recreated famous figures she was drawn to -- Frida Kahlo, Malcolm X, Che Guevara, Bob Marley and even Haile Selassie. Delighting in the process, Camper explains that the art is not in the end product, but the growth of meeting artistic challenges and finding ways to beat them. And really, that seems to be the only way to do it. As she notes, these funky, food-filled art pieces aren't permanent. Just like any piece of edible fare, they discolor, age and lose their life. But at least for a moment, they're impressive.

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Get Southwest Saucy - Foodie Flicks

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by Monika Bartyzel, Posted Sep 25th 2009 @ 11:00AM

Mayonnaise might be a perfect condiment on its own -- consistently creamy and delicious -- but it has the potential for so much more. Above, Chef Jason Hill of CookingSessions.com pulses up a super-simple Southwest Sauce. A good spicy mayo dressing can really save dry chicken or steak, bland sandwiches and even raw veggies.

This sauce starts with a base of mayo and sour cream and gets a kick from garlic, serrano peppers, cilantro, onion and dried spices. Other than portioning out the ingredients, the only work the food processor doesn't do is chop the cilantro, but we bet you could get away with just picking the leaves off the stem and throwing them in. Once it's combined, load the sauce into a squeeze bottle and add it on whenever Southwest Sauce is needed.

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Ricardo Larrivée Chats About Eating Out in Montreal - Foodie Flicks

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by Monika Bartyzel, Posted Sep 18th 2009 @ 11:00AM

One of the most popular faces of the Canadian Food Network scene is Ricardo Larrivée -- a wonderfully flamboyant Montreal native who whips up unending piles of deliciousness. While promoting his new book "Meals for Every Occasion," Tourisme Montreal chatted with him about the notable foodie destinations in the French-Canadian city.

Of course, the first things on the docket were the classic smoked meat and poutine. While he stuck to the roots of the curds and gravy grandeur by stressing the pleasure of simple fry stands, Larrivée also made sure to mention the succulent wonder of Au Pied du Cochon's foie gras poutine. (If you follow Anthony Bourdain's show, you definitely know what we're talking about.) From there, he mentions foods and destinations such as the excellent local brew, Blanche de Chambly, French feasting at Restaurant Julien and Jean-Talon Market -- which Larrivée says is the largest open market in North America.

Anyone else ready for a road trip?

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Fixing That Tricky, Broken Hollandaise - Foodie Flicks

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by Monika Bartyzel, Posted Sep 11th 2009 @ 11:00AM

A classic eggs Benedict looks like a luscious exercise in simplicity -- a nicely toasted English muffin topped with Canadian bacon, a poached egg and sinfully creamy hollandaise sauce. But looks can be deceiving -- that sauce is a thorn in the side of many cooks, a precarious and gentle concoction that needs coddling to turn out right.

Luckily, as the above video from foodwishes explains, a broken hollandaise is not necessarily the end of the world. Restaurant chefs might throw the separated melted butter and egg yolk away, but home cooks can save it with two things we all have on-hand -- a warm bowl and a little boiling water. Slowly, while whisking up a storm, the failed sauce is added to the bowl and water, where it becomes creamy and pristine once again.

Apparently hollandaise isn't so insurmountable after all!

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Salmon, Red Lobster-Style - Foodie Flicks

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by Monika Bartyzel, Posted Sep 4th 2009 @ 11:00AM

The whole point of Red Lobster is to eat seafood without having to cook for yourself, but that hasn't stopped the restaurant's senior executive chef, Michael LaDuke, from sharing the chain's seafood grilling secrets with the Internet at large. In the video above, he heads for the grill to prepare Peppercorn-Crusted Salmon with Wasabi Soy glaze.

This is one super-easy -- and dare we say delicious-looking -- meal that's just perfect for a quick and sophisticated taste of the ocean. Grilled asparagus and red pepper are sliced and topped with the peppercorn-crusted fish, a little pickled ginger and a nice drizzle of that wasabi soy glaze.

Oh, if only dining out at Red Lobster were even half this delicious!

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How to Make Edible Garnishes - Foodie Flicks

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by Monika Bartyzel, Posted Aug 28th 2009 @ 11:00AM

How To Make Edible Garnishes on Howcast

Remember those beginner knife skills we learned last week? That was just step one, friends.

Now it's time to get a little more crafty with that blade and morph food into edible garnishes that are artistic triumphs. The video above, courtesy of Howcast, details how to turn produce and chocolate into veritable sculptures.

In a "Wallace & Gromit"-style video, we are shown a few of the super-quick, super-easy ways to make things look snazzier -- orange-wrapped cherries skewered with a toothpick for a cocktail, tiny mushroom curls, a quick tomato skin rose and even sinfully delicious curls of chocolate perfect for a bowl of ice cream.

When food art is this easy, how can you resist?

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Knife Skills 101 - Foodie Flicks

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by Monika Bartyzel, Posted Aug 21st 2009 @ 11:00AM

It's easy to get lost in the plethora of kitchen tools available for the home gourmand, but as "Everyday Exotic" Chef Roger Mooking reminds us, "Your hands are your most powerful tools in the kitchen."

Yep. Not that lemon squeezer, not that electric chopper and not even that beautiful cast-iron pan. Rather than spend an arm and a leg on every latest gadget, spend some time on your knife skills -- and keep every one of those precious digits intact.

In this video, Mooking does a super-quick primer on important knife basics: Make sure your knife is sharp (using the tried-and-true fingernail test -- it works!) and then use your knuckles, with fingertips safely curled under, as a flat "guide" for the blade. With these two rules and a little practice, we'll all be handling steel like a pro -- and won't ever have to dive for the Band-Aids again.

[Via YouTube]

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Cooking in Your Hotel Room - Foodie Flicks

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by Monika Bartyzel, Posted Aug 14th 2009 @ 11:00AM

If any Foodie Flick could blow your mind, it's this one. British comedian George Egg recently posted a YouTube video in which he cooks dinner in his hotel room.

We're not talking about a quick salad and sandwich here. Without bringing any special tools from home, Egg sweeps aside the overpriced room-service menu and makes pasta and biscuits in his room -- from scratch. No hot plate. No microwave. If it wasn't captured in a video, we probably wouldn't believe it.

The entrée? A tortellini pasta with spinach, rocket and crème fraîche that he cooks in the room's tea kettle. This might not leave a desirable taste for the next poor sap who makes tea, but it's a rather ingenious way to boil noodles. (He adds a raw egg yolk in a nod to carbonara; emulate that at your own risk.)

Oh, but there's more: Egg ups the ante by making biscuits (kneaded, risen, the whole 9 yards), using a clothes iron. Color us a new shade of impressed.

Though Robert Irvine might be back on "Dinner Impossible," we reckon he's got some stiff competition.

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Breaded Prawns - Foodie Flicks

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by Monika Bartyzel, Posted Aug 7th 2009 @ 11:00AM

Breaded shrimp, a classic bit of finger food, can be found on menus all over America ... but also Down Under, it seems. In this Aussie video, a perky chef makes a departure from the boring breaded prawns (large shrimps) so frequently found when dining out: pre-made, formerly frozen lumps of blandness, usually paired with an equally bland sauce.

This being a recession, making your own breaded shrimp at home is an easy, satisfying way to save some money. With great tips for breading (adding cream and freshly smashed garlic to the egg mixture) and a rather unique sauce you might not have tried before -- a combo of mayo, brown sugar, onion, capers, tomato paste, tomatoes, hard-boiled eggs, Tabasco sauce and lemon juice -- we're thinking this one looks pretty tasty.

But what about you Slashfoodies? Got a great breading secret for your shrimp dishes? Spill in the comments!

[Via YouTube]

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