Paula's Best with
Paula Deen
Giada at Home with Giada De Laurentiis
With whom would you rather celebrate Father's Day - Paula or
Giada? Or ANY holiday actually…
Paula’s house might provide more laughs, but there are other
factors to consider. Would you rather be sweating it up at a rowdy barbecue
down south or be strolling on the beach while a beautiful vision is preparing a
genteel dinner? Let’s analyze this.
Paula's would be a whole lot of fun, but the aftermath might
involve a heavy hangover and weeks at the gym. At Giada’s, most of the labor
would come beforehand as in “What in the world should I wear? And how should I
do my makeup to look completely effortless and, well, UN-made up?”
OR we could compare menus and decide that way.
Paula’s cooking for her favorite dad in the world - her son,
Jamie. They’re making fried po’k chops with potatoes and white gravy with black
pepper. (Wouldn’t that make it SPECKLED gravy?) Paula’s also roasting cauliflower. The cauliflower doesn’t sound that
festive to me, but she’s making up for it by making a HUGE cake, which looks
completely yummylicious.
What's on the menu across the country? Giada is making some of Todd’s favorites - Bacon and Cheese Manicotti,
Spicy Red Wine Spaghetti, which sounds dreadful – it’s spaghetti actually COOKED
IN RED WINE, after it’s been boiled for a short time. I wonder if we’ll be treated to Jade spitting it up…She’s also
making Meaty Penne with chorizo and salami. That sounds okay, but where’s
dessert (maybe he’s a savory guy) and is she making all of those at ONE meal?
I’m
leaning towards Paula’s menu, even if I’m not thrilled about the cauliflower. I
LIKE cauliflower, but nine times out of ten, I make it like mashed
potatoes. You know the
recipe. It’s awesome. Also remember when I made Cauliflower
Crusted Pizza? That’s good too.
Before Paula gets to cooking, she tells Jamie that his
sons are lucky BUOYS (her accent
really is wild) to have him as a father and she loves watching him with them.
Sweet. I like Jamie and I’m happy he has a nice family life. (AND it all better
be true.)
Jamie starts his
gravy in a saucepan with a roux. He’s actually making a white sauce and calling
it gravy. Why isn’t he using the pan that he sautés the po’k chops in? It would
pick up so much more flavor.
Oh, this is interesting. He’s LAYERING the potatoes with the
“gravy” to make a big casserole. He and Paula sprinkle the potatoes with chopped
shallots as they layer and then he pours the whole pot of white sauce over the
top. They cook the potato and white sauce casserole at 350°F. for 25 minutes.
It’s so interesting how you can combine the same ingredients differently for an
entirely new dish. I thought this was going to be fried po’k chops with some
kind of potato dish on the side, smothered in white gravy. But, no, they’re
going for something different.
By the way, Paula
suggests using the white sauce as a soup and just adding potatoes and ham to it
and making “the finest pot of ham and potato soup you’ve ever put in your
mouth, Y’ALL!”
We come back from a commercial
and Paula asks Jamie what his death row meal would be. Isn’t there a more
upbeat way to ask that question? He says fried po’k chops. That’s convenient
as he sets to frying some up. (He also wants collard greens and cornbread and
17 beers. Let’s see if he asks Paula the same question… He doesn’t.)
Jamie opens the
package of po’k chops to reveal chops ON THE BONE, because his mama always said
there’s more flavor with the bone left on.
Sorry to digress, but a reader recently sent me this treatise on the biggest myths in steak cooking and, apparently, cooking steak
on the bone to get more flavor is one of them. This is pork, but I think it still applies. I have to admit that I’m
not super-opinionated on a lot of meat matters (YUP, there are a few things
that I don’t feel the need to preach about), but I would probably have said
to leave the bone in for more flavor. Actually, I would definitely say that with
chicken, because it’s completely true. There’s tons more flavor in a breast
with the bone and skin, but maybe it’s the fat from the skin that’s giving it
all the flavor and not really the bone.
Anyhoo, Jamie is
cooking po’k chops ON the bone. He turns them around in seasoned flour, which
includes cayenne. He’s only using a touch of cayenne today, because Paula’s
“pie hole is a little sensitive,” she says. That DOES NOT SOUND PROPER! Especially
in front of her son…
Jamie browns the pork chops while Paula makes her cauliflower.
I should never have expected that this
would be boring old roasted cauliflower. Paula is adding cream cheese, heavy
cream and a Vidalia onion. Of course, she is.
Jamie puts the two huge chops on TOP of potato casserole and
cooks the whole thing in the oven for another 35 to 40 minutes.
Paula roasts the cauliflower until it’s tender. Meanwhile
she adds the cream cheese and heavy cream to the onion, which she’s softened. The
roasted cauliflower goes in and Paula adds a drop more milk to loosen it all
up. How could that NOT be good? I get it now.
Jamie serves up the huge casserole of HUGE po’k chops and
potatoes. Jamie says he could use a
plate that was 3 times bigger. I guess that’s evidence of a good recipe - that
you need a trough to serve it in….
Paula hugs Jamie’s arm and hangs on to it while she chews
her po’k chop. She loves it AND him. Jamie
says to the camera. “Y’all, quit watching TV and go cook (this) right now.”
Paula says to wait 15 minutes until she’s shown us the cake.
Jamie starts mixing up the cake batter under Paula’s
direction. He creams 2 cups of butter with 2 cups of sugar. Paula says it’s a 1-2-3-4 cake - 1 cup milk, 2 cups of sugar, 3 cups of flour and 4 eggs. AND
2 cups of butter, but I guess 1-2-2-3-4 doesn’t have the same ring to
it. Paula adds her eggs one at a time, after each has been cracked in a
separate bowl. (I really should do that. I really never will.)
Jamie can’t believe he’s never had this cake before. Where does the butternut come in, I wonder?
OH! It’s not butternut squash, it’s a
flavoring. The recipe calls it "butternut extract", and Paula shows us a
bottle filled with a thick brownish-red liquid that looks like hair color
at the same time as a message flashes across the screen – “You can buy Vanilla butter and nut flavoring at your local supermarket
and cake supply store.” You probably
could, if your supermarket was in Marietta, Georgia, but around these parts,
I’m not so sure. I don’t know if this is the same thing, but you
can buy butternut extract on Amazon in their Health and Personal Care section. (Huh?)
Whatever
that stuff is, she adds 3 tablespoons (actually a bit more) to the cake batter
and it turns orange. Then they add pecans and Paula tells a touching story. When the boys were young they would
buy pecans (from somewhere) and bag them up and sell them to the nuthouse for
something like 39 cents a pound. They
would make enough money to go the annual fair, because otherwise “there was no
fair money”. I find it hard to begrudge Paula’s success now, because of all
of her hard work and the many difficulties she had along the way.
Paula
divides the cake batter into layers as precisely as she can. She says she’s a
stickler for even cake layers. She uses those pricey scoop/measuring
cups of hers. They ARE good for that, because they’re kind of flat and easy
to scoop with. She and Jamie really bang the filled cake pans down to knock out
the air bubbles and get them even. They bake in a preheated 350°F. oven for 30
to 35 minutes. When the top springs back and they start to pull away from the
sides, Paula says they’re ready.
The icing is confectioner’s sugar, cream
cheese, butter and flavorings. (I hope it’s flavored with something I can
find.) Nope, she’s using her “vanilla, butter and nut flavor”. What IS
that? And wouldn’t it taste really artificial? It does make it a purdy orange
color, though.
Paula
adds nuts to the icing. She hums “mmmm” the entire time she ices the cake. She
secures those big layers together with bamboo skewers. Very smart, so it
doesn’t start leaning. Then she and Jamie start fighting over how to ice a
cake. I could see how Paula could be very strong-willed. She tells herself,
“Calm down, Paula, we’re almost done.”
After
they’ve fought it out, she cuts massive slabs…It actually would be hard not to.
Jamie takes a ginormous bite, while Paula
practically prays over hers. “One of the
finest cakes you’ll ever eat.” Jamie
tries to make up for usurping her icing technique. He says, “It takes a great
mom to make a great dad.” She melts into her cake.
I
don’t know how Giada could beat that. Really.
Giada
fills her cooked manicotti with ricotta, spinach, Parmesan, an egg and chopped
crispy bacon. She flavors the mixture
with nutmeg. WHY she doesn’t grate her own really grates on me!
She
heats cream and milk together and adds flour to thicken it and then lots of
grated mozzarella. She calls this a fonduta. (I didn’t think a fonduta had
flour in it. You usually thicken it very carefully with egg yolks.) AND THEN she adds marinara sauce to that. I
did NOT see that coming. It’s funny whenever I make a baked pasta dish, I
usually use both a white sauce AND a tomato sauce, but not together. I do
something like this:
I coat the top of the lasagna or manicotti or stuffed shells or WHATEVER with a layer of white sauce. Then I dot the top with tomato sauce (and I also often spread tomato sauce on the bottom).
I sprinkle over grated cheese and bake it....
And each serving has pretty bit of red amongst the white sauce and cheese.
(By the way, that was a KALE Lasagna, which is pretty good. You could use Giada's filling - or ANY - and just substitute blanched chopped kale for the spinach.)
Giada fills the shells using a spoon!
Wha!!! Just fill a piping bag with a big plain nozzle and pipe away. I know
it’s kind of a chunky mixture, but a spoon makes your life SO difficult. It’s
worth it to have one really big plain piping tip, just for jobs like this.
Giada
spoons some sauce in the bottom of the dish, the stuffed manicotti go on top
and then she pours the rest of the sauce over and tops the whole thing with
more cheese. It’s baked at 375°F. for 20 minutes.
Next
up is Giada’s Spi-Gitti. She starts the spaghetti cooking in water, while she
sautés shallots and garlic in oil. Giada
adds tomato paste and ONE BOTTLE OF ZINFANDEL to the saucepan. She simmers it
for a few minutes and then adds the al dente pasta. She stirs it and the
spaghetti turns wine-red. I don’t think I’m that enthralled with this. (In
fact, am I allowed to say it looks kind of bloody? Sorry, but it does!) She
adds parsley which is a shock next to the deep red color. Could this
recipe possibly be in the same category as that misthought-out
dish she made for Oprah? Goat cheese goes in too.
The
last dish starts with one pound of chorizo, which has been taken out of its
casing, which she asked the butcher to do! Is that a little spoiled? She sautés
the chorizo and then removes it from the pan and cooks the vegetables in that good
oil. She adds salami and then the chorizo goes back in with tomatoes. (The
recipe does not mention adding the chorizo back in.) She simmers it for 15 minutes.
Giada
finishes the dish with Jade sitting at the kitchen counter. OMG, that is one beautiful
kid, which the most gorgeous head of hair. Giada tops the penne with Parmesan
cheese and then she pours the meaty sauce over and adds some arugula at the
very end. It looks good, but the best part is seeing cute Jade sitting there
making a Father’s Day card.
Giada
serve all three pastas to Todd and he acts anyway as if he loves them all. (He
has to.) Actually, he doesn’t say anything specific and especially doesn’t comment on the red wine one. Jade gives him the sweet card and Giada
gives him a lovely picture of him throwing Jade straight up in the air. It's a photo which has been made into a watercolor and it’s really lovely.
Sooo,
whose menu did I prefer? Notwithstanding the incredibly cute kid, I have to
go with Paula, who had her really cute kid with her too. (Jade may have
been better behaved than Jamie, however, and I suppose the same could be said of
the hosts..)
PS
I checked out the
reviews of the red wine spaghetti recipe to see if anyone had actually made
it. A few people have and they generally liked it. (???)
PPS
As I’m posting this, there’s news hot off the presses about Paula. It’s a very
disturbing story from The National Enquirer. (I
refuse to link to them, so here’s the
story elsewhere.) Part of this we already knew. She and her brother own a
restaurant, Uncle Bubba's Seafood and Oyster House. Her brother ran the restaurant
and is being sued
by a former manager for sexual harassment. This manager also allegedly witnessed
many racial incidents. Under questioning during a deposition, Paula admitted to
some horrible things like using the N word and wanting to dress black servers
as slaves for a wedding. I have no idea whether these things are being misinterpreted,
but I’m not sure how they could be. I’m not happy about divisive social issues
entering the sanctity of the kitchen, but racism is the scourge of our society
and needs illuminating wherever it happens. I hope to find out that maybe Paula
thought she was being funny and was just misguided, but who knows? I had been
perfectly willing not to blame Paula for her brother’s transgressions. I hope
they’re not hers too.
