Local programming on KRWG Public Media made possible in part by viewers like you.

Thank you.

KRWG Public Media is excited to raise the bar on your summer barbecue.

This is cooking with chef Tom, Grillin and Chillin.

Welcome to the program made possible here on KRWG Public Media by Organ Mountain Solar and Electric.

Offering PV solar systems, EV car charging stations, generators and batteries for residential and commercial information at Organ Mountain solar.com and from Evolve Federal Credit Union, serving the El Paso community for over 90 years, and now serving New Mexico with medical, professional loans, mortgage and checking and savings accounts at evolve FCU.

Org.

We'd like to welcome our studio audience and of course, chef Tom from Dona Ana Community College.

Thank you all for being here.

Thank you for having it here once again.

Well, we are so excited to be back here at Dona Ana Community College in this kitchen for Grillin and Chillin.

Last time we were here, we were headed into the holiday season when we went beyond the bird.

And this time, we are literally raising the bar on that summer barbecue.

That we are.

Yes.

Why don't you tell us a little bit about what we're going to prepare today?

Well, our students are tasked with generating a five course meal, and that consists of a flank steak and prosciutto strata, which is layers of flank steak and prosciutto on a skewer.

They're going to grill that off, followed by a grilled fennel and shrimp salad.

We will also have a grilled lemon sorbet.

So we've actually grilled the lemons and squeeze them and made the sorbet.

So you get that smoky flavor within the the intermezzo.

Our entree will be a grilled pork chop with a apricot chutney, followed by a grilled pear and mascarpone ice cream dessert.

We'll also be featuring a few little things up here.

I'm going to show you some techniques on grilling an artichoke.

We'll make a grilled romaine salad, and then we'll grill some flank steak as well, so we'll be able to have some fun.

on up here on stage as well.

Well, I'd like to welcome all of KRWG Public Media supporters who are here today.

Thank you so much for joining us.

We're so happy to have you.

And it's because of you that we are able to present programing like this on KRWG Public Media.

And to hear about the support that KRWG gets not only from the community but from DACC.

We have some support of our own that we have here.

We've got our own chancellor Doctor Torres is here, and she, supports KRWG by going down on the fundraising weeks.

We try to follow her schedule and show up with a surprise breakfast here or there.

We also have my department chair, Joaquin Tadeo here as well and to bring the whole community together is our community leader the mayor is here as well.

Las Cruces Mayor Eric Enriquez welcome.

Glad to have you.

We are thrilled that everybody is here in attendance and we're excited to start serving some food.

But before we start serving food, let's learn a little bit about what happens here in this kitchen.

In this kitchen this is our demonstration kitchen.

So you can see that it's kind of set up like a television studio.

We have our own camera set up here.

We have the capability of doing, broadcasts on our YouTube channel live.

We're still tweaking a few things we're working with the film school for some expertise within our own organization.

A nice collaboration going on there.

Here, we also, start our students in this classroom where we talk about food safety and kitchen safety.

There's physical safety.

They have to understand as well as the safety of the products that we're we're working with.

So we teach them the temperatures of properly cooked chicken.

Nobody wants medium rare chicken.

So we teach them cooking to 165 and how to get it there, how to keep it crisp and juicy, and all the techniques.

So we spend a lot of time, about eight weeks getting them ready to go into the kitchen.

So they're here getting the bookwork before we go into the labs.

And I want to talk a little bit about what is happening outside of this room and what those students are doing while we're standing here in front of you.

We have two teaching kitchens.

One I call the sports car of the culinary world.

That's my lab.

It's four distinct bays, each outfitted the same.

And I take them from this lab down to the, the kitchen.

And that's where they learn how to dice an onion and not cry and how to cut themselves and stop the bleeding and all the fun stuff to get them ready for the culinary industry.

We work in a building block system.

Chef Castro's lab is across the hall, and she is phenomenal.

And taking them from what I do in the foundational kitchen to the next level.

She gets them for two semesters and then brings it back to me.

And this class we're actually in today is a graduating class.

All these, student servers and student chefs that are preparing your meal today are or will be graduating.

And it is so wonderful to have this environment because we teach them, how to do all a la carte cooking how to cook to order, which is something that, the industry needs.

And then they also learn table service.

So some of them never actually had a conversation with somebody other than their telephone.

And so they're going to come in and serve.

So there are going to be a little bit apprehensive.

But they're learning and so we get them ready to go in the industry to actually become leaders, in, in the hospitality field.

Okay.

And we're keeping an eye out for all of those cues as to when things are ready to come in.

In the meantime, you mentioned food safety.

So for all of us before we go to cooking outside, we've got meats and we've got salads and we've got things with maybe some mayonnaise and, and and, and we want to take them outside and we want to have them available for our guests, but we probably can't really do a whole lot of that.

Right.

There's a gentleman who's he's a little bit famous.

His name is Tom Cruise, and he's known for the danger Zone.

Okay.

Kenny Loggins sings a song about the Danger Zone, but the danger zone in the kitchen is 40 degrees to 140 degrees.

And that's where bacteria loves to grow.

That's prime time for them to grow.

We allow food to be out at room temperature for no more than two hours.

And that's from the time it sits in your car on the way home from the grocery store.

That takes you 20 minutes to get home.

Now, when you get home, you have an hour and 40 minutes left on that clock because even if we put it in the refrigerator, it doesn't reset.

It stops the growth.

As soon as you pull it out to prep, then it starts the bacteria grows again.

So cumulatively, we have to be aware that two hours is two hours.

And so we try to keep everything, you know, if we're doing a large banquet for 300 people, we have chicken that you need to prep chicken breast.

We don't pull all 300 chicken breast out.

We work in small batches.

We keep food safety.

And that's really paramount because food-born illness is not a weight loss program.

It is really... Anybody else feel lucky to be here at this point?

Yeahhh.

We care about our guests and we follow what's known as HACCP plan.

The HACCP plan is where we identify critical control points.

And I ask my my kids, my students.

Where do you think or who do you think developed the HAACP plan?

And if you think about it, you think, okay, FDA, USDA, some some government agency.

And yes, you're right, it's a government agency.

But it was NASA.

Because back in the 60s, if you put somebody in space capsule you don't want them getting sick up there.

So especially when they start sending two and three together.

But, so they develop this food safety, program and we implement it here and it just controls the flow, the vendors that we buy our product from, how do they deliver it?

What, the is it up to temperature when it shows up?

We inspect all the cases.

It goes right into the cooler.

So it's under refrigeration as we're doing the inspection.

How do we handle it here?

What happens if something goes.

It's kind of a flow chart and we'll kick it out.

You know, when in doubt, throw it out.

We've actually started a composting, program here.

So if it's something that we don't feel is wholesome enough to serve our guests, we take it, chop it up, throw it in our compost, say, when in doubt, let KC taste it.

I'll let you know.

Well, chef Tom were so excited to to be back here for grilling and chilling as, backyard barbecue season is here and people are preparing also for America's 250th birthday celebrations.

It's going to be a big summer, for outdoor celebrations and I want to talk a little bit about how you choose a menu.

That's something a little bit different for folks.

It used to be I work on seasonality because we want to get it at its highest point when it's available.

Now, unfortunately, we're shopping on economics.

So what's what's cheap in the grocery store.

So we actually are working with our students to develop menus that are cost effective, still flavorful and sourcing those products.

And one of the trends that we keep up with is current events.

We need to understand what's happening.

Price of fuel today is going to impact the price of beef two years from now, because we're going to start growing ethanol corn, which is not feed corn for the cattle.

So the cattle ranchers won't have feed corn in two years to bring their their cattle up.

So, it's all related.

And so we try to explain to them, you know, pay attention to what's happening.

So when we create a menu, we sit down and say, okay, whether it's at home, if I go through my fridge and say, oh, look, I've got this, what can I do with it?

What's available at the grocery store?

I'm the type of chef that goes through every aisle, the grocery store, because you never know what the retailers are going to do.

And I'm going, oh, this looks cool.

What is this?

You know, and so I go in knowing that I only need six items.

I come out with three bags full of stuff just because there's so many cool things.

So you don't plan the menu before shopping.

You shop first and plan the menu while you're going through that process.

I script the menu and as you know, we've already changed the script a couple times today, so.

Let's talk a little bit about the pairings for today and, and how you, how you decided what is going to go well together.

Well, first, our sous chef of the day is Sam Sanchez.

He came up with the idea, and I told him every dish had to have some sort of grill component because it's grilling and chilling.

And he had these wonderful ideas, but it didn't gel.

So we kind of started putting everything together.

You know, he wanted to kind of do Italian, so you can't grill spaghetti.

You need to it falls through the cracks, so.

But he, came up and so it was a negotiation between he and I before we actually wrote it down on paper.

And so today.

So you have prosciutto, correct?

He came.

He came up with this, really cool menu idea where you take flank steak and you slice it super thin and lay it out in a grid pattern, and then lay prosciutto on top of it.

And then he did an aioli.

And then he cut these little squares out and then stacked them all together, put a skewer in it.

And so it's layers of prosciutto and flank steak instead of just like a big ribbon.

It's really delicately done.

And so I'm waiting for the first plate to come through of prosciutto and flank steak strata.

And we got the thumbs up.

That means we can hold off on the next portions of our conversation.

but talking about those other dishes briefly while the students are making their way in and those pairings of flavors that we're going to be experiencing today.

So I like to do a hot dish followed by a cold dish.

They suppose have done the grilled salad first.

But in this negotiation, we built it on the size.

So it's more of an amuse than it is an appetizer, the strata, then the salad will be basically your first course.

And because we're doing grilled, items, the fennel has a big, bold flavor.

We wanted to do an intermezzo before we got into the entrees.

So the intermezzo is a, sorbet that they made fresh this morning.

and they scoop the sorbet out.

You can serve it with a little bit of a grilled lemon wedge.

You can actually add some more to it, but that'll cleanse your palate to get ready for the grilled pork chop.

We did do a boneless pork chop.

It's, cut out of the pork loin.

and he's done a couple little, he's grilled palenta which is a phenomenal little dish.

For those of you from the South, it's yellow corn instead of white corn.

hominy, like grits.

But what he did yesterday is make this luscious tray and set it, and then he cut it in, shapes, and then they grilled it.

So it's grilled polenta.

Anybody here from the South?

One.

All right.

Yep.

So, and he served it with, fried green beans.

Again green beans don't work on the grill very well.

Right.

But you found a way.

Yes.

And then our dessert we looked at doing a, like, a fried apricot or fried nectarine because we thought it'd be really delicate.

They're not in season right now.

Now, how did you grill ice cream?

We didn't grill the ice cream.

We grilled the pear that the ice cream is served with.

But it is a mascarpone ice cream and Sam, really that was my concession to to his negotiation.

You know, he was dead set on going and getting nectarines somewhere, and I was like, let's just use the pears.

It'll it'll be just fine.

So, but, one of the other things we do is, in this class, we do a lot of deconstruction.

So we take dishes apart and put it back together in a five star quality.

But I see Sam, ready to make his way here to, present our first dish.

Are you ready to grill?

You can step right up to that microphone, Sam, and talk a little bit about what you did for us.

This is a starter that I prepared for you all.

It is a flank steak and prosciutto skewer.

What I did, we did a small slice layers with, basically did an herb aioli in between.

Grilled that and then finish it off in the oven.

And I did, parsley, aioli for the top with a little bit of chives sprinkles.

I hope you enjoy.

Sam is also our, work-study here, so we keep him quite busy.

He's the one that keeps track of our inventory.

So that's how we knew we had flank steak.

And so we're using, we're trying to clean out inventory instead of just randomly going out and buying product.

Sam, would you step back over to the microphone?

Because I wanted to talk to you and get your perspective a little bit on this negotiation that you went through with chef Tom.

You could step right up to the microphone and talk about it from your perspective and how you feel about the process that you went through.

The process is was a little challenging.

I feel just because it was a little different than what we were normally, set up to, prepare for.

But, I like the challenge.

And doing a five course meal kind of made me think in a different perspective, and especially having a theme which is just grilled, you know, kind of made me, wow, what can I grill?

And it kind of really opened my mind of how many different items you are able to grill on a grill, you know, with fruits, even with the salad that's coming out later today but it was really fun.

All right.

And, and has everyone had an opportunity to get a taste yet?

And how are we enjoying that skewer.

Thumbs up from everybody because I see.

We won't get a lot.

We wont get a lot of conversations.

Everyone is very busy right now.

Yes.

Very good.

How about a round of applause for Sam?

Thank you, thank you.

Please enjoy.

All right, so let's get back to that, French term that you just used a moment ago.

Chef Tom, Escoffier, was the first one to catalog, traditional he broke it all down into five mother sauces.

We have, mayonnaise is one, hollandaise, veloute, bechamel and espagnole.

Espagnole is a brown sauce.

And then he elaborated from those and developed daughter sauces.

And then he has five basic cooking techniques.

We have grilling, thank goodness.

Sauteing, roasting, braising and boiling, steaming, if you will.

And so we teach those fundamentals in early on, and then we develop all the daughter sauces and all the other tricks and techniques of the, the take, or the, basic cooking methods.

And then you can expand on that.

We show a method for just about cutting everything.

Yeah.

And I was going to show a method on artichokes.

Yeah.

We're going to grill and artichoke today.

So an artichoke is actually a thistle.

And if you've seen one of these and you think about this on the plant and I was told that someones brother, brother-in-law grows these, you had to be really hungry to be the first one to enjoy an artichoke, because they're just ugly, ugly, ugly.

what I like to do is cut the top of the thistle off, so we open it up.

You can see how beautiful it is inside.

And then sometimes these leaves.

And I've cut some of them already.

I just take a pair of scissors and I trim them off.

So they're all square because they usually have a little thorn on there.

Let me get rid of this.

And because we are grilling it, I cut the stock ends off just to get rid of the brown part.

But I wanted to leave the stem together, and then I'm going to cut it right down the middle through the heart.

Now inside you can see that there is some thistle part that's not really palatable.

This is actually the heart itself.

So I'm going to score this so I can pull it out.

And then I want to open up these things these fins just a little bit.

And I'm going to put this in my steamer.

And we're going to steam it for about 20 minutes because we don't have 20 minutes.

Like they said through the magic of television, here's the ones we're going to be grilling today.

So I'm going to put a little bit of olive oil on here.

Olive oil is going to help with the caramelization process, also known as the Maillard reaction.

No offense.

The Maillard reaction is, a really complex chemical reaction, mostly in protein.

You'll see that when we grill the flank steak today, where we're developing that char, it breaks down the proteins and the sugars that are in the protein.

It's kind of like caramelization, but a little bit higher.

So I'm going to set this on here for a couple of minutes, and we're going to let the maillard reaction start.

You can hear the sizzle.

I can hear it.

And I want to get nice char grill marks on it.

So I'm going to let it sit.

And then we're going to turn it 90 degrees.

So you get that nice crosshatch.

And so we're going to let that go for a minute.

At any time and you are welcome to ask questions just raise your hand and let us know that you have a question about anything that you're seeing here today.

And we'll come, bring you a microphone so that you can ask your questions.

So please don't be shy ask away any time.

Just raise your hand and we'll try to keep an eye out for you.

So how long are we grilling these in total?

Well, because I pre steamed them, which, if you cook them from raw on the grill, they're going to be a little bit, overcooked on the outside and not cooked on the inside.

So I steam them for about 20 minutes to make everything tender.

Those fins on the artichoke itself, take the steam and let itself, convect.

Let's see how our Maillard reaction is looking.

I'm starting to get a little bit right here in here.

So I'll turn the heat up on this and turn these 90 degrees.

Now, why did you remove the heart?

I actually remove the thistle above the heart.

This still has the heart in there.

It's nice and tender.

There are some steakhouses there's a, really nice one.

I used to, frequent when I lived in Montana.

That this was their chips and salsa.

You got an artichoke, you sat down an artichoke with drawn butter, and you're just sitting there looking over their menu and really enjoying it.

But there's a technique to, eating an artichoke on the outer leaves.

This is the only part that's really palatable.

It's real fibrous, out here.

So you don't eat those.

So you're pulling these, and then they give you a little, waistband to throw the parts.

And once you get to the heart, you will eat the whole heart.

Now, the ones that are processed in the cans are wonderful.

I use them all the time in pasta dishes at home, on pizzas.

But they're brined, and so they break down a little bit more, so they're a little bit more tender.

Do you still chop the leaves off of those.

The ones that are in the cans.

No, no, the fresh ones.

And see how I left the outer leaves.

I left it a couple straight ones just so you could see.

But I usually leave them on there just for the presentation purposes.

This is one of my daughter's favorite dishes.

is an artichoke, so this is her bloomin onion that's famously known from a chain.

But she likes to do these and peel them all apart.

So what I do is I open it up and then put the dipping sauce right in the middle, and so she can peel that off and then dip, whether it's, seasoned mayonnaise or, butter.

I confess I've never thought of grilling an artichoke.

Anyone else never thought of that.

So and that was one of the things I was really looking forward to today, is to learn about new things we could put on the grill.

As Sam mentioned earlier, you know, we're really exploring, putting new things on the grill this summer.

So correct.

And one of the things I wanted Sam to really investigate was grilling romaine hearts for a salad kind of change the depth of that traditional, wedge salad that we're all familiar with, with just a slice of lettuce with some blue cheese.

But we're actually going to change the complexity.

Sam, unfortunately didn't want to do that.

That was part of the negotiation.

So he's going to be grilling fennel.

I'm going to grill the romaine because.

Because you wanted to do that.

Yeah, I wanted to.

Yeah.

But it adds something different.

Yeah.

So, okay, so now we're getting a nice.

look to this.

I'm gonna take these off, let them see that.

And of course, we would serve that with just about anything.

but the natural flavors itself are, just really beautiful in an artichoke.

All right, let's set this over here.

You're putting it in front of me?

Yes.

Don't worry.

I've got friends watching you.

Okay?

Yeah.

I can't be trusted with the food, so please enjoy it.

Oh, that's what it's there for.

Oh, gosh.

So, okay, well, it's probably too hot.

Is it too hot to touch.

Right now?

Yes.

Yes.

Yeah.

Okay.

I'll give it a I'll give it some time then.

And so I know while you're waiting on the next cue here for the next dish, you mentioned that salad.

Is that what we're going to see if I can either do the salad or we can see if they're ready to bring in the next course.

It looks like everybody's just about done with their, skewer.

What do you think is the most common mistake people make at the grill?

At the grill?

Over cooking.

Yeah.

And it happens here in the kitchen, too.

That's not how I like to eat it.

And I said, well, we're not cooking for ourselves.

We're cooking for our guests.

So we're going to cook lamb to medium rare to medium any more than medium.

Just because you don't like pink, you're going to have to learn how to make it so it's still succulent and palatable.

If we overcook lamb, it becomes more liver flavored.

So which is a turnoff for a lot of people.

And they're not understanding.

They think it's the lamb itself that's bad.

My nephew contacted me the week of Easter and said, I'm responsible for cooking.

And his dad is a big Chicago cornfed boy and loves his lamb.

And he says, I want to replicate the lamb that you did for, I did some lamb at Thanksgiving as well.

And we did lamb kebabs roasted, with a red chili, dry rub on beyond the bird.

Beyond the bird.

So he.

You can find the recipe for that on our website krwg dot org, dot org.

Scroll down cooking with chef Tom.

Beyond the bird.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is Christian.

Put it over this black mark right here so they can see it on the camera.

So here's our grilled fennel salad.

Christian, would you care to talk about it?

Yes, it is a grilled fennel salad with grapefruit blackened shrimp on a bed of arugula.

Do we have a dressing on it?

Yes, it is a dressing made from Sambuca, which is a licorice liqueur.

That sounds very bold Christian.

Yes, that's very delicious as well.

And what else did you mix with that sambuca to come up with that dressing?

Some herbs, and some citrus as well.

Okay.

This will be a first for me.

A first for anyone else.

Yeah.

That's exciting.

Now, in terms of overcooking and not overcooking, not overcooking being the goal.

You don't recommend cooking by time, and that's another mistake.

I think you indicated that people make a lot.

It's that's kind of what I do.

Well, I say, well, it's been you know, it's been seven minutes.

That's probably enough.

Well, and a lot of times you just gotta let it cook.

You gotta let it sit and cook, do its thing.

and somebody says, well, how long do I cook?

a piece of, you know, how long I cook a burger for?

And I'm like, I can't tell you because I don't know how big your burger is.

So there's a lot of variables that go into it.

How hot is your grill?

How hot or how thick is your patty?

How much did you compact that?

Grilling is not where you do your smash burgers.

As soon as you smash it on the grill, it's stuck in there.

So, that's great for, flat tops and, a cast iron skillet, on the grill you want to kind of just let it sit and don't flip it all the time.

The more you flip it, the more it's going to dry out, because what's happening is you're chasing the juices away from the heat source.

So once you flip it over, the juices start to recenter, and then you have to let it rest, taking it right off the grill and cutting it and eating it, typically is a no no.

So how is the best way to monitor your temperature while you're cooking on the grill?

Best way is with a digital thermometer.

And you want to make sure that you're getting into the thickest part of the meat, understanding that the thinner part is going to cook a lot faster than the thicker part.

I like to take my medium steaks to about 120, 125 and then let the carryover because the thermal mass, I think I have steaks ready to go in the oven.

Through the magic of television, how about that.

So we will, pull those out here in about five minutes.

They're thin flank steak.

So we're going to grill some here in a moment.

But the, we're going to let it sit for like, two minutes, turn it to get the nice grill marks, flip it over for two more minutes and it'll be done.

What would you say?

for someone who's not an expert, what is the most what is the best method of backyard grilling?

Is it with charcoal?

Is it with gas?

What's the kind of foolproof method?

Gas is probably the easiest to adjust the temperatures because you can throttle up and throttle down once you get, a, well full of charcoal, you're at the mercy of how much charcoal is in there.

Same with wood.

pellet you can play around with, but gas doesn't also give you all that nice flavor, you know, as the drippings go into that charcoal.

So whether you just fill, if you use too much charcoal, you're going to fill your grill.

But if you do what we call, an offset heat, so all your heat sources on one side, you can sear it and then move it to the side that, is not above the heat.

You can actually, control your the temperature of your, product a little bit better.

Okay this has sufficiently cooled.

So I'm going to give this artichoke a taste.

Okay.

Now, I do love artichokes.

And the taste of the grilled artichoke is such a surprise.

Yes.

Thank you very much.

We kept it simple.

The only thing that's on there is sea salt and olive oil.

Sea salt and olive oil.

Think youll try grilling an artichoke in the in the near future.

I highly recommend it.

What are some of the other surprises in terms of vegetables that, turn out great on the grill that you might never have thought of?

You want to bring out that romaine heart?

Yeah.

I've been dying to do this.

Okay, Sam was supposed to, but, I do like to clean it up.

There is, where they score the in the field, so I like to take that off, but I don't like to take too much off because I like it to be held together when I cut it all the way down through.

So now I have two halves, and you can see it has basically the same texture as the artichoke.

And I am going to just drizzle a little bit of olive oil in here.

That gives it a little bit of flavor and helps distribute the heat.

Here's our sea salt.

But then I want to give it a little bit of pop with some fresh black pepper.

And the olive oil also helps not, keeps it from not sticking on my grill plate.

Now, most of the romaine is water.

So what you're going to hear is a lot of sizzle as the water's going, aye it's hot, trying to escape.

We don't want to overcook it because we still want it to be nice and juicy when we cut into it.

All we're trying to do is get that nice smoky flavor.

And I say that word.

Yes, using a cast iron plate, because we just don't have an indoor grill.

and it'll be too hard to set up, 24 seats outside.

Next to our grill we have a big wood fire grill out back.

So we're replicating the technique here but I do recommend getting that nice smoky flavor over charcoal or pellets or propane.

Okay.

The choice is up to you, and it's a preference.

You know, I'm not going to say you have to go out like.

Like I did and get one of everything.

A lot of my stuff will come.

Somebody will be like, hey, I'm a garage sale and somebody selling it.

That's how I get my pizza oven.

So I was like, cool.

It's a big, nice, big Cuisinart one and it cooks a pizza in about seven minutes.

But just people that know that I collect really odd pieces of equipment.

Well, hahaha.

And I'm sure you have plenty of space for all of that to go and that, you know.

I think I have plenty of space And I'm sure that's agreed upon.

At times when the meal comes out good.

It's perfect.

Yeah.

Well, I would love to get audience reaction to that salad and bold flavors.

You love it.

Yes.

Yeah.

I was going to say, you know, let us experiment.

I was waiting for you, Tom.

I aint got that far yet.

With this grilled romain now so from here, From here, I've got, of course, this is my glue.

It is a, balsamic glaze.

The reason I call it glue is that it it's going to hold our toppings on here: some quartered cherry tomatoes, Will just pop on here and then no salad as a salad without bacon crumbles.

And I'm a huge fan of blue cheese, so I'm going to put crumbles on one side.

I'm not sure if you like blue cheese.

I love blue cheese.

Okay, then I'll do both sides.

Then instead of big ol heavy croutons, I took panko breadcrumbs and I toasted them in clarified butter.

So it's going to give you that crunch that we're accustomed to without those big old heavy croutons.

So what is clarified butter.

Clarified butter is where we melt the butter and get it to separate the milk solids.

it's going to steam off the, the water that's inherently in butter.

That's going to boil off, create a foam.

We skim the foam off and then we're trying to capture the oil.

So the milk solids will be in suspension.

And after about 10 or 15 minutes the milk solids fall to the bottom of the pot.

And it's clear.

So it's clarified.

So it gives us a higher, sauté point so we can smoke it, at a higher point, without creating a lot of burning in the saute pan.

So there is your grilled romaine salad.

All right.

Beautiful.

(Clapping) Forks and knives.

And obviously, for our vegetarian friends, there are salads without bacon.

Yeah.

But why?

Well, that is beautiful.

And so, summer season here.

We've talked a little bit about food safety.

We've talked about you know, the students experience here at DACC.

But I think that there's a lot to that.

And I'd like for you to expand a little bit on, you know what, they leave this program with?

Well, hopefully they left with everything they put into it.

And what I, what I mean by that is the fact that they need to show up, be prepared.

So they're not running behind and running around.

They need to be organized.

So we try to teach them the life skills of organization.

In their last semester with us, they do a lot of conversation with the public.

they do events like this.

We put them in front of cameras in my, video production food styling class, where they actually have to do they have to be able to present themselves.

So it's not only the techniques and, but we try to get them to understand the passion that they need to be in this industry.

You have to be willing to try new things.

One of the questions on the on their day one survey is, what's the most exotic thing you've ever eaten?

What's the?

Umm, good question.

What's the one thing you won't eat?

Now, I respect their allergies.

We only have one EpiPens and its expired, so I don't want to use it, but, they have to tell me, about their allergies.

What they also tell me is they tell me they're allergic to mayonnaise, and I said, no, that's an aversion.

So then I target them.

They're going to taste everything with mayonnaise.

But we teach them to make mayonnaise.

I said, do you eat French fries?

Yes.

Do you drink lemonade?

Yes.

Do you eat scrambled eggs?

Yes.

Okay, then you're not allergic to mayonnaise because it's eggs, lemon and oil that's in mayonnaise.

So if you're not allergic to the components how could you be allergic.

You have an aversion.

So on caviar tasting day they're like, why am I eating bait?

I spent $1,000 in a little jar.

You better taste it, so okay.

I don't spend $1,000, boss.

Do you find caviar from Elephant Butte?

Locally sourced.

Over there at the fishing market?

Hahaha.

So, you're starting that, everyone's working on their salad.

What do you think of the grilled fennel?

You recognize the flavor?

Yeah, it is good.

Yeah.

You have a question?

Umm is it cracked black pepper on the shrimp?

It's actually a Cajun rub.

It's a blackened rub.

Yeah, because I use black pepper at home, but it's like that hot.

Yeah, this will have a little bit of cayenne and, we're getting used to trying to create our own version of, Cajun spice.

We have a little bit of New Mexico, chili powder into it.

One of the things my grandfather taught me he grew up in Louisiana is you put a little bit of sugar in your Cajun seasoning, because that helps with the blackening process.

Oh, that'll caramelize first if you blackened it to the point where all your, spices are blackened.

They're burnt.

So you get that nice that nasty, bitter flavor.

But if you balance it out with a little bit of sugar, it'll caramelize.

You get that nice crust on the outside without burning the the flavor that you're, desiring.

So let's talk a little bit.

You said that's a rub.

Right?

What goes into that?

The Cajun rub: We'll start off with cayenne.

I like to put a little bit of cumin in there to give it some of that earthiness.

Again, we add a little bit of red chile powder, granulated garlic, granulated onion, a little bit of salt, sugar.

We want it to be bold without being too overpowering.

And I have them usually taste.

If they're making the rub from scratch, I usually have them taste it dry so they understand what it's going to taste like when it goes on.

Not to grill the shrimp and then try it there, but to actually taste it so they can, evaluate it and make any modifications.

we put dry ginger in there and dry mustard as well.

All right.

So all of these recipes available on our website.

KRWG dot org.

Very good.

Now I know you put some flank steaks in the oven a minute ago.

Correct.

Thanks for reminding me.

We don't want those to overcook.

Do we?

No.

But I'm going to let them rest for a couple minutes before we carve them.

But I do have flank steak right here, which again, I kept it really simple.

There's thyme I did put a little bit of tarragon on there to kind of give it to tie into the fennel.

Tarragon and fennel have, related licorice, type of flavor.

So that's what I put on my flank steak.

We're going to put that on the grill here, and I'm going to show everybody how we get the grill marks.

Now, are these dried or fresh.

This is actually, it's got olive oil on it.

So it's been marinating for a little bit.

So it is a, a wet marinade, not a dry rub.

And cooking time?

Is that like a dry, dry time?

Yes.

Okay.

Hey, look, we got Intermezzo.

We're going to take a break from here and introduce Josh.

Come on up.

Its a grilled lemons sorbet, guys.

And this, is right at the mid section of your five course meal.

And this will be a palate cleanser.

And what did you do to the lemon?

We, grilled them.

So just so you, when you, Yes, so the grilled lemon is just, add that extra grilled flavor when you're eating enough sorbet.

So just go ahead and squeeze it right on top of the sorbet when you're eating it.

And you'll actually taste that charcoal grill flavor.

Now did you... Oh go ahead Tom.

What shape is the sorbet in?

On the spot.

It's called a quenelle.

How did you make it?

With two spoons.

You, basically get a spoon of ice cream and you kind of wrap it around the other using the spoons to form quenelle.

And it it really it's a hard process, but once you get down, it actually looks very pretty.

That's supposed to be a three sided football shape, which kind of makes it a little bit more elegant than the old, cafeteria lady scoop of, mashed potatoes.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you, Josh.

All right, so let me get a look at that.

As you as you make your way there.

Okay.

Very nice.

So this is obviously here for a moment to help everyone.

Cleanse their palette, as you mentioned.

But it is also I see Edmundo Resendez our development director, looking at his watch, nodding his head in approval.

Ready to cleanse your palate.

Did you already get your lemon sorbet?

All right.

Oh, and Edmundo has a question for us.

So we're going to get that mic over to you.

Thank you Edmundo.

As we put these grills I mean these steaks on the grill.

Go ahead Edmundo.

My name is Edmundo Resendez KRWG Public Media.

Chef Tom I could really this cleanser has really made a difference after eating that salad because I was not expecting too much spice.

And I love spicy food, but eating this sorbet is really perfect.

Well, fantastic.

I'm glad that it's working together.

The citrus in the sorbet allows that palate cleanser.

That's why in French cuisine they'll eat really heavy dish and then follow with, a big, nice, glass of wine.

And that's the same effect that we have with the intermezzo, is that it just takes all that, that fatty goodness out of our mouths and gets us ready for the for the next dish.

Okay, so these have sat on my grill plate for a couple of minutes.

Nice little grill marks starting.

So I'm going to turn them 90 degrees.

Meanwhile those are going on I'm going to pull this one off over here.

And it's rested long enough that I can actually cut it into nice little medallions.

It comes out a beautiful medium.

What I love about flank steak is it's tender, it's juicy especially if you, cook it properly.

Like I said, this is just a quick marinade this morning of olive oil and some herbs.

And that's our little flank steak.

It's very versatile.

It's great for, tacos great london broil.

Obviously a very common steak for people in our region to use.

I'll confess that I have not given it a chance myself.

And so, looking at this flank steak now, obviously that is a bad attitude that is going to change, right?

But once you taste it, because this is gorgeous.

All right, well, let me go ahead and give that a try.

We'll flip these over, get a nice little crosshatch on there.

And it's not necessary if you're doing a piece of fish that may want to stick a little bit just to get that grill marks.

So you pick up that nice char flavor.

The, the flavor that you get off of the grill is just it's wonderful.

But the reason I do a crosshatch a, it looks nice and it gives us twice the amount of flavor.

What did you think?

Oh, it's gorgeous.

It's delicious.

Good.

Yes, I do enjoy it.

So I'm going to let those wait it out for the rest of the show.

Sitting right here.

All right.

Christian, if we can start with the entree.

Thank you.

All right.

Yeah we.

This hour is going by so quickly.

Yes.

And we're excited to to welcome the entree when it is, when it is ready, I teach a class called ice cream, The Science of Ice cream.

And we learn about all the different ratios of fats and, stabilizers and everything that goes into it.

So whether we're doing a custard or a, philly, what we call blank slate, which has no flavoring whatsoever, it's just like ice melts and then they can enhance it from there.

We do frozen yogurt for the sorbets.

We do gelatos, so they learn the science of it.

Our machine, is custom outfitted, for us, it's an Emery Thompson machine that is beautifully designed.

It's a push button operation.

It, spins the auger at the right, speed and freezes at the right temperature.

So that takes the guesswork out.

So we're not, you know, hand churning things, but we could do premium ice cream, home churned ice cream, frozen yogurts.

There's a button that says frozen lemonade.

And this is one of the installers said that actually means frozen margaritas.

So we work quite rapidly to get our beer and wine license.

Ah hank you, I have an ice cream machine at home, but it's not it.

I'm going to try but its not going to be the same.

Yeah, it's a lot of fun.

It is fun.

The book that we had actually breaks it out into the quantities.

It's for a quart are a gallon and a half recipe.

So our machine requires at least a gallon of product to go in it, up to two gallons.

And so that works perfectly.

And then it breaks it out, not just like, okay, you need two quarts of heavy cream, quart of this quart of that, but it tells you the ratios on the outside.

You need 40% sugar.

You need 40% fat.

we use the xanthan gum or guar gum as a stabilizer and then we are in the future, we're going to have, our bistro up and running, and we will have an ice cream bar in there and some of our flavors.

We do have chocolate, vanilla, to commemorate, doctor Torres return back as our chancellor, we made of a biscocho ice cream, which tastes just like the Christmas cookie.

But it's an ice cream form.

We do a popcorn, and we do, parmesan cheese ice cream, which tastes like, salted caramel.

So it's really kind of tricking your brain in helping come together as far as ice cream.

That's wonderful.

Thank you.

Chef Tom, we've talked a little bit about some of the rubs today.

Maybe you can touch on marinades a little bit because people love to, depending on the piece of meat or, the flavors you're trying to go with.

Marinades are a wonderful ways to infuse, nice flavor.

I marinate, chicken if I'm going to do an Asian chicken.

And then you've got to think about how you're going to prepare it.

Are you going to make a sandwich?

So you want to keep the chicken breast whole, or are you going to do like tacos?

Because the more surface area you create, the more intense the marinade becomes.

During COVID, I found during the food shortage, that it's the benefits of having a, vacuum sealer.

So I go out and I buy big old things, and I actually will marinate it, vacuum, seal it, and throw it in the freezer.

so it's actually marinating, while it's being froze.

That's interesting because we think of marinades as put it together and put it in the fridge for two hours.

Right.

But here's an opportunity to, what changes about that, after it's frozen, the type efforts frozen, it actually stops marinating because everything just kind of sits.

But then when I pull it out, like I usually pull it out the night before, throw it.

I've got a special spot where I'm thawing product in my, frigerator, put it in there, and then it just reactivates the marinade as it's sitting in there, the vacuum seal again, we're going to go microscopic the science side of this say this is a chicken breast.

And when you vacuum seal it it opens up the tissues.

And so the marinade can penetrate deeper.

And so you would actually if you are planning to make tacos and you want to slice that chicken, you would do that in advance.

Yes.

And and I would use heavy lime and cilantro and you know that that nice Baja flavor.

Uh huh.

Hi.

I had a question, pardon me if you have mentioned this, but kind of going back to, to grilling, I was wondering if there's like a specific oil or lubricant that you use when you grill your vegetables versus when you grill your meats I know stuff like butter burns.

So I was just curious.

You use like olive oil.

Do you prefer like a neutral oil?

Well, that's a great question.

I do what's called ghee.

I take my clarified butter, which takes all the solids that burn in butter, and I take that butter oil, and I mix it 50-50 with olive oil.

And I usually use a pumice because you don't want to use, extra virgin on the grill.

But the way I seasoned my grill is with, a bucket of kosher salt water and a towel, and I brush it on there while it's hot, brush it on, and it creates it almost looks like ceramic.

The nice thing about that is that I don't season my, product with, salt because the salt already baked onto the grills throw that on there and then it pulls that off.

The salt sticks to the grill, makes the grill marks, cleans the grill and imparts the salt on there, with the char but I do use it for the flavor.

I like to use ghee that you can buy it in the stores.

if you don't want to take the time, it usually takes about two hours because you got to cool the butter down before you get there.

There.

olive oil mixed in.

And is that for meat and vegetables?

Anything?

Yes.

Yeah.

and I've used avocado oil it's a little bit more on the expensive side.

I don't see any difference in the flavor, per se.

I do use, avocado oil in celebrations because it's not wasted on the grill.

Thank you.

Of course.

Right.

And as I see, the the main dish coming out, the entrees coming.

We welcome Christian back to the stage.

Okay.

What do we got here, Christian?

Here we have a balsamic glaze pork medallion with and apricot and raspberry chutney, along with grilled polenta cakes, as well as crispy fried green beans.

Everybody.

Ooh.

I have to find an opportunity for that every program.

Because look at that plate.

So that is a work of art.

We are going to present everybody their entree.

I did send Christian back so we could get, a shot of our dessert before the camera batteries die.

So so we're going to bring dessert out and we're going to have them talk about that as you receive your.

We are not rushing you out.

Please take your time and enjoy the meal.

We will bring the desserts when you're ready, but, we'd like to get a shot.

We're basically, we've got an hour for our program, and, you know, we've taken almost all that time, so we're just going to speed up the last few minutes here.

But, I'm looking forward to Christian coming out, again to talk a little bit about, what he put together for this entree.

But since you've got him busy, why don't you tell us a little bit about it, chef?

I know that they marinated the pork loin, and they actually we took the pork loin.

We peel all the silver skin off.

Silver skin is anybody ever had, like, a really luscious $3 ribeye where it curls up like a cup?

Okay, that's because they didn't take the time to trim the silver skin off.

Silver skin acts like a rubber band when you cook it, whether you grill it or you sauteed or you roasted it and it curls, it gets tight.

So they peel all the silver skin off.

to make it a little bit more palatable.

And while after they cut it, we could have marinated the whole loin, but then the middle of the loin doesn't receive it in the marinade, so they marinate it yesterday and a little bit of citrus, just to kind of help tenderize it and impart of flavor.

And then they, marked it off this morning and grilled it.

so they cut all the medallions out of it, made the pork chop.

And let's talk about the presentation.

if you look at the elevation, we want to create height that we try to work in three dimensions.

one of the things that, they also have to understand is that we need to come down about 60ft from the kitchen where they're actually producing these and carry them down.

We had a beautiful dessert on last Thursday.

It was a big tart ring like this with, custard in here standing on its edge.

And before we got them, I said, we're not going to put them on the trays.

We're going to serve them by hand.

And before they could get down there, they're so nervous or shaking they all fell over.

So, but the theory was to get these nice elevated, we want some height.

So we're working on plate architecture at this level.

And so just a flat thing of, pork chop build the height.

So he puts it on the polenta and puts a chutney on top of there.

Christian.

Hello.

Welcome back.

Thank you chef right here we have a grilled pear with mascarpone ice cream along with a graham cracker crumble and a caramel gastrique topped with basil and toasted pine nuts.

Now, why did you ask for one without pine nuts?

Because a little bird told me that I have an allergen in here.

So I would like to keep my EpiPen.

Very good.

Because remember, it's expired.

All right, so, we took a picture of the dessert, to give you a foreshadowing of what you're going to enjoy after you have your entree.

Please, what do you think so far?

The entree.

Beautiful.

Yeah.

(Clapping) So.

So let's get back to how, to finish off this presentation you mentioned the chutney.

Tell us a little bit about that.

The chutney.

He did add raspberries.

Chutney is a traditional Indian dish that is done, usually with mangoes.

But he did apricots to kind of bring that spring summer flavor into it with grilling and chilling and then added berries to it to actually kind of counterbalance the tartness of the apricots, stews it down with some sugar, and gets it all nice and gooey and warm and just spreads that right on top.

What kind of berries?

Raspberries, raspberries with that okay.

Yup.

And then for the rest of the color.

The rest of the color are the, air fried green beans.

He actually did it in our big rationale ovens and it's topped with, microgreens, which is a nice little delicate herb.

this blend has a little bit of edible flowers just to give it that nice burst of color.

There's times our what we do in this class is I call first plate at half-hour before service.

And we look at the plate, we look at the, the design of, you know, my steak would not pass my my grade.

Oops.

That's how juicy that steak is because it's just plain, but we want to give we want the plate to tell a story.

We want it to like, work its way through your mind, as you know, oh, I'm just dying to eat this and and understand how this is put together.

I mean, look at the salad still sitting there.

It's just a beautiful dish, and it's just it's the components are put together long time past.

Thanks.

And one of the things that I love about this, if you look at the salad and the entree together, and look at everything together, there's so much green, right?

It's grilling and chilling and it's backyard summer barbecues.

And so we see a lot of green in the colors of summer.

There's that bright pink and it looks like flowers on top of our of our dishes.

It does.

Yep.

That's when the lawnmower went astray.

And we ended up with yeah, don't mow your lawn while the grilling is going on.

Well, with a little bit of time that we have left chef Tom, let's get back to that dessert here.

Because I did have a question, a confession and a question?

Mascarpone I don't know what that is.

It's a real soft cheese style sour cream that for lack of a better term, but it adds a little bit of depth over just putting in heavy cream because it's real viscous and taste.

It's got a great mouthfeel.

he flavored it a little bit in his base, and it still, it sets up really nice.

Now he had to modify the base because mascarpone has different fat content, so fat doesn't freeze really well.

The amount of sugar that he puts in, he had to understand that the sugar is an antifreeze.

So the more sugar we put in, and to get it to, to hold up like he did.

And it came out really beautiful.

So, so complicated, putting all of this together.

And I just want to say thank you so much.

Thank you to the students here at Dona Ana Community College for going to this effort today.

Thank you, chef Tom, for having us back.

And thank you for coming out and enjoying lunch with us today.

On cooking with chef Tom Grillin and chillin.

Thanks again.

Thank you for coming.

Okay, let's dive in.

Okay.