- All right, we're back at it.

- And I'm in the kitchen.

I love being here.

(light violin music) - One more bite.

- Yeah, one more bite.

It's good.

(violin music continues) - You know, the final thing is we have to... - Taste it.

- Yeah.

(small group clapping) Hi, I am Chris Fennimore.

- And I'm Nancy Polinsky.

- And it's so great to be back in the kitchen with you for one of our terrific cooking marathons, we call them.

This one is called "Around the World in 80 Recipes," but I gotta tell you, it's not 80 recipes.

It's more like 150 recipes.

And they are recipes from all over the world.

This is a chance to experience the different food cultures that have made their way to America.

And they are from the British Isles.

They're from all over Europe, France, Italy, Spain, Germany.

- Asia.

- Oh yeah, we have Asian recipes as well.

We have things from the eastern European sector of Europe and put them all together into one book.

And we're gonna try to make some of these recipes.

- And you know what, I would rather go around the world with 80 recipes than in 80 days.

- Especially in a balloon, you know.

Anyway, we're gonna get started with a recipe that it was part of my childhood because my family came from Italy, and now I make this recipe with my son Joseph.

- Who just happens to be here.

- Who just happens to be here.

- Good morning.

- Hello Joseph, it's good to see you.

You have to mention, Joseph's a new daddy.

- Yeah, he is.

- Congratulations.

I'm so happy for you.

All right, this is my cue to scoot outta here.

Y'all have a good time.

- Will you take the books?

- I will take the books.

- And we'll see you, see you later.

All right Joe.

- Good morning dad.

- Great to have you.

This is where we feel comfortable, isn't it, you and I?

- Absolutely.

- Making recipes.

Well, this is a recipe for a Chicken Parmesan.

I'm not sure why it's called Parmesan, except that there is a point at which we use some Parmesan cheese, and it has to be Parmesano Reggiano.

So that's part of the recipe.

But other than that, it's really just sauteed chicken that you put in the oven with some tomato sauce.

That's what we're gonna do.

But we're gonna start with a base of, yeah, we could do that.

We're gonna start with a base of a little flavoring of just some peppers and onions.

I like to use the green peppers.

I think they have the stronger pepper flavor.

- Is this something that you remember your mom doing occasionally?

- Oh my goodness.

She would make chicken Parmesan all the time.

Well, we always had tomato sauce, and chicken was inexpensive in those days.

And, then I'm just gonna saute these a little bit and just rough, these are just like, so the nice big pieces of onion and pepper.

- Sure, and it'll all break down as it bakes in the oven itself.

- Oh yeah.

So I'm just gonna put that in there.

And the reason why this is such a memory to me is that this is how I learned about flour, egg, and bread.

Okay?

Flour, egg and bread is a part of cooking that is universal.

- Anytime you're gonna bread and fry anything.

- So if you give me the chicken cutlets.

The chicken, yeah.

These are boneless chicken breasts.

I'm just gonna put them right here on the board.

And if you would crack the eggs.

We have the flour out and we have the breadcrumbs out, but we need to have a little bit of eggs in there.

In the meantime, I am going to just cut these into thinner pieces, 'cause I like more cutlets.

You can get these actually in the supermarket, a lot of times they already have them sliced thin.

We'll just do that one.

And, the flour, egg, and bread gives you a chance to put flavor into this chicken even before it goes in the oven, because you have seasoned breadcrumbs.

We're gonna season it a little bit more.

If you would put a little bit of grated Parmesano.

- I will, just after I rinse my hands.

- Okay.

And these are frying up nice.

All right, get them turned around.

And I'm ready.

If you are, you want to just, oh yeah, look at that.

Now I always make a point of saying that cheese, this is cheese.

That stuff in a jar is stuff in a jar.

I don't know what it is, but since it has a shelf life of 16 years, I thought, maybe I'd rather use the cheese.

Okay.

- All right.

- Mix that around a little bit.

- [Joseph] I'm gonna get some salt and pepper in there.

- All right.

Yep, a little salt and pepper.

You can spice it as much or as little as you want, but I like to put a lot of flavor into it.

And then these cutlets will go first in the flour, then in the egg, and then in the breadcrumb.

And then they're ready to fry.

All right?

Oh, you gotta get it in the right order.

(laughing) Flour.

You'll see that this is a great job for a kid to do in the kitchen.

It's not bad for an older guy like you either.

As long as I don't have to do it.

- [Joe] I like it.

Let the egg drip a little bit.

- And you know, Joe, you grew up cooking with me in the kitchen, 'cause that's what we did.

I didn't play baseball or basketball or anything like that.

We would cook.

So there it is, flour, egg, and bread.

In the meantime, I say in the meantime, I am going to empty these into our roasting pan.

You keep going.

- [Joe] I will.

- I'm just gonna put them in the bottom of this pan, and I'm gonna mix them with a little bit of my homemade tomato sauce, so that we have a bottom layer.

Okay.

Oh my goodness.

That smells good already.

I think it's just the onion and the- - Great Italian colors there.

- Right.

Oh, I didn't even think of that.

- I thought it was intentional.

- All right, we're gonna move that off of here.

Move this down here.

- I think chicken parm is such a great like dinner party thing to make.

It's an easy crowd pleaser.

It makes a ton.

Can pair it with anything, but you should probably have pasta with it.

- Could you hand me that oil?

I'm gonna put a little more oil in the pan.

Okay.

And I can use the same pan that I used before, and I'm just gonna start to brown these.

They don't have to cook all the way through, okay?

Put that back on.

And I'm just going to gently fry these.

If I had heat, it would be better.

- That's the back one again.

- All right, we'll just use that one.

This is a recipe that, it's not really a recipe, it's just a technique.

And that's the way that my mother and my grandmother cooked.

You know, I love our cookbooks and it's a way to share recipes and so on.

But when I was growing up, my grandmother just cooked.

She would take the ingredients that she had available and she would make food out of it.

And we all loved it.

But, now everybody is really recipe-driven.

It's a great guideline, but if you want to alter this recipe in any way that you need to, because there are people who say, oh I can't use flour or you can transfer like gluten-free breadcrumbs.

They have them, they have different kinds of things.

Substitute for the egg.

It all works for this particular recipe.

- I know sometimes when trying to substitute for the egg in this process I've used like egg free mayo.

They have like olive oil or avocado based mayonnaise.

- Because you have nephews, they have real difficulty with certain ingredients.

- Allergies, right?

- Yeah, real allergies.

Okay.

All right, let's put these.

- Now I got the pads on my fingers.

And you could just put these on the side to get them out of the way.

- [Joe] I'm gonna wash my hands.

And then do you need some tongs or something to flip those over?

- [Chris] Just a fork.

- [Joe] A fork will do.

- All right.

So I'm just gonna, these are actually gonna be fine just like this.

You see how nice and brown the breadcrumbs have gotten.

Because you don't have to cook these until their all the way done because we're gonna put it in the oven and bake it for about a half an hour at 350 degrees.

And then we're going, covered, and that will cook the chicken through but keep it also tender.

And then after that we are going to put some mozzarella on it, fresh mozzarella.

- Those look fantastic though.

- Yeah.

All right, so now for this, as they say, because it's television, I'm gonna put these in here, and we would finish up all of these.

I should put them on, just put 'em in.

The crew is here.

They're gonna want to eat this, aren't they?

All right.

Nice little portions.

Then I'll put this, a little sauce on top of each one.

And Joe, if you would put this on the side 'cause we're gonna bake it, we'll bake it off and take out the one that I have in the oven so we can show what it looks like, and we'll put that one right over here, Joe.

This Chicken Parmesan.

There it is.

- Right here.

- Oh, you can put it right on here.

And we'll take a piece and see what it tastes like.

Oh, oh, wrong plate.

(laughing) Oh, there we are.

There's a knife there.

I'm gonna cut a few pieces.

Gotta get a little bit of that mozzarella on there, that melted mozzarella.

All right, son, have a taste.

Let me know what you think.

- Hmm.

It's so tender.

- That is the magic of this.

It's because it's baked covered until the chicken still remains juicy and soft.

It doesn't harden up at all.

- But you get all that nice flavor from the browning, from frying it.

- Yeah.

- It's really great.

- So this is it.

This is Chicken Parmesan, as we used to make it in Brooklyn.

And as I still make it with my son Joe here.

(audience applauding) - All right, yeah, we're back in the kitchen and I'm here with Chef Roger Li.

And I met Roger a couple of years ago actually, at a chef thing that was going on here in town.

And then we were gonna do the show and I thought, wait a minute, we have a lot of dumpling recipes in this new cookbook.

Why don't have Chef Li come on and make some dumplings for us?

So you sent in this recipe, we've got it in the book, and we're gonna make some.

What kind of dumplings are these?

- So these are chicken shiitake and Napa cabbage dumplings.

- But you can put anything in a dumpling, can't you?

Not peanut butter and jelly or anything.

- But pork, pork is fine.

Beef is fine.

But in this case we're doing chicken.

So to do this we're adding some texture to this dumpling by.

- But you start with just, you can buy this ground chicken right in the supermarket, right?

- Yes.

- Okay.

- Or you can ground yourself too.

- Yeah.

- So we're adding Napa cabbage for some texture.

You would like to cut it a little bit smaller, 'cause it will pierce through the dumplings if it's too big.

- So now this Napa cabbage is commonly available in, I suppose Asian stores, but you can even get this at the regular supermarket.

- Any supermarket should have Napa.

- And if they didn't, could you use any kind of cabbage or it really depends upon this lighter textured.

- I think a lighter cabbage would be better, 'cause a regular green cabbage will put too much crunch to it.

- [Chris] Yeah.

Okay.

- So we have our ground chicken our Napa cabbage in.

- Let's move that to the center of the board here and we can start, I'll put this over here.

- And now we need to add our shiitakes.

- Okay.

- These are fresh shiitakes.

So we are also gonna dice up for flavor and texture, and shiitake is almost like a sponge.

So it will soak up a lot of the juices as you're cooking.

- Oh, okay.

- So it doesn't really make the dumpling fall apart as easily.

- Right.

- Without these.

- And this is again, if you couldn't find shiitake, other mushrooms would do a similar.

- Absolutely.

Yep.

So here now we have our Napa, our chicken, and our shiitakes in.

I'm gonna crack an egg.

Egg's more of a binding agent.

It helps put everything together.

- Right.

So that when you cook it, the dumpling, the filling part will actually get firm.

- Yes.

- Yes.

Okay.

Now did you eat a lot of dumplings as a kid?

- I did.

We also made a lot of dumplings.

- Yeah, there is a tradition about New Year's.

What is that about the dumplings, making as many as you can or eating as many as you can?

- I think during New Year's we do dumplings to bring the family together.

Growing up as a kid, we, our cousins, our grandparents all sat together and made dumplings.

And dumplings have a meaning of happiness, or full, more, brings happiness to the family during New Year's from making and the whole entire process.

- Yeah.

So you make 'em together?

- Yes.

- So it's a family.

Okay.

- So, seasoning wise we have a oyster sauce.

It's a little bit sweet, savory condiment that a lot of Asian culture uses for their food.

Little salt, some sugar.

- [Chris] Ah, so sweet and spicy.

- [Roger] We have a little bit of a chicken bullion powder.

- [Chris] Well that must add a lot of flavor.

- Lastly we have some white pepper.

We like to mix this first, incorporate all the ingredients together.

About halfway of mixing and folding in your chicken.

You'll finish it off with a little bit of sesame oil.

And the sesame oil also acts as a binding and lots of flavor as you see when we pan fry these.

- Now, in the Asian food tradition, there's something called dim sum, right?

- Yes.

- And that is like, like all appetizers, isn't it?

- Dim sum is- - Or little light dishes, small dishes?

- Small dim sum baskets of three to four dumplings each and usually eaten during brunch or breakfast times, and also often served with some hot tea.

- Ah, yeah.

Well, because that's one of your restaurants is called the Dim Sum Parlor.

- Yes.

- Yeah, that's great.

- So now that it's all mixed, we can start with wrapping.

So these wrappers, make sure it's, you know, nothing cracked on there.

'cause once it's cracked, it's gonna open up.

Take a little bit of your filling.

- Is there water?

Oh, here I'm gonna, because it says to, or you don't need to.

- I do.

I just do it afterwards.

- [Chris] Oh, okay.

- So you put a little bit of a dumping filling.

The water acts as adhesive, folding it in half, like a half moon.

You want enough filling 'cause it won't, but too much will not work.

- It's stuff oozing out.

I'm gonna try that.

Is that too much?

- That's perfect right there.

- [Chris] Well this has actually got a nice little piece of mushroom.

I can see it right in there.

- So after this I do a little bit more water on the outside.

And then we start crimping.

I usually do four.

So one, two, three, and the last one.

- Okay, so first I have it.

Oh, look at that.

All right, well put that on that plate, 'cause we're gonna make some more.

We got a lot of people to feed here, Roger.

We got a lot of filling too.

I think I'm only gonna get three in, Roger.

- The good thing about dumplings, it's not really a certain way.

A lot of different families have different ways of rolling.

- Yeah, but I've also seen dumplings that are shaped entirely different.

They're open, they're- - Different applications.

I think what we're doing here, we're pan frying, but if you're steaming the open-faced ones are pretty good.

- Yeah, they're good for that.

But just the steam, oh I see, in the steaming basket.

Yeah, but you can also boil some dumplings.

I'm gonna check and see where we are on this.

I think we are good.

I wanted to make sure that we had something to taste here.

So, okay I think we've got the wrapping thing down.

Let's make a little sauce for these, if you would.

- Sauce is very simple, we have three ingredients.

We have soy sauce, a rice wine vinegar, and some sesame oil.

- Okay.

- So, equal parts, some soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, and a little bit of sesame oil.

Let's give that a quick stir.

- The first time my son had dumplings, he said, "I want a spicy sauce."

And they brought him one that had the chili garlic.

- Yes.

- And peanut, and it was like wild.

And he put it in his mouth and he went and he says, "I love this."

(laughing) He was about three years old.

- Okay, so we have sauce to dip them in.

And let's see if we got these.

Oh yeah.

So the water has, what we did was we put some water in this pan and a little bit of oil, and then we just put them in and just on one side.

And then they get this nice crunchy one side.

I have a little, that white plate that we can serve these, or show them on.

Whoops, I'm not as good at this as you are.

They just won't stay over.

- Beautiful.

- They are nice and crunchy.

And that's, I think why I prefer this to just boiled dumplings, which are more like raviolis or, I don't know, pierogis.

These are, you have that crispiness on here.

Get one more.

And there we are.

Put that over here.

So now we have, the final thing is we have to taste it.

Yeah, so just gimme that.

Oh yeah, the sauce and a fork.

All right.

You want one?

- Sure.

- Okay.

- [Roger] Nice and crispy.

- [Chris] Get the really crispy one, huh?

- Good.

- Now, because of the steaming that they do in the pan, the chicken is fully cooked.

And then it's only a matter of getting that crunch on there from the leftover oil that's there.

- It's almost like a steamed fry.

The steam when the water and the evaporation, the oil leftover has it nice and crispy.

- Oh, Roger, that is so delicious.

- Thank you.

Thank you so much.

- There's so many flavors that you're getting all at once, but the dipping sauce is not bad.

I think I could put a shingle in here and then just chew on it.

This is a great recipe and even though it's a little bit exotic in terms of its origin, it's not out of the question that you can make these at home.

(audience applauding) - Hi, I'm Chris and we are back in the kitchen.

And this time we're back with Kweilin Nassar.

- Yes.

- Kweilin and I used to work together actually at our public television station.

But you're now retired.

You beat me to the punch.

- I am retired.

I'm enjoying my retirement and actually, you know, doing a little bit more cooking than I used to.

- Yeah, yeah, that's great.

Well, we're gonna make two of my favorite Middle Eastern dishes.

One is hummus, and the other one is baba ganoush.

The first one, the hummus is based on chickpeas, right?

- Yes.

- And this is, is it served as an appetizer or?

- These are appetizers.

Both hummus and baba ganoush are appetizers and actually sometimes they're also included with what we call a meze.

And so there might be on this entire tray, humus, baba ganoush, feta cheese, olives, and even some tabouli.

- Okay.

- But you know, hummus has become a mainstay in America, oddly enough.

And it is around the Middle East as well.

- Yeah, they still eat it there, right?

- Yeah, in lots of places.

- All right, so now we're gonna put, this is just canned chickpeas that I have drained.

- And you drain them.

Yep.

- Put them in there, put this behind us.

So we make more room as we go along.

And I'm going to start the process of, (food processor running) - [Kweilin] We're gonna whip them a little bit, and then.

- I mean this is, I don't know how they did this before.

With a hands thing?

Oh my goodness.

- Hand mallet, yeah.

Can you imagine making, I mean I usually make two cans at a time or sometimes I even have two food processors going.

- Now that I've got that started, we'll we will add the other ingredients.

Would you hand me that spatula?

- Yes, absolutely.

- This is tahini, which, tell 'em what tahini is.

- All right, so Tahini is a sesame paste and you can usually get this, actually you get it at Middle Eastern stores, but a lot of the grocery stores are now carrying it as well, because hummus has become just so popular.

- I'm gonna add some parsley.

- You're gonna add some parsley.

- That's why I make mine at home, but you don't have to, but I like to put- - Well, it's an option.

I mean, and I found that in many, many people in the United States in particular, sometimes they'll add red pepper, sometimes they'll add roasted peppers or pine nuts or even some olives.

So it's become, as I said, a mainstay where folks are just really experimenting.

- it's like when people, - Say, I make pizza.

- Yeah.

- What kind of pizza?

- Right, exactly.

- You know, with cheese, with meat, with salami.

- Right.

And now you're adding some lemon juice, which is a key element.

And this lemon juice, adding lemon juice really depends upon your taste.

I always like my hummus very lemony.

And so I might add a little bit more lemon juice.

And the trick here is that if you end up having, you know, if your mixture gets too too thick, you can add a little bit of water to hummus, cold water to the hummus.

And of course you're adding some garlic, which is in just about every Middle Eastern dish.

Yes.

- I really like the garlic part.

I've roasted this garlic, so.

- [Kweilin] And it looks fabulous, right.

- So I'm gonna start this to see what the texture is.

- Good.

And then if the texture ends up being too thick, you can add a little bit of cold water.

If it's too thin, then what you do is you add lemon juice.

And that's a trick with hummus.

- Oh really?

The lemon juice thickens it up.

- Lemon juice will thicken it up a little bit.

So, you know, it just depends.

Now the fact that you've added parsley helps it to thin, I mean, helps it to thicken.

But you know, it depends upon the consistency that you like.

- [Chris] Well, and instead of cold water, I'm gonna use some of the drained chickpea water.

- [Kweilin] All right.

- 'Cause I figure that's a good way to use it.

- It will add a little bit more of that taste too.

Yeah.

Cool.

And then you just beat it up a little bit more.

Now the nice thing about hummus is, as I said, it's become a mainstay.

So normally in the Middle East we would eat it with pita bread, but now folks are dipping carrots, cucumbers, you can use crackers and you can just use it in any way that you wanna make an appetizer.

- Let's put this, some of this on the plate.

- Okay.

A little dollop will do.

There you go.

- You go on this side with the- - Okay.

And that's not really a bad consistency there.

Some might like theirs a little bit thicker, so it depends upon what your tastes are.

If you like it thinner like this or a little thicker.

- All right, so the next thing that we're gonna make.

- Right.

- Is the- - Baba ganoush.

- Baba ganoush.

- Yes.

- Which is not unlike hummus.

- Yes.

- It's just that you don't use chickpeas, you use- - Roasted eggplant.

- Roasted eggplant, - Which you have already done and roasted.

Now, baba ganoush takes a little bit more time, sort of, and I'm going to say, sort of, because if you make it traditionally the way that Chris is doing right now, where he's made this roasted eggplant and you have to really clean it all out.

There you go.

You can, it takes a little bit more time, a little bit more effort to do baba ganoush in this way.

There are, however, and we're gonna go through this process, but there is however a shortcut now, and that shortcut ends up being, you can purchase, you can purchase eggplant already in a jar.

And it makes it really simple.

You don't have to worry about cleaning out the eggplant, roasting it and so forth.

You just place this eggplant in a jar.

And the process of making it is just a little bit different in terms of what you add first or second.

But this is the basic and the traditional way of making baba ganoush.

- And, it's not hard.

- No.

- I just put that eggplant in the oven at 350 degrees until it gets really soft as you can see.

And now if you would just keep mixing that and I'm gonna put some other ingredients in.

- Okay, good.

- You read 'em off to me there from the recipe.

- So the other ingredients, two cloves of garlic.

- [Chris] Plenty of garlic.

- [Kweilin] Yep.

Yep.

- Okay.

- Okay.

Two cloves of garlic and the tahini.

- This is tahini, - There's the tahini.

And again, tahini is a basic with both baba ganoush and also with hummus.

So you have to have that tahini paste.

- Scoop that out.

- Yep.

- [Chris] Get to the bottom of that.

- We got that.

And we'll keep mixing it.

All right, and the juice of two lemons.

- [Chris] So it's very lemony.

- Yeah, it's pretty lemony.

Well they both are, again, the amount of lemon that you use and keep adding depends upon your taste.

- Yeah, I'm spraying you all over with lemon.

That's alright.

It's okay, it's okay.

And then, you know, you have your option of adding also a little bit of salt to this.

- Yeah, go ahead.

- Cool.

- Okay.

- Okay, cool.

- Well let's get the- - Platter.

- The platter up here.

- Okay.

- We'll work on this.

- Okay, I'm gonna pull this together.

I got a little little bit of stuff on me here.

- All right.

- All right.

So we'll add a little dollop.

And again, you can have, with baba ganoush you can use crackers.

I've found that crackers or pita are the best with baba ganoush.

But unlike, you know, with hummus you can use vegetables as well.

- Well, I hope nobody's looking, in case we do double dipping, you know.

- Yeah.

Okay, well I'm gonna have some of the baba and you can have some of the- - Hummus.

- Some of the hummus.

Okay.

Good.

Really good.

- I like the lemon in there.

I liked, I love all the flavors together.

- Right, and you did some really, the amount of lemon that's in the baba is really good as well.

- I gotta taste the baba too.

- Taste the baba.

Now again, as I mentioned about the jar.

- Yeah.

- If you're gonna make a lot of, you know, like if you have a big party, this is the way to go because you can get two or three of these jars.

The way that you add your elements to it is a little bit different in a little bit different order.

But it is a simple and easy way.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- Good?

- Yeah.

- [Chris] I always love these little tips and tricks that we get from real home cooks.

(audience applauding) - All right, we're back at it.

- And I'm in the kitchen and I love being here.

- You know, very rarely do we get to cook together.

I like this.

- This is nice.

Well, we as is you.

But I love to stand next to you and help and smell.

- Anyway, this is a recipe you are gonna like, 'cause you like them simple but tasty.

- Absolutely.

- And this one is the epitome of that.

It's, I call it the plop, plop, fizz, fizz recipe, where you just plop, plop and it fizzes and then it's ready.

So we're gonna start with a little bit of olive oil.

Or you could use butter, but just about a tablespoon or so.

Let me turn this on.

And what we're gonna do is to saute some onion in there until the onion is soft.

But it doesn't have to brown.

It just has to get soft.

- Okay.

- 'Cause this is gonna cook forever.

We're not gonna be here forever, because I have some already made.

- But have we told the viewers what you're making?

Have you told me what you're making?

I don't even know what we're making.

- It's, it's plop, plop, fizz, fizz.

No, no, no.

Actually this is a Turkish recipe for red lentil soup.

- Oh, yum.

- Yeah.

- I love anything Turkish.

I love Turkish food.

- Their flavor combinations are so great.

And you know, we're fortunate here in this town to have a wonderful Turkish cultural group and they have events and food is always a part of them.

So all right, so I'm just gonna chop up some of this onion.

- One of my favorite restaurants here is actually run and owned by a family from Istanbul.

And I just love going in there.

I love seeing the Turkish accoutrements all over the place and the food.

Mmm.

So good.

And they're such a friendly people, although people all over the world are friendly.

They really, they really are.

- Especially when it comes to food.

- Oh yes.

Enjoy, eat more and more.

- They want to share.

Share is what it's all about.

- And they're very excited because this is their family recipe and they want you to enjoy it.

And their mother taught it to them.

It's the same all over the world.

- Exactly.

Which is what this is all about.

- Yes.

- Recipes from are all around the world.

And we didn't want to exclude Turkey's 'cause we've had our Turkish friends here locally many times.

All right, I'm just gonna make believe that this is now nice and soft - Works for me.

- What do I say is the next ingredient?

- The next ingredient would be one tablespoon of tomato paste.

- Yep, okay.

I love it.

- This would be the same ingredients in the same order that you will find in the cookbook.

- Cookbook, right.

- Okay.

- Okay.

- [Nancy] One and a half cups of red lentils.

- [Chris] And there they are.

- A little more orange than red.

We're gonna be precise.

- Well, yeah.

- They're called red lentils.

- They are.

That's what, when I go to the store, that's what what they're labeled, okay.

- All right, quarter cup of short grain rice.

One quarter cup.

- All right.

I have to say, when people are looking at this, we're making a half a batch.

So it says more than, there's no use making a small batch of soup except here.

- Okay.

- All right.

- two tablespoons of fine bulgur, optional.

- Well, I like it.

- I like it too.

- It thickens and it adds some nutritional value to it.

And then just, okay.

- All right.

One half carrot grated.

- That's your job.

- Okay, half carrot grated goes into the pot.

- We're just a little bit upgraded.

Just about, you know, I mean this is optional in a way.

It says, but again, it adds- - A little vitamin what, A?

Carrots are A, right?

- And it also has a real flavor.

I love the flavor of carrots.

- Yeah?

- Yeah.

- Whoop.

- Well that's enough.

- Flying, flying.

Okay, next.

- Okay.

After the carrot is one small potato grated.

- Well, you don't have to grate the whole thing.

- Okay, once again.

Just for effect, just to show you.

- And I understand that that's also optional.

If for some reason you don't like potato.

But what I like about it is that it adds texture.

Okay.

- Okay, you get the gist.

- We get the idea.

- All right.

And now our next.

- Then comes nine cups of chicken broth.

- All right, there you go.

- Or water.

Nine cups of water or chicken broth.

Why don't we use water?

- I use the chicken broth.

I think it adds so much more flavor.

- [Nancy] You know who would use the water?

Vegetarians, vegans.

- [Chris] Or you could use vegetable broth.

You can buy that.

- That's true.

That's true.

- Something a little deeper than just water is good for me.

All right, I'm gonna- - Mm, it's already smelling so good.

- Now it says to cook this for a while and then you start adding the other ingredients.

- Oh, you don't add the other things yet?

- Not yet, but we're gonna add them now.

- Bring it.

Yeah, you're right.

It says bring the soup to a boil.

Lower the heat, let it simmer for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.

And then add one teaspoon of Spanish paprika.

Has to be Spanish paprika.

One half teaspoon of cumin.

- [Chris] This is the cumin.

- One tablespoon of dried mint.

Hmm.

Salt and pepper to taste.

And the juice of one lemon.

- All right.

Salt.

- [Nancy] Oh, sorry, I could have helped you with that.

- [Chris] Our ever-loving pepper grinder.

- Pepper grinder.

- [Chris] It just goes back and forth.

- That is so much easier than this thing.

- I find it, it's just fun.

We've been using it for so many years.

- And the juice of a lemon.

- Oh, okay.

Just gonna squeeze that right in there.

- Cook another 10 minutes.

And if the soup is too thick, add more boiling water.

- Yeah, if you had let it cook for the first 30 minutes, obviously, some of the broth would've cooked down.

- The aroma.

- The thing that gets me about this recipe is the aroma from the mint and the paprika and all of those, and the onion too is just an amazing thing, but it is a plop, plop.

- Plop, fizz, fizz.

- And then, oh, what a relief it is.

How much am I dating myself now?

Half of our viewers are going, wait, three quarters of our viewers are going, what is she talking about?

That was an old commercial.

- [Chris] Commercial for Alka Seltzer.

- [Nancy] Back in the day for Alka Seltzer.

- All right, I'm gonna put the lid on this.

We will boil this all up later, get it nice and thick.

But, - But in the meantime, through the magic of television.

- As they say.

- [Nancy] Oh, look at that.

That has really thickened nicely.

Better on you than me.

(both laughing) - All right, let's clean that up a little bit.

That jumped right out of there.

- It really did, I have to say.

It kind of took on a mind of its own.

- All right.

- All righty.

Oh, that's gorgeous.

- And of course, to me, I, if I had some bread that would really make this a meal for me, and I'm gonna make sure this is all off.

- It looks like squash soup.

- Yeah, it does.

But you can, if you look closely, you can just barely see that they're lentils.

- [Nancy] I see the mint.

Oh my gosh, I cannot wait to taste this.

- [Chris] Yeah.

- That is absolutely beautiful.

- You're gonna have to blow on that carefully.

- Oh, oh, smell it.

Smelling the lemon now.

- Mm, yeah.

- Smelling the lemon.

- Well, I mean, to me, because of all of the protein that's in here with the lentils and the bulgur and all of that, this is a meal.

It's not like an appetizer.

- Absolutely, it's not a first course.

- No, they eat this as a full meal.

- Mmm hmm.

That is delicious.

- Yeah.

- I'm feeling the potato.

I'm glad the potato's in there.

- I'm feeling it all because you can actually, the bulgur has gotten softened up and expanded a little bit.

The lentils are still within the realm of feeling like- - Like a lentil?

- Like a lentil.

Not just mush.

The onions have disappeared.

So that's good.

- [Nancy] Oh, and the flavoring.

- It gets melted right into that stock.

- Very savory.

- So here you go.

It is red lentil soup, (audience applauding) - Okay, we are back in the kitchen and we're headed towards, well, let me tell you, this is Liz Kostandinu, although I just found out that you're not Greek.

- I actually am not.

I'm Greek by marriage.

So that counts, right?

That counts.

- That counts absolutely.

- Close enough.

- And we're gonna make.

- We are gonna make some spanakopita today.

- Whenever I go to the Greek food festivals, which we have here in our town, that's one of the things that I have to, I like all the other things, especially the cookies.

But one of the things that I really love is the spanakopita, because of the crispiness of the texture and the taste of the filling.

- And how warm and crunchy, it's the perfect appetizer before you dive into your Greek dinner, isn't it?

- Absolutely.

- And then wrap it up with all those sweets.

- Yes.

- Absolutely.

- Yeah, so what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna for insurance sake, I'm gonna cut the scallion.

I know you're perfectly capable of this, Liz, but, I'm gonna cut the scallion into little pieces that we're gonna add to our spinach, 'cause that's what's in spanakopita, it's like a spinach pastry.

- It is like spinach pie some people call it.

And it's really quite simple when you look at the ingredients, spinach being the predominant ingredient in there.

But I love that we're adding some onions for that little extra burst of flavor.

- And the other thing is feta cheese.

- Can you make a Greek dish without feta cheese?

- I don't know.

- How dare you.

- If you make it without it, then they just crumbled it on the top.

- Absolutely.

- Yeah.

Okay.

- Absolutely.

- All right, so let's move the spinach over this way.

- All right, we're ready for the prime time for the spinach.

- Yeah, now you could see that what we had to do was to drain and press this spinach and look at all of that's gone in there.

That's a lot of juice.

- [Liz] A lot of juice.

- So if you would throw that in the sink and bring the bowl back, because we want this spinach to be as dry as possible.

And so I would start early with the, I'm gonna just put this in here.

If you can put those in there.

We can add the scallions into that.

On the board, okay.

Now we need to crack one egg in there.

- [Liz] Crack one egg.

All right.

- This is not, actually when you get your recipe, it will be for a much bigger batch than this.

But I figured we just need to show you the method more than to have the exact recipe.

Now, we have some mint.

- Our mint is next.

All right, sprinkling it in.

- Oh, sprinkle it in.

Okay.

And one, a little half cup of feta cheese crumbled.

- Last but not least, here we go.

The best part, right?

(Chris laughing) - I like it.

All right, now if you would mix that, I'm gonna take this butter.

We have some melted butter.

If you would mix that all together, especially make sure the egg is nice and integrated.

- [Liz] Do you smell that mint?

I do.

- Oh yeah.

Well, it's a very predominant flavor in this, at least in this recipe.

As with other recipes, if you're not crazy about mint, you could cut back or you could eliminate it and put some other flavor in there that you do like.

I'm going to just butter this pan, this baking pan.

Just a little layer of butter on here.

And then I'm gonna leave all the buttering to you, Liz.

- [Liz] Okay.

Well, I think I did a good job on the mixing.

We look like we're all mixed in.

- Oh yeah, it does.

Okay.

- All right.

- Right now, this is the part that gives me palpitations at night.

I'm gonna put this over here.

This is filo dough.

And why you Greeks want to torture the rest of the world with filo dough, I have no idea, but it is really a challenge to deal with this, because the filo dough dries out so quickly.

I've got a couple of sheets under some moist towels.

I'm gonna cut this in half.

All right now, what I would like you to do is to take the butter and go down one side, like as if it were half, you know?

Okay.

- All right, I'm just painting with butter.

- Yes, and I'm going to hold it so that it doesn't crinkle up while you're doing it.

Look at that.

All right, don't be stingy.

- Not with butter.

Butter or feta, right?

We always gotta.

- [Chris] And you can do this side too.

- [Liz] Okay.

- And basically just this methodology is what works for me.

Now that you have it buttered on one side, you fold it over and then there's butter on the inside of this little strip.

Okay?

- Mm hm.

- And this strip, I'm going to move so that we can roll it up.

- You're right, it is very fickle.

- All right.

If you would, so I'm gonna fold this one over.

So we have another one.

- [Liz] There we go.

- I'm gonna take the other ones, the bottom ones, off of there so that we can make more.

But mostly I just wanna show the technique that they follow for making the spanakopita, 'cause I find it intriguing.

And that is that we put a little blob of the mixture at one end of the strip.

Okay?

And I'll do the first one.

- [Liz] Okay.

- You fold it over into a triangle like that, and then you fold the triangle up and you fold it over and you fold it up and you fold it over and up and over, just like they do the folding of a flag.

- Okay.

- And then you put your spanakopita on the tray.

- [Liz] Up and over, up and over.

- Right?

Now this is a fun thing to do with kids, except that the filo dough is sometimes frustrating, but there we go.

- All right, we got triangles.

- All right, so you put them on here.

Now you can put a little bit of butter on the top of those.

I'll do that if you want, just so we have an idea and we'll make the rest of them.

But I need to get the ones out of the, of the oven.

Let's see what we got here.

We have some warming up.

- [Liz] Oh, look at those.

- I made some that were like little bite size, and I made some that are like the ones that we just made.

But you see the bite-sized ones are like little hor d'oeuvres, but the bigger ones are, take which one you like.

- Oh, I'm gonna go for, I'm gonna go all in with this one.

- [Chris] Yeah, go.

- [Liz] Go all in.

All right.

- And I'm just gonna give it a little taste.

- Let's give it a taste.

Now, I know that they have these at the food festivals, the Greek food festivals, but in daily life, when do they make spanakopita, special occasions?

Or is it like, every once in a while.

- So I will tell you that in my family, my father-in-law and my mother-in-law, they have spanakopita with special celebrations.

They will make it for holidays, as part of the holiday meal, but also sometimes just on a regular old Wednesday.

So if you're just feeling like having some spanakopita, it's a pretty easy recipe to make.

And we just have it with dinner, Wednesday night dinner.

- So you bake these off at 350 degrees.

You know, you butter the bottom of the dish, you put the spanakopita rolled up in there, you butter the top, put it in 350 degrees until they get this nice light brown color.

And they will be crunchy, crispy.

Even the little parts that stick to the pan, they're delicious.

- Don't leave a bite behind.

- Yeah, don't leave them.

Hmm, I gotta, one more bite, yeah.

- Yeah, one more bite is good.

- So folks, this is spanakopita, a classically Greek recipe that they enjoy sharing with everyone, friends, neighbors, family, obviously.

- Obviously.

- Just don't go out on a date after you have these spanakopita because you'll have spinach in your teeth.

- Check the mirror first.

(audience applauding) - All right, we're back in the kitchen with an old friend who Father Nick, who was just Nick when he came here.

You were 15 years old when you first came in here.

- Almost 30 years ago.

- Yeah.

- Hard to believe.

- And you made a 15 layer lasagna that I still crave.

I mean, I don't know where you came, you were working with Michael Certo.

- Exactly, and his dad, Joe and I can still taste it.

It's so good with that bechamel sauce on top.

- But you've been coming to help me on cooking shows and whatnot and then he got sidetracked into this religious thing.

I don't know.

(laughing) But thank you for taking the time to come in here and help us cook, because I know that you make this dish that I just, if it was nothing else, the name, bobalki.

- Yes.

- And it's Polish.

- It's Polish, Slovak, eastern European.

- Yeah.

- Dish that I've had since I was a kid.

And it is comfort food for the holidays for us.

- Right.

Okay.

So it starts, I mean it starts, the ball of the bobalki, are these little pieces of dough.

And you use just like refrigerator rolls, right?

- We do, either refrigerator rolls or frozen bread dough.

My grandmother used to make her own Paska dough and we would use that.

- Oh.

- But this is a little bit of a cheat, so.

- So yeah, all you do is to just take it out, cut it into little pieces and put it on a buttered tray and bake it in the oven until they come out nice and brown.

Not too dark, but you want 'em to be brown.

- I'm gonna just do one more here.

- Okay.

So, and then, you know what, we'll do the rest later.

What happens is that you bake them and they come out looking like this and these are nice and sort of soft in the middle, but they're crunchy on the outside.

- They are.

- Yeah, yeah.

All right so, so that's the first step of this.

And the next thing is you're gonna fry up some onions in some melted butter here.

- Let me dice this up here.

- Okay.

- Every good recipe starts with butter and onions.

- Oh yeah, butter and onions.

- [Nick] Whether you're making halushki and adding cabbage or.

- [Chris] Isn't it funny that it's the same in Italian as it is in Polish?

It is in a lot of different cuisines start with, with a fried piece of onion.

- And the smell in the kitchen is heavenly.

- Yeah.

- So are you, is there a special time of the year to make bobalki?

- So we typically make it for Christmas and Easter as a side dish, with ham or kolbasi, or whatever we're having for the holiday.

So that's good, it said a small onion.

- Yeah.

- So this should be perfect.

- [Chris] I'll move this over for you.

- Thank you.

And just something everyone who has enjoyed, whether as kids or sharing it with friends, you think sauerkraut, not many kids like sauerkraut, but when you eat it this way, it's just the best.

- Yeah, I think there were a lot of things that we, that we ate that we didn't realize we liked, or that we like now that, you know, when my mom used to make pasta e piselli, right?

Which is pasta with little peas, and she would just get either frozen peas or canned peas, not a big deal.

I thought it was terrible.

I just didn't, the flavor, eating peas just like that, you know, now I crave it like crazy.

It's like in my dreams I gotta have pasta e piselli.

- [Nick] It's so simple but so delicious.

- [Chris] It is.

- We would make this for Christmas Eve, which is meatless in eastern European traditions.

And some of the other things like barley and prunes were not necessarily my favorite.

- No, huh?

- But this, we would scarf down.

- Yeah.

Okay.

All right, I'm gonna make believe I'm sauteing these.

And you have, you've got some sauerkraut that you have drained, right?

- Yes, two pounds of sauerkraut, drained, rinsed a little bit and squeezed dry.

And you add that to the onion and butter mixture.

- Oh, you do?

- To saute it up a little bit.

- Okay.

Now, is there a better way to get sauerkraut?

Yeah, homemade, right?

- Right.

- Yeah.

- Right.

We usually use the stuff in the bag, in the refrigerated section, but any sauerkraut works.

It's really just that light flavor that with the bread balls, just, it really makes a wonderful combination.

You'd never think it seeing the ingredients separately.

When you put all together, it's amazing.

- I have to confess that for the longest time I didn't know what sauerkraut was made out of.

It's just cabbage, but it doesn't taste like cabbage.

- Nope, no, no.

And I know there are many families in the area that still make their own sauerkraut every year and have it for different holidays and things like that, so it's definitely a great family treat.

- [Chris] But it's not terrible to buy it?

- [Nick] No.

No.

- Okay, so we've got this sauteing.

The onions actually have gotten nice and soft in here.

Perfect, all right.

Now would you, would you actually cook this until the onions were brown?

- Yes, typically.

- Okay.

- Yeah.

- Well, we're gonna make believe, brown.

- Exactly.

Exactly.

And then next to reconstitute the bread balls, we usually made them a few days in advance, just to get a little age to them.

You pour hot water over them just to soften them up a little bit.

- [Chris] Oh really?

Okay.

All right, we got some hot water here.

That's okay.

- That's great.

- You know, a few years ago I was in a bakery in a Polish neighborhood, and I don't know what I was going to get, probably just to get some, paczkis.

- [Nick] Paczkis, of course.

- They are the donuts, you know, jelly donuts and, there were bags and bags of these little nuggets.

I didn't know what they were, and I asked him, and he said, "oh, it's for bobalki."

I said, what do you, you have hundreds of these bags?

He said, "they'll be gone, this afternoon, they'll all be gone."

- Yes, growing up, sometimes we would buy them, a lot of local bakeries that have them.

And then we found the cheat with the bread dough.

So whatever works to get your bread and your sauerkraut together, you make it work.

Great.

And so we just add the sauerkraut mixture to this.

- Okay.

- As well as another stick of butter that's melted and browned.

- Because you can never have enough butter.

- You never have enough butter.

- [Chris] But this is, as you say, this has been browned.

You can see the different color on it.

We let it sit in there a little bit, which changes the flavor to a little bit more nutty.

- Yes.

And then you just mix and it's that simple.

You can add salt and pepper to taste.

I find the sauerkraut has a good bit of salt to it.

- Oh yeah.

- And if you use salted butter, you really don't need to add much to it.

- It's funny how different cultures have similar things, but very different.

Like in Italian, obviously, you know, you would have greens and pasta.

So the pasta's instead of the bobalki, the balls, and the greens are instead of the sauerkraut.

- Exactly.

- It's flavored with, you know what Italians flavored things with, with garlic and things.

- [Nick] Each culture used what with plentiful for them.

- [Chris] Yeah.

Yeah.

Oh, this is definitely a peasant dish right here.

- Oh my gosh, yes.

It reminds me of an Italian dish too, that up in Newcastle they made called anagot, - Anagot.

- And it's a few day old bread that's ripped up and they might throw some beans and some broth in it, whatever they had, and it sticks to your ribs just like this does.

- Oh, how about in Tuscany, when they put the bread in the soup.

- Yes, the ribollita.

- Ribollita, they call it.

- Yeah.

Okay.

So that's it, huh?

- You can, if you wanna make it ahead, you can put it in the fridge and then reheat it in an oven in a casserole pan the next day, but it's ready to go like this.

- Well, I wanna see how it is when it's just out of the pan here.

- [Nick] There we go.

- [Chris] And you don't have to wait any longer for these to get softer than they are.

- [Nick] Nope.

The longer they sit, the softer they'll get, but they're ready to eat.

- Hmm.

That is a mouthful.

- So good.

- Get a plate, Father Nick.

And again, you said, this is Easter and Christmas, special holidays.

- Every now and then someone will recommend it for a birth, you know, want it for a birthday or something like that.

But we just tend to make it around the holidays and it takes a little bit of time making the bread balls and things, but.

- Yeah, but you could work with kids to have them do that, right?

That's an easy thing for them to just be rolling up little balls and putting on a tray, and, you know, I love recipes that involve the whole family, making them, the kids and whatnot.

And then that sticks in their mind and in their feeling for when they get together with family, and that's something you want to inculcate with them.

- That's how I got into it.

- Yeah.

- At three or four, cutting with a glass, the circles for pierogi.

- Yeah.

Well, and you know, in this cookbook by the way, which we're gonna tell you how you can get, there is your mom's recipe for pierogi.

You say pierogi or pierogi?

- Pierogi.

- Pierogi.

And that your mom's pierogi are untouchable.

They are the best, the best that I've ever had.

And it's the only recipe I'll ever make.

- It's no fail.

She knew what she was doing and we had a lot of practice doing it every year, so.

- Yeah.

When would she make 'em?

- We would make them at Christmas.

So we had a, our Christmas Eve was extended family, over a hundred people.

We would make 70 dozen pierogi the weeks before Christmas.

- [Chris] 70 dozen?

- And eat most of them on Christmas Eve and save a few for Easter.

Yeah, yeah.

- Well that's a tremendous memory, and I'm glad to share that with you and to share the kitchen anytime with you...

Always a pleasure.

- ...Father Nick.

- Thanks, Chris.

- It really is.

(audience applauding) (upbeat jazz music) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (light orchestral music)