Family Meal Fridays: Molly and Chris

Do you have your tasting spoons in your pocket?

Uh, yeah.

Hi, I'm Molly and this is...

Chris.

And we are in the Test Kitchen together today

making Family Meal.

He's gonna make some rice, I'm gonna make

a kimchi slaw.

I'm gonna quick pickle some cucumbers

just for a little extra crunchy topping.

And then we've got palapa, which is super exciting.

Ooh, and then we're gonna make beef,

soboro beef, which is kind of a highly seasoned,

aromatic beef.

Which I've never had before

so I'm excited to see you make that.

Cool, yeah.

Usually, we're kind of head down on our stations

just trying to get through our recipes

or our development that we have everyday.

Family meal, it's a great time to, you know,

just bring everybody together for a few quiet minutes.

Stop what you're doing. Eat a proper meal.

Chris often comes in and first thing he does

is put rice in the rice cooker

to ensure that we're at least halfway towards the meal.

At least.

We're gonna start with that today.

Okay, while he is doing that,

I'm gonna start making a spicy kimchi slaw.

Basically takes all of the flavors of kimchi

and creates a dressing with those

and it blends kimchi into the dressing

and then it gets tossed through with fresh cabbage.

So it's kinda like flipping and reversing the script.

This is gonna be

a Napa cabbage, daikon, shredded carrots,

scallion, kimchi dressing slaw situation.

That was like seven words.

Yeah, but all delicious words.

Oh no, I just cut myself.

What?

I did. How bad?

I told you, that knife is so sharp.

Sorry, Mol, I should've gotten you a dull knife.

[Molly] Thanks a lot.

Is it okay?

Yeah.

It's very small.

I just might need to get a band-aid.

One second. Alright, do it.

The scallions get used twice in the recipe

so the green parts go into the slaw and then the bulbs

get blended into the dressing

for a little of like raw

oniony heat.

I'm gonna get going on cucs

if that's good.

What are you thinking for those?

You know the salt and squeeze?

The salt and squeeze?

Oh, as in like, the scrunch?

I call it the scrunch

if I think I know what you're talking about.

Where you season them and scrunch them with your hands.

Wait, so like,

you have like a Molly word to describe something?

It's just called scrunching.

Just in one word, just scrunching?

Yeah. Okay.

But you can salt and squeeze if you want.

I'll be scrunching. Alright, I'm gonna

salt and squeeze.

I'm gonna scrunch my salad.

I'm not sure about scrunching.

I'm not sure that that's a thing.

I don't wanna have to use a mandolin, you know?

We're not dirtying another utensil for Family Meal.

I don't know that I wanna use a mandolin

like frankly, on camera.

I'm gonna throw some kimchi

and some of the juice in there.

Rice vinegar, sriracha,

really just eyeballing this.

Yeah, the thing about Family Meal is

it's like the only time of the week where I'm not cooking

from a recipe or for a recipe.

[Molly] It's pretty liberating.

Would you say this is scrunching?

Yeah, that's the scrunch.

Like kind of like the scrunch position.

What you're doing there, Chris, you're scrunching.

Like the hunch and scrunch?

Yep.

Okay, well I'm gonna scrunch my slaw then

if you're gonna scrunch your cucs.

Do you really have to scrunch it?

We're all family here, so.

We're definitely family.

Don't need to worry about

putting our hands in each other's bowls

or whatevs.

I wish there was something that could be done with like

the salted cucumber juice.

[Molly] What if it wants to be in the slaw?

Well does it need seasoning?

Oh.

Maybe a dash.

Alright, I don't wanna make it too wet.

This is what Family Meal's all about.

[Chris] Big time.

Just waxing poetic.

You know who's terrible about family meal?

[bleep]

The worst.

Like has he ever made family meal

ever? Not once.

He makes himself eggs every day,

about seven eggs.

Seven scrambled eggs in the morning

and then looks out for no one else.

It's really awesome.

Love you [bleep].

Can't imagine life without you.

Okay, I'm gonna start cleaning up

so that we don't have a disaster.

So you're not seasoning it 'cause it's gonna get soy.

Yeah, I'm gonna hold back on the seasoning.

I'm not sure about

what the salt level's gonna be like.

What about these scallions?

Are they going on top of the beef?

Yeah, do you think you can slice those for me?

Tadashi Ono, the chef who showed me how to do this,

he was like all about working it

into just the little, little pieces.

I think this is gonna kinda

keep it a little bit more tender.

Mmm.

Are you happy with it?

It's not bad.

Not bad at all.

I'm gonna wait, actually to taste it.

'Cause I wanna like, have the whole thing together.

What?

Oh my God.

Do you wanna wait to eat this, too, or?

No, I'll just take that spoon that to my mouth

right now.

Oh my God.

So it's toasted coconut?

It's fresh coconut, that's what makes it

highly coveted because

it's kind of a project.

So when we run out, things get kind of dire

until someone has enough time to crack open a coconut

and desiccate it for palapa.

Are we ready?

We have five minutes on rice.

Five minutes on rice.

Let's grab bowls and

just grab the kids.

Thanks for having us.

It's your lucky day because we made rice bowls.

[Group] Yum.

[Chris] What did you just say?

Palap yourself.

[laughter]

That's a verb, I don't know if you're aware of it.

[laughter]

Do you guys have any recommendations

for Madrid, or Bologna, or Venice?

Like food reccos?

I have a list for Madrid. Lots of things.

Emily's set to go on a parmesan cheese tour.

Actually, yeah.

Why though?

[laughter]

I feel like the best way to travel, though

is like walk up and down a street

and whatever calls your name, just go with it.

Okay.

Go to the person who moved to Thailand

like on a lark, you know, for like three years?

You did that?

Yeah.

No, I didn't know that.

When?

For three years.

How long ago?

What did you do there for like...

Four years ago.

What?

Whereabouts in Thailand?

Chiang Mai.

Have you had that pork dish from the

lady who wears the cowboy hat?

Have you had that pork dish?

Love that lady.

I have too, but like five years ago.

Yeah, she's still there.

I mean, she was there when I left, yeah.

She wears a cowboy hat?

[Andy] She wears a cowboy hat, yeah.

[Hilary] That's how you find her.

[laughs]

The food is so insane.

Yeah.

[Andy] It was pretty good, I second guessed.

Pretty good.

It was the best meal you've ever had.

I just feel like, I just feel like,

if you start...

I can't ever win.

Yeah, Andy is a brat.

Unless it's his own food.

[laughter]