Recreating Sheldon Simeon's Loco Moco From Taste
We challenged Chris Morocco to recreate chef Sheldon Simeon's loco moco in the Bon Appétit Test Kitchen. The catch? He’s doing it blindfolded with with only his other senses to guide him.
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00:00Hi, I'm Jamila, and I'm in the Bon Appetit Test Kitchen
00:02to have a super-secret conversation about Chris Morocco.
00:05Once again, we're putting Chris's super-taster abilities to the test.
00:09This is Sheldon Simeon's Loco Moco.
00:12I'm challenging Chris to recreate this dish in just one day.
00:16He'll be able to taste it, touch it, and smell it,
00:19but at no point will he be able to see this dish.
00:23At the end of the day, we'll come back to see his final creations,
00:26and I'll be the judge.
00:30I'm feeling okay.
00:38The mask has a little bit of a funny smell, you know,
00:40so I'm working through that.
00:44I don't know.
00:45It's like a savory meaty, but like right down the middle.
00:49I'm feeling what seems to be the lacy edge of a fried egg,
00:53trying not to break the yolk such that you then get egg yolk
00:56running around all over everything else,
00:58which I think could really kind of get in the way of deciding
01:02what other elements might be here.
01:04Crispy egg, almost like a mushroomy,
01:08but the shape, like what is that?
01:11Very firm, very savory, very deep, like mushroom jerky.
01:17Soy sauce or Worcestershire sauce in there,
01:19something that's really doubling down on the umami forwardness.
01:23Let's start with like portobello mushroom,
01:25but it feels like it could be the sort of the main kind of stock
01:28of like a trumpet mushroom as well.
01:30Those get kind of big.
01:32Where is like all this sauciness coming from?
01:35Not quite gravy because there's not quite enough of it to be gravy.
01:39So that seems to be like a very sweet little slice of onion.
01:45I'm also getting like little bits.
01:46It feels like there's kind of black pepper all over this.
01:49It seems to be a beef burger.
01:51There's definitely like a good bit of fat to this patty.
01:55Oh God, what is this?
01:57Is this rice?
01:58No, is this grits?
02:00There's like a dairy kind of flavor to it,
02:03like almost like these grits were cooked in milk
02:06or a combination of water and milk,
02:09but also like finished with butter.
02:12Grits are great.
02:14God, the texture.
02:16This kind of slightly wet, moldable, putty-like consistency.
02:22And yet within it, you know,
02:23there are some of these like bigger bits of grain
02:25and smaller bits of grain.
02:28Or is it rice?
02:29Oh God.
02:30Improbable as it might be,
02:31I would say like this is like a rice-based grit.
02:35Flavor-wise, it's giving me like something pretty neutral.
02:38What would you even call this?
02:39Is this like a breakfast burger?
02:41Something about that is sort of like very coastal American South,
02:46where you have a lot of like rice culture,
02:48kind of narrows the aperture a little bit for me psychologically.
02:53All right, I'm done tasting.
02:54Time to make a grocery list.
02:57Mushroom breakfast burger with rice grits, eggs, butter.
03:02There's only a handful of mushrooms that get that big,
03:05but not in a frilly way.
03:07Either large cremini or small portobello mushrooms.
03:14I'd also love some small trumpet mushrooms.
03:18I'm thinking ground beef,
03:20something in the kind of ground chuck, 20% fat or even 25%.
03:25Something like a Carolina gold American long grain white rice milk.
03:34I feel okay.
03:35Trying to remember if I've ever felt such a complete
03:39and utter lack of clarity around what a dish was,
03:43while feeling like I had a reasonable grasp on what was in it.
03:47Jamila Robinson, our editor-in-chief, is my judge today.
03:50It's like always intimidating to be judged by your boss,
03:53so that'll be interesting.
03:57I have a progression like rice, burger mushroom, egg, pasta.
04:03We move the bowls, move bowls.
04:05I think we're going to turn rice into grits.
04:09So we've got just like a standard long grain rice.
04:12So we're going to throw this in here.
04:13I don't want to like turn it into powder,
04:15but I want to break up these grains a little bit.
04:18Why doesn't my starting ratio be like one cup,
04:22the long grain rice with three cups of liquid,
04:2650-50 between milk and water and butter in there,
04:29frankly, as well.
04:30And a good bit of salt there.
04:32I'm going to bring this to a simmer.
04:35Meanwhile, let's talk mushrooms.
04:37What if we did a mix just for fun?
04:39King trumpet, really even thin slices of mushroom here.
04:43And then a few creminis.
04:46I love a mushroom.
04:48Let's take a check in on our liquid.
04:51Just going to get some black pepper.
04:53I'm trying to end up in like a drier place
04:56between a porridge and just fluffy cooked rice.
04:59I want to kind of whisk them in
05:01so that things don't immediately clump together.
05:03Let's just keep that at a slow roll.
05:05This is a sweet onion, very little bite to it,
05:10even in its raw form.
05:12Some kind of chunky slices here.
05:14We're already getting some sticking.
05:16It's like those finer pieces are sort of settling down there.
05:19Okay, so new plan is we're just going to cook rice
05:22and then see what we need to do with it
05:24to get it to the texture that I was experiencing
05:27in the original dish.
05:28Slightly wet, moldable, putty-like consistency.
05:32So I've got rice version one,
05:35sort of doing more of like rice grits approach.
05:38And I have rice version two,
05:41just evenly cooked whole rice grains.
05:44Let's move it to the back burner.
05:46Porridge is coming along nicely.
05:47Burger seemed simple.
05:49Beef chuck, seasoned with salt and pepper.
05:51Sear off the patty.
05:53Just want to make sure I'm getting some good contact there,
05:56get some good flavor development.
05:57If you're going to start joining up
05:59any of these cooking processes,
06:01for me, it's like burger plus mushroom
06:04because the mushroom are almost acting as the sauce.
06:07So that's looking pretty good.
06:10So rice grits, let's see how they're coming along.
06:14Not bad, honestly.
06:15For the burger, I just want to get a nice sear,
06:18probably more closer to like medium.
06:20Frankly, that moment where those juices
06:22start percolating through,
06:24usually a pretty good sign like you're at about medium rare.
06:27How long you go past that is usually the question
06:30I'm sort of playing around with.
06:31The main mistake people make is like,
06:33they're not usually cooking one burger,
06:35they're cooking four.
06:36And the pan doesn't stay hot enough.
06:40That's looking pretty good to me.
06:41We've got good color on that second side.
06:43I'm gonna let the burger rest over here.
06:45I want to pour out a little bit of this.
06:48All right, so I'm now cooking the mushrooms
06:50in that leftover beef fat.
06:52Like a lot of like this fat,
06:53like it's gotten sort of like the extra crispy bits
06:55of black pepper.
06:56Sometimes like it can make a dish
06:58a little bit overwhelming.
06:59In the initial phase of cooking,
07:01they'll pretty much absorb whatever fat you throw at them,
07:04but you have to resist the temptation to totally soak them.
07:09Once they start to break down and soften,
07:12they basically start to exude that fat back
07:15into the cooking environment.
07:17And we're getting really nice golden brown color there.
07:19Mushrooms lose a lot of their volume as they cook.
07:21So it's always good to start with a little more than less.
07:25Once we have like a little initial kind of browning,
07:28I'll start to season a little bit.
07:31I don't know, rice won.
07:33Don't count it out.
07:35It's like Jon Hamm in Baby Driver, you know?
07:38He's not dead.
07:40So now I'm gonna throw some onion right in
07:43with the mushroom.
07:44Butter in too.
07:46That's gonna help kind of soften
07:47and start to break down those onions to an extent.
07:50All right, so this is rice version two.
07:52I'm just gonna flip this, turn it off,
07:54let that steam out for 10 minutes.
07:56Let's get crazy.
07:57Let's throw a little chicken broth in there.
07:59Adding the broth is gonna deglaze
08:01and pick up some of the crispy bits
08:02in the bottom of the skillet.
08:04It's gonna add a little bit of body.
08:06That's gonna cook down and reduce
08:07into just sort of like a clingy dressing.
08:10A little bit of Worcestershire,
08:11just amping up that savory quality to the mushrooms.
08:14A similar thing used in a small quantity
08:17might be like a soy sauce.
08:18If I'm situating this dish
08:21as coming from coastal American South,
08:24does it really make sense for me
08:25to put soy sauce in it though?
08:27Not necessarily.
08:28Whereas Worcestershire sauce,
08:30maybe we've picked up all those brown bits
08:33that were in the center where we cooked our burger.
08:36I wanna cook this out though
08:37until it's like it's clinging, you know?
08:40Like stage six clanger.
08:42So we're making a sunny side up egg,
08:46lightly crispy.
08:48I like to baste with like a little bit of oil
08:50just to kind of cook that little ring of white
08:52that always stubbornly insists on not cooking through.
08:58These are our elements.
09:00If you take like a hot, freshly steamed rice
09:03and you mash some butter into it
09:05and you throw some salt in it as well,
09:07like where does that net you out, you know?
09:09What are you doing?
09:10Try this.
09:13There's this like rice element
09:15in the bottom of this dish.
09:16Yeah.
09:17Like that like doesn't really wanna break down
09:19and I don't know why you do it anyway.
09:21You're gonna combine all these things
09:22with like a mushy grit?
09:23No, I have to pick a lane here.
09:25Yeah.
09:25What seems more plausible?
09:26I can't imagine all this stuff going on top of that.
09:29It's gonna sink in there and be like a mush.
09:31Sink in there?
09:32Yeah.
09:33Reeling it back.
09:34Really?
09:35Okay.
09:36That's my opinion.
09:37Am I misleading him?
09:38Maybe just make some rice, come back to that.
09:40Okay.
09:41Just my opinion.
09:42I'm like getting a vibe like rice grits
09:46were not the right path
09:48but maybe some buttery rice
09:50that's a little bit clingy and clumpy could be.
09:52So let's kind of like go for that.
09:54This is the rice that I simply steamed
09:57and then put some butter and salt in.
09:59So we've now got burger element, onions.
10:03We have mushrooms and then we're gonna do egg.
10:07So this is my first attempt at the dish.
10:10This is a breakfast burger with mushrooms,
10:14rice and a sunny side up egg.
10:16This doesn't look like anything I've ever had.
10:19That's for sure.
10:20Maybe my egg is a tad too crispy.
10:23Is that possible?
10:25Nice medium cooked burger.
10:26These pieces of mushroom feel a little too small.
10:29And then about our rice,
10:32it's buttery but it doesn't hold together.
10:34And I got so much guff about the rice grits.
10:37Maybe we can safely assume it's not that
10:39in the original dish.
10:40Let's talk scores.
10:41Ingredients, not feeling amazing.
10:44I'm gonna say 60%.
10:46Technique, I feel a little bit more confidence.
10:49I would say 70.
10:50Appearance, maybe that's where I'm closer to like an 80.
10:54Taste, 70%.
10:56There's something weird going on with the starch.
10:58And I think the mushrooms could be better.
11:01Here are my actual current scores.
11:03Okay, this isn't like so bad.
11:05One thing generally speaking is off with my ingredients.
11:08There could be a technique consideration
11:10that is coupled with that.
11:11The next tasting is all about ingredients.
11:14It's all about that starch element
11:16and really dialing in the mushrooms.
11:19Honestly, I don't feel terrible seeing those scores.
11:26Here we go.
11:26Tasting number two.
11:29Smells the same.
11:30Still mushroomy.
11:32You know, like the nonspecific meatiness.
11:34So moving down.
11:36Again, this like crispy side.
11:39Just like a very deep level of browning here.
11:41These are some big pieces.
11:43It got like super crispy.
11:45It's the fact of it not being symmetrical
11:48that makes me think it's not portobello, not cremini.
11:52That to me is like a cross section of a king trumpet.
11:55All king trumpet?
11:56I'm standing by my decision to put Worcestershire in there,
12:00but I almost feel like there could be
12:01some soy sauce in there too.
12:03I don't know how I missed this on the first pass,
12:04but there is actually sauce on here.
12:08Very buttery textural sauce.
12:11And I'm wondering if that's the sort of like
12:12the saucy element that went with the mushrooms.
12:15I'm wondering if in the first tasting
12:18that clumping together of the rice
12:21was because there was this really rich meaty sauce
12:24kind of clumping it together.
12:26It's projecting a lot of fat.
12:28It's been thickened possibly with some sort of starch.
12:32The rice just seems like good old short grain white rice.
12:36So now I'm just looking for, is there anything in the burger?
12:39I am getting like a little tickle of garlic.
12:41Maybe it's like more of that onion
12:43finely chopped and put in there.
12:45I'm actually feeling pretty good.
12:46The sauce and the rice almost tasted like one thing,
12:50whereas it's two distinct elements.
12:52So a lot of our process is gonna be the same
12:55other than mushrooms are gonna come
12:57out of the skillet entirely.
12:58We're gonna build the sauce in there.
13:00Sauce is gonna come into the dish
13:02just for the final plating.
13:04This is medium grain rice.
13:06I don't even know what to say regionally
13:07for this dish, to be honest.
13:09If there's soy sauce in it, I understand it even less.
13:12Same technique on the rice,
13:14but I'm using the shorter grain rice,
13:16which is gonna have more of a tendency
13:18to wanna clump together.
13:19I just threw a pinch of salt in there.
13:21Meanwhile, let's cut some vegetables.
13:23This is going to be fine diced onion
13:26for the burger itself.
13:28Super fine dice of garlic as well.
13:31Putting aromatic elements in my burgers
13:33is something I don't do.
13:34I'd rather keep the burger plain as is
13:37and add other flavors and elements around it.
13:40Let's do our sliced onion
13:43for part of the aromatic base for the gravy.
13:46Mushrooms.
13:48King trumpet mushrooms have such great flavor,
13:52but also very grillable, very searable.
13:55They're so big.
13:56Checking on the rice.
13:57Just wanna bring it to a simmer.
13:59So we'll do low and we'll time 20 minutes.
14:02Salt, pepper.
14:04We gotta cook these burgers.
14:05So I'm looking for that little bit of smoke there.
14:09Oh, I hate putting raw onion burger.
14:12It's just so annoying.
14:13Like the additional sugars in the onion
14:16make those bits that are now getting like so dark.
14:18You can see how much fat the meat is giving off.
14:21I mean, it's really, it's quite wild.
14:23You wanna make sure you have enough heat going for you
14:25so that as the juices start to release,
14:28coats flip, you can kind of get out ahead of that.
14:30Still be putting on a good sear with that second side.
14:33One and two.
14:34I poured out a good bit of the fat.
14:36So I'm just laying in these mushrooms.
14:38Salt.
14:39Get a really good sear on them.
14:41Might as well just get the butter in here.
14:43Melt it.
14:44Get a little zhuzh on these mushrooms.
14:47Getting started on our onions here.
14:49I wanna calm the heat down.
14:51Get them a little bit like melting, tender.
14:54I'm gonna do two cups of broth.
14:56Let that cook out.
14:58Gravy is just a really ultra flavorful liquid.
15:02Often a meat based broth that is thickened
15:07to a consistency that's gonna coat a spoon.
15:10Basically, you just have to figure out
15:12how do you wanna thicken it?
15:13Do you wanna start with a roux?
15:14Usually a flour based roux
15:16that's gonna be sort of the beginning
15:18of the cooking process or a slurry,
15:21which is typically how you would use cornstarch,
15:23which comes in at the end of the cooking process
15:26when flavors are where they need to be,
15:28but you just want something to be thicker.
15:31Let's put a little bit of soy and Worcestershire in.
15:33The teaspoon of each.
15:35Worcestershire definitely lifts the flavor up a bit.
15:39So I'm just mixing equal parts cornstarch and water.
15:42If you just put raw powdered cornstarch into this,
15:46it'll start activating and binding
15:48in all kinds of unpredictable ways.
15:50That was about half of it
15:52and that seems like it's probably enough.
15:54I need to bring it to a simmer to fully activate it.
15:58So presto chango, we've got gravy.
16:01So it was like running right off our spoon before
16:05and now it's clanging.
16:06Nice and concentrated.
16:08I'm gonna turn that off.
16:09All right, so we've got egg coming up.
16:12When you're making sunny-side up eggs,
16:15basting with oil is a great way
16:16to kind of cook through the top
16:18without making your yolk cloudy and flipping it.
16:21Great.
16:22So we can assemble.
16:24We wanna just get a good scoop
16:25of our Rice Grits burger patty
16:29and then we've got our mushrooms.
16:32All right, so now we do our sauce.
16:35Just wanna make sure I kind of go
16:36until we're getting some sort of pooling down on the side
16:40and then last, certainly not least, our egg.
16:44There it is, final dish.
16:47What an interesting journey.
16:48Just based on my scores for my initial pass at the dish,
16:52I'm not wildly far off.
16:54Hopefully I got a little bit closer
16:56and yet I have no idea what this dish is
16:58or where it comes from.
17:00Let's talk scores.
17:01Ingredients, let's say that we got up to a 75.
17:05Technique, with the gravy enhancement,
17:08let's say we're at 85.
17:10For appearance, again, the enhancement of the sauce,
17:14let's call it 95.
17:15Taste, we'll see.
17:16There's whatever this is called,
17:18but it's where it comes from
17:20that I'm most curious about.
17:22Having Jamila, who is my boss,
17:24judge me is gonna be certainly an interesting experience
17:27in and of itself.
17:28I'm very curious to see how that goes.
17:30Hey, Chris.
17:31Hey, Jamila.
17:32How are you?
17:33Did they already tell you about the Rice Grits thing?
17:35All the things, but I want to present to you
17:39Loco Moco.
17:40What?
17:41Loco Moco.
17:42This is a dish that is traditional to Hawaii.
17:45It's a comfort dish.
17:47This one is from Sheldon Simeon.
17:49It's what you'll find at a diner on all parts of Hawaii.
17:53Essence of Loco Moco is rice, ground beef, gravy, mushrooms,
17:59and the egg on top as a stack.
18:00Besides the grits, what was your biggest challenge?
18:04It was really just not having perceived
18:06that there was a sauce
18:07that was independent of everything else.
18:09Oh God, what is this?
18:10Well, what I've learned about this dish
18:12is that all of these elements are separate.
18:15The gravy is cooked separately from the beef patty,
18:19cooked separately from getting that caramelization
18:21on the onions and mushrooms.
18:23And then of course the fried egg on top.
18:25Is it a trumpet mushroom?
18:26It probably could be a trumpet mushroom
18:28or whatever you might encounter.
18:30This is Chef Simeon's very specific take on this dish.
18:34Trumpet adds a little bit of that chef's flavor
18:36and that chef's character.
18:38You add it worst to sure.
18:39Have you ever seen this before?
18:44Kitchen bouquet.
18:45You know what's so funny?
18:46The only time I've ever used that
18:48was it is a food stylist's hack ingredient
18:52for getting phenomenally deep color on a turkey.
18:56Is there soy sauce in addition to that?
18:59Or is it just that?
19:00There's soy as well.
19:01So let's talk about the patty.
19:04Some of the key things that weren't in the patty
19:06were things like garlic salt.
19:08It had panko crumbs in there.
19:11There was a little mayo.
19:13I know you're making a face,
19:15but I like a patty with some chopped onion.
19:18Oh, I hate putting raw onion burger.
19:21And another ingredient,
19:22you use cornstarch to thicken the gravy.
19:25Sheldon Simeon's recipe calls for just making a roux
19:29with flour, very, very traditional.
19:31I had a 50-50 shot with that one.
19:33You really nailed so much of the flavor
19:36and even getting the rice,
19:38even after having some issues with the rice.
19:41Also on technique that I think is so important
19:43is that you've got this nice hard sear on the mushrooms
19:47and that's something that Sheldon Simeon's recipe
19:49really calls for.
19:50And the other thing I think is really important
19:52is the gravy.
19:53Even though the thickening agent was different,
19:56the texture of the gravy is so beautiful
19:59that it feels like you nailed it there.
20:00Nice, okay.
20:01And let's taste it.
20:02Okay.
20:02Oh, look at that color.
20:06That's delicious.
20:06Try his and then, you know, we can kind of see here.
20:11I think the biggest difference that I get
20:13is really just in the quality of the patty.
20:15It's not meatloaf,
20:16but it's heading a little bit more in that direction
20:18in terms of like a little bit finer texture.
20:20The meat's been worked a little bit more.
20:22The garlic salt.
20:23Yeah, you taste a lot more garlic in this one.
20:26Should we talk about the scores?
20:28Sure.
20:28So for ingredients, you gave yourself a 75,
20:31but I'm going to give you a 78.
20:32You actually got more of those ingredients.
20:35Okay.
20:36Technique, you gave yourself an 85,
20:38but I'm giving you a 90.
20:40Appearance, I mean, look at this.
20:41You've nailed it.
20:42I love the edginess on your fried egg.
20:46You gave yourself a 95,
20:47but I'm going to give you the 98.
20:48For taste, what do you give yourself?
20:50I think this is one of the closer ones that I've gotten.
20:52I'd push like maybe like 90.
20:54I'm going to give you the edge here
20:56and give you a 92.
20:57I'll certainly take that.
20:58So overall, you gave yourself an 86,
21:00but I'm going to give you an 89.
21:01Very good.
21:02Flirting with an A.
21:04That was really close.
21:05Wow.
21:05That's probably the best I've done in a while.
21:07So good.
21:08So cool.
21:08Thank you for doing this.
21:10Loco moco, everybody.
21:11Loco moco.
21:12I honestly felt pretty great today.
21:15We worked through the rice situation,
21:18getting that much closer on the gravy.
21:21Really gratifying.
21:22I really liked the dish.
21:24Totally new to me.
21:26Mayonnaise.
21:27Didn't see that one coming.
21:28He's got very perky looking mushrooms.
21:32Very perky.
21:33Done.