Donny Enriquez | Chef Donny: Cooking with Guests
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00:00Guys, welcome back to What's For Lunch. Today we have a very special episode.
00:04Zlatan Ibrahimović is coming into the office. Probably the craziest guest to
00:08come through. If not, definitely the most famous person. Whether you're a soccer
00:11fan or not, he's massive. He transcends the sport. So he's coming in. We're gonna
00:16make him Swedish meatballs. I don't even think he knows he's gonna eat that. I
00:19think it's part of his team that said, you know what, make him Swedish meatballs.
00:21He doesn't have time to be on the full show, so we're gonna do an episode just
00:24showing you how I make it. Hopefully he comes in and tries them and likes them.
00:27But this is gonna be a fun one, guys. Let's get cooking.
00:37Alright guys, Swedish meatballs. They're pretty simple. They're not that complex.
00:40The meat that we're gonna use is, I have some chuck and I have some pork butt.
00:43I'm grinding it myself because for Zlatan, we're going all out. We're making
00:47this as fresh as possible. We want the best quality. If you don't have a meat
00:49grinder though, don't worry. You can just buy ground pork, ground beef, ground
00:53chuck. Just make sure it's 50-50 mix and we're doing a pound total. So a half
00:57pound of beef, half pound of pork, that's our ground beef. And then for the grinder,
01:01if you are using, if you're grinding your own meat, you have this attachment, stick
01:04it in the freezer before. If it's cold, it doesn't gunk up as much. The fat tends
01:08to dissolve and gets all clogged. If you have it nice and cold, that won't happen.
01:12Turn our grinder on. The only real difference between Swedish meatballs and
01:15regular meatballs is just the flavor. The beef and the pork is usually the same.
01:18That's what you're gonna find in regular meatballs, but these are gonna be flavored
01:21with some brown sugar, a little bit of allspice, some nutmeg, some white pepper,
01:25and then onions and garlic get cooked and mixed in there. And then the sauce,
01:28they're served with a gravy on top. For meatballs, whenever you're grinding meat,
01:32you don't need an expensive quality cut of meat. You want to use the chucks, the
01:35fattier, the pork butts, the pork shoulders, that kind of stuff. All right,
01:40that's all there is to that. We have our mince right there. Next, I'm gonna take
01:44one yellow onion, half of the yellow onion. We're gonna finely slice this,
01:47mince it up. You can use a grater. If you want to use a cheese grater and grate
01:51the side of it on the thickest, that will work too. Or you can just do a fine dice.
01:55I don't know tons of Swedish dishes. I know that a big dessert they do is
01:58strawberry and cream, which is literally what it sounds like. They pour heavy
02:02cream over strawberries, add some sugar. I think for that to be really good, you
02:05have to have the freshest strawberries. And I think in Sweden, they're
02:09gonna get a lot better quality strawberries than we are here. And then
02:11they have, like, haggis. They have a lot of, like, those Nova Scotian-type fishy,
02:17blubbery meals that I'm not too familiar with. But yeah, honestly, most of my
02:21knowledge of Swedish food comes from IKEA, which isn't bad. They have pretty
02:24good food for being a store that you buy frustrating furniture from. But I
02:28actually, I tried to spend a night in IKEA in China, so that might be my one
02:32Swedish connection I have with him, is if he likes IKEA, I try to sleep in one
02:35overnight. Did not go well, but a fun experience nonetheless. Okay, so here I
02:39have an onion. You really want this finely minced because you want to get a
02:42big piece of onion in your mouth when these are in the meatballs. So that's why
02:45if you shred it on a grater, you can get that same effect. These are served with a
02:48traditional gravy. Swedish meatballs are usually with potatoes, steamed or mashed
02:52potatoes. You serve it with a simple gravy, which we'll make on top, and that's
02:55just any gravy like you're making for Thanksgiving. You have roux, you have
02:59butter, flour, and then you add beef stock to that. That's about it. It's a very
03:02simple gravy, but delicious. Okay, onions chopped. Let's get some garlic sliced
03:06here, too. And sometimes it's served with, I think, lingdonberry, lungdonberry.
03:12Very hard to find. That I looked for. I couldn't. Usually you serve it with
03:15the gravy and then the berry sauce on top, which I guess it's similar to a
03:18cranberry sauce, but I didn't want to substitute that because I wasn't sure
03:21how similar it is. Okay, next I'm gonna take some heavy cream. You can use milk,
03:26about a third cup of heavy cream. We're gonna warm that up because then we're
03:29gonna mix it with a third cup of breadcrumbs. I want that milk and those
03:32breadcrumbs to be mixed first before they go in. Here we have some allspice,
03:36some nutmeg, a little bit of clove, some ground ginger, and some white pepper. One
03:41egg, plenty of salt, and some brown sugar. Okay, and now I have some butter in a pan
03:47here. I'm just gonna saute off those onions and the garlic. I'm gonna wait to
03:50put that garlic in just so it doesn't burn. Now I'm sauteing these onions and
03:54then this cream is warm. Our breadcrumbs are gonna go into that cream. That's just
03:57so that those all get incorporated nicely. They absorb that cream. They
04:00soften up a little bit and they get mixed better into that meatball. Garlic
04:04can go in now. Make sure the onions and garlic get seasoned as well with some
04:07salt, but then once they get golden like this, that it's perfect. You don't really
04:11want them to brown. That can go in. Now we can just mix this all together. Now the
04:15key to making meatballs, the meat will start to stick to your hands, so just wet
04:18your hands and don't dry them. And for Swedish meatballs, they're on the
04:22smaller side, but with nice wet hands, that meat's not gonna stick. Depends on
04:25how big you make these, but like a pound of meat will probably make anywhere from
04:2920 to 30 meatballs. Okay, now that our meatballs have been shaped, the next step
04:34is to brown them off. So we'll get a nice saute pan and we're gonna use butter for
04:38this. And we're not looking to cook them through in this stage. We just want to
04:40get a nice browning on each side and keep that spherical shape. And if your
04:44meatballs sit for too long on the board or the bowl, you're gonna get a flat spot
04:48and not the most even shape. So you just give them a quick roll before and put it
04:51on that opposite side, so the weight just kind of evens it out. And you really
04:54want to just try to roll these over, so you're gonna get one side. With a perfect
04:58circle, it's hard to get every side, so you want to just keep rotating. Don't
05:01just do one side and another, then it's gonna sink and look like a like a burger.
05:04So try to just angle it one side, flip, and just rotate it on through, so each
05:08side has some color on it. And then once you get good color on all sides, you can
05:12kind of give them a roll. And that's looking pretty good. So what we're gonna
05:15do next, this is optional, but I like to save all the fat. You have all that good
05:19butter and all that fat that's running out of the meat. I'm gonna save this to
05:22make our gravy. So I'm gonna reserve some of that fat. This part is optional too,
05:26but since LaTonna's coming, he's a showman, we're gonna do a little bit of a
05:29showman. Preparation of these, I got some cognac. Get this nice and hot. Brandy goes
05:33in. Take your torch or your lighter and bang! Now that alcohol is gonna burn off,
05:39you're gonna have a nice quick flambe. To finish these off, I'm gonna put them in a
05:42smaller pot, only because I want to use less beef stock. I could keep cooking them
05:46in this, but this just makes it easier to cover them. I have to use less liquid,
05:49you'll see in a second. And I have some beef stock here, and what I'm gonna do is
05:53cover these in beef stock, and then bring this to a simmer. And these are gonna
05:56simmer for about 20 minutes, 20 to 30 minutes, just until they finish cooking
05:59all the way through. But right there, all the flavors in the pan, that brandy adds
06:02a nice sweetness to it. It's gonna be delicious. As these are cooking, we'll
06:06make our gravy. Alright, our meatballs have finished cooking here. They've been
06:08simmering for about 30 minutes. Now we're gonna finish off by making the gravy. So
06:12we're gonna take that fat that we took out of the initial searing of the
06:15meatballs. I'm gonna take a strainer. I'm just gonna pass it through this, just to
06:18make sure we don't get any bits of onion or beef in there. Not that it really
06:22matters, but if you want a smooth sauce, just do it like this. To that, I'm gonna add a
06:25tablespoon of butter, and then about two tablespoons of flour. You just want equal
06:29parts fat to flour ratio whenever you're making a roux. This will then just whisk
06:33until that flour is completely cooked out. Okay, once that roux is cooked, we're
06:37gonna go ahead and pour in all the beef stock that our meatballs have been
06:40simmering in. This I'm gonna pass through a strainer as well. This has a
06:43ton more flavor than any beef stock from a jar. Give that a whisk. A little splash
06:48of heavy cream in this, and then of course some salt and pepper, just to
06:52finish that off. And boom, just like that.
06:58We have a beautiful gravy. I think Zlatan's coming in the next 10 to 15
07:03minutes. We're gonna feed him. Hopefully he has time to eat. Hopefully he likes it.
07:06But here we go.
07:07You got some meatballs?
07:08Yeah, I got some right here. I got some right here.
07:10Should I bring you to my team, or?
07:12No, no, no. You gotta get the first one.
07:14What is the difference between a meatball and a Swedish meatball?
07:17Not much, really. It's just, there's some spices, some seasonings in it, some onion, but it's pretty simple.
07:23The one they serve at the furniture store?
07:25Yeah, the IKEA.
07:26IKEA's great?
07:29I don't know the berries. I couldn't find Linden berry.
07:31The what?
07:31Oh, you know the berries.
07:32Have you been in Sweden?
07:33I've never been, no. But I know the cuisine.
07:36That's pretty good.
07:37Want one?
07:38Come on.
07:39Yeah, I want one.
07:40Yeah, yeah.
07:41Try it, man. You used to live in Sweden. It's good.
07:43That was pretty good.
07:44Alright, there you go. I'll take it.
07:46What's your favorite Swedish dessert? You like strawberries and cream?
07:49No, it's good, but I'm abroad like 20 years. 25. I don't even remember what kind of food.
07:53Where is the...
07:55Each team you played for, what was the favorite just for the food, the cuisine?
07:58What country?
07:59Italy?
08:00You don't like Italy?
08:01I like Italy.
08:02You like France?
08:03France better. I'm a French...
08:05He's a French cook.
08:06Where did you live when you went to France?
08:07Avignon, down south, by Merseille.
08:09You did a whole summer there.
08:11Summer there, cooking there.
08:12Yeah, yeah.
08:13Italian food is good. I mean, you have many options.
08:18French is like...
08:20Yeah.
08:21But good.
08:22It's good, yeah.
08:23Quality. High quality.
08:24Good quality.
08:25Those are good.
08:26You like them?
08:27Yeah, yeah.
08:28One more?
08:29Yeah, I'll take one more.
08:30I can always eat.
08:31It's paradise here.
08:32I know.
08:33Not for the show, just to eat.
08:34If you want one.
08:35You come to us all the time.
08:36You're using...
08:37Yeah.
08:38This is the best place in the world to work.
08:40Yeah, yeah.
08:41Yes, take one more.
08:42Yeah, of course, of course.
08:43It's not bad, right?
08:44You have a restaurant also?
08:45I do, yeah.
08:46Just on the weekends, I run a pop-up for the summer.
08:47A French, like a tasting menu, five-course restaurant.
08:50Yeah, yeah, yeah.
08:51Good job, man.
08:52Yeah, it's been fun.
08:53And you like the show?
08:54The show's great.
08:55Yeah, it's a lot of fun.
08:56We get all different kinds of guests on.
08:57They pick the food, and then we make it together.
09:00Yeah.
09:01It was good.
09:02Yeah, yeah, yeah.
09:04Good job.
09:06Appreciate it.
09:07There you go.
09:09Thank you, chef.
09:10Thank you, thank you.
09:11All right, there you go.
09:12Good job.
09:13All right.
09:14Guys, remember, every crave-worthy bite tastes better with Pepsi, especially Swedish meatballs.
09:17That was insane.
09:18Zlatan Ibrahimovic, our biggest guest yet.
09:21Shout-out to Pepsi.
09:22That was incredible.
09:23I can't believe we got him.
09:24And he liked the meatballs.
09:25Cheers, guys.
09:26See you next time.