Original subtitles

Okay, time to step things up.

Over the last three years...

-Ooh. -[man] Good.

[women] Oh!

[woman] Oh, my goodness.

[Selena] ...I've made over 80 dishes

with over 40 amazing chefs in my home kitchen.

-[Selena screams] -What happened?

Roll it! You don't roll it now.

I'm trying!

[Selena] This culinary crash course hasn't been easy...

-We did it! -There it is!

...but it has been so rewarding.

Now I think I'm ready to take it to the next level.

Raquelle, hurry up.

So I'm heading out to some of the hottest restaurants

in Los Angeles...

-[Raquelle] Oh. -Mm.

This is really good.

...to cook with the chefs on their home turf...

[woman] That's how the real chefs do it

[Selena] ...and on their terms.

-Because I said so. -[laughs]

[Selena] The goal is to create my own dish.

Amazing.

And I'm aiming high.

Would this be able to make the menu?

Seriously, I want to make something good enough to actually go on their menu.

No pressure.

♪ Watch her go Mm-mm-mm, mm-mm-mm, mm-mm ♪

♪ Look at her now

♪ Watch her go Mm-mm-mm, mm-mm-mm, mm-mm ♪

♪ Wow, look at her now

There's something about today where it's more excitement

than nerves, even.

-Well, that's great for you, Raquelle. -Yeah.

-'Cause I'm nervous. -[laughs]

Raquelle and I are on the road to visit Girl & the Goat, LA,

one of the many restaurants of Chef Stephanie Izard.

She is the only person ever

to win both Top Chef and Iron Chef,

and is also a recipient of a James Beard Award

in 2013.

I'm looking forward to learning more about her cuisine

known for its global inspirations and gutsy flavors.

-[laughs] -Go for it.

-[Selena] Oh, this looks so nice. -[Raquelle gasps]

-[Selena] Oh, lookit. -[Raquelle] Wow.

-Hi! -Hi, Chef!

Hey, guys, how are you? Come on back.

Oh, wow.

-Hi! -Hi. It's nice to meet you.

So nice to meet you.

-Thank you so much for having us. -Oh, for sure.

-This is Raquelle. -Hi, Raquelle.

-Good to see you. -It's so nice to meet you, honey.

-Hi, Stephanie. -I can't help it.

-[Selena] I love it. -[pot clatters]

-That's me and that's my bad juju. -I know. [laughs]

That's how it's gonna be.

Um, how's it been going cooking with chefs in their restaurants?

Is it different than you thought it would be?

It's definitely different to be in someone else's space.

So, it's been really fun.

-That's awesome. -[Raquelle] Yeah.

[Stephanie] I'm just curious to see,

after all of this cooking with other chefs,

where your palate is.

Oh, wow.

[Stephanie] I want to give you sort of a taste test.

I just want you to try a bunch of flavors and see what you like best.

That's gonna help us determine

-what you want to make later... -Right.

...and get your brain going.

So what we're going to do is we're going to take away one of your senses.

-[laughs] -[Raquelle] Oh, wow.

But I'll let you put those on yourself.

Once you put a mask on,

you take away your sense of vision,

it's so hard to tell what you're eating sometimes.

But I think if you even get five,

that would be a huge feat.

-Okay. -[Stephanie] Drumroll, please.

[laughs] This is so funny.

[vocalizing]

What did I do?

-Griffin has arrived with our taste test. -Hi, Griffin.

Hi. I don't know where you are.

We're gonna start off simple.

It's something that I know that you've had before.

Mm, tomato.

It's a Sungold tomato.

-How? How the heck am I supposed to guess that? -I know, exactly.

-I'm gonna take that as a win. -[Stephanie] Okay.

I'm just gonna put it close to your hand,

and you can grab a piece.

[Selena] Apple.

Close. It's definitely in the fruit family.

-Peach. -Nope.

-[laughs] -No?

-[Stephanie] You're gonna say it. -Plum?

-Yes! -Plum.

I'm gonna take that as a win.

I'll take that as a win.

No, guys. That doesn't count.

[Stephanie] Next.

-Onion? -[Stephanie] Yeah.

Pickled red onion.

Pickled jalapeno?

It's a pickled fresno.

It's like a lime.

[Stephanie] Yeah, it's a finger lime.

-Right, now we're going straight up spicy. -Okay.

-Oh, the poblano? -This is serrano.

My lips are burning.

This tastes like ginger.

-It is ginger. -Sweet.

It smells like pad Thai.

That was chili crunch.

-It's very good. -[Stephanie] It is really good.

Okay, ready?

Is it like a fish oil?

It's actually a little bit of seasoned rice wine vinegar.

Ugh.

You ready?

-No. -[Stephanie laughs]

This one you can just smell.

Yeah, it smells like a fish.

-Fish oil? -Yeah, fish sauce.

-There you go. -That was wild.

[chuckles]

Oh, my gosh.

-Thank you. -Let's celebrate.

-That was good. -Good job.

[Stephanie] So what's good about this

is now I know what you like.

And when we go back into the kitchen

to pick things for a dish that you want to create,

I can guide you in the right direction.

-Okay. -Mix it together.

-Great. -We can go into the coolers.

We can shop around

and think about all those flavors that we just identified.

[Selena] Yeah.

[Stephanie] But those are things we can play with putting a dish together.

Let's go shopping.

[Stephanie] All right. Come on back, you guys.

So this is our prep kitchen.

Kind of where the magic happens in the morning.

I've heard that you love a cheese and cracker dish.

Is that one of your favorite--

Uh, yes, it is.

-I love cheese. You love cheese. -I love cheese.

I love... Well, we all love cheese,

and we all seem to like crunchy things.

-Yeah. -There's no reason

we can't have a dish that sort of has a protein,

but also has cheese and cracker kind of vibe to it.

-Yeah, I agree. -I love that.

Maybe we make like a toast and then put stuff on it?

Like some cheese on top of it

and a whole bunch of garnishes?

-[Raquelle] That would be yummy. -Yeah, let's do it.

Do I have a shopping bag ready?

Yeah. Oh, yeah. You guys, you do the shopping.

-What am I doing? -Buckets?

[Stephanie laughs]

-So... -So get a couple loaves of sourdough.

-Should I get two or... -Yeah.

I love that you enjoyed the chili crunch so much.

So if you want, we can kind of look at some of these spices

and take chili oil and all the crunches

and just make your own version of it.

Okay. So I think I would need garlic.

[Stephanie] Yeah, a little bit of garlic is a good way to go.

We have aji amarillo.

It is a nice Peruvian chili

that has a little bit of fruitiness to it.

Yes.

[Stephanie] And then I would love a crunch.

-[Selena] Oh, yeah -We've got MASA chips.

That's what I want.

[Raquelle] If you're getting full,

we could put some in here,

-but I'm also saving room for enough cheese. -[Stephanie] Yeah.

Should we go into the dairy cooler?

-Yeah. -Yeah. All right.

[Selena] They have ricotta, babe.

[Raquelle] They have ricotta?

-I think... I think we should have ricotta. -[Raquelle] Ricotta?

I just don't know why. I saw it.

[Stephanie] Let's go pick out a protein.

[Selena] Protein. Here I go.

I would do steak.

-You want to do steak? -Hell, yeah.

[Stephanie] This'll be great.

-I wanna do pickled onions. -[Stephanie] Oh, yeah. Nice.

We've got the red onion. You want to do that?

-Yeah. -See that big jug up there?

It's actually seasoned rice wine vinegar.

[Raquelle] That's a lot of vinegar.

Do you want to see if there's any chilies

-or anything you want to add? -[Selena] Sure.

♪ I think I know what I want

-[Stephanie] Mighty serranos? -[Selena] Yeah.

Awesome. If you liked those Sungolds,

we've got all of these different fruits--

-Let's do that. -You wanna do some Sungolds?

-Yeah. -That's awesome.

Ooh, yummy.

[Stephanie] Yeah, that's great.

I think the only other thing we need

is maybe some herbs to go on top.

-Herbs. -[Raquelle] We need an herb.

What herb, Chef?

[Stephanie] Do you want to taste this?

It's called mizuna.

So it's an Asian green that's got a little bit of bitterness to it,

which we're not really hitting that note.

[Selena] Mm.

[Stephanie] You want to add anything else into it?

-[Selena] Bok choy? -Yeah, I think it's great.

So we're doing two different Asian greens together.

-I'll grab a couple. -[Selena] Thank you.

Ah, it's cold!

-All right. -Good shopping.

I'm excited to see this come together.

I got you both an apron that matches.

-Oh, cute. -Thank you.

-[Stephanie] Pick whichever color... -I like this one.

-I already called it. -[Stephanie] Perfect.

-[Raquelle] Thank you. -You're welcome.

-This is really cool. -[Selena] Love it.

So we're gonna make something

that you can pick up and eat with the bread.

So I've envisioned that with butter,

and then, I think the ricotta.

[Stephanie] Perfect.

-And the steak with some of the sauce. -The chili crunch?

-Yeah, the chili crunch on the top. -Yes.

-Yeah. -Ooh, cool.

Does that sound good?

-I think it sounds really good. -Okay.

Especially with onions, serranos and some tomatoes

that you can make a fun little pickle topping.

Okay, great.

[Stephanie] I think what'll take the longest

is getting the pickle to sit for a little bit,

-so we can work on that first. -[Selena] Perfect.

The way that we often pickle things,

one of the easiest ways to do it,

we grabbed the seasoned rice wine vinegar.

So we can warm this up with some water in it.

Why does it have to be hot?

-It'll just help kind of meld everything together. -Okay.

All right, let's pickle.

[Stephanie] Chop some onions.

-[Selena] All righty. -[Stephanie] Are you sous chefing?

I'm sous chefing.

Anything you guys have for me, I'll be over here.

-Do you want to cut the other onion? -Yeah.

-[Stephanie] Here you go. Red onion for you. -[Raquelle] Thank you.

Always watch your fingers, you guys,

whenever you're holding a vegetable.

I don't mean to compare you to my even-year-old,

but when he's cutting in the kitchen,

the first thing I always remind him

is to curl under his fingers.

You can compare me to the seven-year-old.

Honestly, that's about where the knife skills are for me.

[Stephanie and Selena laugh]

[Selena] How should I slice this onion

in order to pickle it?

Right. So If you follow the natural ribs on the onion,

it's like the onion gave you lines to follow.

-[Selena] Yeah. -Just to make it a little bit easier.

So you can put those in there and we can do the whole pickle thing in there.

How many serranos do you think you want to do?

How spicy are you thinking?

-Two. -Two?

How did you want me to cut these?

-[Stephanie] It's up to you. -I like having little...

-Small, right? -[Stephanie] Yeah.

Because it's something that's so intense,

you wouldn't want to get such a huge piece of it.

Oh, my gosh, they're bouncing.

[Stephanie] Oh, my gosh!

[both laughing]

-I don't even know how you got that pepper to do that. -Are you serious?

What?

[Raquelle] We need to set up some targets on that side of the cutting board,

-and say, if you get like-- -They're just falling!

-That's all right. -That's hilarious.

We'll just cut three peppers knowing that two will actually make their way into...

-[Selena] I'm gonna do this technique. -[Stephanie] There you go.

[Selena] That was so funny.

[Stephanie] So we're going to need to just make enough liquid

that you can pour over the top.

And it'll just submerge.

-Okay, okay. -Yeah, yeah.

So this is kind of intense.

I would recommend kind of doing

two parts vinegar to one part of the water.

-You can just eyeball it. -Oh, gosh.

[Stephanie] Probably. Maybe.

One one-thousand, two one-thousand,

three one-thousand, four one-thousand. Stop!

-It's very intense, yeah. -Ripe.

[Stephanie] One one-thousand, two one-thousand, perfect!

That's measuring in savory.

If you did that with baking,

put one one-thousand of flour in... [chuckles]

That wouldn't worked as well.

That, I'm not going to lie, it smells like feet.

-It does. -Pure feet.

[Stephanie] All right. One of you guys can probably...

You want to slice the bread?

[Raquelle] I'll slice the bread over here

-and you guys-- -I knew it.

I knew you were gonna go with the bread.

-You're the chef-- -You wanna know why?

-You want to know why? -Why?

Because she's gonna take a bite of the bread.

-[laughs] -Oh.

-[Raquelle] Here we go. -[Stephanie] Okay. Hold it.

Use your left hand to really hold that bread into place.

How thick?

Like that?

[Stephanie] Something that you could bite into.

So maybe not quite that big.

[Raquelle] This is a big bite right here.

-Here we go. -[Stephanie] Let's see.

This is a tough piece of bread I have.

[Stephanie] You can tell it's good sourdough

if it's hard to cut through, yeah.

You're killing me, Raquelle. You're killing me.

[Raquelle] This is above the sous chef criteria.

-I think this is above-- -All right, you're driving me crazy!

It's so hard to cut.

It's thick, it's think. I wish people could know it's hard for--

Oh.

You were sitting there sawing like...

You were like this.

I was trying to cut a really sleek piece of bread.

[Stephanie] And look at... you wanna make sure they're all nice and even

because one guest might get upset if theirs is a little different.

[Selena] Oh, my God, I'm terrible.

[Stephanie] These two do not fit.

[Selena] These two are good.

Those two are good. I think this one's...

I think this one's acceptable.

I think these two...

-They're a little... -You're right, you can take those away.

-Okay, I mean, I guess-- -I'll take one.

Oh, there goes--

[Stephanie] So good. There you go.

[Raquelle laughing]

[Raquelle] Who are the other guests joining us?

-[Stephanie] Griffin that you guys met. -[Raquelle] Yeah.

[Stephanie] And Kristinah, who's our general manager.

[Selena] Oh, man.

That means they're gonna really know if it's bad.

[Raquelle] Yeah.

We're gonna have the real opinion.

Oh, we should check on...

So once that's boiling, you want to carefully pour it

over your vegetables to pickle.

Careful.

-I feel like I have to back away. -Look at her.

-She just went for it. -[laughs]

[Stephanie] Oh, awesome.

-[gags] -[chuckles]

-Yeah, it definitely goes-- -Ooh!

-[laughing] Your face! -Ooh!

[Stephanie] So we'll set this aside and let it kind of do its thing.

Okay.

Should we work on this chili crunch situation?

-I think so. -Okay.

[Stephanie] You basically just get to decide

how much of each of those you want to put in

and again, because we're not baking,

you just put however much you feel like.

-Like that? -Yeah.

-Are you a big garlic person? -I love garlic.

All right, So, yeah, put as much as you want in.

You can make this nice and garlicky.

-Like that? -Oh, yeah, that's great.

A little can go a long way.

And then lime powder.

So this is actually made out of lime juice

that's been dehydrated

and turned into a powder.

[Selena] Oh, my gosh.

-Like that? -I think that's good, yeah.

That's great.

All right, then we're gonna go crazy with the crunchies.

-Go crazy with the crunchies. -Go crazy with the crunchies.

This is the fun part. You get to smash up MASA.

-[Selena] Okay. Ready? -[Stephanie] Yep. Do it.

This part's kind of fun.

-Oh, yeah. -Oh, yeah.

We can mix those together

and add in some of the chili oil.

♪ I love chili oil

-All right, I'm gonna let you pour that in. -Okay.

Just put a little at of time so you don't end up with too much chili oil.

If you go too much, then you kind of lose the crunch.

[Selena] I don't want to do that.

Oh, shoot!

-Shoot! -Oh, no!

-[Raquelle] What? What happened? -Daggonnit.

I don't know what I did. I need a ladle.

-Chili oil, it's risky. -A ladle.

Oh, wow, it smells great, though.

I gotta mix this.

There's so much going on right now.

[chuckling]

It's hard to pour out of these kind of containers,

but also that made me feel entertained for a minute.

[both laughing]

[Stephanie] We can taste it, too, and see how it's doing.

Taste as you go.

Oop, oop, oop, don't put that back in.

Oh, I forgot.

Sorry.

Um, we've got these tasting spoons over here.

Try it again with the tasting spoon

and just get some of the oil.

-I like it. -Once you get that

-with the pickles and the ricotta and everything... -Yeah, I love that.

It's great, and we can let that sit for a little while.

The flavors will keep developing more and more.

Should I put this in by the side.

[Stephanie] We can put it off to the side somewhere.

We've got tomatoes that need to get cut.

[Selena] So I was gonna cut them in half.

[Stephanie] Yeah, I think that's perfect.

[Selena] These are very juicy.

-[Stephanie] You know, watch your fingers. -[Selena] I know.

-You want me to show you kind of a cool trick? -[Selena] Yes.

-All right, gather round. Gather round, children. -Okay. Okay.

So we're gonna pour some tomatoes into this lid.

Then you put the second lid over the top.

Stop.

[Raquelle] No way.

[Stephanie] And they're all cut in half.

[ethereal music playing]

That was ridiculous.

[Raquelle] What?

What?

[Raquelle] You're amazing.

[Stephanie] Thank you.

[Stephanie] We've got a few things left to do.

So we should probably get crackalackin'.

We can butter up that bread.

-I would love to butter up the bread! -[Stephanie] Bread butterer!

[Stephanie] We need a spice mix for the skirt steak.

[Selena] Cool.

So you can just decide yourself

how much of each one you want to put on.

Do you love the garlic?

-[Selena] I do. Can't help it. -[Stephanie chuckles]

[Stephanie] Yeah.

Nice, little spicy.

I wouldn't go too heavy on the lime.

-Yeah, a little lime. -Just 'cause you put some in the other topping.

Plus, we have our pickles, so.

-All right. -All right, so skirt steak.

[Selena imitates fanfare]

So do I need to put oil or anything on it?

Just the seasoning.

What could be kind of fun is, since we have that chili oil,

do you want to put a little of that on on the seasoning?

-Yes, I do. -That could be cool.

[Selena] Ladle.

-[Stephanie] One of those big spoons will work, too. -[Selena] Okay.

[Stephanie] There you go.

I'm kind of excited about this.

[Raquelle] The bread is buttered.

Yeah. Did you do the back sides?

-Yeah, yeah. -Oh, you did.

Do you think I did enough butter?

Let's show Chef.

Um, what do you think?

Do you think she put enough water?

Raquelle Stevens.

The thing is, I want it to be...

[laughter]

But it's gonna be really delicious.

-In my opinion. -I love you.

It'll melt off and bake on, and it's gonna be crunchy, and yeah.

-[Raquelle] Extra crunch. -[Stephanie] Extra crunch.

[Raquelle] Yeah, extra crunch.

[Stephanie] Now let's work on our little salad to top things off.

[Selena] Yes, love it.

[Stephanie] We've just got to get that bok choy cut up.

You could just do kind of like a julienne,

and what you want to do is when you get to the bottom,

you just don't want to put that part in.

So while I'm doing this and trying to be as good as you,

do you mind telling us a little bit about the charity we'll be donating to?

-Yeah. Have you heard of World Central Kitchen? -Yeah.

So any sort of a world event that's happening that needs support

that culinary can come in and help,

they just come in.

And I mean, not just feeding a few people

feeding thousands and thousands of people.

It's just really incredible.

Awesome. Well, we are very happy to do that.

We are gonna be donating $10,000 to World Central Kitchen,

an organization dedicated

to being first responder to communities

devastated by disasters.

[Stephanie] You put the bok choy and the mizuna together

and you're just making a nice little mix that can go on top.

Awesome. So you have, like, all this stuff you can play with for flavor.

-And we can put a little oil on them. -Yeah.

I mean, use a little of that as a dressing,

maybe with some of the chili oil.

-I think that's gonna be delicious. -[Selena] Okay.

My thought with this,

because you just started cooking in restaurants as opposed to cooking at home,

what happens in a restaurant

is you get all of your mise en place that we're doing.

We've got our tomatoes cut up,

we've got our pickles, we've got our ricotta, we've got our bread.

We would have all that ready before service.

And then when the chef says, "Order in,"

I'm ordering five skirt steaks.

You need to get five skirt steaks, like, out of here.

For a skirt steak,

I would say our time is usually about ten minutes.

I think since we're beginners, we'll maybe give you...

-An hour? -...about 12 minutes.

We'll see if we can do it as close to ten minutes as possible.

-Okay. -You guys are wearing the aprons.

-We're goats. -Yeah, you're goats.

You're almost ready to go.

-We're not. Don't say that. -We just need to get these dishes out.

-[chuckles] -You did not just say that.

All right. Enough chatter.

-We gotta get back to work. -Yes. Okay, here we go.

-[Stephanie] You have 12 minutes to plate this. -[Selena] Okay.

And your time starts now.

[Selena] Let's do it!

-[Stephanie] You have 12 minutes to plate this. -Okay.

Your time starts now.

Where are our plates? You want me to get them?

[Stephanie] They're right here.

Slide them over to the left, actually,

just 'cause it's the hottest part

and then you guys can do the toast on the other part.

-[Raquelle] Hey. -[Stephanie] All right.

[Raquelle] I already feel the crunch.

-[Selena] And I flip it? -[Stephanie] Yeah.

[Raquelle] Oh, look at that.

Beautiful.

Where do I get a plain pair of tweezers?

Oh, you need some tongs?

Right here-- Oh, "tweezers"!

-I need some tweezers. -"Tweezers." Skill!

[laughing] I think I've lost...

Lost the plot.

[Stephanie] Eight more minutes.

[Raquelle] Okay, here we go. Game time.

Oh, look at that!

[Selena] All right. Skirt steaks.

[Stephanie] Set it here.

Pull it off and just give it a little feel with your finger.

Yeah, I feel like that's done.

Just be careful licking your fingers in kitchens.

Oh, I forget.

[Stephanie] When you pull those off, just go wash your hand real fast.

[Selena] I'm telling you, I would not be good in restaurants.

[Stephanie] Right?

Six minutes. Six minutes.

Okay, okay, okay.

We're going to cut the steak.

Yeah, slice it against the grain.

So you can see the grains going this way.

Just cut against it.

-[Selena] Oh. -And that's what makes skirt steak

-super tender and delicious. -[Selena] Okay.

[Stephanie] All right, we're getting close.

-You want to start putting the cheese on the toast. -[Raquelle] Happily.

Four minutes, four minutes, four minutes. You have so many more pieces.

I don't know what I'm doing. Okay, this goes that way, I go this way.

-[Raquelle] So, flick... -[Stephanie] Yes.

[Raquelle] Art of the cheese swipe.

You know what? I think you're hilarious, but we have four minutes.

-So... -No time for jokes.

[Selena] All right. Pass me one of those.

It's always easy, you can grab all five plates

and do one step on all five at a time.

You licked your fingers, you licked your fingers.

-[Raquelle] Oh. [chuckles] -Run and wash, run and wash.

-[Raquelle] Okay, I'm gonna run and wash. -[Selena] Yeah.

-[Selena] Okay. -[Raquelle] I'm clean.

We've got how much time left?

Like, one minute.

[Stephanie] When you guys get to doing the pickles, one little note on it

is try not to get too much

of that liquid on your your skirts.

-It'll make it too vinegary, right? -[Selena] Ah, okay.

-[Stephanie] One minute. -[Selena] One minute.

[Stephanie] You definitely have got a good amount of chili crunch on there.

You got a good amount of the cheese.

All you have to do is put the salad garnish on top.

[Selena mock sobs]

-I wanna cry. The stress. -It's okay.

[Stephanie] That looks pretty craveable.

[Selena] I don't know what I'm doing.

-Okay. -[Stephanie] You did it.

With seconds to spare!

-[Raquelle] With seconds to spare. -That was amazing!

-We did it. -Yay!

-[Stephanie] Yay, we all have chili crunch on our hand! -It looks so good.

So good.

Okay, let's get these out.

[Stephanie] Lucky diners.

Doesn't this look incredible?

Yeah, very nice.

Oh, gosh, guys, I'm very nervous for you to try it.

So, this is Kristinah.

She recently became our general manager.

And then Griffin.

The CDC, they make the restaurant what it is, which is amazing.

All right. Well, I'm sorry, and I hope you like it.

[all laughing]

[Raquelle] I love it.

It's really good.

-Wow. -[Raquelle] Mm!

Mm...

Not camera eating food. Love it.

So there's sweet, crunchy, salty, spicy, acidic.

You're getting every layer of flavor

that you could possibly think of

in one dish, which is always the goal.

-[Kristinah] Yeah. -Yay.

[Selena] GM, what do you think?

Oh, my gosh, I thought it was delicious.

-A lot of pretty colors. -[Griffin] Yeah.

[Kristinah] A lot of chili oil that went really well with the ricotta.

[Selena] Love it.

-Really well balanced. -[Stephanie] Yeah.

I like it.

I think it's a little tough to eat.

I think just cutting it in half

-would make it a lot easier. -[Selena] Oh, yeah.

Yeah, I think a few tweaks in this would definitely be...

Everything's there. Just dial it in.

Honorary goats.

-Thank you. -[Raquelle] Whoo!

Good job.

Appreciate it.

♪ But you look like fun