So, it's Thanksgiving and I says to myself, I says, "Why cook a turkey, when I can cook a chicken whose corpse I've just sodomized with canned alcohol?" BETTER YET, a chicken with bacon strips spilling from its gaping headhole. BETTER YET, a chicken that sprang forth from the twisted mind of Guy Fieri. What better way to celebrate a beloved national holiday than to gorge myself on the tender, juicy contents of a cornucopia of American excess and confusing cooking methodologies?!
WHAT'S SO CONFUSING ABOUT COOKING A CHICKEN WITH A HALF-FULL CAN OF AMERICAN LAGER JAMMED IN ITS POOPER?
Listen. I'm an optimist (notice I said the can of beer was half-full), but I have a hard time in believing in the reasons beer can chicken is supposed to be better than regular roasted chicken, mostly because some ramrod who calls himself Meathead wrote an article for the Huffington Post about how we're all living a lie, and, incidentally, I believe everything ramrods tell me. Also, when you cook a chicken with a beer can shoved inside it, you take it out of the oven and then you're like, "How do I make that can of beer not be in it anymore?" Gingerly.
Hey. Look what we've got here ... To follow the theme of inserting things into holes, those garlic cloves go inside the beer before it goes inside the chicken. I chose Miller Lite because I'm watching my calories.
Here's a spice mixture. It's like colorful cocaine in Flavortown.
But instead of snorting it, I'm going to rub it inside an animal carcass. There are few things I want to do less than put my hand in this hole ...
But I did it. And sold the pix to fowlfisters.net.
All plugged up and ready for the oven. While this poor creature cooked, I busied myself by making a Campbell's green bean casserole and instant mashed potatoes. Because that's what we eat on holidays, I think?
So, when the cooking ends, so do Guy's instructions. As a person with only two hands, I was stumped on removing the can, and had to hire a homeless guy who hangs out in the back alley to yank it out while I held the chicken. I paid him in hot beer peppered with garlic cloves. See, I'm a problem solver. Next stop, corporate consultancy!
It's been a terrible week to be a Guy Fieri. First, he spends Monday and Tuesday generously donating fifty-percent of his Times Square restaurant's profits to the Red Cross, which, granted, he erroneously believed was a motorcycle gang. Then, on Tuesday afternoon, New York Times critic (cri-dick, is more like it) Pete Wells comes along and so rudely reveals to everyone that Guy's Times Square restaurant isn't even a restaurant despite that it has tables and chairs and serves food-ish things.
Here are some excerpts from Wells' review (actually just a list of questions he maybe wants Guy to answer, but mostly wants Guy to feel shame about) ...
Did panic grip your soul as you stared into the whirling hypno wheel of the menu, where adjectives and nouns spin in a crazy vortex? When you saw the burger described as “Guy’s Pat LaFrieda custom blend, all-natural Creekstone Farm Black Angus beef patty, LTOP (lettuce, tomato, onion + pickle), SMC (super-melty-cheese) and a slathering of Donkey Sauce on garlic-buttered brioche,” did your mind touch the void for a minute?
Listen. Excessive acronyms aren't for everyone. But, how were the cocktails, Pete? Look, I can ask questions, too.
Hey, did you try that blue drink, the one that glows like nuclear waste? The watermelon margarita? Any idea why it tastes like some combination of radiator fluid and formaldehyde?
I'm mostly impressed that he knows what formaldehyde tastes like. And is also alive. Then there's ...
How did Louisiana’s blackened, Cajun-spiced treatment turn into the ghostly nubs of unblackened, unspiced white meat in your Cajun Chicken Alfredo?
DID YOU SAY CAJUN CHICKEN ALFREDO? Ew, wait, better yet, did you say "ghostly nubs?" Incidentally, there are several body parts I refer to as my ghostly nubs, but I won't say which (MY TITS).
It just so happens that I made Guy's Cajun Chicken Alfredo on Saturday night for some friends who I like, but not enough to serve them food that doesn't have enough fat to kill them onsite. I did make sure the nubs were all nice and blackened, though. Real nice and black nubs.
Here are all my nub fixins. A person and several more have told me that it's important to use a good wine to cook with because the wine cooks down and the flavor becomes more concentrated (also, when water gets below a certain temperature, it becomes a thing called ice). I continue to disregard that advice. Wink!
Not pictured: THREE CUPS OF HEAVY CREAM. Would've been in the picture, but they were too busy being filled with fat and calories. I made Guy's famous blackening rub from scratch. The very same stuff he currently wants to rub into Pete Wells' dickhole.
The recipe called for three chicken breasts, but I used two because these were made of hormones more than they were made of chicken. Hey, how do you make a hormone? I don't know either.
I decided to grate the parmesan cheese by hand and instantly regretted it. Also, something something about Pete Wells' dick and a cheese grater.
The finished product. Alright, now go back to forwarding the NYT review to your cousins the Schadenfreude Twins.
You know what's a real hassle? Besides having segments of your beard meticulously bleached on a bi-weekly basis? DIPPING FOOD IN CONDIMENTS. UGH. Picking up french fry after french fry, hefting each over to a puddle of Hidden Valley Ranch, then bringing the deep-fat-fried and white-fat-drenched crinkle-cut piece of potato all the way up to your mouth. BUT WHAT'S THE SOLUTION?
An air guitar-playing Guy Fieri slides into the room on his knees and says, "Foods with condiments IN them, motherfuckers." He shoves his hands in his pockets, and when he pulls them out he's got an onion ring jammed between each pair of fat fingers. This exact thing might have actually happened in real life ...
So, listen. The bad news I should break to you is that Guy hasn't gotten around to creating ranch-filled french fries yet (it's an idea with legs -- big, fat legs). He has, however, gotten around to creating onion rings with a mixture of ketchup and sriracha sauce deep fried INTO them, underneath their breading. What's gross is I still dipped them in ranch.
HERE COME THE INGREDIENTS ...
The man who made the panko is a notorious womanizer, but an excellent lover, and also Asian and penisey sounding.
Oh, and if you ever are in an Asian market that sells these, I highly recommend them. The candy that sounds like sneezing, but tastes much better.
Here's a breading station. The onion rings are soaking in low-fat milk because I didn't have buttermilk. No. I had buttermilk, but it was several weeks old (how long ago did I make those Smash Mouth Potatoes?) and it had turned into something else altogether.
I couldn't figure out how to dip them in the gloppy ketchup mixture, then breadcrumbs, and not wash my hands every single time. Wet hand-dry hand didn't work. So, shut up about it.
And, look. Rojo rings. Because they're red and "rojo" means red in Spanish I think. I ate, like, two of them. Not because they weren't fun, but because I kept picturing Guy's pork-flavored knuckles pressed against them.
Coming up die-rectly: Rojo Onion Rings. Onion rings dipped in red things (ketchup and sriracha) before they're breaded and fried. WHY DO YOU THINK THAT'S SO WEIRD?
If you're like me and most other good Americans who still think references to the early aughts are funny, you don't trust things that are overtly French. This includes most art, many wines, several million people, and myriad food items. Haricot vert? Surely you mean green beans. (I'm with this guy, my new favorite guy -- Fieri notwithstanding.) Cassoulet? A stew so French-sounding it might as well be made with hunks of Gerard Depardieu's nose. In fact, how are we to know it isn't? Enter Guy Fieri on a motorcycle built from the bones of deceased Playboy playmates ...
See, even though most traditional cassoulet recipes include pork products -- sausages, skins, etc. -- Guy thought it best to just g'head and throw the word "pork" in the name to avoid any confusion.
"If it's sunny out, get ready to put on sunscreen," Guy writes. "And if it's cloudy in Nor Cal, get out the pork-oulet ingredients." And proceed to slather them on your flesh? I don't know. Oh, look, here are those ingredients now ...
I couldn't find the pork butts at my local Jewel grocery store, so I asked the lady behind the butcher counter if they had pork butts and she was like, "Shit yeah, we do and then she gave me a thing called pork shoulders and it was very cheap, so I didn't ask questions. Cheaper than Depardieu nose.
Don't call it a mirepoix ...
I tucked my penis between my legs and wore a wig of lady hair while I peeled the skin from these chicken thighs ...
I really had my way with this recipe. I halved the pork and doubled the chicken. Also, I added lots of fresh tarragon because I think it's good when things taste good. Listen. I know we have lots of fun making fun and that's great, but this really did taste good. Mostly I just like the name.
Cassoulet is a French stew containing meats and beans and things. PORK-oulet is exactly that, but with a name that’s more likely to appeal to fatfucks.
Hi there. If you could make just one wish, what would it be? G'head, take a sec. But, seriously, I don't have all day. OK, now that you've had plenty of time to think about it, you inevitably decided that the one thing you want more than anything else in the world is a book of recipes crafted by Smash Mouth lead singer Steve Harwell.
YOUR WISH IS GRANTED.
What's a Smash Mouth? Oh, shut up and stop pretending you don't remember wearing a funky bowling shirt, calf-length jean shorts, and vinyl Converse One Stars whilst mixing a Green Apple Pucker and Ecstasy martini for some lady with breast implants and a cold sore whilst also listening to Smashmouth's 1997 mega-hit "Walking on the Sun." (I just described in detail what Guy Fieri is doing at precisely this moment.)
Anyway, the impending release of Harwell's cookbook (for-real cover seen above) was a thing people ended up talking about because Guy Fieri wrote the book's foreward, and Steve Harwell and Guy Fieri are basically the same person except Harwell walks on the sun and Fieri looks like the sun. Heh. Oh, man. That was a good one.
This collaboration -- this meeting of the minds -- has been a longtime coming! Back in 2008, Guy force-fed us our first taste of how amazingly bland it can be when '90s two-hit wonders and their chef-like fans combine as foodstuff when he introduced us to Smash Mouth Reds on his program "Guy's Big Bite." The recipe is barely a recipe: Boil red potatoes. Smash with palm of hand. Top with a dollop of creme fraiche, some lime zest, and salt and pepper. AREN'T YOU GLAD I'M TELLING YOU ABOUT THEM?
But, listen. I made it interesting. I made my own creme fraiche. And I smashed them with too much vigor.
These are things for making creme fraiche. These things and 12 spare hours. It seems wrong to mix two dairy products (heavy cream and buttermilk) and then let them sit out at room temp for half a day (or 15 hours in my case, because I forgot).
But, look. Majik.
Then I boiled potatoes for "smashing" with my "bare hands." So, Guy said if the potatoes were too hot to the touch (which potatoes tend to be when they've just emerged from a pot of boiling water) you could use a meat mallet instead, which is what I did. What a comedy of errors. Potato pieces flew hither and thither. I was just like Gallagher, except I don't despise black people and homosexuals. Our male pattern baldness is the same.
A fat n' yellow reaped all the benefits.
They really should have been called Presshand Reds, but I guess that would have destroyed the gimmick. And what a good gimmick it is. And such an attractive side dish. That I ate by itself like it was a meal and not just fat and starch. I'm poor.
To celebrate the impending release of a new cookbook by Smash Mouth lead singer, tastemaker, and fashion icon (exclusively to Guy Fieri) Steve Harwell (forward written by Guy Fieri), I'm making Smash Mouth Reds, a potato side dish that kickstarted the global Smash Mouth-related foods craze. But, Gwynedd, the global Smash Mouth-related foods craze is not a thing! YET, you guys. It's not a thing YET.
You know, I love anthropomorphized animals as much as the next guy. Have you SEEN "Beverly Hills Chihuahua?" Well, neither have I and don't you fucking dare tell anyone I have. "Beverly Hills Chihuahua 3" was pretty funny, though. And it's out on video now! (This post is sponsored by Mexican stereotypes, George Lopez, and Mexican stereotypes perpetuated by George Lopez.)
Why oh why, though, are anthropomorphized pigs forever behaving like cannibals? If I've seen one pig in a chef hat endorsing the consumption of pork, I've seen a least a handful of pigs in chef hats condorsing the ensumption of clark. I'm drunk. With rage. Anyway, the artist who drew the drawings in Guy Fieri's cookbook is all too happy to promote the myth that pigs are capable of preparing foods made of pigs. You'd think Guy Fieri, of all people, would be more sensitive to their plight IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN (I mean he's pig-like).
In protest, I made Guy's Ginger Pork Potstickers with ground turkey instead. And because it's healthier. And also because I already had ground turkey in my refrigerator. But mostly in protest.
So here are the ingredients ... modified thanks to a trip to the "Jennie-O Turkey Store." I'm so glad that's not an actual place ...
All of the items with bright green price tags came from Joong Boo Asian Market on Kimball Avenue here in Chicago, where they also sell a type of produce that looks very much like the creatures in "Tremors." (This is where I start finding ways to work Fred Ward films into all my blog posts.)
Here's the filling. I'm really impressed by the vegetable to meat ratio. A lot of restraint, Guy.
Then I made this. The step-by-step photo tutorial in the book was helpful if distracting, what with the sheer number of accessories Guy wears below his elbows. Including, but not limited to, a thumb ring.
Guy says he likes making Japanese foods like these because it's done at a "focused pace" and because it's a "very calming experience." I made eight of these and couldn't wait to slap my sweaty palms around the wheel of a bright yellow Lamborghini.
After being stuck in a pot of boiling water, the pot stickers are stuck in a pan of oil. Shut up about the one on the left.
I splurged on potsticker sauce from Joong Boo. A sad, yellow Peeping Tom who lives in my kitchen thinks it's for her but she's so wrong.
I ate all eight of these. Stick a pork in me, I'm done. I quit.
Look. It's a pigchef making Guy's Ginger Pork Potstickers. Why are pigchefs always such sick fucks? (P.S. I'm about to do what pigchef is doing ... but I'm gonna use people meat.)
You know what really whets my wet sandwich appetite? WET SANDWICH ANECDOTES. The story of Guy's first encounter with a gravy-drenched Italian Beef Sandwich goes something like this ...
He was in an airport in Chicago and found an Italian beef stand. The guy at the counter noticed Guy's last name on his credit card and gave him a hard time because he's of Italian descent, but had never had an Italian beef sandwich, which isn't exactly fair since Guy's last name is "Ferry" in real life and since no one who doesn't live in Chicago knows what an Italian beef sandwich is.
Then everything gets worser.
"My mouth is watering just remembering what happened next. With that first bite of salty wet beef [winces], soggy bun [whimpers], hot pepper, and the crunch of vinegary, sweet, and salty giardiniera, I thought I was going to die [emboldened by him, not me -- I was busy breaking out in a cold sweat, then vomiting]. I engulfed the whole thing, then went back for another [no!]. As I unwrapped the second sandwich on the plane [NO!], the aromas wafted out, and let's just say my fellow passengers experienced some major sandwich envy."
I'm gonna g'head and guess there's a 75 to 85 percent chance Guy mistook looks of horror and disgust for looks of sandwich envy. In fact, I bet the person sitting immediately beside him was so "envious," they spent the rest of the flight locked in the bathroom, feigning illness and reading US Weekly. It should be against TSA rules to bring anything with "aromas" that "waft" onto a plane. Especially meat sandwiches that are wet and are being "engulfed" by a man who's already filled with and covered in a previous sandwich's gravy.
Hi. I currently live in Chicago. So, I happen to know what an Italian Beef Sandwich is. Come closer and I'll tell you what it is, but only if you promise not to tell the Italians or the Chicagoans that I said it ... IT'S A FRENCH DIP WITH PICKLED PEPPERS ON IT. Shhhh. Our secret. You guys are my best friends.
Hey, look. The ingredients. OOPS. And I already lied about you guys being my best friends. Charles Shaw is my best friend, obviously ...
The recipe called for top round roast, but I bought bottom round roast instead. I'm not sure what the difference is, but two and a half pounds of the bottom kind cost roughly seven dollars, so I don't care what the difference is. The recipe also called for Guy's own homemade giardiniera (which, if you're not familiar, is a pickled condiment with peppers and other things), but I let someone else home-make it for me, assuming that person lives in Dell' Alpe's jarred, pickled shit factory.
So, after the meat was browned in a pan, it was baked in an oven with all the broth and wine and onions and things. And I did a really good job. Look.
Then I kept doing a good job ...
Then the slappity slabs go back into the au jus gravy (au ju crazy?) and then from the gravy to the bread. And then the bread gets more gravy and jarred peppers and pickled things.
This post is just an e-resume for a job at Guy Fieri's new pukehall in Times Square, btw.
Recipe seven: Red Rocker Margarita Chicken Sandwich
Last year, a former "Diners, Drive-ins and Dives" producer accused Guy Fieri of being a gross pig who hates gay people and requires advanced notice if he's going to have to interact with them on his program.
Reasons to believe this is true: Just look at the guy.
Reasons to believe this is not true: Just look at the guy. He wears more accessories than Charles Nelson Reilly (RIP). And spends more time at the salon than Charles Nelson Reilly (RIP). Also, he is very profoundly in love with Sammy Hagar ...
"I'm a rocker, so of course I'm a Sammy Hagar fan," Guy writes. Well, of course. That's like saying, "I'm a dinglebag, so of course I have a two-toned goatee."
Let's read on ...
"... Sammy found out that I was cooking with his Cabo Wabo tequila ... so we decided that he'd come up to Johnny Garlic's to talk about tequila. I pulled up in my new Corvette just as Sammy pulled up in his GT500. So we immediately went over to each other's cars and started covering the specs. It was so cool, like I'd known him all my life."
Aw. Soulmates. But in a tequila-titties-and-cars-related, totally-not-gay way.
How do we tell our platonic lovers how we feel? WE MAKE SANDWICHES ABOUT THEM. Red Rocker Margarita Chicken Sandwiches.
Hey. "Why is Sammy Hagar called the Red Rocker?" is a question I asked that I didn't know I'd ever want answered. "Sammy Hagar almost always wore red leather outfits onstage, especially as a solo performer." Also, not gay.
Guy's love for Sammy is very much a mutual thing! Hagar recently appeared on one of Guy's hundred-or-so television programs "Guy's Big Bite" and subsequently posted pictures on his blog, on which he calls Guy his "brother from another mother." Let's take a look ...
Fondling meat. That is likely covered in various chin hairs. (Good screenshot, Gwynn.)
Sammy admires Guy's red leather outfit. That is actually just his face.
A toast! To Eddie Van Halen's imminent death!
Let's make this blog post about a sandwich now. Grilled chicken. Bread. Cheese. Some mayo. What a sandwichey sandwich this is. The rocker element that is also red: deep fried red pepper stringles. I made up the word stringle. I hope you like it.
So, first of all the chicken was marinated in these things ...
And also Cabo Wabo Tequila. Ahahaha. Just kidding. Hi, old friend ...
Stringletime. Berlin' in earl.
Then I started deep frying all things. Including a couple leftover salami sticks. And the jalapenos from the marinade that Guy apparently expects us to just throw in the garbage. Or feed to our fatass dogs.
I didn't actually cook the chicken on a grill. I just painted brown stripes on it.
A sandwich that was so much better because someone added fried jalapenos to it.
Whaddaya say, Sammy?
I'm sorry I asked. Wait. I'm sorry I axed. Guitar humor. Oh, shut up and leave me alone.
Oh, hi. OK. I know what you're thinking: Who is a Tex Wasabi? Why do fish tacos belong to him? And why would I want to eat them. These are questions that have more than one answer. Come with me ...
According to this illustration from "Cookin' It. Livin' It. Lovin' It," Tex Wasabi is a version of the intense, mustachioed cowboy from the Village People, but more specifically a version that has intimacy with fish. An aside: that koi didn't see any of this coming. If fish eyes could talk, those would be doing so very loudly.
The second answer is that Tex Wasabi is the fictional namesake of two of Guy Fieri's funky, Mexi-Asian-fusion restaurants in California. Notice the phonetic similarity between Guy Fieri and Tex Wasabi. It's almost like that's what Guy would have renamed himself if he had the opportunity to rename himself. Oh, wait he DID RENAME HIMSELF glaglaglaglag -- show your face, "Guy Ferry".
I'll g'head and let Guy explain the Tex Wasabi fish taco. Words like "funky" and "crust" have more gravitas when spat from his lips ...
I have a thing for making food from scratch that breaks away from the traditional styles and methods. So in making fish tacos I wanted to go beyond the usual grilled method and do them in my own funky way. I pushed it to another level by frying the fish in tempura batter and panko crust.
No, I don't actually use koi in this recipe, but koi fish are reminiscent of Asia and tattoo art, and you know I gotta have fun with the name. Yee-haw!
Fish! In a tortilla! WHAT AN INVENTION. Thank God there's a funky twist in the form of fried fish. I'm not trying to be rude (YES I AM) but aren't lots of fish tacos made with fried fish? Answer me. Alright, fine. Don't.
I had three nice friends over to enjoy Tex's tacos with me. And if there's anything I'd like for you to know about me (besides that I'm obviously, profoundly, and obsessively in love with Guy Fieri), it's that I know how to entertain company.
Hors d'oeuvres ...
If Guy Fieri was a potato chip he would be one of these. Because he is also red and not actually a thing in real life. Oh, and look at the side dish I painstakingly prepared (pardon my disgusting thumb) ...
And to marinate the fish, Heritage tequila. Whose heritage, I'm not sure. Feel free to break into my home and take this before I eventually (imminently) come home drunk and think it sounds like a good idea ...
The rest of the ingredients!
Not pictured: the fish (which was marinating in the tequila, some lime juice, and cilantro) and sour cream, which was the main ingredient in the tequila-lime "aioli."
I'll tell you what. Half a container of sour cream mixed with cilantro, cumin, and lime juice does not an aioli make ...
I guess I'd make a bigger fuss about the discrepancy had I not served Knorr Taco Rice with the meal.
Here's where things get both funky and crusty. See, normally your fried fish will be either breadcrumbed or battered. In the fine Fieri tradition of overdoing things, the fish in this dish is floured, then dunked in tempura batter, then rolled in panko breadcrumbs. Look. Golden-brown cod crustification.
The fat, yellow dog who lives here was partial to discarded cabbage leaves ...
THE FINISHED PRODUCT! My guests were wowed. And also starving because the making of these took longer than I'd anticipated.
I have homework for you. Start looking at Guy Fieri's Facebook page with some regularity. We have a lot to talk about.
Without you, Julia, we wouldn't have the iconic blog the Julie/Julia Project. Without the Julie/Julia Project, we wouldn't have the Gwynedd & Guy Project. Without the Gwynedd & Guy project life would be exactly the same for everyone. Except you wouldn't be very close to watching this video of Guy Fieri eating in reverse.
