Let me preface this article by being the first to admit: I am not a professional chef. In fact, only this past summer, when my boyfriend and I had nothing to do but try out new recipes, did I start to consider it somewhat enjoyable. Earlier this semester, my boyfriend introduced me to the YouTube channel “Binging with Babish,” a cooking show created by Andrew Rea that recreates recipes from movies and TV shows completely from scratch. As in, I’ve never seen this man use store-bought bread other than ironically. He also has a series called “Basics with Babish,” where he shows viewers recipes to make, still very nice, but much more manageable meals. While I very much enjoyed watching his show, I didn’t think I’d be trying to make any of these recipes any time soon. Turned out, I’d be making three in one day (with the help of my boyfriend who’s turned into quite the cook). That’s right, the girl that considers herself a chef for sautéing vegetables instead of microwaving them made hollandaise sauce. Don’t know what that is? Come find out.
Breakfast:
The first recipe we made was from the actual “Binging with Babish” series, and it was the Eggs Florentine from the classic show Frasier. It consists of an English muffin (which, unlike Babish, I didn’t make from scratch. Sorry to disappoint), topped with a bed of sautéed spinach and garlic, topped with a poached egg, topped with hollandaise sauce. I’ve never made nor had poached eggs, so I thought that might be fun. It’s not necessarily difficult to make, there’s just a lot of cooking stations and a lot of assembly happening in a short amount of time, making it much more tedious than we thought it would be. Once assembled, we tried our first bite. I must say, I was pretty pleased with it. The spinach mixed with garlic had a lot of flavor, the English muffin added some much-needed texture, the egg was runny and flavorful and the hollandaise added a creamy fullness. However, we used hollandaise from a packet, and it was really average flavor-wise, so I recommend making it yourself if you can. Overall, it was a really good breakfast, but a really long process to make. I recommend doing this when you don’t have anywhere to be and employing a friend to help you make it.
For the full recipe and to see how Babish does it, click here.
Lunch:
The next recipe we attempted was from the “Basics with Babish” series, and it was shrimp fried rice. This is the one I most highly recommend trying if you’re new to cooking, or on a budget. It has a lot of ingredients, but none of them are crazy expensive and it makes a ton of leftovers. The only mistake we made was not cooking our rice the night before and using “leftover rice” like traditional fried rice uses, so our first time eating it the rice was a little mushy. Basically, we cooked and combined rice, peas, shitake mushrooms, egg and shrimp (or your protein of choice), tossed it in a sauce made of a combination of oyster and soy sauce and topped it with green onions. Super delicious, super easy to customize, and honestly, pretty close to the restaurant version.
For the full recipe and to see how Babish does it, click here.
Dinner:
The final, and the most spectacular, recipe we made was also from “Basics with Babish,” and it was Pasta Carbonara. As an Italian who’s very dedicated to Italian foods, I’m ashamed to say I’ve never tried this before, so I jumped at the opportunity to make it myself. If you’re looking to make a fancier dish or something to make for a date, this is a great option. Now, Babish has two versions of this recipe- a traditional Italian version and a more modern version. We didn’t have access to (or the funds for) the typical meat used, pancetta, so we went with the modern version. In one pan, we first chopped and then fried thick-cut bacon, stirring in minced garlic in the last minute of cooking and draining most of the fat. In a large pot we boiled a box of Bucatini noodles, and in a separate bowl mixed together a mixture of eggs, pecorino Romano cheese, parmesan cheese and pepper. After the noodles were done, we dropped them into the large pan with the bacon, killed the heat on the pan, and added the cheese and egg mixture, stirring vigorously to avoid scrambling the eggs and ending up with a smooth, creamy, well-mixed dish. This pasta was honestly one of the best things I’ve ever made, and I’m too embarrassed to tell you how much my boyfriend and I ate in one sitting.
For the full recipe and to see how Babish does it, click here.
Overall, this experience was so fun to do. I got to try new foods and test my cooking skills, and it was definitely worth the little extra I spent on groceries and the extra time I spent in the kitchen. If you’re looking for new recipes to try and these three weren’t for you, I completely recommend checking out Binging with Babish, he has something for everyone. Happy cooking! (Or binging)
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