THE ULTIMATE PARTY APPETIZERS | SAM THE COOKING GUY

One New Year's Eve plus three great dishes means, okay, that doesn't make sense, but it's gonna be good. This is the day before New Year's Eve if you are watching this on December 30th, 2020. If you're not, I got nothing to say. But we wanted to give you a couple things that you could make and take, make for your own little New Year's Eve or just have in your arsenal for some time down the road. It's gonna be easy ---- because that's what we do. We're here for you. Oh, no, no, no, not like those other shows. Not like those complicated 40-hour that make and cook and bake and stir and ---- like that. No, no, my friends, our stuff is all easy, right? Right. Right, Chance? Right. No chance. Chance is on his vacation. Bastard. We're still here slugging it out for you. We're gonna start with these four-ingredient little glossy lacquered wings because who doesn't like a wing? Who doesn't like a wing? Marinate first. We begin with soy. And we'll go sort of like equal parts of soy and brown sugar. And for this, I'm using this very beautiful dark brown sugar. Why, Max? Because it's extra good? Go ahead, say it. I don't know, I'm gonna be wrong. Because I don't have light brown sugar. There you go. And not just sesame oil, but sesame chili oil. Sorry, not pimping this brand. Sesame chili oil. You can buy sesame oil. You can buy chili oil separate. You can also buy them together. So this goes in and we mix. Most of the mixing will happen in the bag, but just get it stirred together beautifully for now. And for our chicken purpose today, we're using what the store calls party wings. There's the flats. There's the little drummies. It's the combination of the two that makes them party wings. So these guys will go in a zippered bag. I don't want to touch them. Nobody wants to touch chicken. Surely there's a better way to do this. There is. It's like this. You just take your hands. So then comes back the marinade. Stir, stir, stir. The marinade comes back? The marinade comes. What do you mean? Why can't I say it the other way? You said comes back the marinade. I said, so comes back the marinade. Yeah, I don't think that's right. Don't forget. I'm Canadian and Shakespeare's in my history, so. You speak the Queen's language. I do. So now we'll take most of this and pour it in. Hold back a little bit for brushing. Now we can seal. So squeeze, squeeze, squeeze to here. And then get out most of the air. All right, when it comes up to the level of the seal, we're good. That's it. Squish the bag around, thereby ensuring the sugar, the soy, and the chili sesame oil is mixed well. And gonna coat all these pieces of the party wings. And when it's done, stick that in the fridge for a couple hours until you're ready to cook them. And when you are, they're all done. So let's put them on a rack. So we go like this. Fingers are always gonna be easier. We take them off and we lay everybody down. All right, so now we take these with this little extra marinade we saved back and we go to the broiler. Okay, they're under the broiler. What is that, about eight inches, six inches, that? Yeah. Well, it's 12 inches. I get it. We shouldn't put that in. Hilarious. We shouldn't put that in. It's going in. It shouldn't go in. They're in the oven under the broiler, the top down going heat about that far away. Whatever that is, that's about right. They're probably gonna take, depends how cold they are, hot your oven is. I'd say probably six to seven minutes a side, maybe a little bit less. I'm gonna baste as much as I can. Certainly when I turn them, I'm gonna baste them. When I turn them back, I'm gonna baste them. Just baste them a few times in there. They'll be great. These were basically room temp when I cooked them, so they didn't take very long. And because it's the broiler, you gotta keep your eye on them. Okay, so I'll check them. I'll bring them out and then we'll eat. So after about three minutes or so, I start to baste. This is just one side. We're doing both sides, but you can see they're starting to get some beautiful color. And they smell amazing. And back they go. Guess what, Max? Here they are. I made one fundamental mistake. What did you forget? I forgot to put foil underneath it. That thing will be soaking from now until next year. But here, let me take them off and make them look pretty, okay? Look how gorgeous they are. I call these glossy lacquered wings. And damn it if it's not true. Hot damn. Hot damn is right. So here, a little sesame seed. Because why not? Because you can. And I think you should. And then just a little cilantro. Chinese parsley, it's called. Look at that. Is that not a pretty picture? That's beautiful, isn't it? And a little Vanna White slow spin. Sexy! And here we are. Sticky. Glossy. Silky. Shiny. Lacquered. Hot as. I could eat a thousand of these. That little heat from the sesame chili oil. Tremendous. They're sticky, they're beautiful. I think ultimately they were probably six minutes a side. And you saw about that far away from the elements. And I brushed a bunch of times because why not? It just adds to it. Your New Year's Eve revelers. Can we still have revelers in 2020? I think so. Your New Year's Eve guests, even if it's just you, will so appreciate these. As you will, the mini cheese steaks we're making right now, once I finish this. We begin with a little avocado oil, of course. And in go the hardiest of our three vegetables, our yellow onion, our, our, what the hell are they called? Paseas? Paseas. Our paseas, all sliced up. Look, traditionally it would be green pepper, but the pasea just gives it a little bit more flavor. A tiny bit of spice, not a lot, but it's just more interesting. And it gets you to the same place, but tasting better. So when you can make a change, feel free. This is your food. Do what you want with it. Well, this is mine right now, but when you're at home, that's what I'm saying. We just get the little bit going on here and then throw some mushrooms in. And you know, the mushrooms look like a lot. They're going to cook down. And the liquid that will come out of the mushrooms will help soften up the, the paseas and the onion. So it's all good. It's all a win. Let it do its thing for a bit. No need to rush it. I might as well give it a little hit of salt and pepper. Little mix. And then you'll see these again when they've softened nicely and are where we want them. And while we're waiting for the vegetables to cook, let's cut our bread and our steak. So I'm using brioche. You could use Hawaiian rolls, any, any kind of rolls. Even those gorgeous Parker rolls that we made. But here's what we want to do. We want to cut them. And my skills at cutting a whole block like this are okay. My skills at cutting this smaller block twice, much better. Using our serrated offset bread knife, we cut across and with the other one. Perfect. These will now go on our dish that they're going to be baked in. This guy, like this, and we'll keep the tops. Now our steak. But before we do, these are ready and I don't want them to get any softer. So let's take them out. Backhanded for Max. How about for the viewers? Oh, for the viewers. It's not for me. It's not for you? Sorry, I thought it was for you. There you go. And this will go back on the heat because I want this to get hot for the steak. We're about to cut. This goes off to the side and we cut. We're starting with a beautiful ribeye. You can use anything. It really is my preferred steak for a cheesesteak. So let's just take this kit off for a second. And now if you can figure out which way the grain goes, just sort of like this. Okay, with little bits of fat. Now go like this. Because I want these to be fairly small pieces and thin. That's what I'm going for. You gotta think about how people are gonna eat this. I say that all the time. If you put a piece like this in the middle of a little cheesesteak, how the hell are you gonna eat that? No, this is what you want. This kind of nice and thin and it cooks quickly and beautifully and it's gonna be heavenly. All right, Max. All right. All right, Chance. All right. Shit, he's not here. I keep forgetting. So when we're all done and the pan's hot, we add a little oil and in it goes. There you go. You want that initial sizzle because if you don't get it, it's just not hot enough. And this is not gonna take very long. Separate the pieces. Keep moving. And because it's thin, it ain't gonna be in here very long. So let's give it some salt and pepper. And just as everything starts to almost turn that cooked steak gray, we add back the veggies. Gorgeous. We mix. This is gonna be insanely good. Couple things. Touch of garlic powder and a little cayenne. Just a little backdoor heat. Which, by the way, made no sense. You know, as I was thinking of it, I thought, that's a stupid thing to say. But I said it anyways because I'm a pretty This, ladies and gentlemen, is set and now we can build. So before we throw this all together with the brioche rolls, I'm just getting rid of this extra liquid because it's just gonna make the bottom too soggy and I don't want that. So just give it a sec. Let it all run through. Okay, you got that, we can get rid of it and we continue. All right, there we go with the brioche rolls but before we put anything on them, we're gonna make one little thing and it's gonna be a little Japanese mayo mixed with a little steak sauce for a little flavor bomb in the bottom of this. And we mix and we brush on. Oh my god. Now here's how this goes. We've got our steak, we've got our mushrooms, we've got our pasillas, and we've got our onions. We're gonna spread everybody out evenly over top. What's next, Max? Cheese. Is it? I don't know. It's cheese. God. Yes, you were right. I just love messing with my hands. And for our purposes today, we're using the gorgeous provolone. Because why wouldn't we? Because everybody loves provolone. Well, it's the official, honestly, I think it's the official cheese of the cheesesteak, isn't it? There's two more pieces here. How do I not use these guys up? Now we come in with our top buns like this. And that's outstanding. You could call it a day unless you want to hit the top of them with a little garlic butter. So let's do that. So this is merely butter melted with garlic powder and black pepper. And should just give this gorgeous little extra je ne sais quoi to the top of this. Je ne sais quoi is French for that little something extra. Damn. All right, here's what we do. We take a piece of foil. We put it over the top. And this whole kid goes in the oven. 375 with the foil, 20 minutes. Whip the foil off, give it five more minutes to start to get a little color and just a touch of crisp on top. And then, then ladies and gentlemen, we eat the hell out of these things. What's good about this is you could have this made up to this point early in the day on New Year's. The day before New Year's. Two days before, doesn't really matter. Just keep the whole thing in the fridge covered up but take it out of the fridge a solid oh half hour, 45 minutes before you're going to bake it. I like to make your life easier for you. And that's a simple way to do it. When we get the last minute, I don't care. I mean, I'm just trying to tell you what you can do to make your life, you know, easier when it comes to food short of having somebody come over and cook for you. These are things you can do. Oh, the dessert. You're going to like the dessert, but while this is cooking and before we make our desserts, let's have a cocktail. So there I was today chatting with my friend Kent in Toronto. And he goes, hey, what's that bourbon thing that you make? And I go, I don't know. I need a little more information. I make a lot of things with bourbon. He goes, it's a drink. Oh, I know. He goes, it's a friend of yours. I go, I know the one. It's called a bourbon romaine. It's maybe one of my favorite cocktails ever. Let me show you how to make it. And then I'll tell you why it's a special cocktail for me at the end. One of the things I like is it just builds right in one glass. There's no shaking or any nonsense like that. And I'm using a glass from a restaurant here in San Diego called Cowboy Star. Go visit them. They're struggling like all restaurants are struggling. So little shout out to them. We begin with some ice. One more. And now we add either bourbon or whiskey. I happen to be using Jack Daniel's. Any type works. I don't think you need to get crazy expensive when you're mixing something like this. And now a little ginger ale, regular everyday ginger ale. Two more things. One is Angostura bitters. And apparently my bottle's been around a while and has been stained, but there's all kinds of bitters. I think the Angostura are the most common. I like to do three or four shakes of it. And then we add a wedge of lime, squeezed, dropped in with a little finger stir. And we take a sip. It's fricking delicious. It's the first cocktail you ever gave me. First cocktail I ever gave Max. Really? Oh, I remember you. 16, 17. You were 13. 16, were you? How old were you? 21, definitely. Were you definitely 21? Definitely. You were definitely 21. Definitely. We started them earlier here in California. Let me tell you why this is special. Not just because it's delicious, which it is. God, I love it. It's named after a friend of mine. His name was Romain. And he taught me this on a business trip a lot of years ago. When Romain was 70, he was out night fishing on Big Bear Lake here in California with three buddies. There was four of them. They were all between 69 and 70 or 71. This was this annual trip they always made, always night fishing, always having lots of fun. Unfortunately, this particular year, somewhere around 2007, 2008, they found all four of these guys in the water the next morning. That's horrifying. They don't know what happened. They think maybe somebody in the dark, in the cold, maybe one of them accidentally tipped in one direction and they all went in and the boat pushed away. Whatever, it's an absolute tragedy. But Romain taught me this. And as I was writing my first cookbook, I thought, I'm gonna put this cocktail in. I'm gonna name it a Bourbon Romain after my friend Romain. So I can't drink one of these without thinking of Romain and saying hi in my mind to him. So good. Perfect for New Year's, by the way. As will be the mini cheesesteaks. I think it's time to take off the foil, give them another couple minutes. I won't say it, but here they are. Wow. Mamma mia. The cheesiness, the crispiness on the top. That's what you want. It's that textural difference. I always talk about that. Let me cut one out and lift it up, shall I? It's gonna be hot. Let me just try and do this. I think there's some cheese happening here, Max. Blowing the lid right off the popper. All right, so let's continue. Here, ow, ow. Let me put the kid down. Try and figure out how to, oh my gosh. Look what's happening here. I'm just, look at this nonsense. Oh my God, there's way too much. Look at that. Well, how do you not have this bite? Holy balls. Oh God. All right, I'm going in. Let me tell you something. That little mayo steak sauce thing added a little sweetness to this, but with all this other nonsense inside, the ribeye, the peppers, the onions, forget the midnight ball drop, this, this should be dropping at midnight. And we still have dessert. Oh, you're gonna like it. It is so simple and delicious. We're making bunuelos, also known as churros, also known as one of the easiest desserts you could ever make. There are three primary ingredients. We're also gonna make a little bourbon caramel sauce, but just the... Always with the phone. My phone is in there chirping. Standby. I forgot where it was. Look, you're gonna like this. So here's how they start. They start with puff pastry sheets. Not pimping this brand, just showing you. And puff pastry sheets come like this. In a bag, it's generally two, separated by sheets of paper, and they're frozen. So you can take them out of the freezer about a half hour, 40 minutes before you wanna use them, or you can wrap one of the sheets in a paper towel and give it about 15 seconds aside until it looks soft and pliable like this. Step two. So now we open it like a book. Astro, please. You'd be fine to leave it just like this. See, there's flour to keep it from sticking. Or you could take a rolling pin and roll them out a little bit. It's not mandatory, but they do puff up. Hence the name, puff pastry. This is gonna become like the thickness of my thumb. It's gonna be like this. So if you don't want it too thick, then just roll it out a bit. And now you can do all kinds of ---- with this, including what we're about to do. So we're just gonna make little guys, little crispy puff pastry fingers, if you will, like this. I think this little sort of like dessert appetizer size, whatever I'm making these, it's kind of a good thing to do. So parchment paper. We're just gonna put them on the parchment and you can put them on flat like this. They're gonna be gorgeous. You can take them and go like this. A little twisty twist and set them down. Whatever works for you, works for me. Remember, this is for you and your guests. This ain't for me. Well, these will be for me, but I think you get it. My oven is on to 375 and away they go. Nothing simpler. Really, in 15 minutes, they're gonna be gorgeous. We're gonna toss them in cinnamon sugar. You could eat them just like that or you could make this caramel salted bourbon sauce that we're gonna make right now. Couple of things we begin with in our little pot. We begin with quarter cup of water and a cup of sugar. I know that looks like more than a cup of sugar. But so- He claims that he measured it, but yet he doesn't think it's a cup. Look, I did measure a bit. It just looked like so much. So at this point, these two things need to come together, the water and the sugar, until they get a caramel color. But we're not stirring, we're swirling this way. Stirring it will make a mess of it, so don't. Just do what I'm doing. I know at some point, Max is gonna ask me to say everything I'm saying without this noise because he doesn't like this. But this is the sound of cooking, Max. So this is about a 10 minute process. 10, 12, 14, 15 minute process. So you can let it stop and rest a little bit and then you continue. You can see it's starting to take on just a tiny bit of color. And by the way, while this is happening, let me show you a little quick hack. So here's a piece of puff pastry, not cooked. We'll just throw it on here. I was in a desperate need for a dessert sometime back and I had ice cream, I had nuts, I had chocolate syrup, but I wanted something crunchy other than the nuts and I did this with a piece of puff pastry and it sort of works respectively. It doesn't get thick, but it does get sort of crunchy-ish. Crispy-ish. And after a few minutes, our little tester of puff pastry looks like that. Oh look, crispy. Like it's not gonna puff up, but it's gonna give you a little something if you're absolutely screwed and it's last minute and you need some addition to a dessert. Meanwhile, we'll see you in five hours when this is finished. No, don't worry about it, it's gonna be fine. We're about four minutes away on this, Max. Okay. You don't have to be shooting. You can wait till the color's there. You shush, just be quiet now. All right, there you go. There's your nice, nice color coming in. We had two things. Okay, maybe three. A half a cup of heavy cream that we don't want to burn. So hot, so hot, so hot. Now it can go back, heat's off. Oh, my phone. So this is gonna thicken beautifully. Now it gets a little bourbon we spoke of. About a tablespoon and a half. And we're stirring, we're stirring, we're stirring. Don't boil over, please. And when it doesn't boil over, you're so thankful you've been living right. Put it off to the side for a sec. Let's deal with our churros that are now out of the oven. The churros are out of the oven. They need a little cinnamon sugar and it looks like this. Well, it shouldn't look like lumpy sugar. That won't come out, but it gets a little cinnamon. This gets mixed beautifully. And then our warm churros that look like this, gorgeous. They get dumped in and mixed. Oh, I love these guys. Now, these guys will come out. We'll place them beautifully on our little black slate. Max's favorite black slate. Isn't it, Maxie? Look, here's one of the twisty ones. They smell delicious. They're amazing. And then the caramel, the bourbon caramel that did not work out. Oh my God. It sort of did. Oh my God. But look, come on. Look, okay, I had a problem with this. Who doesn't love a little liquid caramel? Okay, is this my finest hour? Okay, I've never made it before. Somebody said, oh, you gotta make this. You just mix sugar and water and keep doing the thing in the bowl and the crap turns out ******* perfect. Well, this. Now that, I can get behind. But let's just give it a shot. I was imagining it'd be thicker, but okay, all right now, hold on. Nobody move. All right. I don't know how thick I thought it was gonna get and this doesn't look very thick, but I'm telling you, on this little churro, bunuelo-like thing, it's insane. Max is not getting any. In fact, Max has been negative the entire time about this. You mean Max has been correctly predicting that this wouldn't work the whole time? No, Max has been a douche the entire time knowing in his own mind it wasn't gonna work. It's ******* delicious. Uh-oh. Didn't mean to swear. But this is delicious. What's left of it. The cheesesteaks were delicious. The glossy Asian wings were tremendous. Everything. Make everything. Just know that the caramel bourbon thing is gonna take a little bit of finesse, but still so delicious. Oh, I hear Max's camera turning on and off. I'm working here and your camera's going on and off. But look, it's a New Year's Eve show. It's the last show of 2020 for all of us. So would you like to come over here and say goodbye to the people? That's a no, but he's coming. You know the Loch Ness Monster? People hardly ever see it. That's like Max. Max is the Loch Ness Monster. Thank you for an amazing year. We appreciate you guys so much, seriously. So heartfelt. Stay right here. We do. It means a lot to us. If Chance was here and he's not, he'd be on this side, and we'd be thanking you from the bottom of our hearts for your support, for the watching, for the comments, for all the love that you've given us, right? Right. Thank you guys. So have a good New Year's Eve. We look forward to seeing you with fun stuff in 2021, which is right there. Gonna be a big year. Right, is it? What are we gonna do? Name one thing, quick. One thing that's gonna happen. Travel again. He's dreaming. Have a great time. Have a great New Year's. Thanks, you guys. Thanks, everybody.