027. From Cedar Plank Salmon to Stainless Steel Cookware

On today's episode, join Chef Cal and Christa DeMercurio as they delve into the world of cooking with professional tips and techniques, sharing insights on cookware, chicken creativity, and delectable recipe ideas.

• Stainless Steel Savvy: Discover how to choose the right stainless steel cookware and learn the magnet trick to identify top-notch pots and pans.
• Revamp Your Leftover Chicken: Get creative with your leftovers using Costco's roasted chicken, from chicken cacciatore to chicken salad and beyond.
• Perfect Polenta: Follow Chef Cal's guide to crafting creamy polenta, perfect for pairing with various dishes.
• Cedar Plank Salmon Secrets: Uncover the art of cedar plank salmon preparation, including a step-by-step on using red cedar planks from Home Depot. 
• Healthful Ingredient Insights: Understand the importance of minimizing processed foods and opting for organic choices to ensure a healthy diet.

Fun Fact from the Episode : The Chinese Chicken Salad made famous by Wolfgang Puck was invented by Madame Wu in Santa Monica.

RECIPES
Cedar Plank Salmon
Creamy Polenta
Chef's Secret Salt

Let's Connect!

I'm Christa DeMercurio. I started as a stay-at-home mom who relied on cookbooks, measuring everything and following recipes to the letter. But watching my chef husband move effortlessly in the kitchen, I knew there had to be a better way.

So, I learned—studying his techniques, practicing his methods, and mastering the strategies that keep professional kitchens running smoothly. Over time, I became confident, capable, and free from recipes controlling my cooking.

I’m here to help you do the same. On Cooking Like a Pro, together we share everything you need to cook with confidence, save time and money, and actually enjoy being in the kitchen—without the stress and frustration.
P.S. I still reference cookbooks and internet recipes too!

❤️Culinarily Yours, Christa DeMercurio (Mrs. Chef)

Email: christa@culinarilyyours.net

Website

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Chapters

• 0:03 Intro
• 0:39 Welcome
• 1:19 Stainless Steel Cookware vs Aluminum
• 9:02 National Bagel Day
• 10:11 Things to do with Costco Rotisserie Chicken
• 21:41 Concerning Food Labels
• 26:33 Bobby Approved by Bobby Parish
• 32:47 How to Cook Cedar Plank Salmon
• 37:17 How to Make Creamy Polenta

Transcript

Christa DeMercurio:
Hey, food fans. Welcome to Cooking Like a Pro with Chef Cal and me, Mrs. Chef, his wife, Christa DeMercurio. We're dishing out culinary intuition, insights, and imagination to spice up your meals and make cooking more fun. On today's episode, my Chef husband and I discuss stainless steel cookware, ways to use a Costco roasted chicken, and how to cook a cedar plank salmon with a side of creamy polenta. Let's dig in. Today's episode was broadcast and recorded live on AM FM radio.

Chef Cal:
Welcome, welcome, welcome, one and all, to Cooking Like a Pro. Thank you for tuning in. This is Chef Cal, homegrown Reading resident.

Christa DeMercurio:
Along with Mrs. Chef, also homegrown.

Chef Cal:
Yeah, ma'am. My beautiful wife Christa sitting across from me. She is also homegrown. So we are from the north state, and again, you found us at Cooking Like a Pro. Now, if they want to send us a question, they can. They can do that, correct?

Christa DeMercurio:
From your phone.

Chef Cal:
You can text at cookinglikeapropodcast.net cookinglikeapropodcast.net . I am so glad that I have this beautiful wife that knows all this tech stuff, because we'd be dead in the water. So I want to start off talking about something because I had just a great conversation yesterday with my. My stainless steel guy, and we. I had this because I. I did a video cooking in an aluminum pot. Okay. And that was a. A while back.

Chef Cal:
I think it's on YouTube. But anyway, the. The challenge that you have with. With aluminum, and this is what we grew up with in the industry, everyone had aluminum. Every restaurant you went into has aluminum. Most of them still have aluminum. The challenge, though, is they become pitted and they'll leach into your food, you know, and it's something that you just don't want. These aluminum pots, aluminum knots, good for you.

Chef Cal:
It's not good for you. So what you want is stainless steel. And I found out some very interesting information about that. So when you go and you get your pots, you want stainless steel, and you want pots. Now we're talking about pots that you might cook a sauce in or a soup in. You want very heavy bottoms because you want it to cook evenly. You know, if you have a real thin pan where you burnt something, that's probably a fairly thin pan. So you want thick on the bottom, and then you want a stainless steel.

Chef Cal:
And now there's two different types of stainless steel that they make this out of. It's a 300 series, which is what you want. Any 400 series, which is what you don't Want. And, and I learned the trick. He showed me the trick. The trick is a magnet. Because if it's a 400 series, which, it's a different type of stainless steel, still stainless steel, but it more iron in it. And a magnet will stick to iron.

Chef Cal:
So if a magnet sticks to your pan, you don't want that. What you want is a 300 series and which a magnet will not stick to because it's, it's fortified with nickel and nickels, you know, much stronger, stronger metal than iron is. So you go out there, get your pots and pans, bring your magnet, make sure that it does not stick to it and you know, you got a, a better, more durable stainless steel.

Christa DeMercurio:
Now what about all these like triply type pots and pans where they have copper in them for conduction?

Chef Cal:
Yeah, yeah. And they have. Well, copper isn't bad for you. You know, I mean, I know that we used to drink out of copper cups, copper glasses. And copper is very beneficial, has a lot of good health properties. So there's no problem with that. And then if you're cooking tableside, they use. The old French would be.

Chef Cal:
That's why I was trained when I came up is using tableside, using copper pans because they're super thin, but they.

Christa DeMercurio:
Can, they have great conduction.

Chef Cal:
Yeah, yeah. They conduct the heat and it spreads out. It's kind of like cooking with infrared.

Christa DeMercurio:
So what about aluminum? I mean, aluminum foil, aluminum pans, aluminum foil.

Chef Cal:
Okay, well, how many, how many folks out there? And go ahead and raise your hand. Not if you're driving, but I've covered something with aluminum foil, especially something like lasagna. That's just a great thing to look at because lasagna generally will have a lot of tomato. Tomato is acid and acid will eat through that aluminum foil. And you also want a thicker aluminum foil. But if you're going to cover something in foil, and trust me, this is the way to do it, first cover it in plastic. And I know my wife very much was surprised that I did that.

Christa DeMercurio:
It's got a professional grade plastic, but.

Chef Cal:
I do it all the time. I'll cover with a really heavy duty wrap and then I'll cover with foil, bake it and then just get those products off of there because we don't want to add any more. We got enough plastic in our water, our soil and.

Christa DeMercurio:
But things are packaged, are packaged in aluminum cans.

Chef Cal:
So those are coated. You know, that's why they put, you know, expiration dates of, you know, I mean, you could, you know, we could have bought Spam when we first got married. And it would still be, have it, still have 20 years on.

Christa DeMercurio:
It's Twinkies on the side.

Chef Cal:
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. We don't know how those are made, but, but anyway, when you're going out there and you're getting your saute pans and I recommend, you know, having a pan, a saute pan, something that's like a 6 inch is usually what you use for eggs. Then you can use, you know, either four or six for eggs or for omelets and you really want a good 12 inch pan. 12 inch pan is by far used pan in the industry. A 12 inch saute pan. Now remember we said saute means that the food, the word saute means to jump like a frog jumps. So the food will jump in the pan.

Chef Cal:
So you can, you know, flip it, keep it close to the fire, but, but flip it as well. But then you want like a one quart, a two quart, a four quart, an eight quart. So you got four quarts in a gallon. So you got a, you know, a quarter gallon pot, a half gallon pot, a full gallon pot, and then two gallon pot and then those you want with handles and that's what you use for, you know, for making your soups and making your sauces.

Christa DeMercurio:
Now what about nonstick? Because the traditional non stick is going bye bye or saying no to. But now I've seen a lot of the ceramic coated nonstick.

Chef Cal:
Well, first talking about nonstick, the challenge with non stick is Teflon comes off.

Christa DeMercurio:
Yeah, right.

Chef Cal:
And you're eating it. It's in your food. Especially again, high acid, you know, you know, preparations or if you use the wrong utensil. Yeah. And then you, and then you scrape it and then you got even more of a problem. But you know, the ceramics are a new thing and they've just been out for a short period of time. And I know Ramsey's got a, got a set, but I was looking at them down in Costco and I'm not paying that much for a pan ever. But again, the ceramic as well, you know, from what I understand now and I've talked to the guy there for quite a while, you know, the ceramic is fine as well.

Chef Cal:
It's just you just want to stay away from the aluminum and you know, make sure you have a magnet when you go out to get that. So you want some sauce pots, you want some soup pots and you want some saute pans. That's really the main things. And then also look at your ingredients. Because if a magnet, you know, sticks to your, you know, your stainless steel fork, then that means it's got iron in it. So it's not going to be more flimsy. If it doesn't stick to your stainless steel spoon or fork, then it's got the 300 series, so it's nickel. So it's going to be a much more steady, you know.

Christa DeMercurio:
However, when it comes to magnets, if you are using an induction burner, they have to have a magnetic bottom. That's how they work. They've worked through a magnetic type interface.

Chef Cal:
I highly recommend going with at least one infrared, you know, container, or shoot me a container, but, you know, appliance in your house because they heat evenly, but they heat up immediately. I mean, water will boil in a matter of seconds. And it's just because it's such a drastic heat and it comes out and it's very, very intense. And so. And plus it's electric. So like for us, we, you know, we cook on propane, so we have, we cook on gas, but we cook on the infrared quite a bit. Especially if you're, you know, want to save some money on gas.

Christa DeMercurio:
Yeah, well. And as we're moving towards, you know, especially in California, there will be no more gas. Appliances get away with it.

Chef Cal:
I mean, no, I mean, with everything going on in California, something's got to happen. You know, I don't know. They might have us revert back to the Stone Age.

Christa DeMercurio:
You can't get a glass lawnmower, wood.

Chef Cal:
Utensils for all I know. You know, and yeah, we're going to be running from, I don't know, we won't get into, into all of that because it is a food program and a kitchen program and an industry program. So, you know, the stainless steel was something I wanted to make sure that I share. But we're going to take a quick break and we'll be back. Is cooking Like a Pro Chef Cow. We'll be back in just a moment. Welcome back. Welcome back to Cooking Like a Pro.

Chef Cal:
Yes, Little flim flam fram. And happy National Bagel Day, by the way. National Bagel Day. Oh, you know, you have to let us know ahead of time. You know, I, I had a bagel once and it was a bagel shop. And since you. I'm going down a rabbit hole. I'm about to get hungry.

Chef Cal:
I could already tell this was up in Brandon Bandon. Bandon and in Oregon, up there on the coast. And we went to this bagel shop and I've never Had a bagel that was this light. You know, usually eating a bagel is like, I don't know, some kind of. It's almost like eating rubber. That's, you know, that's. Yeah, it's just, it's pretty, you know, I don't know, what's the word? Cloggy or something. It's just dense.

Chef Cal:
Gummy, gummy, gummy. Yeah.

Christa DeMercurio:
Well, because bagels are boiled first. They boil them in a malt.

Chef Cal:
Of course they are.

Christa DeMercurio:
Yeah, yeah.

Chef Cal:
But, but, but this one wasn't. Remember how airy that was?

Christa DeMercurio:
Yeah. And I tried to get the recipe from them and they wouldn't give it to me. Yeah, I tried.

Chef Cal:
Can't remember the name of that place, but how many bagel shops can there be? It was right there on the, you know, on the wharf where everybody was walking by and someone had recognized bakery. Let's get back, let's get back into chicken. Okay. Because we're talking about chicken.

Christa DeMercurio:
We are. We're talking chicken.

Chef Cal:
Yeah. Well, I, I grabbed that Costco chicken. I mean, 4.99. You just, it's, it's, it's a pretty good deal anyways. But, you know, how often, how much can you eat? Right. When I get a Costco chicken, the first thing I do is I reach my hand, I open up the top and then I reach my hand in there and I rip off a thigh and a leg. And then I just, I gnaw on it because I'm a dark meat person.

Christa DeMercurio:
When you get home. Not at Costco.

Chef Cal:
Yeah, not at Costco or not in the car. But you know, when I get home, because I just like dark meat. Dark meat. Dark meat, excuse me, has more fat. Fat is flavor. White meat, it can dry out. But anyway. But how often do you bring a Costco chicken home and eat all of it? I mean, there's, you know, three of us at home and you know, it's just really, you know, probably would feed about six.

Chef Cal:
So I thought, well, okay, all you folks out there that are getting these roasted chickens, whether it's from there or some. Somewhere else, they, you know, this just. You're going to have leftovers. So what do we do with the leftovers? So, so one of the first things that came to me and I, because I know we do this a lot, is a, a, like an oriental chicken salad. You know, I know that Wolfgang Puck, who I got a chance to work with, kind of started that whole. He called it a chopped Chinese salad. And that was kind of where it was birthed, you know, Maybe a couple of decades ago or 25 years ago, whenever it was. But it was down in la, and that was the first place I'd ever seen it.

Christa DeMercurio:
Down at Spago.

Chef Cal:
Yep, yep. No, it wasn't Spago. This was at one of his. He has a pizza line, you know, And I went in a beautiful little restaurant, but it was, you know, kind of a. Of a. Of a lunch place and more casual, and it was fantastic. But it was, you know, and it's really easy to make the dressing. You're really just looking at, you know, a cup of rice vinegar, and then you got your sesame oil, salt, sugar, and maybe a little xanthan gum.

Chef Cal:
Tighten it up, and then a few drops of chili oil. So, I mean, get yourself a recipe. It's real easy. All those ingredients are very shelf stable.

Christa DeMercurio:
And actually, if you want to cheat, Newman's Asian ginger dressing is really good.

Chef Cal:
Well, you know, I always stick with Paul Newman. I know he's gone, but so much of his dressings are charitable. It's a philanthropic, you know, venture that he started that's been carried on and just the money goes to some. Some great, great causes. So if you're going to grab a dressing, you know, pay the extra, you know, buck, you know. But anyway, we'll have to research that at some point. But another one was chicken cacciatore. And while the chicken's warm, that's when you want to pull all the meat off of it.

Christa DeMercurio:
So basically, you bring your chicken home, eat it right then, and if you're not going to eat it right then go ahead and pull it before it.

Chef Cal:
Cools or, you know, whatever you end up eating and using, and then whatever's left. Yeah, go ahead and pull, Pull it off while it's still warm. And then now you just have what we call pulled chicken meat. And you again, you know, you do a chicken cacciatore. Get yourself some. Some olives and garlic and bell peppers and tomatoes, and you got a great eye. Throw some. Some penne pasta or any type of, you know, I like pasta with like, rigatoni is one of my favorites, because rigatoni is.

Chef Cal:
Got a big hole in the middle of it. And think about this. You get sauce inside the noodle, and you get sauce on the outside of the noodle. So you just get more flavor. There's more surface area to be able to soak up that flavor. So that's a good one.

Christa DeMercurio:
For anybody else that was homegrown around here, if you remember the Italian cottage over on Hilltop, that's What I grew up with, they had the most fantastic chicken cacciatore with bubbly ooey gooey mozzarella cheese and parmesan.

Chef Cal:
Parmesan mushrooms in there. Oh, it was so good. But, but one of the key ingredients really is olives. That's one of those different kind of things that you put your, your green olives in there or you know, kalamata kalamati olives. Those are, those are also good as well. But you can always make, you know, a chicken soup. You know, just don't let the chicken go to waste. Okay.

Chef Cal:
And in our, like where we live, you don't want to get the chick, give the chickens the chicken. Well, usually the dog would eat it before the chickens. Chickens are carnivores.

Christa DeMercurio:
Yeah, they love, they love chicken. Chickens love chicken.

Chef Cal:
Yeah, those, those girls are. Yeah, they'll eat.

Christa DeMercurio:
But anyway, when you break down chicken really quick. So if we pull off all the, the dark meat, the legs, the thighs, that kind of stuff.

Chef Cal:
Yeah. Pull the breast off.

Christa DeMercurio:
Would you pull the whole lobe of the breast off? If you're not, if you're going to save it, would you pull it? Yeah, pull it completely.

Chef Cal:
I would cut it off. Yeah. Get a thin, long bony knife and cut it off because you know, then you can slice it for sandwiches, you know, once it cools down, something like that.

Christa DeMercurio:
And then save the carcass, Save the carcass.

Chef Cal:
Make a good chicken stock. And now you got your chicken noodle soups especially on. I mean, I pretty sure it's wintertime. It doesn't seem like it outside, but.

Christa DeMercurio:
You know, according to the calendar it is.

Chef Cal:
Yeah, but. Or make yourself a nice bone broth, you know, but, but don't throw that extra flavor in the garbage. You know, make sure that you, that you utilize, Utilize the total utilization.

Christa DeMercurio:
You can completely freeze chicken broth, chicken stock.

Chef Cal:
Yep. Let it boil off some onions, you know, use your bouquet garni, your parsley, bay leaf and thyme. And use your mirepoix your can carrots, onion and celery. Let it cook down.

Christa DeMercurio:
But if you don't have a mirepoix, it's okay to just go ahead and just boil off the chicken and just at least capture that flavor.

Chef Cal:
Yep, capture that flavor because you can.

Christa DeMercurio:
Go back and season that with vegetables.

Chef Cal:
Later and then you got a great soup also. You can use that for a great sauce. Diced up chicken you can use for chicken salad also something like. We had this really nice chicken barbecue chicken pizza came up. I used to really like that one. But Anything Asian. I mean, chicken chow mein, you can use it for a stir fry. But the idea is to get.

Chef Cal:
Is that you don't waste any chicken. And actually, we had a really popular dish, but we used a chicken breast on it. But it's a great flavor combination. And we call it. It was Chicken Jerusalem. Chicken Jerusalem with artichokes. Yeah, you know, the three middle letters in Jerusalem, you know what they are?

Christa DeMercurio:
Usa.

Chef Cal:
Usa. I just. I don't know, maybe this is coincidence. But anyway, the. Yeah, chicken Jerusalem is. It's a cream sauce with artichoke and mushroom saute with that, with your chicken. By far the most popular chicken dishon that I've made and by far the most abundant that I've ever made. Very popular.

Christa DeMercurio:
Well, you can also take the pulled chicken breast and do just like you would a pulled pork sandwich. Just go ahead and toss the pulled chicken and some barbecue sauce and put on a bun for a barbecue chicken sandwich.

Chef Cal:
Yeah, and. Or you do some open base with a. With a nice chicken gravy on there. Ooh, there you go. In the bottom, chicken chicken chili. There's another one. I was just going through our list of. We got like 1200 recipes in this app called Paprika and I just plugged in chicken and I just got a ton.

Chef Cal:
So I just scribbled a few chicken crepes. When you dice the chicken up, making a chicken crepe. Crepes are super easy. Super easy to make. It's a super simple recipe. You can make a crepe in a nice.

Christa DeMercurio:
That one is on the website.

Chef Cal:
Oh, is that on the website?

Christa DeMercurio:
The crepes on the website? Yep.

Chef Cal:
So where do they go to find that?

Christa DeMercurio:
Culinaryyours.net Culinarily. Culinarily.

Chef Cal:
C U L I N A R I L. Yeah, culinarily.

Christa DeMercurio:
And if you want to cheat, just go to Chefcal.net or Mrs. Chef.net all roads. Yeah, the same place.

Chef Cal:
All roads lead to cooking like a pro. Let's see. Chicken in any kind of pasta or vegetables.

Christa DeMercurio:
If you're, you know, rice is excellent with chicken too.

Chef Cal:
And puttanesca. I noticed there was a recipe in there for puttanesca, and that was one you put in. My puttanesca is different because a puttanesca is. The name comes from Italy and it was a dish that the ladies of the evening would make for their. For their company that would come over. So it's using ingredients that are very local and staples in an Italian kitchen. So there's garlic, olive oil, red pepper, flakes and capers. Maybe some diced tomatoes and some kind of a pasta.

Chef Cal:
Whatever pasta you want with some chicken. But puttanesca is always going to have garlic, your olive oil, red pepper flakes, and generally capers. And you can put parsley, a variety of things in there.

Christa DeMercurio:
How about something we make quite often chicken tacos and chicken enchiladas.

Chef Cal:
Yep. Yeah. Anything mixing. You know, the thing about chicken is you can go so many different directions, because what do they say? Well, tastes like chicken. I mean, I don't care. I mean, you know, we used to cook frog legs, and people ask, what do they taste like? Well, tastes like chicken and trout put together. You know, there's so many things that are. Because people understand what chicken tastes like.

Chef Cal:
So it's a great building point. You say, what's this taste like? Well, you had chicken before, right? And you start there with something they understand and then just, you know, add ingredients to it from there.

Christa DeMercurio:
Well, even if you don't want to go with an Asian chicken salad, you could do a chicken with bacon and blue cheese and go more of a ranch route.

Chef Cal:
Well, chicken is also something that's. You utilized in a Cobb salad, you know, and Cobb salad, of course, it came. Cobb salad was actually originated in the Brown Derby restaurant. Brown Derby restaurant down in Los Angeles. Famous restaurant back in the, you know, the 40s. And give or take in that area, the 50s used to be very popular for all the stars. And that's where the Cobb salad came from. And I remember researching it years ago and why they call it the Cobb.

Chef Cal:
And Charlie Trotter gave the best explanation. And so I've always used his, which is when you get a Cobb salad, all the ingredients should be in rows. Your chicken, your bacon, your blue cheese, your corn. Whatever ingredients you're using, they're in rows because corn comes in a row, and that's why it's called a cob.

Christa DeMercurio:
That's a great idea. But I think it actually was named after the Chef whose name was Cobb.

Chef Cal:
I never heard of a Chef named Cobb.

Christa DeMercurio:
Yeah, I got the Brown Derby cookbook. We'll have to look that one up.

Chef Cal:
I know, I know. You've got my Brown Derby cookbook.

Christa DeMercurio:
Yes, I have it squirreled away.

Chef Cal:
Yeah. Well, when you have 900 cookbooks, you're kind of walking. You're kind of stepping over them. In our house, there's just literally, we could, you know, wallpaper the walls with cookbooks. But anyway, so there's a. You know, you have leftover chicken. It's. It's just a great component.

Chef Cal:
Don't let it go bad. Dice it up. Freeze it in portions, however many. If you got two people in the family, if you're just one person, if it's three or five or six, you know, everyone needs about three ounces and just kind of weigh that out. And when you wrap it, wrap it in plastic and then wrap it in freezer paper. You can put it in baggies if you want, but wrap it in freezer paper because freezer paper will keep the that off flavor from the. The freezer like. Like freezer burnt.

Christa DeMercurio:
Now, last thing, when you go to reheat your chicken, do not reheat it in the microwave. You will have rubber chicken.

Chef Cal:
Yeah, well, maybe they want rubber chicken. If you want rubber chicken, that's the way you do it. All right, we're gonna take a quick break. We'll be back in just a moment. Again, cooking Like a Pro. Chef Cal and Mrs. Chef, back in a moment. Welcome back.

Chef Cal:
Welcome back. We appreciate you tuning in to Cooking like a Pro. And so I've been looking and talking about this here, about the number of ingredients that we're dealing with and trying to eat healthy, and it's really a matter of just being aware of what you're putting in your body. And the FDA in the United States, our FDA has a total of 10,000 approved ingredients that can be in your food. 10,000?

Christa DeMercurio:
Are there that many actually in existence?

Chef Cal:
Yeah. And, well, and to compare it, to give it some, you know, kind of a barometer, there's 700 approved in Europe. Okay.

Christa DeMercurio:
700 versus 10,000.

Chef Cal:
Yeah. And I know that one of the things that they're doing now, finally, is the. The fda, they're coming up with a ban for red dye number three. I mean, these are all things that they're finding as they go through and study them, that they cause cancer. They can cause just a variety of things. These ingredients that have kind of snuck their way into our food.

Christa DeMercurio:
Well, they haven't really snuck their way in because they're using marketing.

Chef Cal:
Well, they've been approved. Yeah.

Christa DeMercurio:
Visuals to sell us that something has to be yellow or something has to be red, when in true nature, they're not that color. But we have been drawn to things visually through marketing to these colors.

Chef Cal:
I think it was you guys, I heard it from, like, that the color.

Christa DeMercurio:
Blue can't naturally be created.

Chef Cal:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's one thing. When we did in competition, you can never do blue because you can't naturally make the color blue. I mean, blueberries are Purple. So yeah, just. So stay away from blue. Anything that a judge would see that was blue, you just kick you right out of the place. So but I think again it's, it's we are what we eat.

Chef Cal:
Garbage in, garbage out. I mentioned that all the time. Just be aware of what you're eating. And I think a good, you know, kind of parameters. If you don't understand it, you don't know it, what it is. When you look at the list then maybe don't eat it or look up and see what that is.

Christa DeMercurio:
Well, as we start teaching people how to cook and look at ingredients, they really shouldn't have to go buy pre packaged boxed items that have been colored and have additives.

Chef Cal:
Yeah, I think the two main words that you're looking for here folks when it comes to preparing your food, preparing your meals, taking care of your family. The first one is processed. You want to get things that have the least amount of process like grinding wheat and turning it into bread. Well, they're not adding anything to it. But if all of a sudden that's going to go to a warehouse somewhere or a distribution or you know, manufacturing plant, then it's going to have to have preservatives added to it. It's going to have, you know, caking agents and it's going to have all these different things that, that they need. And then very seldom are any of those things good for you. You want pure natural foods because it.

Christa DeMercurio:
Takes time to take care of food and they're taking that time. And in order to make it last they got to do something to it.

Chef Cal:
And I think other than, or the second word rather would would be organic and make sure it's organic. You know, I mean if you can talk to the. Because it can be organic all the way through the process of prepare of growing it from seeds on up. But if the soil's not organic, you know, if the soil and the water that's being used is not, is got components in it, you know, I mean there's plastics for one and everything from the air to the.

Christa DeMercurio:
Well, they can't call it organic unless it has been pesticide free for three years. Well, I mean soil has been.

Chef Cal:
Well then that's a good thing to look for. I mean to make sure that when they say organic that's what it is. I mean let's say you've got this big, you know, field of lettuce and it's all being prepared and, and process grown and then processed in organic, you know, sense. But then you've Got planes flying over, dropping chemtrails, you know, who knows what's in those things? Well, we do know what's in those things and it's not. So anyway, I'm hoping that it seems that there's a kind of a big twist or turn rather going in this trend of people wanting to, you know, eat more healthy, you know, so they're feeling better, so they're living longer. Especially with the loved ones you have around your house. I mean, why would you want to give them something that's not going to be good for them?

Christa DeMercurio:
And that's where we start in January. That's when you start to see all the shelves change. If you walk into Costco, it's. That's what's up front. It's everything that's healthy, it's organic, it's vitamins. Because after Christmas, everybody's getting ready for swimsuit season. So it starts now. I used to be a personal trainer.

Christa DeMercurio:
In January, we would get a whole. That's when the clientele would start flooding.

Chef Cal:
In because New Year's resolution, New Year's.

Christa DeMercurio:
Resolutions and everybody's looking for what's going to happen in the summer. And we mentioned this last last year. Last month. Last month was last year. Bobby Parrish, you look him up that he has gone through a lot of these major stores, especially Costco, is huge into Costco. And if it's Bobby approved, he looks at whether it is truly organic, whether even if it is organic, is it truly grass fed? You know, there's multiple layers.

Chef Cal:
Well now, now explain to me since you're the tech person. So Bobby approved, is that an app that you get? Okay, so let's say I pull up a can of sardines. Then I. How exactly do I do I put that together?

Christa DeMercurio:
You pop open the app. So you download the app from your app store and it's Bobby approved. And the label, the UPC label, the price code on the back, you can scan it for several stores. Costco, Whole Foods, Aldi, Amazon, Walmart, Target. And then you scan it and it will have his review of whether it is truly safe for your body.

Chef Cal:
Now, you said Aldi. Have you ever been to an Aldi?

Christa DeMercurio:
I have not been to an Aldi. What they are, they are a store back east we don't have.

Chef Cal:
They're a German store.

Christa DeMercurio:
Really?

Chef Cal:
Oh, German. Yeah. I went to one when I was back in Tennessee a couple few weeks ago and it was, it was totally cool. It remind me of when I'm. All the times I've been to Germany. And you see just all kinds of interesting, different things. It's kind of locally. I would compare it to something like what Dan does with.

Chef Cal:
With the grocery outlets. You know, he's got this. You know, you get these products in, and when they're in, they're there. When they're not, there's something else there. So they just kind of a wholesale, and you get great prices on those as well. You know, speaking of just healthy, real quick, I gotta have a shout out to Mom. Mom. I don't even.

Chef Cal:
Mom's listening. But, mom, if you are, that. That roasted vegetable soup you made today was great. You just took your. And this is a great way to do it. You get maybe a poultry stock and you roast off your vegetables, your peppers, your onions, whatever they are. And then you get that kind of umami flavor, which is that. That savory flavor that you're looking for from the char.

Chef Cal:
And then you just blend those, you know, to a. Basically a puree, add them to your stock, and you've got this beautiful flavor. She actually added some. Some brown rice to it, but, gosh, it came out great. So, thanks, Mom. Thanks, Mom. Shout out to Mom. But again, I think you take these foods that are.

Chef Cal:
That are natural, that haven't been processed, and you just start getting creative with them, you know, learn, you know, the basic fundamentals. I know. In the next segment, we're going to talk about a basic fundamental. Making a cream sauce. And once you get that one component down, then you can make so many other things with it, you know, but you have to know the techniques.

Christa DeMercurio:
What are you gonna put with that cream sauce? I heard something about salmon.

Chef Cal:
Oh, you could do anything with it. Yeah, well, yeah, we'll talk about that. But no, it's just trying to make that, you know, start from the very basics. It's like somebody saying, I make a great barbecue sauce, but I can't make tomato sauce. Well, tomato sauce comes from barbecue sauce. I'm sorry, other way around. Barbecue sauce. If you can't make a tomato sauce, you can't make a barbecue sauce, because barbecue sauce is tomato sauce with just, you know, mustard, red wine vinegar, and brown sugar added to it.

Chef Cal:
You know, you take those three ingredients and add it to tomato sauce, and now you have barbecue sauce. You know, the challenge with the barbecue sauce now is there's so much, you know, high fructose corn syrup in it, which has got to be. I mean, if food had like, the most wanted posters, did they still have those in the post office?

Christa DeMercurio:
I don't Go to the post office.

Chef Cal:
Ben. Ben, do they still have wanted posters up in the post? In the post office?

Christa DeMercurio:
I don't know about the post office.

Chef Cal:
But I've seen them at Walmart. At Walmart. Yeah, I can see that. Well, I seen a. You know, Ben, I seen a picture look just like you on the side of a carton of milk, and that worried me. But you're here today, so. Oh, brother. Yeah, I don't feel quite.

Chef Cal:
I was, I was worried a little bit, but, yeah, they should take and just say, okay, these things aren't good for you. You know, be a, you know, high fructose corn syrup. I mean, different things that you might see and you just need to stay with. Ketchup is one now. You know, I. There's certain things I like ketchup on. I mean, I like a little bit of ketchup with my fries, but. But if you make one where you.

Chef Cal:
Were you able to control some of that sugar? Because ketchup has so much sugar in it. And it's really got sodium, too, because remember, sodium is what is the flavor enhancer that makes it addictive because that. It's that salt. But then they put so much sugar in it, you can't. It doesn't. It keeps it from being salty. Even though it's overly salted, the sugar counterbalances. It's kind of the theory behind Asian food.

Chef Cal:
You know, your Asian sauces, your sweet and sour, your teriyaki, those kind of things, you know, orange sauce, anything almost in an Asian restaurant, you know, they're. You're pretty much up against that. So anyway, so just kind of keep an eye on it, folks. Look at the label and, you know, see what you got. Yeah. And again, we'd really like, you know, people if they have questions. I do actually have a question because that question, the cream sauce came from, from a question. But again, go to Cooking like a pro podcast.net you can type one in there.

Chef Cal:
If you don't like, if you don't want to call and you don't want to, you know, be on air, then you can do that. But, you know, we're here to be able to answer questions as well. And if we can't answer it, then we'll probably just lie about it because obviously you don't know it. I, I can get a pretty good guess on pretty much most things. I've been blessed to have worked with some of the best in the world, and you kind of just gleam from being next to these, these amazing French Chefs. So I Was lucky in that. So we're going to take our last final break here, and then we'll come back. So we appreciate you tuning in.

Chef Cal:
So back for another 13 minutes after this quick break. Cooking Like a Pro. Back in just a moment. All right, welcome back again. You are at Cooking Like a Pro Chef Chow and Mrs. Chef. And. Okay, so cedar plank salmon.

Chef Cal:
All right, so I sanded down my cedar planks and, you know, cut them up in 8 inch pieces and then lightly oil them. Then you. You cook those planks. So you got this cedar plank.

Christa DeMercurio:
So first off, you went and got these from, like, Home Depot. Just a package of cedar.

Chef Cal:
Of untreated cedar? Yes. You want untreated cedar. And I. I've had this on several of my restaurants that we ran this. And. And you just take a nice fillet. You want the fillet to be both boneless and skinless. You don't want any skin on there.

Chef Cal:
You want that removed. And then you just spread a little bit of olive oil on the plank. You set your salmon fillet. Remember, beef is fillet F I L E T, like filet mignon, but a fish is filet F I L L E T. Two Ls instead of one. So you take your salmon fillet and you set that on. On the. The cedar.

Chef Cal:
I would recommend like, setting the cedar on the. On the barbecue first, just to kind of warm it up. You can do that in an oven.

Christa DeMercurio:
Well, how do you prepare the planks? So you pull them out of the box from Home Depot.

Chef Cal:
Yeah, you cut them in eight inch pieces.

Christa DeMercurio:
And then what do you do?

Chef Cal:
You sand them up. And then I. Then I barbecue.

Christa DeMercurio:
Can you sand them with just hand sandpaper? Do you need a rotary sander type thing?

Chef Cal:
Oh, no, hand sandpaper would be fine. I actually used a rotary sander that I got from dad. Put a little bit of oil on there. Just lightly oil the salmon. The salmon is sitting on this plank. Sprinkle with some fresh minced shallots and some fresh chopped garlic and little chopped parsley. Little secret salt, the two part salt, one part white pepper, one part granulated garlic, and it just puts a light layer of flavor on it. And then that's pretty.

Chef Cal:
It. So you're cooking this salmon. You're baking it in the oven. I would set it on a cookie sheet, but you're baking it in the oven on this, this grilled piece of cedar, and you just get that beautiful flavor.

Christa DeMercurio:
Do you wrap it in parchment?

Chef Cal:
No. Well, you can wrap it like in papillette, like the French Would call it in that kind of paper. But we used to put it in a paper bag like a little lunch sack. We put the plank and the salmon in the lunch sack, close the lunch sack with a, you know, like a wood laundry clothespin and then just bake it in the oven. Because you know the oven doesn't have open flame, right? It's just a box that's got flame underneath. So you know it's not going to catch on fire. And then I remember we pull it out, bring it out to the table and when you pull the plank out of that paper in front of the guest, you just get that whiff. A fresh salmon is oh so good.

Christa DeMercurio:
So how do you know that it's done? Because you can't see it because it's wrapped up.

Chef Cal:
Because it takes seven to eight minutes in a 500 degree oven. I mean, you just know from doing it how long it takes. Now at home I would go, you know, between 10 to 12 minutes in a 400 degree oven because that's going to give someone a little, little more time. But you know, I mean, how thick is the salmon? Well, they're all going to be a little bit, you know, they could be a little bit different.

Christa DeMercurio:
Can you do the touch test like you do me? You know, especially if you're touching the paper, you can feel the tension under the paper.

Chef Cal:
Yeah, yeah. You just, you know, maybe the first time you're practicing, you're pulling it out and you're saying, wow, 400 degrees. It took exactly 11 minutes. Write that down and now you're set.

Christa DeMercurio:
How big of a piece of salmon is this? How many ounces is this?

Chef Cal:
About 6, 7 ounces. The portions for entrees proteins are getting smaller. You know, it used to be you wanted a 10 ounce steak or an 8 ounce piece of chicken or maybe an 8 ounce piece of piece of seafood, fish, fin fish, you know, maybe sole, halibut, salmon. And that was, that was what people were eating. But now, you know, the portions are quite a bit smaller. One, the costs have gone up, you know, But I know that if we get a 8 ounce piece of fish that I cook at home, we split it, it's good enough for two of us. So you know that that's going to depend on how much a person eats. But you know, right now a lot of the portions people are eating around 5 to 6 ounces of actual protein because they're adding a starch.

Chef Cal:
Maybe it's a grain. That's a good way to go with this particular recipe. A grain would be fantastic. I was talking to a Chef friend of mine that's helped me with my cookbook and Herb. Chef Herb. And he sent me a really nice recipe on a tamarind rice. I think it was made with basmati or something. But any kind of a grain couscous would be good.

Chef Cal:
Polenta, Polenta. That's a real simple. Those grains are all simple to make. Some things like barley or may or, you know, wild rice that take a long time to cook, but most of them are cooked real simple, real quick.

Christa DeMercurio:
The polenta you made a couple nights ago, super creamy. Tell me exactly how you made that.

Chef Cal:
Well, I started with a stock, a poultry stock. I whisked in the. And you could just use a vegetable stock if you want to make a vegetarian. And then you just whisk. Whisk your cornmeal into it.

Christa DeMercurio:
How much?

Chef Cal:
It's going to be three. Well, if it's two parts water to one part polenta. If you want to make polenta that you can like roll up in plastic and cut into discs where it's real firm and then you can grill that. A lot of people will do that with polenta. But if you want a creamy polenta, it's three to one. So it's like one part. So to say a part would be a cup. It was one cup of polenta.

Chef Cal:
That it'd be one to three. Then it'd be three part stuff. So it'd be three cups of stock and that'll give you a creamy polenta. But also I added cream to that and I added. What was that white cheese that we had there? That cheddar?

Christa DeMercurio:
It was from. It's from Costco. It is called Coastal.

Chef Cal:
No, Costco should be like a sponsor. We mentioned them way too much, Costco and Trader Joe's. But yeah, it was. It was great. So we want a little bit of cheese in there. Usually I'll use a blue vein cheese, A lot of them that I just love for different things. Gorgonzola, of course, is one of my favorite. Another blue vein cheese.

Chef Cal:
Silton. Silton's. Great. And there's a variety of just blue cheeses. Remember, blue cheese needs to be spelled B L, E, U. Yes. If it's spelled blue, like the color blue, then, you know, who knows where it came from.

Christa DeMercurio:
Now, how much cheese did you put? So let's say you did a cup of the. Now, is it called polenta or is it called.

Chef Cal:
It's cornmeal. Cornmeal, yeah. And then when you make it as.

Christa DeMercurio:
Polenta okay, so let's say you're doing a creamy polenta. You did one cup of cornmeal. Let's say three cups of chicken stock. How much cheese? How much of that white cheddar cheese?

Chef Cal:
Yeah, maybe about 3 to 4 ounces. Then I use some secret salt, and that's all that I put in there. I mean, you could put any. You could put diced peppers. You could go. I mean, go nuts, you know, sauteed mushrooms. But, you know, we wanted something just kind of simple that was going with the fish. We did.

Christa DeMercurio:
Did you add the. The cheese while it was cooking or when you finished it after the cornmeal was cooked?

Chef Cal:
Once the cornmeal is cooked and only takes. It just takes about, you know, again, four or five minutes. And then just add the cream, heavy cream, and some cheese to it, you.

Christa DeMercurio:
Know, a couple ounces of cream.

Chef Cal:
Yeah, Yeah, I think I had 2 ounces of cream, about 4 ounces of cheese. But, you know, again, or now, if you want to go healthy, don't add cream, don't add cheese. It's still going to be a nice soft polenta, maybe not be creamy. Or you could use a different type of cream. You could use, you know, you could just use milk, maybe use a different kind of milk. Use an almond milk. You know, I mean, that. That's up to.

Chef Cal:
To you and whatever it is that you want to. To finally come out. But we do, again, appreciate you tuning in and listening to us ramble and talk about food. I really enjoy this. We've been getting closer on the cookbook.

Christa DeMercurio:
And the vegetable booklet I just finished last night. So I'll be wrapping it up and.

Chef Cal:
Getting that book, and they'll be able to get that on the website. Go to all kinds of places to get that.

Christa DeMercurio:
Thank you so much for spending time with us. Until next time, we hope you'll be cooking up a storm in the kitchen. So be with you again next week with food, flavor and fun right here on Cooking Like a Pro Podcast.