030. Seasoning with Citrus, Cooking Pork Chops, Wrapping Savory with Pastry

Welcome to the 30th episode of "Cooking Like a Pro" with Chef Cal and Christa DeMercurio, where culinary magic meets practical tips for home cooks. Tune in as we explore an array of mouth-watering topics to elevate your cooking game.

• The Magic of Citrus: Discover how citrus can transform your dishes with its bright, acidic punch. From lemon zest in your martini to grapefruit segments in your salads, we’ve got you covered!
• Marinate Like a Pro: Chef Cal shares tips on using vinaigrettes as marinades for seafood, pork, and chicken. Learn how to let flavors infuse without the risk of overcooking or getting mushy textures.
• Pork Perfection: Understand the difference between pork loin and pork tenderloin, and choose the best cut for your dinner table. Plus, learn the art of pork searing followed by a delicious oven finish.
• Pastry Possibilities: Explore the world of savory dishes wrapped in delicious puff pastries, phyllo, and more. Chef Cal breaks down how to wrap your proteins for maximum flavor and that perfect flaky texture.
• Apple Adventures: Elevate your pork chops with an apple compote that adds texture and tang. From selecting the right type of apple to bringing out its flavors, we’ve got tips for you.

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

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Chapters

• 0:04 Intro
• 1:04 Time to start planting
• 2:22 Seasoning with citrus
• 6:43 Chocolate goodies on the fly
• 8:16 Back to the citrus
• 9:28 Salad dressings as marinades
• 14:43 Compotes and chutneys
• 19:08 Cream of 7 Onion Soup
• 19:58 Apple soup?
• 21:44 Fruit goes well with...pork
• 27:20 Thick cut pork chops
• 30:30 Cooking with pastry En Croute
• 36:40 The cheese course
• 37:22 What's between the pastry?
• 38:20 How is a Beef Wellington wrapped?
• 42:17 Veggie Wellington?

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 accenting your dishes with citrus, marinating with vinaigrettes, cooking pork chops and savory dishes wrapped in pastry. 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. You found Chef Cal and Mrs. Chef Christa.

Christa DeMercurio:
Hello. Good evening.

Chef Cal:
Right. We are excited about talking about food. And you know, I don't know, when does spring start? You know, March 20th.

Christa DeMercurio:
March.

Chef Cal:
Oh, it's coming up quick then. Yeah, that's right before the kids birthday.

Christa DeMercurio:
Days are getting longer.

Chef Cal:
Well, yeah, the reason I was bringing that up is. I know it. Spring. Spring coming up, it's time to start getting ready to plant. Right.

Christa DeMercurio:
Should have your seeds.

Chef Cal:
Should be getting ready on that. And, and I always recommend starting with your, with your herbs. I like to get. But your hearty herbs. You know, there's, you know, your rosemary and your thyme. And of course, you always need to have a bay laurel tree or plant. They grow into a tree. Our bay laurel is taller than I am.

Chef Cal:
Not that I'm real tall, but anyway, hey, herbs, just such a great way to flavor and season. And just think about that time of year when you're able to add the freshness and that brightness to whatever it is you're cooking. You're always better off going fresh. Fresh is just so much better than the dried dehydrated ones. Dehydrated? Remember, it's about three times as strong.

Christa DeMercurio:
And we have to reconstitute them, too. Usually you've got to, you know, bloom them to bring them back to life.

Chef Cal:
Once you put them in there, they're going to take a little while to cook. But if you're making soup, something like that, throw them in there. But again, just remember they're going to be lot stronger in flavor. Another thing I think about around this time of year, citrus. Citrus is, it's, it's available year round. It comes from different parts of the, of the, of the world. But we were talking about citrus earlier and about different recipes that we can do. And, and one thing about that I really appreciate about citrus.

Chef Cal:
We're going to mention it again in the third segment when we talk about pork and chicken is it's a great topping. It's something you can make that's really, really simple to make, but it adds just such a level and a dimension of flavors. So it's very low fat, very healthy for you, and very flavorful.

Christa DeMercurio:
It can brighten things because it's acidic.

Chef Cal:
Yeah.

Christa DeMercurio:
Also, I think the lesser used part of the citrus is the zest.

Chef Cal:
Well, zest is what you get out of the zest is the oil and the oil in that. You notice if you see someone that has a martini or something with a twist, then they'll take a little piece of lime or lemon and they'll twist it. And if you look real close when you twist that, you'll see this kind of, I don't know, this spray spray of juice, of oil rather, that comes out and adds a lot of flavor to it. But on citrus, one of the things that I think is a challenge, a lot of people don't really. They just don't do very often. And that's make segments, you know, out of your citrus to cut the. Make sure you get the pith and all the little, you know, the white pockets. You don't want those in there because they can be bitter.

Chef Cal:
But, you know, you can. The thing about it these days is you can buy everything already segmented. You know, you can buy your. Your orange segments, you can buy your grapefruit segments. Grapefruit's a great thing to. Not just a note of acid, but that sourness that you get. And it can cut through a lot of fat.

Christa DeMercurio:
Also with the sourness. You can counter that with salt. Salt. Salt will take care of bitterness.

Chef Cal:
Yeah. I was kind of thinking, because we were talking off air about salmon, and that was just one of those things that. That salmon, because it has high fat content, can be what some people will describe as being fishy. It shouldn't be fishy if it's fishy or something wrong with it. You know, when you get your fish, you want to make sure that you, you know, you check it, you make sure that it smells good and rinse it. I always rinse it with cold water. You don't want to pull any flavor out of it. But you do want to rinse any bacteria.

Chef Cal:
Remember, these fish, they do swim in water that has bacteria in it.

Christa DeMercurio:
So because salmon is so fatty, that's where you're going to use like a lemon juice or even a lime juice, depending upon what direction you're going.

Chef Cal:
Yeah. High, high acid. And another thing is, is if you look at the fish, where the fish is connected to the actual skin, there's a Gray area and that's a bloodline. And if you cut that's really, that adds probably more, I guess, like if you're going to say fishy flavor, that would be it. So, you know, you can always trim that out. Most people don't cook fish with the skin on anyway. I was watching something where they were seasoning fish and they were seasoning salmon and they seasoned it on one side and they flipped it over and seasoned on the other side and the other side had skin on it. You know, if you put your seasoning on skin, the seasoning isn't.

Chef Cal:
Flavor isn't going to make its way through the skin, especially not in a short period of time of cooking a, you know, one inch fillet of, you know, fin fish.

Christa DeMercurio:
What else do you use your citrus segments on other than fish?

Chef Cal:
Oh, I don't know. I think that, you know, any kind of a white meat it would work well with, you know, but then again, segments are great for, I mean, they'll brighten up anything you put them in. You can put them in any kind of a salad. You know, even if you wanted to just go with something like mandarin oranges, you know, something that's already canned, you know, it just adds a different flavor. It has a natural sweetness. I think I'm, you know, if I'm getting fruit in the can, you, you, you want to get fruit that doesn't have sugar added to it. So again, look at the label. Always talk about that looking at the label.

Christa DeMercurio:
But also be careful if it says no sugar added, make sure they haven't added a fake sweetener because that will completely give an off taste to any canned citrus.

Chef Cal:
Yeah, that's one thing that's pretty easy to pick up when you, if you're looking for it, is that that off flavor that you get from some of these sweeteners that are out there? It's almost always at the very end and it's always generally, generally for me, it's always towards the back of my throat and that's where I taste that, you know, kind of that off flavor. Sometimes I would, I guess I would describe it kind of almost chemical. Yeah. So. Well, you know, I want to mention, since we're not really on a topic here and we're bouncing all over the place where those little chocolate treats that you made, those were delicious.

Christa DeMercurio:
I took what was in the cabinet, I had some Skippy peanut butter and then I ran and grabbed a really dark chocolate chocolate bar. Actually it was a Hershey's special dark and I melted it in the microwave melted the chocolate bar and just a Pyrex cup. Then I had the little mini with those little cups, little paper cups like you would use a muffin cup, but they're the little little ones. And then I poured the chocolate in there, let it cool just a little bit till it wasn't runny, put in a little dab of peanut butter, poured a little bit more of the chalk over the top to seal it in, and immediately pressed in some roasted salted peanuts.

Chef Cal:
Well, you can't. You know. You know, one thing I was thinking about maybe a little bit of that. That Celtic salt on there, a little.

Christa DeMercurio:
Bit of sea salt. I could add that. But since it was a roasted salted peanut, I didn't want to go too far until we tested them and see how it came out.

Chef Cal:
Yeah, well, it came out great. And I think, you know, sometimes it just takes a little ingenuity. You look around, see what's. What's the counter. I know. Matter of fact, I've seen that they came out with a peanut butter that has chocolate in it now.

Christa DeMercurio:
Yes. And I picked some up.

Chef Cal:
It is Jif.

Christa DeMercurio:
Yes.

Chef Cal:
Is it hiding? I didn't see it.

Christa DeMercurio:
It's in the cabinet.

Chef Cal:
Okay.

Christa DeMercurio:
Just haven't popped it open yet.

Chef Cal:
It's not in the. Just set aside just for you, is it?

Christa DeMercurio:
No, it's not hiding right next to the other peanut butter.

Chef Cal:
Well, I'm excited about trying that. I guess I would probably make a very good sandwich, but, man, it sure should. Sounds good.

Christa DeMercurio:
We'll give it a shot. We'll see what it tastes like.

Chef Cal:
Pick up some celery on the way home. But I don't know.

Christa DeMercurio:
Back to. Back to citrus.

Chef Cal:
Yeah.

Christa DeMercurio:
Lime the lesser, I think, used citrus. Well, especially in America. I think lime is more popular down in Central America.

Chef Cal:
Maybe some of the Asian. Asian countries and perhaps. But the thing about lime is the lime is really more sour. You know, you can get some sweetness out of, you know, out of lemon. You can definitely get sweetness out of oranges. But if you're using lime, then you're definitely going the direction for something that's going to be sour.

Christa DeMercurio:
Well, lime definitely goes well with tequila.

Chef Cal:
Tequila, yeah.

Christa DeMercurio:
So if you're going to make a tequila lime marinated chicken, how would you do that?

Chef Cal:
Well, probably wouldn't be able to do in the 30 seconds we have left before the break here, but I actually have a great recipe for tequila lime sauce. It kind of breaks my rule, though, because I try to keep, you know, my list of ingredients down to like four or five. So it doesn't get too complicated. This one, I think it's got 15, 16 different ingredients in it, so we'll have to talk about that one. It is a great sauce. So. But anyway, we'll be coming back just a moment. We'll take a break, but appreciate you being here at Cooking Like a Pro.

Chef Cal:
We will be back in just a moment. You know, one of the things when I think about salad dressings that really pops my mind because mostly it's obviously in the, in the title it says salad, but it works. It's a great marinade, especially an oil vinegar. An oil vinaigrette, if you don't want to make your own oil vinegar dressing probably has a shelf life of a couple of months or so, maybe more, I don't know. But, you know, look at the bottle. But, you know, have a, have some on hand in your fridge, use it as a condiment. But the one thing about a marinade is you want whatever it is that you're marinating. You want that to, to really absorb the marinade.

Chef Cal:
And you do that by breaking down the connective tissue. So you get yourself a mallet and with some little dimples on it and just kind of bring maybe break the skin of the, of the chicken breast or, or pound out the pork. And then when you marinate it, it's going to suck that marinade in. Much better. Much better.

Christa DeMercurio:
Well, speaking of the tequila lime vinaigrette, if you don't want to do the big long list one from scratch that you make, one we used to make was just to take our house vinaigrette and add some tequila and some lime to that. Just a simple upgrade.

Chef Cal:
Yeah, I mean, it's great. We just talked about using it as a dressing in a marinade, but yeah, you can, you know, anything that you have, you can modify to fit your, you know, the flavor profile that you're going for. You know, try to think about the protein that it's going to be paired with and how that might, you know, work. You know, are these flavors going to be fighting one another? Another thing is you don't want, you know, the, the money that you're, you're paying when you, whether you're cooking at home or you're going out to eat is for the protein. And so you want to taste the protein. You know, if you're eating, you know, fish and chips, for example, and all you taste is tartar sauce, well, then, you know, it's kind of defeats the purpose of. Because what you're Paying for is the fish. I mean, it's no different than putting, you know, something overpowering on ketchup on a filet or something like that, or ketchup with any meat.

Chef Cal:
Ketchup with probably anything.

Christa DeMercurio:
So what do you want to marinate? Chicken breast. Because it's dry, right?

Chef Cal:
Yeah, anything that I want to infuse with some flavor. I mean, you know, anything that's out there. I mean, normally I'm not going to. I don't marinate cuts of beef very often, but, you know, seafood, pork, chicken, those all take a good marinade. You know, of course, salmon is. Or any kind of fin fish, halibut, cod, are all going to be fish that will absorb marinades really, really well. And sometimes you may not even want to use that and just use it as a basting agent. But make sure that you don't do this.

Chef Cal:
You want to make sure that if you marinate something in whatever that marinade is and you take it out and you cook it, do no longer don't use that marinade anymore to baste it or as a sauce or anything because it's been contaminated by the protein that's in there, which was raw at that point. So we marinate it. But then you want to take a little. Or make a marinade and set a little aside and, you know, put a little brush in there and brush it while it's on the char grill or in the pan. It's always nice. I mean, what do the French do? They put a pat of butter on top of everything.

Christa DeMercurio:
So take a little bit out. So make it a little bit larger batch. Take a little bit out to reserve it so you can use that later. But then you have the bulk of it that you use to do the marinade.

Chef Cal:
Yeah, maybe only a couple tablespoons. I mean, you don't need much, you know, to baste it is basically what you're doing.

Christa DeMercurio:
How long do you marinate things overnight? Couple hours.

Chef Cal:
It's going to depend on how fast it's going to soak up that marinade. Again, seafood that's very, you know, the. The muscle fibers are very, very light or loose. It's going to soak up a marinade really quickly. You know, chicken and pork, you might want to marinate it for an hour or so, put it in maybe a bag or put it in a, you know, glass dish and let it sit for a while. I wouldn't go overnight because the problem is you have a. Remember, your acid ingredients are. You're going to eat through things.

Chef Cal:
So if you allow something to marinate for too long, you're really going to get a mushy product. It's kind of like if you've ever had pokey, like, you know, raw tuna and they put it in a marinade and it's been in the marinade for too long, and it just gets kind of squishy and it just kind of falls apart. Because remember, that's what acid does. It eats through things, you know, so.

Christa DeMercurio:
Well, think about salad. You put dressing on a salad and within an hour, your lettuces limp. What do you want to do with a stronger meat that is tougher? So, like, we used to always do London broil for barbecue. We always marinated it. So that's something. Do you want a really acidic marinade to help break that down? Because it's more tough, has more connective tissue.

Chef Cal:
Yeah, you can break it down. That's one of the things that is what we call tenderizing. You know, a lot of times you can tenderize with these dressings that have a lot of, you know, a high amount of acid in it. That's one of the things that they work great for. So, anyway, we're going to take another break here at the bottom of the hour. Cooking like a pro. Be back in just a moment. Welcome back.

Chef Cal:
You have found us cooking like a pro. And in our website, culinarily yours, there's all kinds of stuff you can get there. You can go check that out. But, hey, let's see. We were talking about compotes earlier. I wanted to mention that because there were some confusion between a compote and a chutney. Now, they're pretty much about the same thing. And what they.

Chef Cal:
Basically, if you think about it, it's almost like. Well, like a jelly doesn't have any chunks in it, where a jam does kind of think of it along that line. So it's. It's chunky pieces of fruit. We actually do a really fun one with apples, which goes great with pork. We're going to talk about pork and chicken, and it goes great with both of them. But the thing that you add to it is usually just a little bit of acid. Always it just helps kind of brighten it up.

Chef Cal:
But you can take your apples and saute them up in some butter till they get nice and tender. Also, a little bit of diced onion works great in there. Then really it's just sugar water. And then whatever your. Your spices are. When I think of apples, I think of cinnamon, nutmeg, kind of those warm winter flavors.

Christa DeMercurio:
Now, this is for a chutney.

Chef Cal:
Yeah, this is for compote.

Christa DeMercurio:
Okay.

Chef Cal:
Yeah. But again, well, it could be a chutney, too, because remember, they're both basically the same thing, except a compote is served warm, where chutney is served either cool or cold. So it just kind of depends on what you're going on, what you're using it. I mean, you wouldn't. For example, you take the same apple compote and you want to put it on a nice, thin, fresh baked pork sandwich. Well, then you would serve it cool. It would fall into the category of chutney. And chutney's almost always have a little more acid in it, so there's a little more of a tang or twang to it.

Chef Cal:
Where a compote served warm, let's say you did, you know, like pork chops and applesauce kind of a thing. But instead of using applesauce, you just use this kind of warm, you know, apple sauteed, you know, walnuts, any. Just kind of think about those earthy flavors that would go well with it.

Christa DeMercurio:
So they have more of a texture than applesauce.

Chef Cal:
Mm, yeah. Well, no. Well, then applesauce, yes. But that's why I'm just saying it as a, you know, as a alternative to go on there. Instead of using applesauce, you know, you can go with something a little more chunky, a little more exciting, certainly a lot more flavor. I mean, okay, so you don't have one dimensional.

Christa DeMercurio:
You don't have any applesauce in the cabinet. And you brought home pork chops, and you want to have some apples with them. So you would grab an apple out of your.

Chef Cal:
Off your tree.

Christa DeMercurio:
Off your tree or of your fruit bowl. You've got some apples. Do you peel them? Yes or no?

Chef Cal:
Core it and peel it. The peelings, it's especially what you get. They wax a lot of these fruits now, so you want to peel it anyway. But if you're going to cook it, you definitely want to peel it.

Christa DeMercurio:
Any type, special, specific type of apple or just a cooking apple?

Chef Cal:
Yeah, I go with the cooking apple. Cooking apples are things like Granny Smith is a cooking apple. A lot of your Washington apples are as well. If it says crisp in the name, then it's more of just an eating apple. The best. The best apple I like as far as just a raw eating apple is a Fuji. Yeah, Fujis are just one of those things that I. It's kind of my go to crossover.

Christa DeMercurio:
You can go any way you want to go.

Chef Cal:
Yeah. Kind of middle of the road. But yeah, because, you know, a Granny Smith apple is not going to be as sweet. It's got a little more sour. Sourness to it. It's going to hold up better in the cooking, so it's not going to.

Christa DeMercurio:
Break down as much.

Chef Cal:
Exactly. And. And so you have this nice, chunky, you know, warm compote, this warm apple mixture. And again with, you know, if you add some walnuts or, you know, your winter spices and seasonings, go ahead and add those to it as well. You can add a little bit of honey, add a little bit of sweetness, take away some of that sour. Just a touch of salt to bring those flavors out.

Christa DeMercurio:
Now, if you're going to add onions, do you add them toward the beginning with the apples as they're cooking?

Chef Cal:
Yeah, I would add them at the beginning because you want to cook the onions. You know, you don't want the onions raw unless it says raw. I can't rethink too many times I use it, I mean, maybe on a burger or something like that and, I don't know, spinach salads. You know, you use like, raw red onion, but kind of thin. One thing about red onions or Bermuda onions, what we call them, they can be, you know, they're generally a sweeter onion, but the older they are, the stronger they get, the more pungent they get. So I usually just stick with the yellow. White onions are going to be stronger, generally speaking, depending on how they were treated. But in time of year, they're picked.

Chef Cal:
But for the most part, your white onions are going to be your stronger onions, your red onions are going to be your sweeter, and your yellows right smack in the middle.

Christa DeMercurio:
And what about adding a little bit of shallot to your apples?

Chef Cal:
Yeah, yeah. Well, you're kind of. If you mention all these onions, you're kind of going with the cream of seven onion soup. You know, I remember making that. And that's actually on our website. That one is on the website. Video on that. A YouTube video or something.

Chef Cal:
You can go. Yes, just Google. Google.

Christa DeMercurio:
Just go to culinaryyours.net it is on the website.

Chef Cal:
It's a creamy cream of seven onion soup.

Christa DeMercurio:
Just search up onion soup and it.

Chef Cal:
Pops up and it's a great soup. And it's not really strong onions, even though there's seven different onions in there. Or, you know, items from the onion family, things like your leeks and your scallions, your green onions, your garlic, things that come from that family. But no, it's just a great cream soup. You boil all those things down, nice stock, add a little roux, a little flour and butter mixture to thicken it up.

Christa DeMercurio:
Now, how can you make an apple soup soup? Could you do an apple, like a chilled apple soup in the summer with the spring coming up?

Chef Cal:
Yeah, you know, you could do. You could do anything. I mean, you could do a chilled apple soup, certainly. When you say apple, though, the first thing I think of is mulligan tawny. So mulligatawny is just a very unique soup that you really don't see. I was introduced to it decades ago, but it's a soup. But it's an apple curry soup. And it's.

Chef Cal:
It's really, really good. You know, it's got your mirepoix in there, minus your carrots. It's got your celery, onion, and your leek. And the most. The highest ingredients, the higher flavor profile ingredients in there are apple and curry and. And quite. And a lot of times people will put chicken in it as well. You kind of see it.

Chef Cal:
I don't know if its roots come from, like, Indian culture, like from India or something like that, but it seems like that kind of an item.

Christa DeMercurio:
Well, I used to make an apple curry sauce to go with chicken. I would cut up the apples and add some curry seasoning and, you know, let it simmer, Let the chicken simmer in that.

Chef Cal:
Sit down. Put a little water, a little broth in there, a little vegetable stock or something. Allow it to kind of cook down so it has a little bit of moisture to it, you know, and. And then also you have all that moisture that's coming out of an apple. But I would say an apple's got to be 70% water, maybe more. I mean, lettuce is what, 97% water? So you figure when you're cooking these fruits and vegetables, most of that, that liquid is that juice that's coming out of what you're cooking. So you cook it slow enough so it doesn't evaporate out. That would be one thing to consider.

Chef Cal:
Sometimes when you want to keep that flavor locked in, you can put a lid on it. That helps to keep some additional flavor from, you know, escaping.

Christa DeMercurio:
So cooked apples go perfect with.

Chef Cal:
Pork's generally the one thing. And also when you go to the store and you're getting pork, some people get confused. But there's a pork, what we call a pork loin and a pork tenderloin. The pork loin is on the top of the animal. The tenderloin is, like, by the bone. So if I took a Cow. And I cut that loin, I would have a loin on one side, which is what we call a strip loin. We cut it into steaks.

Chef Cal:
We have New York steaks. And on the other side of that T shaped bone, I have the fillet, which is more protected because it's closer to the backbone of the animal. It's right, right on it. And because of that, you know, it's, it's a riding muscle. It doesn't do much but hang on to the, to the skeletal structure. So that's going to be more tender.

Christa DeMercurio:
Equivalent to a filet mignon on a cow.

Chef Cal:
Pork tenderloin.

Christa DeMercurio:
Pork tenderloin.

Chef Cal:
Not a pork loin.

Christa DeMercurio:
Okay, so pork tenderloin, it would be your choice steak.

Chef Cal:
Pork tenderloin would be, yes. And it's going to cook much faster. It's much more tender. You want a dry cooking method. You know, you want to barbecue it, you want to sauté it, you want to broil it, you definitely don't want to take it. And I mean, you're paying more money for it because it's a, it's a tenderloin. So might as well, you know, take advantage of that and not ruin it by turning it into soup or, you know, or, you know, chili verde or something like, you know, that you're. Because you can use an inexpensive cut of meat if you're going to use the cooking process to actually break down the connective tissue and make the tender.

Christa DeMercurio:
All right, so I want pork chops. I go to the deli counter. What am I looking for? Because I see these thin cut things and then I see these big old country style ones and I see some with big old bone on them. What am I looking for and how do I make a decision?

Chef Cal:
Well, a lot of that comes down to the whether you like a bone or not. If you like the bone. I think that I like bones on the, on the, on the meat, on the protein, because they, they, to me, it locks in more flavor. There's less places for stuff to escape. But I like picking up a pork chop bone and kind of chewing the, the meat off of that. But it's, it is going to take longer to cook that meat that's next to the bone. So make sure you check the internal temperature of pork. You want it, you know, 155, 156 and rising because you want to get to one.

Chef Cal:
And, you know, and again, if you get one without the bone, they, they still, it's what's, I guess, you know, the challenge or the Criticism I guess that I have is that they'll call it a pork chop and it doesn't have a bone. And to me, if it says pork chop, it should have a bone. I don't know if that's old fashioned, but you. Sometimes they'll take the loin and I would call it a loin chop before I would call a pork chop because it doesn't have the bone.

Christa DeMercurio:
I think they just, everything seems to think that steak refers to beef and chops refers to pork. Yeah, that's just kind of the way I think.

Chef Cal:
Well, yeah, I would agree with that because, you know, you don't have a ribeye steak that has a bone in it and call it a ribeye chop. You know, I guess maybe you could have. But you don't, don't normally hear that. But, but you know, pork goes great with, with just about. I mean, when we talk about the loins again, we're talking about those dry cooking methods. So they, you know, if you're going to barbe something again, that apple compote would be a great, great addition to it. And then also remember, you want to, you always want to remember that you want a complete meal. Right.

Chef Cal:
A complete meal means that you got a protein and then you also have a couple of other things that go with that. Right.

Christa DeMercurio:
Usually potatoes is what I lean towards, like a shallot potato or starch.

Chef Cal:
Starch. Yeah. And then the last thing is the vegetable. So you got your pork chop with your apple compote. What are you going to do for a side on that?

Christa DeMercurio:
Like I said, I usually do a scalloped potato.

Chef Cal:
You know, the first thing I think of.

Christa DeMercurio:
I don't.

Chef Cal:
Yeah, I'm sure you do. I think of a, a nice polenta. Nice. Like a blue, blue cheese, which we.

Christa DeMercurio:
Just posted on our podcast.

Chef Cal:
Oh, you did? Oh, yeah, Salmon.

Christa DeMercurio:
And it is actually up on the website. The web. The recipe is on the website.

Chef Cal:
Oh, yeah. Go to culinarily yours.net. yeah. And you can search that. You can pop in Chef Cow. Eventually you'll get there culinary. Yours will get you there fastest. But yeah, you know, I, because when I think of pork, I do think of something softer.

Chef Cal:
I don't think of, you know, an appropriate starch. Wouldn't like be a baked potato. That'd be something to use for beef. You know, probably wouldn't use a grain because the grain would be something I generally use for seafood. You know, if I had a nice grilled salmon dish, then maybe I would go with couscous. You know, more polenta or some of the type of grain, maybe a wheat berry or, you know, some of these grains can be a little, a little stronger. So you want to make sure that you balance those. If you're using wheat berries and maybe it's also mixed in with a pilaf of rice with some vegetables or something.

Chef Cal:
Then as far as a vegetable, when I think of pork chop and if I had a nice couscous or polenta on the side, I think of something kind of soft, like a creamed spinach, you know, to me, something that would, I think something like that would go up. Peas, of course, you know, I don't really think of root vegetables, but I do think of, you know, again, what's in season. And I've always been a steamed spinach guy. I, I, you know, come from years of watching Popeye. I don't even think they have Popeye anymore.

Christa DeMercurio:
Not anymore.

Chef Cal:
People probably don't. You know, I'm talking about when I say Popeye. Popeye and sauteed, you know, with some olive oil or. What was her name?

Christa DeMercurio:
Olive oil.

Chef Cal:
Was it olive oil?

Christa DeMercurio:
Yeah.

Chef Cal:
Olive.

Christa DeMercurio:
Olive.

Chef Cal:
Olive.

Christa DeMercurio:
Back to the pork chops one more time.

Chef Cal:
Sure.

Christa DeMercurio:
Especially the thicker cut pork chops, because sometimes you get the little skinny ones, they're like half inch. Then you get these big old thick country pork chops. Now, something you taught me was to sear it first. Season it, sear it first, and then finish it in the oven.

Chef Cal:
Yeah. Season first. You're right. And then get a nice sear on it in a pan. And then I would sear it in a pan that can go in the oven. You don't want something that has a handle that would melt, you know, so sear it and pop it straight in the oven.

Christa DeMercurio:
Carbon steel cast iron. Have your oven heated up. Your pan is heating up on the stovetop as you're searing it. So that's ready to go. Then just go straight in to finish until you get to 155 and rising.

Chef Cal:
Yeah. And I, and I'd probably even deglaze it a little bit, you know, depending on what, you know, maybe some Marsala or. I mean, it could be water could. Depending on what you're going to. Your, the final product is going to be. I mean, you could use orange juice, you know, if you're going to use an apple topping like we've been talking about, an apple compote, or if it's cool, an apple chutney. Maybe you deglaze it with apple juice, you know, because you're just Getting more flavor into it. You know, if you got a.

Chef Cal:
An apple type pork dish, then how many places can you put apple into it?

Christa DeMercurio:
And then how would you take care of these? The little skinny eyes, the little skinny pork chops.

Chef Cal:
Season them and just real quick. Those are like breakfast steaks, right? Pork. I like a little pork chip pork chop for breakfast.

Christa DeMercurio:
So I would not finish those out in the oven because they're just gonna go so quick.

Chef Cal:
Oh, yeah, those little ones they got. I mean, you know, again, I think.

Christa DeMercurio:
They come like medallions or something like that.

Chef Cal:
Yeah, well, usually a medallion. For me, when I have a medallion, something means that it's been pounded out. But, yeah, they're cut real thin. They call it a, you know, kind of like a scallop and kind of like a scallopini, where you cut beef fillet really thin and. And make a beef scalpini. Same ideas, like with a veal scallopini. Those are items that are. That are generally can be.

Chef Cal:
Be pounded out.

Christa DeMercurio:
And would you ever pound out a pork?

Chef Cal:
Oh, yeah, yeah. It was thick. It was thick. And. And, you know, what am I gonna do with it? How am I gonna cook it? You know, I mean, do we want dinner in, you know, you know, 45 minutes, because we're leaving to go somewhere, or is it something I can slow roast and. And develop more flavor?

Christa DeMercurio:
Okay, so last thing, real quick. If you want to do a pork cutlet and you wanted to have it breaded, how would you do that?

Chef Cal:
Flour, egg and panko. Yeah, flour, egg, panko. Hit it in a nice hot pan. Make sure the pan's hot so you get. Remember, you don't want it to soak in the oil. You want that nice, crisp, you know, finish on it, flip it over. And again, you're talking about something that's probably a quarter inch thick. By the time it's browned on both sides, it's done, you know, and anytime you see the juice coming out of something, then you know that it's reached medium as well.

Chef Cal:
So always a good trick to know. So we'll be back in just a moment with our final segment here. Cooking like a pro. Again, Chef Cow, Mrs. Chef Christa. Back in just a moment. Cooking like a pro. All right, well, we appreciate you tuning in and listening to us for all the segments here.

Chef Cal:
You know, it's always nice when you sometimes get questions from people as well. It gives us something else to chat about, because we do want to make sure that this show is interesting to use. We just kind of pretty much Come up with food and things related to food. And I know we were talking earlier about a recipe that I did with a halibut dish. Now, we've talked about this particular dish before, but it was cooking with puff.

Christa DeMercurio:
Pastry back on episode six of the podcast.

Chef Cal:
Boy, that's good. If you can remember that. What are we, like, episode 35 now or something?

Christa DeMercurio:
20. Yeah, we're getting around 30. Somewhere around 30.

Chef Cal:
So. So if you've ever heard of a dish called beef Wellington, it's very popular. That has kind of a puff pig. Well, that's. Actually, I would get. Say that's more of a pie dough. Remember pie dough, the difference between your pie dough and your puff pastry is your puff pastry is folded over many more times with butter. And when you fold it over, it gets real flaky.

Chef Cal:
That's what causes as that butter cooks and vaporizes, it rises up and you get all those little nooks and crannies and flakes and layers, I guess be the best term. But it's, you know.

Christa DeMercurio:
So puff pastry is kind of the cousin to a croissant.

Chef Cal:
Yes. Yeah. They would use. I don't even know that. I'd say they were cousins. I'd say it's the same thing. If you took puff pastry and just cut it in a triangle, rolled it up and put a little twist on it, make it a little, you know, upside down, smile into a. Yeah, yeah.

Chef Cal:
You've got a crystal. Crystal. Now, you know, traditional croissants, from the French standpoint, you know, they may add more butter, have more layers. So maybe it's the same dough, but it's folded over more times. And remember when you take dough and you put a layer of butter on it and you fold it over, every time you fold that, it just, you know, it's two layers and it's four layers of butter, then it's eight, then it's 16, then it's 32. And so it's. You just get more and more layers. Now, on pie dough, you don't have that at all.

Christa DeMercurio:
No.

Chef Cal:
Yeah. Pie dough, you don't have that. So there are certain things that you'd use, you know, pie dough. Like. Like if I was making a chicken pot pie, I use pie dough versus a puff pastry because it's. Because it's gonna. It's more sturdy. Yeah.

Chef Cal:
It's not as nearly as delicate as something like puff pastries. You know, it's kind of like if you're doing a tart, you'd use a pie dough. Any kind of A tart. Whether it's sweet or whether it's savory. A savory tart. We used to do a blue cheese and fig tart with balsamic. You know, there was more of an appetizer dish then you would, you really wouldn't have something quite, quite that, you know, with a flavor profile, you know, quite that high for something like dessert because it has a lot of acid in it and sour.

Christa DeMercurio:
So you go the refrigerator section at the store.

Chef Cal:
Yes.

Christa DeMercurio:
And you can either get puff pastry, usually like Pepperidge Farm or something similar, or you can get a pie dough. Like a fold out, pre made pie dough.

Chef Cal:
Yeah, you can get any dough you want.

Christa DeMercurio:
Now how you can. So you can use those in savory applications. I mean, usually you consider those for sweet applications, but we're talking savory dinner type applications. Wrapping things with it.

Chef Cal:
Yeah. And also, don't forget phyllo. Phyllo is one that goes great. I've wrapped all kinds of product in phyllo. Remember, anytime you're cooking a protein to seafood, whatever it is, bacon, filet mignon, turning it into a Wellington, you're enclosing all of that flavor. There's no place for that flavor to escape to. So because you're doing that, you're going to have a dish, a final product that's going to have more flavor. So wrapping it in phyllo dough.

Chef Cal:
Phyllo. We do Philo wrapped salmon was, was one of the dishes we had on the menu. But the. My favorite dish for Philo is, is baklava. You just can't go wrong with it. Of course it's dessert and it's overly sweet. It's a Greek dessert. Actually.

Chef Cal:
They do it, they have it in more places than just Greece. You can, you know, find it readily available in Italy and probably other places. Well, maybe Spain. But it's just layers of phyllo that have been buttered. You lay those out and you take a mixture of chopped almonds, brown sugar, a little bit of spice, cinnamon, clove, allspice, that kind of a thing. And you put, then you grind up those almonds until the orders, they chop really fine in the Cuisinart. Put a layer of those on your buttered phyllo, put another piece of phyllo on top, another layer, another piece of phyllo. And you want about five layers, and you want about three to four layers of phyllo for each layer.

Chef Cal:
Then you, when you get done and prepared, ready to cook, go ahead and take a fork. I use what's called an ice shaver. It's what I use when I make ice carvings. And you just poke a bunch of holes in the top of this pastry before you cook it through the phyllo. And then you pour the whole thing, pour caramel sauce over it, and you bake that off. Or you can bake it off first and then put the caramel afterwards. But either way, it's just solid sugar. I mean, it puts you in a diet, put you in a sugar coma.

Christa DeMercurio:
So you have all these different pastries. Okay, so again, we've had pie dough, we've had pastry, puff pastry, phyllo and phyllo. Now, if you take those and wrap something. So usually you'll see those as a pie crust or underlining something. But to put it over the top. En crout. C R O U T E. That's.

Christa DeMercurio:
You're basically creating a crust above and I'm correct.

Chef Cal:
Yeah, yeah. Well, look at a brie. You know, brie cheese is something you see baked, you know, wrapped in phyllo all the time. You know, I mean, you could do it in puff pastry. I don't think I'd do it in pie dough. I think that'd be a little too dense. But brie cheese is something that you see, you know, almost at every dinner party that's serving hors d'oeuvres.

Christa DeMercurio:
So brie en croute, do you just put the pastry on top of it, or do you fully wrap it?

Chef Cal:
Fully wrap it, Fully wrap it. And I cook it on parchment paper. Get a little bit of layer in between there to help with the bottom brown and not get a nice color to it. And you put a little garnish on there. You can do any variety of things. And then something like that, you'd probably go back to. Remember we were talking about chutneys and compotes in the last segment. But maybe take out the apples and put in berries, whether it's fruit, blueberries, any kind of, you know, cranberries, any kind of a berry, because that's going to add that.

Chef Cal:
That sweetness to it. And you've already got the brie, which is giving you all the creaminess, and then you've got the pastry. The problem is cheese coats your palate. That's why the cheese is served after dinner in a lot of countries. In Britain, in France, they'll serve a cheese course after all the other courses, because cheese coats your tongue. So if you serve cheese and you don't serve something with a high acid in it to counterbalance that creaminess, you're really kind of wasting a lot of your taste buds because they're covered and they're not going to be able to taste everything because they're coated with the dairy.

Christa DeMercurio:
It seems like all the en'croute that I was looking at, you've got the brie en'croute, salmon en'croute, came up a bunch. The beef Wellington is an en'croute, but they all have a layer of either a mushroom duxelles, a spinach, mousseline, onions, things like that. Is that true that there's usually a layer of something kind of some kind.

Chef Cal:
Of flavor, fruits or vegetables? For two reasons. You want some kind of a flavor additive in there. So you're correct on that. The second thing is you want to get the pastry a little higher than the actual protein itself because the protein is moist and you want the pastry to cook. So, for example, one of the recipes in the cookbook that I'm working, working on is a halibut en'croute. And it does have what you mentioned, that mushroom duxelles. So it's just chopped mushrooms cooked down almost to a paste. They can be a little chunky.

Chef Cal:
They coat this paste on top of the of the halibut, of the filet of the fish, and then wrap that in puff pastry. And that mushroom duxelles will keep that pastry up and will allow it to brown and to crisp up where if it was just wrapped on the fish, it would get soggy.

Christa DeMercurio:
And that's why beef Wellington, the crust isn't straight on the beef, no spinach.

Chef Cal:
And then they use a mushroom ducks on beef Wellington as well.

Christa DeMercurio:
How do you wrap a beef Wellington to get it completely covered?

Chef Cal:
Plastic wrap and get it really well. What I would do is you take and make a wrap out of it. So you, let's say you making a mushroom duxelles, you chop all these mushrooms, you sauté them, you season them, you add a bit of cream, and you turn this into a paste. Then you take a piece of plastic and lay it out on the counter. And then you spread this duxelles over it real evenly. And then you put a piece of plastic on top of it. And then you just, you can press it out with your hand, you can roll it out with a rolling pin, but you have this nice thin layer of whatever the size is to say maybe it's 10 inches by 12 inches across by just, you know, an eighth of an inch thick of this. Basically think of it as like a mushroom flavored, pliable cardboard thickness kind of a thing.

Chef Cal:
No.

Christa DeMercurio:
What do you put down first on the plastic and.

Chef Cal:
Well, right now. No, you. Because of. Right now, you want to wrap the. You want to prepare the duxelles to wrap around the beef.

Christa DeMercurio:
Okay, Right.

Chef Cal:
And again, sometimes I'll do spinach also. But then you wrap the mushrooms around so it's in this pliable plate or layer of mushrooms. You season and sear your meat off so you get some of those original juices out of there that might get soggy. Lay that on your mushroom duxelles and take the top piece of plastic off, of course, and then use that plastic to roll it. So now you've got this beef encased with this nice layer of mushrooms. And then your pastry goes on top of that. And the same thing, same manner of preparation. Lay out your pastry, set your beef with your mushroom wrapping on it on top of your pastry.

Chef Cal:
Roll that around, sealed on the bottom, and bake it off till you get to your degree. You need to practice on that one because the temperature of the oven, you want the. The thing about beef Wellington is you want this beautiful, flaky pastry, but you want the beef cooked where you want it. That's why you don't want it overcooked.

Christa DeMercurio:
Right. Then it's for both of them.

Chef Cal:
You practice. That's when they have to practice. And I'd say, you know, probably. Well, it depends, because, you know, that fillet, how thick is it? You know, the tenderloin towards the tail part is two to, you know, two inches, all the way down to an inch, and the other side goes from 3 inches up to 4. So it depends on where you're at. But whatever beef that you're using, trim that until it's the same diameter all the way across.

Christa DeMercurio:
So it's a cylinder?

Chef Cal:
Yeah, so it's a cylinder shape. Then you're going to wrap that with this mushroom duxelles, which you've laid out, allowed to cool, so it's really pliable, almost like paper. You know, you're wrapping it around. And then once that's done, refrigerate it. I'd refrigerate it each time. And then pull out your pastry, set it on your pastry, and then roll it up in that pastry. Go ahead and seal it, Put a garnish on top, brush it with a variety of things. Butter, you can brush it with milk, you know, whatever you would normally brush a pie top with, and then roast that off.

Chef Cal:
And again, the goal is to get that beautiful brown, you know, crispy texture on the outside and just that perfectly cooked filet on the inside, which is normally going to be right around medium, you know, 135 degrees.

Christa DeMercurio:
So before going on to fillet or doing a filet, start with brie, start with brie cheese. Practice wrapping that, breaking that first.

Chef Cal:
But, but you know, the Wellington, again, you know, I would say that in a 450 degree oven, you want it to be a higher temp because you want, you're going to need a higher temp in order to be able to brown and cook the pastry, but you want a lot of heat in there to be able to make sure that the meat is cooking inside. So, you know, again, it's something I probably practice. As long as the meat is the same trim. As long as the mushroom duxelles is the same thickness, as long as the pastry is also the same thickness, and it's rolled up nice and tight, shouldn't have any trouble.

Christa DeMercurio:
Now for our vegetarian friends, can you do a vegetable en'croute?

Chef Cal:
Yeah. I don't know what you'd wrap as far as what you'd want to put inside of it.

Christa DeMercurio:
Like a roast that. Let's say you want to do like some roasted carrots and potatoes.

Chef Cal:
Yeah. Roast some root vegetables and turn those into some sort of a mush kind of a thing. Let that cool off. I put some binding agent in there, probably some eggs or something, maybe some panade or some bread crumbs. Roll, you know, get that in. You need to be a pliable mixture and then set that on there and then just go through the. The same process. Anyway, hey, yeah, if you want a vegetarian Wellington, give it a shot.

Chef Cal:
Give me a call and let me know how it turned out.

Chef Cal:
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 we'll be with you again next week with food, flavor and fun right here on Cooking Like a Pro Podcast.