- This is your brain on Mythical Kitchen. Well-informed and entertained is what we’d say. (groovy music) – You all know how I feel about box items, it’s a fast way to cook a meal at home. But, there are more creative ways to use Ritz than what’s on the back of the box. – So today, Josh and I are each gonna make our own recipes, and find out which one belongs on the back of the box. – It’s time for… – [Both] Unbox Recipe! – So today, I am gonna be using these Ritz crackers to crust a chicken fried steak. – And I’m gonna be using the same Ritz crackers to make a chorizo pot pie. – The same ones that are on my steak, she’s gonna wipe ’em off and put ’em on her pot pie. – Just grab ’em and throw ’em. – It’s like composting, but it’s in my body. I compost inside myself. All right, Nicole, so we’re making a chicken fried steak covered with Ritz, but first we gotta take stock of what we’re going against, ’cause Ritz got some really advanced recipes on the back of the box. They advise for family game night, pizza sauce, mozzarella, pepperoni and Italian seasoning. – That’s crazy. – They advise for book club, cream cheese, strawberry preserves, and toasted almonds. – I love that. – Why don’t we have a book club? – ‘Cause I don’t read. – Can you read? – I can, but I choose not to. – I wanna read the Vagin du Monologues. It’s French. So chicken fried steak, right? We’re taking a whole steak, most of the time chicken fried steak is done with what’s called a cube steak, which means it’s mechanically tenderized, but you have to be the mechanical bull tender, tenderize it. So what I’m doing to kinda mimic the mechanical tenderization of a steak is I’m actually gonna kinda score it, and then I’m gonna beat the hell out of it. All right, so now we’re gonna take the steak, and we’re just gonna wrap it in this, Nicole, do you feel comfortable beating the crap out of that steak? – Obviously. – So normally I’d use a hot sauce puddle as a meat tenderizer, but I like using this, because you basically wanna get as many little pockmarks into that steak as possible, right, because that’s actually gonna absorb all the coating. Hey, speaking of coating! We’re gonna use Ritz crackers. I’m using about two sleeves, there’s 35 Ritz crackers in each sleeve, and there’s about 170 Ritz crackers inside my body right now, because I ate a lot of ’em yesterday. Do you like Ritz? – I love Ritz with a little touch of mascarpone, and a drizzle of clover honey. – Ooh, oh my god, you’re so bougie! If you learned how to read, you could totally bring that to a book club. So I got the Ritz in here, instead of using flour, typically you’d go flour, and then into some sort of egg mixture, and then back into flour, but I have Ritz in here. And you could totally throw ’em in the food processor, but I’m just gonna go palm heel strike. (slamming) Nicole, you can learn self defense from me. – I did Krav Maga for a year. – You didn’t do no Krav Maga! – Of course I did! – Krav Maga me. I’m an attacker coming at you with a meat mallet. (screams) – And then you just go bam, and then, no, you have to go for the neck first, actually, so the first thing you do is ha, ah! – All right, now you come at me with a meat mallet. Let’s use our words to talk this out! Anyways, with only 60 palm heel strikes, you get perfectly crushed Ritz. – That looks like a food processor did that. Wow. – That looks pretty good to me. – That looks really good. – [Josh] You wanna check the temperature? – [Nicole] We’re at 342. – 342, that’s great, drop it, drop it, drop it! Wait, wait, (indistinct), okay. Steak, it’s all covered in our salt, and so, instead of using any flour, I’m actually gonna go straight into the cracker crumbs, and this is actually an important step when you do this, you really wanna mash it into the steak, because that is going to actually absorb some of the moisture coming off. Then I’m gonna go straight into that egg white mixture. So now I’m gonna go ahead, and you wanna get most of these Ritz on here. We have about 70 Ritz crackers, and from what I found, it takes about 56 Ritz crackers to crust a 12 ounce steak. This is actually more akin to I’d say like a milanesa. – [Nicole] I’m excited to see what’s gonna happen. – When you chicken fry a steak, you can shallow fry it. You can also deep fry it. But to me, I like getting some little like kind of brown flavor crispy bits on the bottom, which when I turn over, it should be magically brown and crispy, or it’s burnt. Find out. – [Nicole] Crispy, crispy, crispy, crispy! Wow, look at that, I love that. – We’re taking a healthy meal of chicken fried steak, mashed potatoes and gravy. And we’re making it just a little bit richer with the magic of Ritz. And you can take that to your book club. Nicole, what are you doing? – We’re not starting that again. – I’m not starting anything. – I’m not gonna respond to your body movement. Take this, put it in here. – What are you doing? – Oh, I’m making a pie dough out of Ritz crackers. We’re gonna fortify our pie, just gonna be a classic, all butter pie dough. But ours is gonna have the beautiful buttery flavor. Who gives you permission to act this way? – The sad thing is, is this isn’t like a bit, this is how I cook at home. And I feel like you know that. Yesterday I was eating a salad and I didn’t have any salad dressing. So I just put hot sauce and mayonnaise on it. And I didn’t want to dirty a fork, so I tossed it with my hands, but you couldn’t just toss it ’cause there’s straight mayonnaise in it. So I had to mash the mayonnaise into the lettuce with my hands. – So weird. – No, I don’t, you know, you gotta like massage. It’s like massaging kale, right? – Josh, look at this, wow. We’re gonna put about half a cup in there. – How much crackers is that? – That’s a sleeve and a half of crackers. How much is in a sleeve? – 35. So a sleeve and a half is 52.5 Ritz crackers. – Yes. Sure. But we’re gonna use about a quarter cup of it. – Why’d you blend all of it? – ‘Cause we’re gonna use more later. – I don’t follow. – You just stay there. You just look pretty. And then we’re gonna take all purpose flour. I understand some people do. And a little bit of sugar, we’re not adding any salt to this. – Nicole, how does this differ from a normal pie dough? – There’s Ritz crackers in there. – Oh. – Silly. – All right. – And I’m using specifically Kerrygold Irish butter. ‘Cause it’s the butteriest butter to have ever buttered. – Glad we’re going to do the Ritz cracker pie. – What does that mean? Is that another fricking reference that I don’t understand? – Do you have anything for me to do? – Yeah, yeah, yeah, you’re gonna put the butter, take the butter. – I need to be entertained like a toddler. – Touch the butter. – Do you have any games on your phone? – Touch the butter, Josh. How cold is that butter? – This is the coldest butter I’ve ever felt. Not another butter has come close to as cold as this butter. – So you’re gonna take your butter. – Why are you using Kerrygold Irish butter? – Because it’s the butteriest butter to have ever been buttered. Now mash it in there. – Hehe, “butt.” Okay. So we’re using a dough cutter to cut the butter in, right? – Are you gonna make a Wolverine reference? You’re not gonna make a Wolverine reference? – What’s Wolverine? – This! – Michigan? – Oh my god! – Oh, Wolferine. – You honestly make me suffer. – Oh, Huge Ackman? Played by the huge ackman. That’s right. Not the small ackman. The Hugh Jackman. – I like to also go in and use my hands to kind of like sand it like this. – [Josh] Okay, it’s kind of like the same, like I do the same thing when I make flour tortillas. – Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Now I’m gonna slowly add in some ice cold water and you’re just gonna mix, mix, mix, mix. Mix like you mean it. – I mean it, I mean it! – No, you don’t. – What’s the Krav Maga technique? Ah, I’m gonna kick you in the nuts! – Now we’re just gonna flatten this out into a little disk. – You ever gotten into a fight? – No, no, no, no, no. I don’t think I should tell. – Well now’s your platform. – No, no, no. So we’re gonna let this hang out, put this in the fridge for 30 minutes while we make our stew, and Josh, what are you gonna do now? – Got it to crackers. We’re making mashed potatoes. We’re gonna actually infuse the cream with the Ritz crackers ’cause why not, we’re here. We got like, you guys don’t see, we got like 900 Ritz over there. I mean, I’m gonna go full kidney stones after this. You know they say that giving kidney stones is the same as giving birth? Do you ever have to watch the live birth videos for health class? – No. I just watched one for my own entertainment. I need to be an educated woman. What are you talking about? – You don’t read, but you watch, eh, whatever. So we’re gonna boil the potatoes. We’re gonna strain them. And then now I am gonna start heating a little milk. – This is hard labor. – Oh my God. I’m sorry you have to work at your job. Wow, Nicole. I’m sorry, no, go sit down, Trevor, you’re new Nicole. Good job. – [Trevor] Okay. – Fudge! You want to drop all those potatoes in that water? Or do you want Trevor or do you want me to do it? – [Nicole] No, I can do it. – So we have some milk heating on the pot. Just add the butter straight to the milk. That’s gonna be a nice little buffer. And then we’re just gonna start winging in crackers. All right, so you need about seven crackers into your bowl. We’re just trying to infuse that like signature Ritz butter artificial flavors. You’ve got the real butter in there, but the flavor of butter in Ritz. – No, I agree with you. – Butterier than butter. – Butterier than Kerrygold butter. – Naw. – Come on, I got a secret ingredient to go in the mashed potatoes. – Really? What is it? – Mayonnaise, make mayonnaise taters. What we’re doing as they’re baking is we’re trying to slowly render out the fat because we’re gonna use that as the base of our gravy. It’s gonna be good. It’s gonna be heavy. – Yeah, but every now and then, you need to have something like, you know, sticks to your ribs. – Yeah. Yeah. Cause normally, you know, I’m eating like salads and I’ll have a little cup of yogurt and 175 Ritz. So we’re gonna go ahead and we’re gonna take this bacon, just gonna put it in a thing. So we’re using a bit of an unconventional gravying method. – I’m not surprised. – Conventional gravying would say that you’re supposed to use flour, but we’re gonna use some Ritz cracker flour. – The one I made? – Yeah, I steal your prep. – Oh, fine, that’s okay, you’re my boss, whatever. – So what we’re gonna do is we’re gonna add the Ritz flour to the fat butter, but the butt, the butt, butter butt. So now we have a roux created, and we’re just gonna pour in all of our milk at once. Let me add a little bit of salt to that gravy. And then I’m gonna add a whole lot of pepper because black pepper is really great in a cream gravy for mashed taters. – Now what do I do? – So my preferred method for mashed potatoing isn’t just to mash the potatoes with a potato masher, it’s actually to put through a potato ricer or a food mill. It’s gonna extrude the potatoes and kind of crush ’em up into a fine potato bulb. Oftentimes when you mash potatoes, you can really overwork them. And then the starch makes it get gluey. Yeah, yeah, dump it right in the pat. – I can’t do it. – Okay. Switch, you whisk the gravy. This is your brain on Mythical Kitchen. Well-informed and entertained, is what I’m saying. All right. So we’re gonna scoop up these are snacking potatoes. This is what we call them in the business, call ’em Scooby Snacks. I need this. So you can take your gravy whisk, you want to don’t rinse it off ’cause you want the gravy to perfume the potatoes, and then you’re gonna take the potatoes. And then you’re simply gonna whisk those together. – You want mayonnaise in there? – Yeah, yeah, squirt. Go ahead. Keep going. A little more. That’s good. So you want about two tablespoons of mayonnaise per three potatoes. You don’t want to add it in the heat ’cause mayonnaise can separate in the heat. So I just want the latent potato heat to gently warm the mayonnaise. Now, why not? – Want some black pepper in there? – Don’t touch me. We took the bacon bits that we rendered out. We added in the mashed potatoes. That’s it, that’s the dish. Are you proud of me? – I’m so proud of you. – I can read. – Yeah, I know. – Sometimes, not from far away. – So we’re gonna make the filling for our chorizo pie. So I’m gonna take a whole log of beef chorizo. – I need a spa day. – All you do is make fun of me, that’s all you do! – We have a good relationship. – So I’m gonna render off my chorizo, I’m gonna let all of the oil cook out of it and have all of the meat start fixing up. – Can you tell me what is chorizo? – Chorizo is all of the icky parts of the animal. So like thymus gland, snout, maybe a little bit of skin, maybe a little bit of flat meat that nobody wants to eat. You take that and you mix it with a bunch of spices and garlic and paprika. And you don’t even notice that you’re eating thymus glands. – This is a great pot pie recipe, it seems like. Do you want me to start throwing aromatics in? – [Nicole] Yeah, go for it. – I like this ’cause you’re getting all the classic kinda aromatic pot pie flavors, you get the onion, you’re getting the carrots. And then I like the little twist of bell pepper instead of doing celery, it’s kind of tying together the flavors of the chorizo, smart. – You’re picking up what I’m putting down. – Clever girl. – Clever girl. – [Josh] What are you doing? Oh, Nicole, do you know a great way to get the garlic out of its peel? – I’m gonna let you do it, but I’m just prepping you for it. – Nicole, use your Krav Maga training, kick that garlic right in the nuts. – I don’t know if I can lift my leg up that high. I did it. Oh my god, I did it. – I hate that that worked. Palm heel strike, palm heel strike, palm heel strike! – So now I’m gonna add some flour. We’re gonna save a little bit. – You, I noticed, have a lot more colors in your dish. – I like to use a lot of colors, I like eating my colors. – It’s very pretty. – Aw, thanks! – I like to use 50 shades of brown. Well, I noticed you’re using Himalayan pink sea salt. – Okay, so I love using pink salt in things, ’cause I’m just fancy like that. – Is there any difference to pink Himalayan sea salt? – No, absolutely not. – Why does Gwyneth Paltrow recommend you put it in the Vagin du Monologues? – Gwyneth Paltrow’s her own woman, she can do whatever she wants. – On Gwyneth Paltrow’s website, on Goop, there was a person called like the nutritional medium. He claims that his dead friend told him that celery juice is a cure-all. – Yeah, I remember. – Wild. – It’s like the Jilly Juice. You know about Jilly Juice? – Yeah, it turns Harry Potter into a fish. – That’s Polyjuice Potion. I’m gonna add like a cup of beef broth. You can add half a cup of milk. The white. Yeah, perfect. – Actually I like the equal parts milk and stock. I do that with a lot of soups too. ‘Cause like I want the animal flavor of the chicken juice, but I also want the creamy of the cow teets. – Look how beautiful that is. You know what you can do, Darling, you can go get the pie dough from- – She called me “Darling.” – Yeah, I’m sorry. Can you get that pie dough over there? – Yeah. – Perfect. – What’s this? – That’s a serrano pepper for another- – I found it. – It’s not for you. I’m putting it into my pouch. – It’s not for you, it’s not for you. – It’s my mayonnaise pouch. It’s a pepper pouch. – Okay. Roll it out. Properly. – I hate French rolling pins so much. I hate French rolling pins. I call ’em freedom rolling pins. I got it. – It’s okay if it breaks apart a little bit. – I just want to feel heard, Nicole. When I say that I don’t like this rolling pin, I want you to sympathize with me. I want you to say that “I too have felt strong feelings about rolling pins.” I don’t need you to solve my problems. – Ryan, is this normal? – Don’t bring Ryan into this! So are you doing a bottom crust on this pot pie? – No way. No way. – Out of the question, that’d be crazy. Two crusts on a pie? Whoever heard of that? No one ever heard of such a thing. – No, I think we’re just gonna, we’re gonna fill these cute, beautiful obsessed with soup bowls. Look at this with a handle. So you’re just gonna go ahead and cut kind of right over there. We want a little bit of spillage because we want the crust to kind of like lay on top of the bowl. Like really beautifully. See how it kind of left indentation? Yeah, yeah, yeah. See, that’s why I love these bowls. So it’s okay if your pastry crust kind of like does that, it’s not a big deal. – [Josh] We got two vent holes. – How about we do this all over again and then put it in the oven for about maybe 15 minutes at 400 and then have it pop out and be really beautiful? – Or she’ll kick you in the ‘nads. – Nicole, you’ve got nice colors and vibrant flavors. Mine’s mostly butter and red meat and crackers. Just wanted to establish that. – But I think, but listen, I don’t think you should put yourself down. I think your mashed potatoes look lovely. I think your gravy looks lovely. And I think your chicken fried steak, Ritz cracker abomination is also lovely. – It’s not an abomination, it’s an abombination, like that’s bomb. So typically, you would put the chicken fried steak, maybe on the mashed potatoes, put the gravy on top of that. But what I wanna do is I wanna put- – You’re making a layer cake. – I’m making a little bit of a layer cake. Kind of a little hidden, like a lava cake, a little hidden thing of gravy, I’m just gonna put some of that in there, it’s really hot right now but it’s gonna solidify up. – Wow, stunning. – [Josh] Gonna take the chicken fried steak and just kinda, that’s a classic French plating technique. – Le smoosh. – And then we’re just gonna drizzle a lot of that gravy on top. Little boat. – [Nicole] That’s your rap name, Lil’ Gravy Boat. – I’m gonna crush some crackers on top and get a little bit more brown on there. – [Nicole] Wow, for texture? – Yeah, yeah, for cracker. Could you give me another cracker? Thanks. Go ahead and just kind of, there we go. And then, a single leaf of parsley, just on the side of the plate. It’s not gonna make it. – No, put it somewhere, put it somewhere. With intention. Wow. Classy. – We have made, look at, wow. – Guys, look at my pretty soup. – Oh wow, that looks just like the one you put in. – [Nicole] It’s called television magic. – TV magic. – So I’m gonna take a little bit of canola oil. – Oh, I forgot you’re doing this, this is cool, you should watch. – So what I’m making is a Ritz gremolata. So gremolata’s just a fancy word for flavorful breadcrumbs. So I’m just gonna take a little bit of canola oil, and I’m gonna put my Ritz crackers, I’m gonna let them fry in there. – I don’t like that you get to use a different language to describe your dish, ’cause mine is just like “cracker fried steak.” – Yeah, sucks to suck. – Steak milanesa con tortilla de Ritz. Bravo. – [Nicole] So now that these are toasty and beautiful and roasted. – Typically in a gremolata you’d be using breadcrumbs. – Yeah, but I’m using Ritz. – Love it. – Yeah, so then I’m gonna take a little bit of lime, I’m gonna zest it, and then I’m just gonna put it in there. And I’m gonna take my garlic clove, and I’m also gonna- – Did you know that garlic is technically a bush? – Are you being serious right now? – No, I feel like I was gonna say something useful, I was gonna say you can peel garlic with the skin on. – Can I have that serrano in your pouch? – Oh, now you come for the pepper pouch. There you go, kid. I was gonna say you can grate garlic with the skin on, ’cause it’s just gonna shred the skin, and you just get the actual garlic meat in there. – I took a little bit of serrano and I just chopped it up, and I’m just gonna toss it together, wow, look at that. And I’m just gonna sprinkle some on there. And wow. – That is lovely, I love that little pop of color, just like mine, it’s very colorful. There’s a lot of brown. When you’re cooking with Ritz crackers, what else do you expect? – I think we should try these. – I think we should eat these. – Yeah, and I’m gonna beat you, ’cause mine’s gonna go on the back of the box. – I wanna dip my steak in your soup. Not like that. (dramatic music) Nicole, we have your beautiful chorizo Ritz pot pie, we have my slightly less beautiful, but equally impressive- – I think it’s beautiful. – [Josh] I think this is a hearty plate of food. – [Nicole] Where’d your parsley go? – I sucked the gravy off the parsley and threw it away, that’s actually what happened. I decided I wanted it unadorned, just in its normal, natural, beauty. We have to decide who we’re eating first, so go ahead and break this Ritz in half. Ah, we’re eating mine first. – I’m so excited to eat this. – I am, too. Find the gravy pocket. It’s still warm, the gravy’s still hot and molten. – [Nicole] Wow, happy birthday. – Happy birthday to me. Did you know the internet has my birthday wrong, so everyone thinks I’m an Ares, and I get so many DMs that are just like “Of course you’re an Ares,” and I’m like “A Taurus!” – You’re such a Taurus. Mmm. – That butter, baby. – I think I just ate three Ritz. – You taste the crackers. – Oh, big time. – But the steak actually comes through really well for me. It’s good we’re using a strip steak, it’s a good quality steak. Chicken fried well, the little bit of bacon really adds it and the mashed potatoes, maybe I like mashed potatoes, who knew? – Josh, this is a revelation. I know I’ve been saying this the whole time, but I’m so impressed, because I was like “This ain’t gonna work, this is gonna be nasty.” This is phenomenal, it’s crazy. – It almost preserves the essence of the Ritz, because there are so few other flavors other than starch, meat, and Ritz. – [Nicole] I couldn’t agree with you more. – I’m really excited to try yours, though, ’cause you got a little bit of freshness, little bit of spice, little bit of acid in there. – Yeah, we got some fun stuff going on in here. – Do you just, is it like a? – I like to go in the center, and just scoop. – Ata! That is a satisfying crunch. I was a little dubious on whether you could just use Ritz to wow… – If you put a little bit of TLC in there, it’s a good crust. It’s good, huh? – It’s like if you broke down a bunch of crackers and then reformed them with more butter. – What a cool texture. – You know what the first thing I get is? Cracker. No, it’s actually the lime zest, the lime zest comes through so much, whereas this is all Ritz, all the time, and a lot of animal fat, this is actually using spice and acid, and those little bit of aromatic touches are very clever, the Ritz gremolata. – Mm-hm, you get that little serrano pop, and it works with the buttery gremolata. – That’s pretty spicy, whereas this is kinda like leaning, turning your wheels in the direction of the skid, this is turning your wheels away from the direction of the skid, and right into some serrano peppers. – [Nicole] Stunning. – This is gorgeous. But, we have to decide which is a winner, and which one deserves to go on the back of the box. Which one would you rather eat while reading the Vagin du Monologues in your book club like Ritz suggested? – Should we put our hands over it? – Yeah. – Three, two, one, book club! – This is a great, book club, because here’s the thing, this is elegant, it’s a little spicy, and you’re getting so much complexity from all the citrus and the aromatics in that. I still absolutely love this dish. – I think your dish is phenomenal, well-seasoned, beautiful, but I think this one just has a little bit something extra. – Yeah, this one’s more for a season premiere party. – [Nicole] Or a family game night. I’m a book club, or a birthday party girl. – I’m a backyard BBQ. If you think Ritz should put this recipe on the back of the box, tweet @RitzCrackers with #UnboxRecipe. Thank you so much for stopping by the Mythical Kitchen, we got new recipes for you every week, we got new episodes of our podcast, “A Hot Dog is a Sandwich” every Wednesday, wherever you get your podcasts. Hit us up on Instagram @MythicalKitchen with pictures of your Mythical dishes, under #DreamsBecomeFood. See you all next time. Nicole, I’ma dip my steak in your soup. – Go for it. – [Josh] Make your kitchen more Mythical with these stickers and magnets, now available at Mythical.com.