I’m gonna be quoting Borat to my grandchildren, and they’re just gonna be like, “No one likes you, virtual cloud grandpa whose consciousness was uploaded when you died in 2042.” Welcome to “Mythical Kitchen” where dreams begin with one letter. They see that true creativity comes from constraint. Once you really drill down into that myopic, that one thing to focus on, that is when you can really flourish. For instance, in the Eurovision Song Contest 2022, every single country has to pick just one song. And that is how Norway ends up with the absolute banger, “Before that wolf eats your grandma, give that wolf a banana,” is the chorus. Sorry, I watched Eurovision. I got really obsessed, but that is why we are cooking with all foods that start with the letter J today. Why J? Because every kiss begins with J. It’s the only pickup line I got. Don’t take that from me. So let’s get to it. We’ve broken the recipe down to three distinct steps, I think, eh, right there, we got a full… Not even… Do we have a… Why would we have a full written recipe? What are you gonna go out there and buy a jackfruit, a Jerusalem artichoke, some jocoque, a jalapeno, some jicama, some jasmine rice and some jerky? Let’s get cooking. A portion of today’s video is brought to you by the letter J. We gotta put the letter J in there. Are you missing high quality letters in your life? Well, might I suggest J. J uses organic, sustainable, grass fed J, and they’re doing it just like the old ways that they used to with J. So if you go to j.com with enter code “mythical kitchen” then you can get 10% off your next J. The rules are I can only cook with J foods. We haven’t taken too many liberties with what starts with a J. You’ll see what I’m talking about. And salt and water. So, hey, let’s start using that salt and water early. I’m gonna take some hot water. I’m gonna put it in this blender. That seems right. Hot water and a blender seems like a good idea, which probably… Anyways, and then we’re gonna take some jerky. Whoa, I should tell you what I’m making. Right now I’m gonna start making risotto with jasmine rice and jerky stock with Japones chiles. And then I’m going to turn all of that into a risotto using my Jarlsberg, and my jocoque, and my jamon. Why are we doing this? I don’t know, man. It’s fun though. We’re gonna pop this on. I’m gonna start it slow so as to not totally burn my eyeballs out. Slowly, slowly, beef jerky. Okay, the beef jerky is angry. Beef jerky does not wanna be blended, but it will blend. Jerky, you will blend. There we go. So we’re trying to make what I’m calling a spicy beef jerky stock right here. So jerky is just dried beef, we can all agree on that. And so, take this and I’m gonna… Holy sh, you know, that got me. Ah, Ah! Man, I’m so used to working with Tony C’s that I normally, like, guard myself when that happens, but not this time. Right to the lungs. So we got a pan heating right now. Anytime you’re making rice, I know what you’re saying, “Josh, isn’t traditional risotto made with Carnaroli rice, which is a short grain, similar to sushi rice?” Yes, it sure is. We’re using jasmine rice, you know why? Cause it? starts with a J. Starts with? Do it like you actually mean it this time. Because it? Starts with a J. Starts with J God, it’s hard to find good work around here. We’re gonna toast up our rice here. It’s gonna get it nice and aromatic, and then we’re gonna take our jamon, and we’re gonna use that. Typically, you might use it on a pancetta. Some people add bacon to a risotto. Something like that, let’s get a little pork fat toasted in there with the rice. Well, we’re using jamon. Why? Because starts with a J. Starts with a J, that’s right! We’re doing it. And constraints are how you breed creativity. And I think this is gonna taste really good because Jarlsberg cheese, bro, I grew up on Jarlsberg. I feel like Jarlsberg peaked in 1987, and boomer dads love Jarlsberg. Also, Kaukauna cheese balls. Those are the two official cheeses of boomer dads. The goal of risotto is to add your liquid gradually, and then you constantly stir it around, extracting the starch from the… Oh, it’s so spicy. The starch from the rice, and that’s what’s gonna make it creamy. So you don’t even need any cheese or dairy products to make it creamy. But good news, We got ’em anyway, ’cause we’re gonna add that in there. ‘Cause we’re actually eventually gonna be making arancini, which is day old risotto that you form into a ball, and then you crust it and you deep fry it. And boy, what a delight. It’s like a fancy Italian tater tot. You shave your mustache, you might look like an Italian. I’m gonna be quoting Borat to my grandchildren. And they’re just gonna be like, “No one likes you, virtual cloud grandpa whose consciousness was uploaded when you died in 2042.” All right, so we got the risotto. It’s part cooked. It’s fully done right here. And then now I’m taking jocoque. Jocoque, why are we using this? ‘Cause it starts with a letter J. You guys are getting it! Come on, jocoque is actually a really cool product. It’s like a Mexican cultured cream. Some people think that it came from the Lebanese influence with, what’s that food that I really like? Labneh, with labneh. But it is kind of like a combination of like Mexican crema and American sour cream. And it’s really delightful. So we’re gonna use it to add a little bit more dairy punch in there. Then we’re gonna add some of this Jarlsberg cheese. Jarlsberg is a fantastic Norwegian cheese. Mm, all right, so we’re just gonna finish this risotto. It’s gonna get nice and cheesy. Look, this is smelling all kinds of spicy. Now, we’re gonna take this, we’re gonna chill it down, and then we’re gonna form it into our little cheesy rice balls. And bro, we got so many other foods that start with J. It’s a lot. Come on, come on, let’s get the other side, just get, just get… We got a jackfruit that starts with a J. Welcome. We see all the seed pods here, this little yellow part, little yellow sticky part, you peel away. Jackfruit is one of my favorite things. I grew up eating it in Little Saigon. Shout out, Orange County. Where’s Mindy and Maggie at? Woo. I believe it’s called qua mit in Vietnamese. Most people start eating it as a meat substitute. I always eat fresh jackfruit pods and they are delicious. They’re really sweet. Kinda got this like banana, bubble gummy kinda like candyish qualities to them. I think it would be a really great base for a sauce. So that’s gonna get combined with Jagermeister. Whoever decided to give me a machete, great call. This is fun. It was you. Good call, Josh. Way to go, man. High five, jackfruit. There had to be a better way to do this but I don’t know it. So I’m just grabbing at it. Wait, gotta thumb it A well placed thumb goes a long way. Oh God, it’s so sticky. Oh, it tastes so good though. Wow, all right, so I’m gonna remove… They got big old seeds in them. I’m gonna chuck ’em into a pot, a little bit of water. Water starts with a J. And then jam, jam starts with a J, and no, there’s no word that comes before jam that makes this jam. This is simply plain flavored jam. We got the plain flavor. My favorite flavor of jam. Also, hey, if you like J foods, might I suggest checking out some more J foods over at sporked.com. They got rankings for jerky, jarred Alfredo sauce with a J, and ginger beer which doesn’t start with a J but the Ukrainian metal band called Jinjer does start with a J, and they do good. This is so sticky. Oh my God. Would you look at that. Speaking of sticky, sometimes drink a bunch of Jager if you wake up sticky and you don’t know where it came from and you don’t know what you’re doing. And you’re in Belgium and you were buying a bunch of shots of Jager for like one euro from like a 16 year old on the street. That’s just a real story, it happened to me. But we’re gonna add some Jager to this pot. We’re trying to make like a sweet sauce to go on the base of our arancini here. I’m gonna start ripping out some more jackfruit pods. Guys, I really bungled the opening of this jackfruit. I just really wanted to hack at it a bunch. We’re gonna add that there. Little pinch of salt, I got a bunch of jackfruit stickiness in the salt. That’s my bad. And then gimme about… Hold on, all right, hold on. Gotta rip at it, there you go. Another jackfruit pod, where’s the seed? I mean you gotta thumb the seed out and then just, pop. Aww. Did you get it? Hey, do you know why like we’re cooking with J? ‘Cause Josh. All right, we got our glaze. We got all that jam, Jager, and jackfruit. It smells like we had the weirdest night. We’re gonna go ahead and we’re just gonna pop that in a blender and then we’re gonna blend it up, the jackfruit. All that stickiness should add some nice body ’cause you go head, body, head, body the fighter. Trevor, what are we? I’m Josh. And I’m Trevor. And we’re? Wicked Spa. Marky Mark and Funky Bunch, come on. All right, so we’re just gonna blend this up. There we go, that’s looking nice. Hold on Hold on. Well, get a little fresh Jager in there. That’s beautiful. It’s kind of good. I mean the Jager, listen, listen, listen, listen, Jagermeister, we’ve had our differences in the past because you canceled Chowdermeister, my all you can eat chowder and Jagermeister festival that was ill fated. However, I will say Jagermeister. It tastes really good. It’s a lovely German digestif and it just recently became known as the official alcohol of douchebags. But I think we should take it back. And I think it takes this douchebag to do it. We’re gonna strain this off and then we’re gonna continue to reduce it down until it gets nice and syrupy. Here, we’re just… Base of a machete, kind of stir that around, there we go. Now it’s gonna be a nice, smooth sauce. This is a classic French cooking technique and we’re gonna continue to reduce it. And then we’re gonna fry up some balls and make another thing with more J foods. How many J foods do we have? How far down the rabbit hole do we go? Find out. Oh, we have too many J things and now I’m overwhelmed. We got our jasmine rice, Jarlsberg, jamon, Japones chiles, risotto. We got more Jarlsberg. We got jicama. We got jalapeno. We’re doing this into a quick little side, but hey, first of all we also got Jerusalem artichokes, which Trevor was over here naysaying, saying those are called sunchokes but they’re actually called fartichokes because they really do make you go to boom boom town in your pants if you eat too many of them. And I literally didn’t believe that. And I heard somebody say that and then I tried it and it really does happen that way. But it’s a lovely little root vegetable and we’re just gonna make some Jerusalem artichoke chippies to add to it like a textural contrast. I know what you’re saying, “Josh, what do you mean textural contrast? You’re doing a deep fried thing and putting more deep fried things on it.” Hell yeah, brother. I’m just gonna take these. I’m gonna pop ’em in there. You you don’t even gotta skin again. I am overwhelmed. We’re taking jaggery, organic jaggery whole. We’re gonna add some organic jaggery whole. This is a really awesome unrefined cane sugar from India. It’s used in a lot of Indian sweets. You can just take it and you can just scrape some of that sugar in there. Yeah, this worked a lot better in my head, dude. This worked way better. Hold on. All right, I just shaved plastic into it. I shaved plastic. Are those burning yet? Hold on. Full disclosure, never worked with jaggery before but I wanted to add some sweetness to the sauce. There we go. Here, I’m just gonna take some of that. What the hell, shoot, man. Here, we’re gonna massage some salt into the jicama, jalapeno jicama. They sold jicama sticks in my high school. That was how I was introduced to jicama. Great story, Josh. Really adding some flavor to the episode. Thanks man, I appreciate you. You know, if you can’t love yourself, you can’t give yourself compliments. We’re adding lime Jell-O. I don’t know what that’s gonna do to it, but we’re doing it. It’s gonna add some flavor and then we’re gonna take a little bit of water, thin it out. It shouldn’t turn into jello though, right? Right? Because you need heat to activate the gelatin, so it should just give it a little bit of that like gelatin stink. All right, so we got our Shamrock Shake-ass looking relish right here. It’s gonna add some nice pops of color mostly green with a little bit of brown. Now, we’ll start frying up our rice balls. So I like to dip my hands in water and I’m just gonna get a little pat of rice dough right here. We’re gonna fill it with a little cheese nugget. Typically, you would dredge these in breadcrumbs but breadcrumb don’t start with no J. If somebody can find me a language where bread crumbs is J, like jed crumbs. I think three is the right amount for a plate because a table of four comes in and then you get the arancini and then it shows up with three on there. And you’re like, “You didn’t think to tell me? You didn’t think to tell me? You know how many people are here. You didn’t think to tell me that it only comes with three?” And they go, “Oh, we can put in another order.” Then we have six, and then we repeat the problem. So we want this to sort of explode with all that Jarlsberg flavor. We’ve got the nice spiciness. We’ve got the saltiness from the jamon in there. And then we’re getting, you know, some nice tart crunchy bits from the relish, more crunchies from the Jerusalem artichokes that are super crunchy. They’re a little crunchy, that’s good. I didn’t think it would be, man. I thought I’d fudge that one up It’s stuck under your shirt. I thought the air vacuum… Are these the same size? One is always a little bit bigger than the other, and that’s so if you close your legs, one can slide past and they don’t just crush each other. All right, we’re gonna pop these in the fryer. We’re gonna let those go for about two minutes. Then we’re gonna pull it. Then we’re gonna plate it. We continued to reduce down the jackfruit, Jagermeister. What else was in that jam? So that was a cop out. The jam was a cop out. It’s apricot jam. That starts with an A. Well maybe it’s japricot jam and starts with the J. Make nice little sauce circles, for these balls to go on, the sauce is thick. This is a thick sauce. And even though we strained it, it is gritty. All right, nestle a ball in there. Always nestle the balls. Ooh. Sorry, man. Couldn’t help yourself, huh? No. Come on, couldn’t help myself. Look at that. Ben, could you help yourself around this? We’re just gonna add a couple little unhappy Jerusalem artichoke chips around here. Plating on here, not very inspired. Don’t know where I’m going, but we’re gonna do it. We’re gonna put a little bit of relish on top of each ball but it’s not gonna stay there because they are spheres. All right, now this is fully plated, let’s taste the food that I made for the first time. Oh, why is that so good? Why is that? All right, well, dang, we made a… Here, look at this, just clean it up a little bit. Yeah, I love that. Now, here we have all our foods with the letter, J. We got jocoque. We got jackfruit. We got jasmine rice. We got jam. We got jerky. We got Jagermeister, We got Jarlsberg, We got jamon, We got Japones chiles. That was a lot. I named a lot of them. And, yeah, jalapenos, that was the one I forgot. Son of a biscuit. All right, let’s go feed someone Cooking with the letter J, take eight. What’s up, KG? What’s up? You wanna eat some food? Yeah, I do All right, cool, cool, cool. Here, you take that. I’m gonna Spork you. You were in here watching me make it. Do you have any predictions on what this is gonna taste like? I hope it kind of tastes like a mozzarella stick. ‘Cause I love mozzarella sticks. It’s kinda like that. I think you’re gonna be excited. All right, let me try and get it on. Hold on. They kind of look like the hush puppies. Yeah, it’s got some hush puppy-es qualities. So I’m getting you extra of that Jager sauce. You’re gonna put the whole thing? You can take it with your hands. You don’t need to eat it off this fork. Also, I never tried it on camera. Ooh. Oh Lord. Wow. I just did a pull. How do you like it? I got the whole cheese in my mouth. Is it everything you wanted? Yeah, I think even more. I will say the soggy Jager bottom, I don’t know about that. I don’t know but maybe the sauce is best served on the side. The sauce was kind of good. It is good. KJ, thank you so much for stopping by. J, her name’s KG. Like she’s a big KJ Apa fan, I assume. Sure, yeah. Who isn’t? Thank you, KG. Thank you so much. And thank you all so much for stopping by the “Mythical Kitchen.” We got new episodes for you every week. We got new episodes of our podcast, “A Hot Dog is a Sandwich” wherever you get your podcasts. Hit us up on Instagram, @mythicalkitchen. with pictures of your mythical dishes under hashtag #DreamsBecomeFood. We’ll see you all next time. Hey, you, cook up your own feast while wearing the “Mythical Kitchen” apron. Available now at mythical.com.