Yeah! I’m like the little kid in “NeverEnding Story.” Just like, yeah! Every home cook has that one dish they’re more confident in than any other. That one dish that they know can truly compete with the pros, or can it? Today, one imposter chef takes on two highly professional Mythical chefs, to see if they got what it takes to blend in with the pros in a blind taste test. So everybody, please welcome today’s contestant, the imposterous, the preposterous, the swole, the smosh, Shayne Topp. Hi. Wow. He’s on “The Goldbergs”. I am on “The Goldbergs”. That’s where I’m from. You know where else he’s from? You know. Okay. It’s a reference to Twitter. Not all of her fans follow us. Shayne, we asked you to pick one dish that you are better at making than anybody else in the world. What dish did you pick today? It’s a dish from my favorite cookbook in the whole world, one I’ve been cooking from for years now. Just the finest recipes. So good. It’s called, “The Culinary Bro-down,” by Josh Scherer. Now there’s a lot of great recipes in here. There’s a whole section of salads called, “Stuff Chicks Like.” Listen, that was ironic. That was a post-ironic title. That’s an essay about feminism. So there’s one recipe that goes above all else, and it is, smothered Dino Nuggets. Just absolute peak cooking. I mean this is a recipe unlike any other. You know, I was gonna maybe do a recipe from Molly Baz’s book, but I was like, no, I need something more refined. The funniest thing about this is, that you actually do cook. I love cooking, I really do. I cook all the time. I’m not great, but I think I’m pretty good. I’m probably close to Trevor. I feel like this is more like one professional chef versus two meme lords, but- I was gonna say, I think he dragged it down to my level. Like this is perfect for me. I am excited. Shayne, well, best of luck to y’all. We are going to have a judge blind taste test this to see if they can catch the imposter chef! What Shayne doesn’t realize, is that in the last seven years since I have published “The Culinary Bro-down Cookbook,” available at all major book retailers, I have been training tirelessly, effort-fully, to become at least three, maybe four times the cook, that I was back then. Also back then when I wrote that book, I was in like a weird mental health spiral. One of those ones right after college where you’re like, what is my place in the world? Can I actually pay my bills by doing my passion? Does this person actually love me, who I’ve been living with for the last couple of years? Even though you dedicated the book to her, you’re like, ooh, what if this doesn’t work out, and then it doesn’t. So, joke ultimately is on him. So we’re making dino nugget butter Maggiano. Again, I have refined my cooking, whereas the recipe Shayne-oh-God, is making, is based off of the animal style french fries from In-N-Out, this is based off of classical, Italian-American cookery. This is real Soprano’s era food, and when you think of classy people in the world, do you think of Tony Soprano as eating gabagool, right out the fridge, just trying to provide for his family, you know, and it doesn’t matter, you know. Sometimes people gotta do things that they’re not proud of. But you know what, ultimately Carmella, she’s taking care of me, and you got a little Anthony. Cool, so, we’re making a sauce right now, pretty classic. We are adding crushed tomatoes to garlic and onions sauteed in there, and a little bit of tomato paste just to thicken it, even though we are gonna reduce it down. We got a little bit of sugar to neutralize the acid in the tomatoes. We got a little bit of oregano and garlic powder. Gonna season it up with just a little bit of salt. We’re gonna wait for it to reduce to officially finish the seasoning and then we’re gonna drop in a whole nub. Fudge, that hurt. That got me, man. Something bit me! You guys remember when we had Tom Hanks in the show? That was super cool, speaking of Tom Hanks, Trevor does an incredible impression of Tom Hanks over on the Smosh “Funeral Roast” of me. I sat there in a casket, real uncomfortable for about two hours. My leg was cramping. Turns out the casket’s like not really load bearing, so it’s really weird to get into, and I didn’t figure out how to get out of it for a while. The “Funeral Roast” of myself comes out tomorrow, over on the Smosh channel, you should check that out. It is a very fun time. And I was worried that they’d find my secret insecurities and they didn’t, which is great. And I’m so glad that I’ve been able to hide those from a lot of people for many years. Speaking of insecurities, pesto. We’re gonna make some. I’m gonna take this lovely tomato sauce. I’m gonna add it on top of the dino nugs. Hit it with a little bit of pecorino Romano, broil some mozzarella on there, and then we’re gonna top it with a lovely, refreshing pesto. I think this is gonna really show the judge my classical training in Soprano-style cookery. So, we’re gonna palm real straight some garlic. I’m just gonna get one clove in there. We’re doing this in a mortar and pestle, because I did study abroad in Treviso, and this is how they make it there. I didn’t, I lied. I’m so sorry, God. And we’re gonna get some pine nuts going in there. We’re just gonna start crushing the garlic with the pine nuts and a little bit of salt. I’m gonna add some ice chips in there, ’cause it’s actually a really great way to preserve the chlorophyll in the basil. And that’s, you know, the little chefy step that I think I can take to really, truly, embarrass Shayne and Trevor. We’re not just trying to embarrass Shayne, but also Trevor, why? Because they have a lot of inside jokes on Twitter that I have no idea what the hell they’re talking about, and I get jealous of it sometime. Like, was Shayne on iCarly? Could you call up Miranda Cosgrove and she would be, like, “Oh my God, yeah?” No. No, okay. Yeah. Tom Hanks sent me a book. Cool! All right, so we’re adding ice chips and basil to the mortar and pestle, I’m gonna smash these up. I think I made up the thing about ice chips and chlorophyll. I don’t know why I had it in my mind, but Trevor like, lovingly bashed those up for me with a little rolling pin. So, thank you man. I appreciate that. And we’re gonna just grind it around like the Italian grandma. We’re waiting for that to go. I’m already bored and annoyed. Sorry Italia, I saw you physically recoil from that. Pecorino Romano, this is my favorite cheese, better than Parmesan. I know the dish is called chicken Parmesan. I call it chicken pecorino. Stupid idiot. Just gonna grate a mountain of this to have, ’cause I’m gonna put it on top of the chicken, but underneath the mozzarella. ‘Cause this mozzarella broils better than any other cheese I’ve ever met. And I’ve met a lot of cheeses, there we go. Annaliese, I have a question for you. Did you ever have an ironic praise cheeses shirt? No, Okay. Thank God. Yes, true. There we go, that is definitely not the kind of cheese you would put in a pesto, but here we are. Kind of making like a weird spinach-artichoke dip in this mortar and pestle. Oh, oh, you know what? Oh, it’s really nice. Hey, do we have a lemon? Good throw. No knife, there we go. Just gonna add a couple drops of lemon juice to it, just to brighten up that pesto. Beautiful, that should be good to go. Oh, clean your station, Josh. All right, this is all messed up. Take some of that sauce and ladle it right on top, fantastic. I’m gonna keep some of the dino nuggets exposed. That way they really know what kind of product they’re eating. It’s like the modernist interpretation of a roast chicken, where they leave the head and the feathers on and they don’t kill the chicken, it’s just served live. Add some Pecorino Romano, right to the top. Big old blanket of mozzarella. This is gonna brown. You’re gonna get that nice leopard spot on it. Cool. Great. We’re gonna broil this off for just about five minutes. We’re gonna take it outta the oven, we’re gonna finish it. Chicken parm’s done. We’re pulling it, she is a beaut. We got that lovely leopard spotting crust right there. Or this spotted dinosaurous-Rex. Dang, this plate. Yeah, it’ll fit. My goal is to keep it whole. Hold on. We just get . One, two, go with confidence, beautiful. Now I’m stuck, I need one more spatula. If I get one more spatula I can make this happen. Paint scraper. Paint scrape that off, here we go, there we go. We got our beautiful dino nugget chicken parm. I’m gonna try and maybe elongate this, ’cause I underestimated the shape of the plate. In the battle with Mika, I did technically lose, but I think everyone’s a winner when you’re cooking and having fun with your friends. But I think it’s because I made dishes that really challenge people’s comfort zones, you know? But this time I’m really trying to go with some comfort food and just kind of dotting it up with some chefy twists, some nice little basil pesto. And I think they’re really gonna taste the ice chips. I’m just gonna take some basil, smack some fresh leaves around there, boom. Beautiful, updated, modern interpretation of a classic dish. Dino nugget butter Maggiano, Shayne, your move brother. So I’m gonna be sticking to Josh’s classic recipe of smothered dino nuggets, which begins with cooking the dino nuggets, that they’re already cooked, got ’em going. I have a bunch of Cane’s sauce here. Cane’s sauce is my favorite sauce in the whole world. So I’m thinking I might add it to the mix as well, because it can’t hurt. If not, I have just tricked the “Mythical Kitchen” crew into giving me Cane’s sauce, which I’ve not been able to get because the line for Raising Cane’s is five cities wide. They offered to chop the onions themselves, but me being stupid said, “Hey, I know how to chop an onion really well, I think.” And so then they handed me an onion and they said, “Here you go, idiot.” We’re about to watch me fail. So we get this going, boom. And then you chop this just a little bit, then go here. Boom. I’m terrified. Why am I suddenly so nervous? I think Josh was talking about secret insecurities. For one, now my whole purpose is to figure out what those secret insecurities are. But I’m also worried about getting roasted for things that I’m secretly insecure about, like cooking. Like I didn’t realize how much it actually might hurt me if people are like, you actually really suck. Okay, so here we go. A little bit of a boom, little bit of a boom, little bit of a boom. They’re all laughing. I hear all the chefs laughing over there. Oh my God, I’m messing this up, aren’t I? I’m already messing it up. Okay, okay. See if I was home by myself, I’d be like, Shayne, you’re doing great. But here I’m like, ah, they’re all laughing at you. Look at how stupid you are. As long as Trevor’s proud of me. Okay. And then you know what? You don’t need the rest of this. You don’t need those. Ah, sorry, I’m thinking about “Forrest Gump” right now. It’s a good thing Nicole chopped onions and started cooking ’em before we started this. So we’ll just leave that alone. We have the better chopped onions that Nicole chopped, or diced, or whatever term is correct. Okay. Going all the way up to high. And Josh says, in his recipe book, he says, stir it vigorously. That the secret ingredient is vigor, not love, that is a direct quote from the recipe. He could have just said, you know, stir it. Get this mayo going All right, just boom. See, you know, at first I felt stupid for being so much shorter than Trevor and Josh, but then I remembered that just makes me look like, the main character from “The Bear,” that makes me the head honcho around here, okay? Let’s add this hot sauce. Oh, this is the ketchup. I know what ketchup looks like. Pickles, boom. I believe this is vinegar, cool. I don’t know what this is. Is that garlic salt? I don’t know, but it smells good, stir that up. What’s Josh’s secret insecurity? I would imagine it could be his calves, but, maybe it’s something surprising, like not his intelligence, but maybe his wisdom. Like maybe he’s worried that he doesn’t have much actual wisdom. That he doesn’t have like enough actual life experiences. Maybe it’s something like that. Warmer. I’m feeling crazy, Cane’s sauce, it’s going in. Why not? Doesn’t matter. What do I have to lose? I cook something bad, it doesn’t matter. If they cook something bad, they’re fired. All right, layer this cheese onto here. Boom. This is not enough cheese. Oh no. Okay, I’m upset. The recipe called for six slices and they gave me five. I think this is sabotage. Are you gonna serve the whole sheet tray? I think this is how I played it. Okay. Whats going on? I’m being whispered at. Did someone whisper at me? You’re paranoid, man. You’re losing it. What? Let’s get these in the oven to get this cheese melting a little bit, that’s not hot. Do I have a glove? I need to get me some of these. They got everything here. Okay, I’m gonna grab this. Just grab it with my bare hands and then put it on my, okay. We’re throwing this into here. Get this going for about a minute. Ah, man. So how often does Rhett, take the roof off of this place and check in on you guys? All right, let’s get these bad boys outta the oven. All right. Ooh, look at that. Nice and melted. Okay. Now let’s get these onions all onto ’em. Let’s try to scatter this about. Remind me never to work at In-N-Out. I’d be terrible. All right. This is looking nice. This is looking real nice. I’m excited. Look, if anything, I’m excited to eat this, you know, and that’s all that matters. Cool. All right. It’s Thousand Island Cane sauce time. Let’s try to do this right. Oh yeah, oh yeah, yeah! I’m like the little kid in “NeverEnding Story.” Just like, yeah! If this was a painting, LACMA, it would be up there. Be killing it. I’m like the Jackson Pollock of dino nuggets. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Okay, done. I win. I think I nailed it. Dare I say it’s another banger. This is my first imposter chef and that means that I’ve been deemed worthy of being called a pro chef. Is that what we’re calling us? A pro chef. Yeah. No, I might be a pro chef, but I still have imposter syndrome. Today I’m gonna be making Tteokbokki, so I’m gonna get some oil in a pan, with a little bit of garlic. Tteokbokki is a Korean dish. It’s made with rice cakes. It’s just like spicy rice cakes and fish cakes and it’s really good, I just love eating Tteokbokkis. So, I was tasked with making a dish that there’s dino nuggets in it. So obviously my mind went there. I’m just kind of subbing rice cakes for dino nuggets. But I’m also doing a little bit of a variation on Tteokbokki, so there’s a dish called Rose Tteokbokki, which is just Tteokbokki, but with cream sauce. So it’s a little bit less spicy, a little bit creamier. I’m excited, you know, I thought this pan was hot, but it doesn’t seem to be hot. Oh, hold on. It’s starting to sizzle. It’s good. It’s big for me. When Shayne picked this dish I was very excited because it really, I feel like is a place for me to shine, you know, as a real child, cooking with dino nuggets, something that makes me really excited. So, sorry, just gonna tend to my garlic really quick. It’s just sizzling up. You know how it is. It’s probably gonna get cut out. You don’t need to see garlic sizzle for too long. Why are you still here? Stop looking at me, stop it! Go get a drink or something. Okay, garlic looking good. I’m gonna drop the heat a little bit here. And cream’s going in all of it right at once, oh, yeah. And then we’ve got our gochujang going in. Gochujang is delicious, it is Korean chili paste and if you don’t have it you should try it ’cause you can just put it in anything to make it like really, really spicy, but also really tasty. And gochugaru’s, Korean chili flake, it’s really good. So a couple tablespoons of each of those going in. And I’m gonna whisk it till it’s combined and it’s gonna get a really beautiful red color. It’s kind of like the Korean version of vodka sauce. You know, it’s like red but creamy. Yeah, everyone, it’s looking red, I did it right. If it had turned out green, I would’ve been worried. I see bubbles. We’re going in, soy sauce and sugar. That’s for flavor, you know, when you cook food, you wanna have flavor. I mean this dish is pretty simple, you know, it’s just a lot of sitting here with a whisk and a pan. Not much going on else. These are rice cakes. They’re really good. They’re chewy. Don’t have much flavor as is, but they’re fun, you know, it’s a nice little treat for me. It’s bubbling still, that’s cool. All right, I’m gonna throw the rice kicks in. They’re sticky, so I’m gonna put ’em in one at a time. Very painstakingly. Not actually, I’m just gonna put ’em in. Yeah, that’s a loaf. Friendship ended with whisk, silicone spatula is my new best friend. It’s just gonna sit here and it’s gonna reduce for a little bit, until the sauce is a little bit thicker. I don’t want the Dino nuggets to get too soggy, okay? Important cooking note, when you’re adding Dino nuggets to a wet dish, you don’t add them too early, otherwise they get soggy and lose that dino nugget crisp. It’s crispy. Welcome back to the cooking show where I a professional chef, am cooking dino nugget Tteokbokki. This has reduced nicely. I am gonna hit it with a little bit of salt. Yeah, it’s nice and creamy. It’s coating the spatula nicely. The rice cakes are cooked. I’m so excited about this dish. Oh my God, it’s gonna be lovely. I’m gonna pick out my favorite dinosaurs and I’m gonna put them in there. Gotta get a couple Pterodactyls, oh, this one’s cute, I think this is a Brontosaurus, where the T-Rex is? Do you think that they have like, what is that guy? This just looks like a crocodile with a hump. Stegosaurus. Can you stop? I wasn’t asking you. I was asking them. Unreal. Okay, yep, these are going in. How many dino nuggets are too many? Don’t answer. Four. Son of a, I can’t work under these conditions. This is very red, but it’s okay ’cause I have green for garnish. I feel like it needs more dino nuggets. This is a dino nugget dish. I don’t wanna skimp, okay? I don’t wanna be accused of skimping on the dino nuggets. Just gonna get ’em tossed up in the sauce there. Oh yeah, that’s so nice. That’s so nice. I feel like I could do a southern cooking show. Today we’re gonna be making grits and greens and we’re gonna be doing a nice, what’s another southern dish? Cornbread. Cornbread. That’s good, Nicole, thank you. I know how to make a great cornbread. This is my grandmama’s recipe. She’s been making it since 1873. She’s an old lady. She’s a sweet soul though. This is a plate, generally when you cook food, you put it in a plate for eating. It’s really nice, yeah. Well that’s wet, oh my God. I get to eat this? Do I? Can anybody confirm or deny that? No, sorry. I don’t? Check this out, check this out, check this out. Frick, I’m good man. I’m so good at this. Holy cannoli, get ready. You’re not even ready for this. You can’t be ready. Sesame seeds. Suck it. Suck it. I’m a professional, go away. Jordan Myrick from Spark.com. Behind you are three mystery chefs and me, two mystery chefs would be three total chefs all day, some would say. And in front of you are three smothered dino nugget dishes. Your job is to suss out who the imposter chef is. Do you feel prepared? I do. Please dig in. I love anything covered in sauce, so this is perfect. All right, let’s start with this one. Okay, first thing I noticed is the cheese is not all melted and the nuggets do not look crunchy, which makes me think they didn’t pre-cook the nuggets before smothering, would be my guess, Yeah, no real texture whatsoever. That being said, it does taste like sauce so it can’t be that bad. Yeah, wish the nuggets were crunchier, the cheese was more melted. Big pickles on the sauce, which I like. The sauce is good. Okay, all right, this is rice cakes with dino nuggets. Really creative and honestly, very beautiful. Mm mm. Mm mm, wow. The sauce is delicious, I would eat this again. I still wish the dino nugget had more texture, but beggars can’t be choosers. Yeah, that sauce is incredible. This is beautiful. This looks like something you would get at Carbone, the fanciest restaurant in all of New York City. All right, let’s see. I have to use the knife for this one. Let me see if these, okay, these nuggets seem like they might have been cooked before they were sauced, they’re a little bit harder. I love the fresh basil. You got a good cheese pull. I’m gonna do a whole nugget for this one. Mm, mm-hmm. Nice. Really fresh. I like the pesto. I like the marinara. I think the dino nuggets on their own, could be salted more. I think when you get a bite that’s just nugget with marinara, it’s not salted enough, but it does taste good and I would happily eat that whole plate. Okay, I’m ready. Jordan, please decide who you think the imposter chef is in three, two, one. This one. Hey, you’re correct. The imposter chef, it’s Shayne Topp. Hi. Hi, how’s it going? How are you? I’m good. I just wanna be clear, I was not actually in charge of preheating these chicken nuggets. Okay. In fact, you know, my main thing was the sauce. Okay. Well the sauce is really good. I like the big chunks of pickles and I like that they’re dill and not sweet pickles. Yeah. Which sometimes people do with like a burger sauce. For sure. And that was my decision. I think that’s great. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, I love that. He also took the recipe from my 2016 cookbook. My opus “Culinary Bro-down” So technically in a way, Josh cooked this. Okay. Yeah, I totally get that. This was you and this was you? No opposite. Really? Opposite. Yeah, I made Tteokbokki. Wow. I love it. It’s delicious. Thank you. And this was very good too. Thank you, I wanted to give you something comforting after giving you something, what I would say, bold and arresting last challenge. Jordan, thank you so much. Thanks for having me. What could Shayne have done to make that dish more professional and presentable? Sure, I think the nuggets, as I said, should have been cooked before. I think we also need more cheese and more sauce. I think we also maybe could have stacked them like the Pyramids, there’s a little more dimension in the serving Interesting. They are just on a sheet pan with a reasonable mat. So maybe that’s- That’s fair. But I still think it tastes good. That’s entirely fair. Well I respect you more than these two people behind you. Thank you. So thank you. Utter mystery. It’s over here. Shayne, I thought you did awesome man. Thank you so much for stepping up to the plate and you know, being brave up there, I thought you did great. And check out the roast of myself. I am dead over on Smosh out tomorrow. Depending on what day you’re watching this video. March 15th is when it comes out. March 15th, 2023. If you’re in like 2035, how’s President Mr. Beast doing? You can never have too many Daddies and we can’t get enough of the Hello Daddies tees. Shop now@mythical.com.