Professional chef Frank Proto and home cook Joe are swapping ingredients and hitting the kitchen to make shrimp scampi. We set Joe up with a whopping $349 worth of ingredients for his attempt at Frank's luxury recipe. Meanwhile, a modest $28 worth of ingredients was sent back the other way to be elevated into something gourmet by our esteemed pro. Will Joe be able to execute the restaurant-quality feast Frank intended to make? Can Frank turn Joe's simple ingredients into a grand seafood feast?
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00:00Yeah, I got places to be.
00:02I got to see what the f***.
00:03Oh!
00:04Sorry, buddy.
00:06Hi, I'm Frank.
00:07I'm a professional chef,
00:08and these are my $349 shrimp scampi ingredients.
00:13Hello, I'm Joe.
00:14I'm a home cook,
00:15and these are my $28 shrimp scampi ingredients.
00:20Can I at least keep the ramps?
00:21Let me have the ramps, please.
00:23No!
00:26Wow.
00:27That is sparse.
00:28I'll make it work.
00:29Oh, this looks nicer than mine.
00:37So I was planning on making a langoustine scampi crostini
00:39with Calabrian chili ramp sauce and preserved lemon.
00:42For my shrimp, I had wild Icelandic langoustines.
00:45I've seen shrimp.
00:46They don't have arms like that.
00:47And it's spring right now,
00:48so you know I had to have some ramps.
00:50These are leeks, right?
00:52With Calabrian chilies and a lovely greco from Campania.
00:55This is some hot calabrese peppers.
00:58My favorite.
00:59And red little balls.
01:01And even more ramps to make a salad with some parsley
01:04and some homemade preserved Meyer lemon rinds.
01:06All served on a beautiful ciabatta crostini.
01:08It was gonna be bonkers.
01:10Yes, bonkers.
01:11Me and Chef Frank,
01:12two great chefs going head-to-head
01:14making equally delicious dishes, I'm sure.
01:16Who will win this battle of the chefs?
01:19Joe's ingredients are a little simpler,
01:20things that you might find in your pantry
01:22at the local grocery store.
01:23But with a little love, a little technique,
01:25and a little chef magic,
01:26we're gonna make it delicious.
01:27If I had to guess, these ingredients cost about $22, $23.
01:3128.
01:32Ooh, we're getting fancy on the novice side.
01:34If I had to guess, this whole thing would cost $197.
01:39Why $300? I gotta know.
01:43Here in my hand is Chef Frank's recipe book.
01:45It's some basic instructions on how to make his dish.
01:48Because that's pretty good.
01:50He's in a little tuxedo.
01:51I'm gonna eat you, buddy.
01:52So, Joe, shrimp scampi is not a complicated dish.
01:55Basically, it means white wine, butter, garlic, and parsley,
01:58and a little bit of lemon juice.
01:59I've given you really good ingredients.
02:01Don't get cocky.
02:02This langoustine isn't gonna scampi itself.
02:05Let's crostini.
02:06Joe, I gave you fresh Icelandic langoustines.
02:08It's kind of a hard-shelled shrimp.
02:10It's a little bit bigger.
02:11It has claws.
02:12Their eyeballs are looking into my soul.
02:14Definitely excited about these.
02:16Scampi in Italian means langoustine.
02:18If you say to an Italian, I want some scampi,
02:20they're going to give you a langoustine,
02:22not a finished dish.
02:23So we're gonna start with Charles here.
02:25First thing you need to do is get a knife,
02:27and you're gonna split him down the middle.
02:29I feel like he's gonna start moving when I do this.
02:31Oh! All right.
02:34That was cool.
02:35Don't look, guys.
02:37These tails are the meat.
02:38This looks disgusting because we don't eat that.
02:40So I'm gonna take all this stuff and discard it,
02:43and now I'm gonna do the same thing to their whole family.
02:47And I'm really sorry.
02:49The langoustine itself is delicious.
02:50Just don't do much to it.
02:52Open it up, season with a little sea salt,
02:54and put them aside.
02:55They're prepped and ready to go.
02:57The langoustines are prepped.
02:58Joe is gonna make a basic stovetop scampi
03:00with butter parmesan pasta.
03:02You can hardly call it a scampi, but I did.
03:04I call it that, because who's gonna stop me?
03:06What I'm gonna do is a little bit different.
03:08I'm gonna make a shrimp scampi pasta in beurre blanc
03:10with spicy parsley oil and parmesan crisp.
03:12A lot of times a dish just needs technique to make it better,
03:15and that's what we're gonna do here.
03:17First thing we're gonna start with is the shrimp.
03:19So I'm gonna use the shells
03:20to make a really nice flavor base for our sauce.
03:22Don't throw these tails away.
03:23There's lots of flavor in there.
03:25And then I'm gonna cut the shrimp a little different.
03:27A lot of times when you see a dish like this,
03:28they'll either give you a whole shrimp,
03:30or they cut it into small pieces like this.
03:32And these kind of get lost in the sauce.
03:34I'm gonna cut them in half through the back of the shrimp
03:37so that they kind of curl up
03:39and give us a really nice presentation.
03:41Unless you live in a coastal area
03:42where they're fishing for shrimp,
03:43chances are your shrimp has been frozen.
03:45A lot of times when you go to the supermarket,
03:47if it says fresh shrimp, it's refreshed,
03:49which means they defrosted it for you.
03:51I don't have any problem buying frozen shrimp
03:53because it's a great product,
03:54but don't be fooled into buying refreshed shrimp
03:56as fresh shrimp.
03:57All right, my shrimp is prepped and ready to go.
03:59Now I'm gonna make some preserved Meyer lemons.
04:01I've never preserved anything.
04:03I think that's what jelly is.
04:05Joe's gonna be making his own preserved Meyer lemons.
04:07A Meyer lemon is kind of like a cross
04:09between a lemon and a tangerine.
04:11Beautiful fragrance to it,
04:13and the skin is gonna make this dish pop off.
04:15I don't wanna get any of the white stuff.
04:17I don't know what that stuff is called.
04:18Smells really good.
04:19I'm gonna throw these in here and blanch them up,
04:21and then we're gonna pull these out.
04:22Gonna get some fresh water, and we're gonna do it again.
04:25Lemon rind in general can be very bitter,
04:27so if you blanch it in fresh water a few times,
04:29it takes the bitterness out.
04:30All we're really gonna get is that bright kind of sweetness,
04:33a little bit of acidity.
04:34All right, and look at that.
04:36I'd eat these.
04:37After that, he's gonna cook it in a solution,
04:39solution, fancy,
04:40of salt and sugar and some herbs
04:42so that it has a really nice, bright Meyer lemon flavor.
04:46This is sea salt, so my shrimp scampis feel at home.
04:48This is the salt from their home.
04:50I got some cane sugar.
04:52Toss my rinds back in there,
04:54and I'm just gonna let it simmer for three to four minutes.
04:57While this is simmering,
04:59I'm gonna put everything else in the jar.
05:01These red little cooking balls are pink peppercorns,
05:04so not even red.
05:05This is thyme.
05:06I'm gonna throw this in,
05:07and this is a bay leaf.
05:09All right, it's been simmering long enough.
05:11Pour all of this into the jar.
05:14This is gonna be jelly.
05:15I know, because that's what goes in jars.
05:17I don't know what I've just done here,
05:19but it looks really pretty,
05:21and I'm sure it'll complement the dish.
05:23So Joe gave me some dried chili flakes and some dried parsley,
05:26and with these two, I'm gonna make a flavored oil
05:28and just let them steep, almost like a tea,
05:30so we get some flavor out of them.
05:32Making flavored oil is super simple.
05:33Take some vegetable oil,
05:34so I'm gonna put a little chopped garlic in it,
05:36and this is gonna go into the pot.
05:37I'm gonna hit this with just a little bit of salt.
05:39I'm adding the garlic to cold oil,
05:41and I'm not just throwing the garlic in,
05:42and it's turning brown right away.
05:44I'm getting a little more of that garlic flavor into my oil.
05:47I'm gonna add some chili flake,
05:48and I want it to be fairly spicy,
05:49so I'm not gonna be shy.
05:50I want the garlic to finish cooking off of the heat,
05:53and at this point, I'm gonna add my parsley flakes.
05:55Let it sit for at least 15 minutes
05:57so that everything kind of just, like, steeps into that oil,
06:00and we're gonna put this on the finished dish
06:01to give it a little heat
06:02and just accent all those great flavors
06:04we're getting out of the dish.
06:05All right, everybody, get ready,
06:06because it's time for crostini.
06:08This is ciabatta bread.
06:09I'm gonna grill it,
06:10and when you grill ciabatta bread,
06:11it turns into crostini,
06:13like the caterpillar turns into a butterfly.
06:16What I love about the ciabatta
06:17is it's a very simple part of this dish,
06:19but it's an integral part.
06:20It's light and airy.
06:21It has lots of holes.
06:22It's gonna be the vehicle that gets that langoustine
06:25into our mouth with that beautiful sauce.
06:27So, this is olio extra virgin d'oliva.
06:31That's Italian.
06:32So, I'm gonna pour some.
06:33I don't want to pour too much.
06:34I feel like this is several hundred dollars worth of olive oil.
06:37I get to go Bob Ross right now.
06:39Look, I didn't go to olive oil school.
06:40I don't know if it's good,
06:41but, you know, it looks nice and oily.
06:43I'm ready to grill my crostinis,
06:45so I still be calling them ciabattas.
06:47When do they become crostinis?
06:48Now, this is gonna give you some nice grill marks.
06:51I think that's important.
06:52As you probably expected,
06:53I've got two bricks wrapped in tinfoil.
06:55These are actual bricks.
06:57I'm gonna put bricks on top of my bread.
07:00Here we go.
07:01I would love to weigh everything that I cook down with bricks.
07:05Cereal, brick.
07:06If I'm having yogurt, I'll put a brick in it.
07:08You know, whatever I'm doing,
07:09I'm just gonna throw a brick in there.
07:10I'm starting to feel pretty good about the color of my crostinis.
07:14Now, Frank told me that while they're warm,
07:17I need to rub some garlic on them.
07:19I've never heard of this process.
07:21My ciabatta is crostinied.
07:23This is garlic bread.
07:24I know garlic bread.
07:25You should have said that.
07:26Joe gave me Parmesan cheese.
07:28So what I'm gonna do is make something crisp out of it.
07:30I'm gonna dedicate this to my friend, Chef Saul.
07:33He always does a cheese trick,
07:34so this is for you, buddy.
07:35First thing I'm gonna do is heat up my pan.
07:37I'm gonna go medium heat for this.
07:39You do not need to put anything in the pan.
07:40There's enough fat in the cheese to keep it from sticking.
07:43I'm using a nonstick pan here as well.
07:45Try and make a long strip.
07:47If you make it too thick, it becomes a little heavy and dense.
07:50This way we have it, it's gonna be nice and light and crisp.
07:53And I'm just gonna lay it on my tray.
07:55Now that it's hot, it's gonna go a little faster.
07:57But we'll do two of these babies just in case I break it
08:01and let it crisp up and cool.
08:03You can see this one, it is nice and firm.
08:05It's a really nice crisp and it kind of holds its own shape.
08:07This is gonna be the garnish on top of my pasta.
08:10This is a very special moment because these, I have learned, are ramps.
08:14Ramps are basically wild garlic.
08:16They're only here in the spring, and you have to forage for them.
08:19I love garlic, but ramps kind of just like ramp it up a bit.
08:23Frank went out into the woods, left civilization behind,
08:26and look at what he found.
08:28There's a lot of them.
08:29I'm gonna have Joe separate the tops and the bottoms.
08:31Bottoms, or the bulb end, we're gonna slice like regular garlic,
08:34and the tops we're gonna use for salad later on.
08:36My ramps are prepped. I'm ready to go.
08:38Another component of my dish is a beurre blanc.
08:40It's a flavored, warm butter sauce, and it's delicious.
08:43Beurre blancs start out by sweating your aromatics.
08:45I have some garlic and I have my saved shrimp shells.
08:48I'm going to poach my shrimp in it.
08:50And then I'm gonna take the sauce and dress my pasta or toss my pasta in it.
08:54So it's gonna be the finished sauce and the poaching sauce for my shrimp.
08:58Medium heat, one little piece of butter, drop it in the pan.
09:02We can add our garlic that's just crushed, and we can add the shells.
09:06I'm just thinking for my garlic to be aromatic and lightly, very lightly brown.
09:10And I want to smell my shrimp shells.
09:12They're gonna change from that gray color to a nice pink color.
09:15Gonna add a pinch of salt.
09:16Then we can add our wine.
09:18We want to get that wine flavor without all the alcohol,
09:20so we're gonna cook the alcohol out and let this reduce down.
09:23Dried parsley's gonna help flavor our sauce.
09:25I don't mind the little flavor of alcohol, but it's reducing the wine.
09:28It's making this a little more acidic.
09:30It's giving us a nice, rounded flavor rather than a sharp, raw wine flavor.
09:34I'm now about to prep my hot Calabrese peppers.
09:38Or Calabrian chilies, they might be called.
09:40Calabrese is Calabrian for Calabrian.
09:43They're oily. There's a lot of oil in here.
09:45Here, this is the stuff. This is what we want.
09:48This is for the sauce I'm gonna cook my langoustines in.
09:51You know what? I'm not scared. I've never been scared.
09:54And I'm not gonna start right now, so I'm gonna eat some of this.
09:58That's real spicy.
10:00Our wine is reduced by about half, and we can start whisking in the butter.
10:03I'm gonna lower the heat, and what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna slowly whisk the butter in
10:07to try and keep it so the butter stays emulsified.
10:10Yes, it's a lot of butter, but butter is delicious,
10:13and you should not be scared of that or even ashamed of it.
10:17A little low heat. I'm moving it a lot.
10:19Try not to splash all over yourself.
10:21You're not having fun unless you get it everywhere.
10:23The more butter you add, the thicker the sauce gets.
10:26Now, I'm a little on the loose side,
10:28so it wouldn't be me if I didn't take this sauce to the next level.
10:31Butter itself is basically emulsion of butterfat and milk solids,
10:35which is a liquid part of milk.
10:37What we're gonna do is take those milk solids,
10:39cook the butter enough so that they turn nice and golden brown and nutty.
10:42So we're just gonna put this over a medium-high heat,
10:45whisking consistently and constantly.
10:48I don't like to walk away from stuff like this.
10:50I'm getting some brownness on the side of the pan,
10:52so I'm gonna lower my heat just a little.
10:54As it starts to get a little golden, I'm gonna add my garlic,
10:57my chili flake, a little bit of salt, and I'm gonna whisk.
11:00You can see. Look at how nice and golden brown my garlic is.
11:03I'm gonna shut it off. We have enough residual heat in there.
11:06A bit of lemon juice. This is gonna kind of deglaze
11:08and get us those nice brown bits from the bottom of the pan.
11:11Take my beurre blanc sauce that I made earlier,
11:14slowly whisk that into this.
11:16Smells nutty.
11:20And that is my brown butter beurre blanc.
11:22Nothing compliments scampi like some rampi,
11:24so we're gonna make a ramp salad.
11:26All right, let's try some ramp.
11:28Of all the floppy greens, this is up there.
11:31That has a really nice flavor to it.
11:33Basically, we're taking the ramp tops,
11:35some really nice, fresh Italian parsley,
11:37a really, really good quality extra virgin olive oil,
11:40some of that Meyer lemon juice, and some of those preserved lemons.
11:43So the preserve, it's not jelly.
11:45Almost like pickled.
11:47This is a julienne cut, or as I call it, lemon slivers.
11:51Oh, here's...
11:53All of this is going in the salad. This is really good.
11:55Set it aside, and we want to dress it
11:57right before it goes onto your dish.
11:59All the prep is done, and now this is where
12:01everything happens at once.
12:03Let's make Chef Frank proud of me and see if he loves me.
12:06Get a nice, large pan, put it on medium-high heat.
12:09You're gonna hit that pan with some of that nice extra virgin olive oil.
12:12I'm gonna season my langoustines with Italian sea salt.
12:15And then you're gonna take those langoustines
12:17and sear them cut-side down.
12:20I'm so sorry, buddy.
12:21You don't want to overcook these.
12:23We just want to get a little bit of color on the flesh side,
12:25turn them over, and cook them on the shell side
12:28for about a minute, set them aside, and let them rest.
12:30We went all the way to Iceland.
12:32We don't want to make them rubbery.
12:34I think probably the fifth or sixth time I get burned with hot oil
12:37is when I know it's time to pull them off.
12:39Look at this. This is beautiful.
12:41Tender, delicious, juicy meat.
12:44Now it's time to cook my pasta.
12:46And for the most part, this dish comes together really quick.
12:48And while my pasta cooks, I'm gonna poach my shrimp
12:50in our brown butter beurre blanc.
12:52What I'm using today is nice, thin angel hair.
12:54I do like angel hair, so thank you, Joe. I appreciate it.
12:57You're amazing, Joe. Let's start a business together.
12:59Water's boiling. I'm gonna add some salt.
13:02I'm on low heat with my beurre blanc.
13:04My shrimp go in to poach.
13:06It preserves the flavor of the shrimp,
13:08and any flavor that we lose from the shrimp
13:10is gonna go into the sauce.
13:11I'm gonna do about a half a pound.
13:13I don't think I need that much.
13:15Stir it so it doesn't stick to the bottom
13:17or stick to each other.
13:19The shrimp is poaching over low heat.
13:21I have a nice, big saute pan.
13:23I'm gonna take a little bit of this sauce
13:25and put it in the bottom of the pan.
13:27There's no heat on this right now.
13:29The heat of the sauce is gonna be just enough.
13:31I'm not gonna drain it over the sink.
13:33I'm not gonna use a spider.
13:35I'm just gonna take it out and let it drain like this.
13:37We'll leave a little of that salty water in there.
13:39And I think we're ready to put this all together.
13:41Look at that.
13:43We're definitely ready to plate.
13:45My linguistines are cooked.
13:47I'm going to make a sauce in the pan.
13:49I've got just some oil.
13:51Add our sliced ramp whites.
13:53Add the Calabrian chilies.
13:55The Calabrian chilies are gonna add some heat to this dish.
13:57Not a lot of heat, like burn your mouth off.
13:59Just enough to let you know they're there.
14:01We're gonna deglaze that with a beautiful Greco from Campania.
14:03So I'm gonna eyeball this.
14:07That's a cup and...
14:09Ah, there we go. Yeah, a cup and a half.
14:11Lemon's going in. This is another Meyer lemon.
14:13Now this would be better to do with a break.
14:15To finish our sauce,
14:17we're gonna add some really nice Italian butter.
14:19We're gonna add that cold butter into the warm reduction we have.
14:21Swirl it around until it makes
14:23a really nice, creamy sauce.
14:25The purpose of using this Monte Ober method
14:27is that our sauce is
14:29creamy and silky, not broken.
14:31Monte Ober is when we take cold butter
14:33and add it to a warm base
14:35to make a silky sauce.
14:37All the ingredients are gonna come together here
14:39and that butter's just gonna kind of be like the glue
14:41that holds them all together.
14:43Sauce is looking good. Smells good.
14:45It's got a nice consistency.
14:47It's got one chunk of butter,
14:49which I will obliterate.
14:51All right. That's a nice looking sauce.
14:53I'm gonna add some
14:55langoustines in.
14:57Low heat, warm everything together.
14:59Let's get all those flavors into the pot
15:01and then we can start plating.
15:03They just look like they're all swimming that way.
15:05All right, these are looking good.
15:07Let's plate.
15:09So it is time to plate.
15:11I couldn't have made this more complicated,
15:13and I know it's gonna be beautiful.
15:15We're gonna roll our pasta around this beautiful meat fork
15:17and we're gonna make a really cool
15:19line right down the middle of our pasta.
15:21This is probably enough for a couple of people.
15:23It's not a small amount.
15:25So I have my shrimp here. I'm gonna put a few of these
15:27over the top. You see they got a little bit
15:29of curl to them.
15:31A little drizzle of the sauce.
15:33I have a lemon and a microplane.
15:35One, two, three, four.
15:37That's it. Don't go too crazy with this.
15:39It's just gonna give us a little burst of lemon flavor.
15:41And now I have my flavored oil.
15:43I'm not gonna go on the pasta.
15:45I want it to be an accent color, and I want you to mix this
15:47in yourself. And then I have my
15:49Parmesan crisp.
15:51Let's get that Parmesan crisp on.
15:53And that is my shrimp scampi pasta
15:55in beurre blanc with spicy parsley
15:57oil and Parmesan crisp.
15:59My salad dressing is really simple.
16:01It's just oil, lemon juice,
16:03salt. Here we go. These are my
16:05crostinis, formerly ciabatta.
16:07Take our langoustine, flesh side up.
16:09We want to see that really nice, beautiful
16:11langoustine tail. Then we're gonna take that sauce,
16:13drizzle it all around.
16:15I should have grabbed one that didn't have an arm.
16:17Bop. Some right there.
16:19Here it is. My finished product.
16:21My rampy scampi langoustine crostini
16:23a la Chef Frank.
16:25♪
16:27Chef Frank.
16:29Hey, Joe. How you doing? Good seeing you again.
16:31I'm doing pretty good. You too. How you been?
16:33Good, good. How'd everything go? It was scary chopping those shrimp
16:35in half. They were scary. Their eyes were
16:37popping out when I was chopping them.
16:39I gave them all names. I don't know why I did that.
16:41But when I got to the end, it was pretty.
16:43Oh, man.
16:45Wow. That is beautiful.
16:47This is beautiful. What's this on top?
16:49That's a Parmesan crisp.
16:51How'd you make the noodles all twirled up like that?
16:53I would have done like wrapping up
16:55an iPhone cable.
16:57That's what I thought you did. But this turned out
16:59absolutely beautiful. I love it.
17:01I'm excited to try this. Can we try yours first?
17:03Yeah, absolutely. Awesome. Let's give it a shot.
17:05I want you to also teach me how
17:07you eat this. It's kind of like a
17:09lobster tail. Grab the tail meat
17:11out with a fork. We'll take a piece of this
17:13crostini.
17:15So how'd you get those great grill marks?
17:17I used a brick.
17:19So this is not food that is
17:21going to be super neat. I'll get a little piece of
17:23liver. Oh, boy. Oh, okay.
17:25You were right about it not being neat. But for the
17:27most part, I just want to make like a crostini
17:29with that tail on there. Get a little bit of
17:31everything. Let's do it. Alright. Cheers.
17:33Cheers.
17:37Wow.
17:39Crunchy bread, soft langoustine.
17:41I don't feel like the ramp overpowers anything.
17:43I think that it's got a good garlic flavor.
17:45Man, that's delicious. Ramp is awesome, too.
17:47I've never heard of it. This is delicious.
17:49It's a great recipe, but I just
17:51can't believe I made this. I can't wait to try yours.
17:53Oh, I hope that you like it. Alright, you ready?
17:55Yeah, I'm ready. I'm going to crack the cheese.
17:57Come on. I feel like a brick would have
17:59done a great job at smashing up that cheese.
18:01I'm just saying.
18:07Cut that.
18:09That's so good. If you say like, I'm having
18:11shrimp scampi, it hits it.
18:13It's like simple and fancy at the same time.
18:15That's really good. Cheers, man. Great job.
18:17Cheers. To you, too.
18:19So I got something for you.
18:21It's a special gift.
18:23All I need is like 6,000 more
18:25and I can build a house.