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Hi and welcome to the Story of Cooking Today we're here at Delmonico's
Which most people know because it's one of the oldest restaurants in America
It opened up its doors in 1820 when Swiss brothers John and Peter Delmonico opened a restaurant
that served french pastries
it didn't become a full-fledged restaurant until 1837 when John and Peter Delmonico
along with Lorenzo opened a nice big fine dining establishment
In the 1700s New York was littered with Oyster sellers and coffee shops
but there wasn't any fine dining
and Delmonico's was the first to do that
in fact they were the first to use the word restaurant, which was a French term
so that's why they're credited with opening the first restaurant in America
So let's go inside and check it out!
Hi and welcome to the Story of Cooking! I'm Sarah Nicholas!
Hi chef, nice meet you!
Hi, welcome to Delmonico's
Thank you, we're here with chef Billy Oliva
and he's the executive chef and you've been here about six years
Almost seven years, yeah, six and a half years
And we're here to try some classic dishes and we're going to learn a little history about them
Sure and there's loads of history here, lot of firsts: Baked Alaska, Bggs Benedict, Lobster Newburg
You name it, all kinds of history as well
Awesome, well let's do it!
Why don't we head back to the kitchen
Okay!
All right chef, so we're back in the kitchen
and you're going to show me some of the dishes that were invented here
and obviously probably signature dishes of Delmonico's
Absolutely so we're going to start with Eggs Benedict
Why don't we start with our brio, so we're just going to
Do you make your own brioche?
We do downstairs, actually. We make all our own bread all our own desserts
ice creams, everything is here
Wow!
And so, again, this was invented at Delmonico's, correct?
Invented in Delmonico's
So the Delmonico brothers liked to name dishes after their patrons
so Mr and Mrs Le Benedict used to come all the time, They were regular customers
and one day they says, you know what we come here all the time
we're bored of the menu, create us a dish
and this is what the Delmonico brothers came up with
Well, thank you!
and it's been around ever since
so we're just going to pop this in the oven
Okay
and the next thing we'll do is
first thing we have to remember is not to forget that
Okay, yeah, that's usually what happens right?
It's always what happens!
And then we're going to start our hollandaise
so here we have just some egg yolk that we cracked already
I will dump that in
and we have a little Tobasco
You want me to put some of this in?
Yeah, absolutely. We'll do a little lemon juice.
Couple dashes?
Yeah a couple dashes
And we'll put a little tarragon vinegar
So this is a tarragon vinegar reduction with pepper corn shallots
Tarragon obviously
Worcestershire
(Sarah) Worcestershire sauce, okay
So now the fun part
Now we're going to whisk
so if you want to do that we'll go over here to
without you burning your hand you might want want to take a towel
and just a figure eight motion, as kind of fast as you can
Figure eight? Like this?
Yeah
So now we're going to add our butter
and then here we have just a little cold water if it gets too thick we'll just thin it out a little bit
So, shall we go together? Yup
Is my hand in the way?
No
And that looks about good
Now the trick is to keep it so it doesn't break
(Chef) Keep it warm
First we're going to season it a little salt and pepper
and then we'll just take that
how are we going to do that without
actually got the right consistency
Am I hired?
That's it! When can you start?
If this is my only job I'm sorry I have to decline
I will keep that warm for a minute
So, we have to lightly grill the prosciutto cotto so for that we have to go down to the broiler there
Already?
Make sure we have all our tools
so we're going to come here
Okay
and we're just going to... this is cooked already so we just want to warm it up
Sure
That's going to go on the grill for a second
Just flip it
Okay so we just want to cook that, just want to warm it through
So that's good, we don't want to dry it out too much
Just going to grab our plate
and we're almost ready to... you can actually smell the rosemary and the thyme
Okay so we'll go back down on this side
where we have our ham, we have our brioche
so we're going to put this pot out of the way we'll slide that little one over
On the flame, or no?
Right on the flame, yup
Oh we're going to reheat our eggs?
We're going to reheat our eggs
So we poached these earlier just so it will be a little bit easier
when we poach them we use a little vinegar, white vinegar
Do the swirl?
Do the swirl
and we crack the eggs into a small cup and they go in
(Sarah) Just dump them all in?
(Chef) Dump them in nice and easy
All four?
Yeah, this way in case we have an accident with one
(Sarah) Poached eggs are very delicate
So while the eggs are heating up
we can start to plate the rest of the Eggs Benedict
Perfect
So, we'll move some of this stuff out of the way
And bring this over here
If you want to do it, or I can do the ham
Okay
(Sarah) Is this on you brunch menu?
(Chef) This is on the menu all the time, never cut lunch, dinner
and we sell tons of it
So, that's ready and now we just wait for our eggs to get hot
and because they're already poached we don't need to cook them for a long time
we just need to warm them through
The reason we do this is because we just sell so many of them
Yeah, you would have to do it in advance I would think
This is all the space we have, so
Eggs Benedict is one of my favorites so I'm really looking forward to trying this
I'd say these are probably hot enough
Just drain the water really well
and whenever the egg doesn't roll off that's a good thing
(Sarah) You want to just?
(Chef) Yeah right over there
(Sarah) Well that failed
Are you going to wipe the edges?
(Chef) Yeah, we'll clean it up. We could change the plate
That's good.
(Sarah) Obviously I like a lot of hollandaise sauce
(Chef) We might need to change the plate!
So now what we're going to do, we're going to
-Do you like truffle?\ -I do, I do
-A lot of truffle? -I do
Do you want to shave the truffle or do you want me to shave the truffle?
You shave the truffle I don't want to ruin anything
Okay I'll shave the truffle
(Sarah) You had me at truffle when you said it earlier
It's a rich dish
(Chef) and then we're going to finish it with just little caviar
So tell me about the truffles and the caviar
So these are Périgord truffles from France
they're in season now until about... I think they're around for about another month
and the caviar is just an American caviar that we use to garnish stuff with
(Chef) Might as well go all out
and then just a little bit of green and that's it
Perfect. Beautiful.
Besides my mess up on the side of the plate
other than that that was beautiful
All right, this looks fantastic, now how about a Delmonico steak?
That sounds good, let's go to the grill
All righty!
Okay so this is a lot of beef, it's beautiful. Go through your different cuts
So here we have the boneless Delmonico steak
this is a bone in Delmonico steak that's dry aged
and this is our double Delmonico steak
All right so how do you dress this up?
It's very simple and we don't do a lot to these steaks
it's just salt, kosher salt, and pepper
and we'll just grind it up
So we're just going to pull it out
let's throw these on in the back
Should we put this guy on?
(Sarah) So do most people come in here and want medium rare steak?
Always when I go to a restaurant that has good steak I always ask, well what does the chef like to cook it to?
I would say probably the most is medium rare
but we get well done and medium well and
Yeah
Sometimes... they're paying for it so it's their choice
So these are just about done, so we'll have our guys finish them and we'll move on to the lobster newberg
Perfect, thank you
Awesome
We'll get started
So what we're going to do we're going to just take a little bit of oil and the lobster
Just tell me what you need
The lobster has been kind of cooked already so we're going to start with the lobster
I'll take him
And you said that it's been cooked in the sous-vide machine
Yeah we cook it at a very low temperature
and we cook it about say 50%, and then we cool it off really quickly and then we finish it to order
Just because it would take too long, oh I'm sorry
No you're fine
So next we're going to take a little bit of the butter now
And you can see as the lobster is finishing cooking that the shell is changing color
and then we're going to go with some hedgehog mushrooms
The next thing we're going to do is, we're going to deglaze it with a little bit of brandy
This is the fun part
Watch out (laughing)
Staying back
(Chef) Okay, so, put in a little brandy
(Sarah) Flambé, right?
(Chef) That's the fun part, that's actually why I wanted to become a chef
So have the lobster there
Very dramatic
We have some lobster stock in that copper pot there
So we're going to add that
(Sarah) and there's no cream in that? Or just a little cream?
(Chef) This is very little cream in this
this is just the richness of the vegetables
we use a little bit of star anise in here
Oh wow, okay
The star anise, fennel, onion, celery
garlic, a lot of herbs
(Sarah) It smells good
And now we'll take all our vegetables, we'll take a little bit of asparagus, a little bit of carrots
and this is really just for garnish
the original dish was just lobster and toast and sauce
So the vegetables just give it a nice... make it more interesting
Lighten it up make it a little more... have a "fear"
So next thing we're going to do is we're going to throw our brioche in the oven for a minute
So you hand me that and I'll grab a tray
So what are the menus that you always have, how often do you change your menu?
We try to change about four times a year
(Sarah) Just based on whatever is in season?
(Chef) Yes
and occasionally if I get bored every now and again it will change
Have you invented any recipes here at Delmonico's?
The bacon that we do on the menu now is mine
one of the chickens, we do a Himalayan salt brick chicken, which is mine
This?
Yeah I take the rest of the lobster
Oh Himalayans, I love cooking with Himalayan salt
Yeah so we actually have bricks and we press, it's kind of like a brick chicken
That sounds delicious
(Chef) We press it with the Himalayan salt
(Sarah) Nice
(Chef) It comes out really well
We're going to grab just a little cayenne and some of the herbs
Chives?
Yup, chives and Italian flat leaf parsley
And in the sauce, when we make the sauce, there's a little bit of tarragon as well
Kind of bring out that star anise flavor?
Yeah. I kinda like that flavor
It smells delicious
This is just little bit of stock to just to thin it out a little
so we can thicken it back up and make it a little richer
(Chef) All right so we're about ready
our butter is kind of incorporated into the sauce
we're going to plate it, take our brioche out
it's kind of a dish that gets a little messy
so we're going to slide over just kinda to the table there
and we'll use this dish here to plate it up
So our brioche is going to go on the top
Oh it really does smell really good
Going to take this out
So you can see that
We leave it in the shell
the reason we leave it in the shell is we just think that the shell protects the cooking
protects the meat, keeps it from shrinking
-and then sometimes the waiters -Will take it out?
(Chef) Will take it out
So I need a spoon from back there
Oh sure absolutely, here you go
It's a little big but it will work
Let me just get some of the sauce
Think we have enough sauce
Okay, we're good
Now we're going to finish it
Kind of like we finished our Eggs Benedict
Oh, so delicious
This really is a rich dish
When the truffles are in season we try and use them as much as we can
Well people love truffles right?
Yeah they go crazy for them
The white truffles even more
and then just a dollop of caviar on top
clean the plate and that's it
This looks beautiful, I can't wait to try it all
Let's go out to the table and we'll talk a little bit about the history of the three dishes
and obviously enjoy some good food
Sounds good
All right chef, so again everything looks beautiful, let's kind of start somewhere, where would you like to start?
Why don't we start with the Eggs Benedict
It's definitely a popular dish in the south too
I kind of always thought of it as being a southern thing until I came here
And Sunday brunch and hangover food and all kinds of stuff
Yeah it's good hangover food, that's true
Gotta get everything in there
Tell us again what's all in the dish as well
So we have Périgord, we have some nice toasted buttered brioche, we have a little prosciutte cotto
a cooked Italian ham with rosemary, thyme
we have some American caviar and some Périgord truffle
That ham is really delicious
Yeah it has nice flavor. It works really well with the eggs
And that hollandaise sauce is second to none!
That was yours!
That's delicious I like that a lot
So let's move on to the lobster newberg and we'll save the steak for last
So we have a lot of history about this dish
It was Captain Wenberg who was a good, he was a fisherman, spent a lot of time in the ocean
in the 1800s, he was also friends with, he was a trader, an importer/exporter
He spent a lot of time here when he would be in New York with the Delmonico brothers
they became very good friends
and he brought this recipe to them
and he says well, you have to make it for me and they did
and they loved it
then the Delmonico brothers had a falling out
so they took the dish off the menu and their customers complained
so they said okay, we have to put it back on the menu
but we're not going to put it back on the menu as lobster ala Wenberg
because we don't want to speak to him anymore and we don't want to associate with him anymore
so it became lobster newberg
That is delicious
That sauce is amazing
That star anise really comes out
Yeah it comes through, and a little bit of the cayenne
It's a little bit of a process to do but it's worth it
We're going to save that for later
and then the last one is the Delmonico steaks
And this is the...
This is the wet aged boneless rib eye
Okay
And it's just grilled salt and pepper, and we finish it by brushing it with a little bit of butter
and some fried onions
and there's a history behind this?
Well what I know about the Delmonico steak was back in the 1800s
the Delmonico brothers, it wasn't always a rib eye
it was whatever they thought was the best that was available to them at the time
Today it's the rib eye just because of the fat content, the richness of the steak
and it works really well for us, we sell hundreds of them
Oh I bet
I'll push those to the side
Okay
So this isn't steak related but I hear there's some supernatural history as well?
Oh there is a little bit of supernatural history
Is it haunted?
They say it's haunted
Back in the 1800s the restaurant was actually nine floors
So there was a restaurant, there was a hotel, there was all kinds of things going on here
And the rumor is that somebody was murdered upstairs and a lot of ghost stories
There was another gentleman who used to clean up here at night
and he said every night the ghosts had a party here down in the basement
Well this place actually was a site for a lot of parties, cotillions, balls back in the day
it was where the rich elite Europeans and Americans came to visit
Sure, there was a lot of firsts here
The first lady's luncheon was held here
It was the first restaurant also to hire a woman
it was the first restaurant to allow women to congregate
as well as all the different firsts on the culinary end
And it was the first place to use the term restaurant
Restaurant, printed menus
This steak is delicious by the way, if I didn't say so
All right so these are Abe Lincoln's favorite potatoes, correct?
That's it
and there's a lot of history too about people who were patrons here, correct?
So a lot of favorite people. Mark Twain, every president since Abraham Lincoln has been here
Charles Dickens, the Wolf of Wall Street was another one that used to frequent here
I bet you have people that come back here everyday for lunch too
Not necessarily famous people
We get a lot of regulars, yeah
The bar is filled with a lot of characters that come in every single day
So these are the potatoes, the Abe Lincoln potatoes
So the story about this is Abe Lincoln loved these potatoes, and I'm sure I'm going to as well
Oh I thought there were going to be mashed
There's just a few calories in here
Oh my goodness
That's amazing
Can't really go wrong though
Cheese baked and cream, butter, potatoes
Awesome
That would go good on the side of a steak
It works perfect
And the next dish we have is our dessert
Baked Alaska
And it was invented here by Charles Ranhofer
who was one of the first celebrity chefs
so it's a layer of baked meringue and inside is what we call, it's kind of a cross between
an ice cream and a semifreddo, so say a banana semifreddo
There's an apricot jam
Nice
underneath that, and then on the bottom is walnut sponge
Wow I'm kind of embarrassed to say I've never actually eaten one of these
We're going to cut it open
So you can see the meringue, then you have the banana,
then there's the apricot jam and on the bottom is the walnut sponge
I'll turn it around so we can get a better look
and then from there just dig in
That's never a problem
The perfect baked Alaska, you should be able to, what we tried for anyway,
you should be able to get everything
the middle part can't be too cold, otherwise if it's too cold you won't be able to go all the way through
It's delicious
and the apricot and the banana go really well together
They do, they really do; and the walnut cake
Thank you so much, chef, everything has been absolutely delicious, beautiful and great history
and I've really enjoyed myself thank you so much
Thank you
Thank you so much for joining me on this Story of Cooking
I'm Sarah Nicholas and just remember behind every story is a great recipe!
Funding for the Story of Cooking is provided by
FIT4MOM
Walkabout Outfitter
Biagio Cru and Estate Wines
Chef Revival
FOODYTV
Chefs in the Kitchen
and Taste This TV
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