Chef Joel Gamoran is joined by local chef and restaurateur Brooks Reitz in Charleston, South Carolina as they craft together a dinner menu using out of the box ingredients and food scraps. The pair go oystering and prepare a delicious meal using shrimp shells, broccoli stems and canned pickle juice that is sure to wow their dinner party guests. See more in Season 1, Episode 1, “Charleston, SC.”
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– Hey guys, I’m in Charleston, South Carolina and I’m meeting up with Brooks Reitz. This guy is the next great American restaurateur. And I know it’s sunny now, but forecast says there’s a huge storm on the way. It doesn’t matter. Plenty of scraps to choose from. We’re gonna have a great day.
Foods you have always thought of as trash just became the main course. – Oh my God, that’s delicious. – I’m Joel Gamoran, national chef for Sur La Table, and I see flavor where the world sees waste. Maybe it’s not the sexiest thing in the fridge.
But you can make it into something really beautiful. I’m out across the country in my mobile kitchen, Pippi, to throw impromptu dinner parties using local scraps as my ingredients. There are ingredients that people have. I stand for the bruised, the forgotten, and the back of the fridge. Who will stand with me?
– Certainly expanding my horizons here. – [Joel] Save your scraps. Brooks Reitz is a pillar in the Charleston food scene. What’s up, buddy? Everything good? – Yes sir. – Visit one of his restaurants, Little Jack’s Tavern or Leon’s Oyster Shop, and you feel cooler just being there. And beyond the hospitality and sense of design, it’s the well-executed, delicious food
That make him the next great American restaurateur. You were named to be the next Danny Meyer. – Before I met Danny, I was walking around the house sort of pretending like I was saying hello to him– – Love it, love it– – To my wife, going Danny, Danny boy, how you doing? – [Joel] How do you approach food waste with your restaurants? – We try to hire chefs and develop chefs so that they can constantly be thinking just how to use every element. – [Joel] I swear I was like, he looks identical to Matt Damon. – Yeah, it happens all the time,
Especially in New York. – I look like Seth Rogan ate Jonah Hill. Brooks get the food waste mission and he’s the most incredible host. He’s the perfect person to help me throw the scraps summer here in Charleston. He’s gonna be my guide as we set out to find local scraps and prepare a feast that will hopefully inspire everyone.
– I think there’s a couple of ingredients you cannot leave Charleston without eating– – Tell me. Oh my God. How do I not know this? – Oysters and shrimp. We’re kicking off this menu inspired by the South Carolina coastline, and we’re headed over to meet Cyrus Buffom of Seaborn Oyster Company,
A young oysterman selling hand-harvested wild oysters that create a positive impact on the environment. – What’s up buddy? – How are you, sir? – Beautiful day. – It’s, yeah, it’s gorgeous. I have my bikini on under here. How are you? – Hey brother. – Good to see you. – Hey, I’m Joel.
– Hey, Joel, Cyrus. – Good to meet you, buddy. Oh my God, I mean literally, play it cool dude. – It’s all right. – So what’s the story here? – Our farm, we’ve got about 6 1/2 acres. All of these small little islands are essentially sitting in the middle
Of these small tidal creeks, and on the banks of every single one of these tidal creeks exist wild native oyster populations. – Let’s go after ’em. – All right. – Oh my, are you kidding me? If Brooks just did that? Brooks, give me your hand. I’m not kidding.
Oh my God. – Perfect, beautiful. I turned the heat up for you guys. – [Joel] Yeah, turn up the heat. – [Cyrus] This is the safety disclaimer. These oysters are razor sharp. If anyone falls you, could do some serious damage to yourself, so just walk carefully to. – You gotta be kidding me.
– [Cyrus] Are you okay? – [Brooks] Hey, we got a real rookie over here. You want some help? – [Joel] No, you can’t help me. Thanks. – In order to extract an oyster, first look at where the dead shell is, which is all the base, and then we really, nothing fancy about it–
– Just hold it. – But, you know, we hold the oyster that we want, we knock off the dead shell, and then with the back side of the hammer, you begin kind of prying off. And you want really only this one ideally– – [Joel] Dude, that was pro.
– This is a beautiful mature oyster, so this is a perfect old danger. – Old dangers are one of the last wild oyster species here in America. Native to this area, they have an amazing briny flavor thanks to the unique waters of Charleston Bay. Holy (beep).
That is unlike any oyster I’ve ever had in my life. – It tastes like South Carolina. – [Joel] Oysters are a vital part of South Carolina’s history. In fact, Native Americans in the Sea Islands actually used to bake the shucked shells. They would mix them with sand and water to create a type of concrete for their houses. Getting scrappy is just part of their culture around here.
– It’s kind of a rule whenever we’re harvesting, if you break one you have to eat it. That’s a beauty. It’s maybe a little small. – That’s what I’m told a lot. But it is a beauty. It looks right, and it’ll get the job done.
– [Brooks] Get a load of the hammer toss. There’s a hole in this boot. That’s been established. – Yeah, my fingers are numb. Oh, I blew it, man. – That’s all right. Well, we gotta eat it. – Look at what it takes. – Yes.
– Yeah, yeah yeah, you’re as scrappy as they get. – Okay, so we’ve now been out here, we have one, two, three, four, five, six, looks like eight oysters maybe. – [Joel] Yeah, this is hard work. – We’ll be placing orders for 250, 300 oysters– – Unbelievable. Eight oysters in one hour is laughable,
But thankfully Cyrus is gonna bring some for dinner tonight. Ready to go grilled these up? I’ve never grilled an oyster before in my life. – Dude, I’m psyched, yeah. You wanna come with us? – I’d be honored. Let me get the boat put away and that’d be incredible.
Yeah, I think that’d be great. – Yes! – All right, sweet. – [Cyrus] Well I, that is typically the best way to exist a vessel. – I would not want to do that for a living. These oysters are incredible, but we’re about to take them to the next level
By sourcing a classic Charleston scrap. You’re the man for taking us out. Seriously, that was so fun. – Thank you. – But Brooks, you said you got a place for shrimp? – Yeah, Tarvin Seafood. They got beautiful shrimp, head on, peel on, shell on, the whole deal.
– The peel actually is what I’m thinking about using and I got something a little special planned. – Nice. – Using the actual shrimp shell? – Yeah, you’ve ever had it? – Never. – Never used shrimp shells? – Me neither, no. – Oh, we gotta hightail it there.
This is gonna be crazy. – Let’s do it. – Still soaked from my first time harvesting oysters, Brooks, Cyrus and I headed over to Tarvin Seafood to source another major Charleston scrap, shrimp shells. I’ve always heard about Carolina shrimp, but is it really that big of a deal? I mean– – Absolutely.
They’re fresh, big, head on, in the shell, gorgeous fresh out of the water. The ones we’re going to get today are pretty big. Tonya, how you doing? – Good, how are you guys doing? – [Brooks] Good, thank you. – We’re here for some shrimp. – Sure.
– Can we have a pound and a half? And can I see actually one of those real quick, Tonya? – Sure. – Yeah. Awesome, thank you. – They’re gorgeous. – Most people in the world, 99.9% of them are either boiling these and then peeling them or they’re taking off the shell
Like I am right now and peeling and deveining them. Think about all the shrimp that we eat, not only in just South Carolina but in the country, and we’re throwing away all those beautiful shrimp shells. They’re sweet, they’re flavorful, and they’re gonna hit our menu next.
We’re making grilled oysters with shrimp shell butter. The hero of this dish beyond the oysters. – Of course. – Is these beautiful shrimp shells, and like we talked about before, everyone throws this away. We’re gonna make a really gorgeous compound butter. – You can put it on top of steak.
In this case, you can put it on top of the oysters– – Yes, you can do so much with this butter. I’m gonna start with, like, two tablespoons, and I’m gonna add my shrimp shells right to that butter. – [Brooks] I love it. – This is gonna kind of toast them up.
You can make shrimp stock. You can make shrimp risotto. You can make soups. You can grind this into a bisque and thicken it without using cream. – Any time you could put to use something that isn’t traditionally used is a really good moment. – Yeah, the goal here– – This looks great.
– Is to really change the way people look at this, right? I’m gonna zest a little lemon. Is lemon kosher here in the south on these oysters? – [Brooks] Absolutely, that sounds great. – Okay, so we’ve got the shrimp going with a little lemon zest and butter.
I’m gonna go in with a lot more butter since that’s what we’re making. – You know, at the restaurants, we’ll usually sprinkle some fresh herbs, but in the theme of utilizing our scraps, we’ve got cilantro stems here. – Sweet. – Amazing flavor, great texture.
We can put those on top of the oysters when they’re coming off the grill. – That sounds delicious. I want to just try one. I’m gonna let you take this over. – Yeah, sure. Time to go to the KitchenAid? – I think so. – Okay, cool. – [Joel] Hit it.
And this is one thing I do love about the KitchenAid Pro Line Blender. It can break down shells. – Oh yeah. – What we got? – So in all honesty, I mean, shrimp shells are good enough to eat like this, but I think because the oysters are so delicate,
We should strain this out. And you gotta really press it. I’ve never grilled an oyster in my life. – That’s what I’m here for. – Okay, all right, this is looking good. It needs to chills a little bit, but I think we need to taste for seasoning.
– Yeah, we’ve got some spoons over here. – Oh my God. – Wow. That’s gonna be dynamite on those oysters. – Oh geez. – We’re gonna let that chill out for about 10 minutes. I think in the meantime we should warm up our hands. – Yes. Oh nice. – 10 minutes in cold air. – [Brooks] I think what we can do is just scrape it like that. It’s gonna melt and kind of pool over the meat of the oyster and just kind of bath it in that shrimpy flavor. – So we have the shrimp shell butter there,
Cilantro stem, that is a scrappy-looking oyster. I’m so happy about that. – Now we throw ’em on the grill. You don’t want to overcook them because, you know, you overcook an oyster, it just gets chewy. – Just give ’em a kiss. – But yeah, just a kiss. Warm ’em up. Melt the butter.
You can already start to hear– – Beautiful. – Like, a little pop. – [Joel] And you can smell the shrimp. You can smell the brininess of the oyster. – [Brooks] Oh yeah, oh, beautiful there. All that butter, love it. – This is why the guy kills it. I mean, let’s be honest.
Guy can cook. – This guy’s good. – [Joel] So you basically wait about two minutes until the butter melts and the oyster itself kind of just firms up barely. Shall we? – Let’s do it. _ Yeah, let’s dig in. – Man, these look incredible. – [Joel] Cheers, guys.
– [Cyrus] What an incredible way to spend the day– – To you guys. – Thank you. – Oh my God, incredible. – Absolutely. – Thank you guys. Mm, mm, mm, mm. – That is like, so decadent. Still briny, you still get the oyster, and the shrimp shells heighten the entire thing.
– Honestly, it captures South Carolina in a tiny little dish. – We got one course down, three more to go. – Let’s do it. – All right. This shrimp shell butter is mind-blowing and a perfect start to our menu. We’re back on the road. Brooks took me down to the Historic Battery Park,
A beautiful waterfront spot at the tip of downtown Charleston. For this next recipe, I’ve got a scrap in the cooler inspired by a dish Brooks grew up with. Everyone in the world when they think of broccoli, they think about the florets. – Yeah, absolutely.
– But for this recipe, it’s all about the stem. – Love it. – [Joel] Brooks and I are all set up in Battery Park here in Charleston with an amazing scrap in hand, broccoli stems. Broccoli is one of those things that’s at every grocery store and everyone always cooks the top.
Do you ever cook the bottom? – The stem in our house was always trash. I’m super psyched because my grandmother made broccoli slaw with raisins and stuff, so I’m excited to work with this as well. This is awesome. – Absolutely. So Brooks, I mean, the reality is
Is that if you peel this back, it’s crunchy, it’s sweet, it’s really, really delicious, and it’s so much longer than this. I mean, farmers just kinda hack it off right by the florets. There’s probably another 5 inches. – Yeah, I had no idea.
– Yeah, of this stalk that they just leave in the field, and I mean, I feel like if people were into it and they tried something really good like this buttermilk slaw, maybe there would be a demand for it and farmers could make a little extra shekels. – I love that.
– You dig that? – Pressure’s on, then. – Pressure’s on. This is broccoli stem slaw. All right, so first step to this is I’m gonna peel back these little broccoli stems. So your grandma used to make slaw? – Yeah, we would have everyone over after church
On Sunday or something and my grandmother would make, like, a sweet broccoli slaw. There were raisins in it. – I love it. But check this out. – Oh, sweet. – Try that . What do you think? – Oh, it’s amazing, honestly. – You love it, right? – Yeah, I’m impressed.
You could just put olive oil and lemon juice on that and it’d probably be good with just a little salt– – I just don’t understand why we’re just throwing this away. – Absolutely. – So I’m gonna scoop all this in here and you’re going to show me a little buttermilk dressing.
– [Brooks] Like a good southerner should. – Why do you guys like buttermilk so much here? – You know, it’s got that sourness, that freshness, the southern man’s creme fraiche, if you will. – Ooh, I love it. I love it. And usually there is a little dried fruit going on.
So I’ve got some Turkish apricots. Everyone thinks that apricots are like those bright orange, but real apricots– – Yeah, those are beautiful. – [Joel] They’re beautiful. They’re kind of like that carmel brown. So I’m gonna cut these kinda nice and small. – [Brooks] Awesome. We have some diced shallot here.
– Okay. – You can throw it in there. – Little savory, love that. – Absolutely. Some paprika. We got some salt here. – Yeah, yeah. – Some cracked black pepper. – Ooh, I love that, yeah. – So we mix that up. This looks good. We’ve got some sunflowers seeds over here as well–
– Ooh, for like a little crunch? – Yeah. – Look at how pretty that looks, yeah. – Awesome. – And then before you dress it, I was just thinking, I mean, here’s another thing that people throw away. I think that our diners would respond to it. Celery leaves. – Absolutely.
– Are you a fan? – I’m a huge fan of celery leaves. There’s a restaurant I go to in Washington that does a salad of celery leaves and celery stalk– – What? – With a little shaved cheese. It’s amazing, and walnut. – That sounds great. Yeah, it’s one of those things
That everyone just goes after the stalk. I mean, we’ll save this for a stock or– – No, the leaves are amazing. – The leaves are great. So these are going to go right in. Look at that color. That looks really good. – [Brooks] Yeah, this looks–
– [Joel] You wanna dress that bad boy? – Stellar, absolutely. – [Joel] And this is the type of salad, what I love about this is this can sit for a while. – [Brooks] As it marinates, those flavors marry. – [Joel] Shall we, Brooks? – Oh, please. – Love that. – This looks beautiful.
– Mm, mm. Buttermilk, baby– – That’s so good– – That southern creme fraiche. – [Brooks] That is killer. – That’s so good, and what’s amazing is the broccoli stem, like I said, it’s sweet, it’s crunchy. – It’s a lot more interesting than just using the florets for sure. – Or even cabbage.
– We would serve this at the restaurant in a heartbeat. – You’re lying to me. – I am not lying. – You would serve that in the restaurant? – That is stellar. – The sweet, crunchy broccoli stems take this slaw to the next level. Dinner’s just a couple hours away,
So we headed over to Brooks’ restaurant, Leon’s. – [Brooks] Can I drive this thing? – You wanna drive this? . – I wanna drive this. – You’re joking me. – You’re up for it? – Well, we gotta go. Go, go, go. You know how to drive stick? Yeah, baby. – Boom. I used to drive a stick in high school, but it’s probably– – Brings it all back, right? – [Brooks] Probably been 15 years or so. – Dude, we got here right when the rain started. This is awesome. Come on, this is (beep) awesome. – So this is The Oyster Shed. – Okay.
– It’s behind Leon’s. – Yeah. – Well, I love it here– – Thank you. – But we’re going to do something super different, a little bit out of the box. The key to this next dish, ooh, the sweet sound. – Sweet pop. – Is not pickles. – Yeah.
– It’s the pickle juice. – Right. – I honestly think what I’m about to do with this pickle juice is gonna blow your mind. – I’m excited. The weather has turned here in Charleston and Brooks and I have two hours before the guests arrive, but a little rain won’t stop us.
Brooks, you good with cooking in the rain like this? – I’m going. – We set up at Leon’s to cook with a scrap everyone has in their fridge. We’ve made a lot of stupid decisions today. – Tons. – I think frying chicken in the pouring rain has gotta top the list. – Not the most beautiful day in Charleston but we work with what we’re given.
– Well, I think the fried chicken will taste that much sweeter, and honestly what makes this fried chicken sing is pickle juice. – Yeah. – It’s got sugar, it’s got vinegar, it’s got a little bit of salt. Sometimes there’s spices. – Yeah, right. – Like coriander,
Or there’s some beautiful garlic in this one. So we’re going to do something that’s gonna absolutely blow your mind. Pickle brined fried chicken. – I’m open to learning. – All right, you are the master when it comes to fried chicken. So I got the thighs and I’m going boneless and I’m going skinless.
What you’re gonna do is sift out some of that pickle juice since that is our scrap. – [Brooks] Perfect. – [Joel] All right, while you’re doing that, I’m gonna set up the dredge for this bad boy. We’ll grab a couple of these, and you can just soak ’em in your pickle juice.
These need to sit for about 24 hours. – So we have to just stand here for 24 hours? – Yeah, well, we could– – Oh my God, look over there. – What, what do you want me to look at? – Oh, you know it went away. Um, brined chicken.
– Brined chicken! – Brined chicken. – Brined chicken, perfect. All right, this is 24-hour brined. You can see– – Yeah, absolutely. – The color has kind of changed, so this is ready for its breading. I’m gonna take this brined chicken, I’m gonna throw it in here, and I keep that thin layer.
I only do one dip. Gently, delicately, place one of these chicken thighs into the hot oil. Oh, beautiful. – Boom. – [Joel] And then a lot what you’re hearing, that spitter and spatter, is the pickle juice that kind of just needs to cook away. They’re looking pretty good.
– [Brooks] This one probably could come out. – [Joel] Brooks, as you’re taking those out, it’s super important to hit it with some salt. – [Brooks] Yeah, absolutely. – We’re using a Carolina salt, right, so it sticks. – Oh, nice. – I’m gonna take some of the pickles left over from the jar.
I’m just kinda cutting them randomly. Gotta take some of these guys, oh they’re, first of all, just crispy– – Oh, killer. – Crispy right? – You go with some honey and some hot sauce behind you. – Honey and hot sauce. – And I’ve got some dill. I’m just gonna rip this.
And finally, I thought we’d kinda take a little bit of these pickle pieces, throw them everywhere and anywhere. Pickle juice fried chicken. – I think we’ve got a winner. – Well, you gotta try it, Brooks. – Okay. – You are the connoisseur– – All right. – And I know you went
Through massive R and D. It’s all about the texture. – [Brooks] I can’t wait, oh. – [Joel] That’s a good sound. – [Brooks] Yeah, you can hear it shatter– – Oh, look at that. – Beautifully cooked. – All right, cheers, buddy. – If I may say so myself.
– Yeah, you did do it. It’s completely moist. – The pickle juice brine totally comes through. – You dig it? – Mhm. – That’s a huge compliment coming from this guy. Brooks, I think the lesson learned is use your pickle juice. – [Brooks] 100%. – Pickle juice approved.
Brooks totally digs the fried chicken. We need a dessert, though, so I’ve got one last scrap, vanilla bean pods. You can use the seeds for so many things, right? I mean, obviously ice cream and cookies and cakes, but what gets thrown away is the pod itself.
And if you nestle it into some sugar, the sugar then perfumes, absorbs all that vanilla. Just smell this. I infused this one already. – Oh yeah. – So we made some brown sugar vanilla pod ice cream topped it with roasted rhubarb. Before I even jump into it, Brooks Reitz, it’s been amazing– – From the moment I met you. – Brooks Reitz. – Are we getting married right now? – It’s been a pleasure seeing Charleston through your eyes. Thank you for your time. I really appreciate that. – Thank you so much. – We made a little meal for you. It was kinda crazy putting this bad boy together,
But what we got for you is beautiful oysters from Seaborn Oyster. But that is not the scrap. We took shrimp shells and we roasted them with a little bit of butter and drizzled over the top and then grilled them, which I’ve never grilled an oyster before.
We wanted something to kinda cool you guys off. Brooks was talking about a slaw his grandma always makes. Slaw is usually made with cabbage, but I was inspired by broccoli stems. – Cyrus was like, wait, what, how did you do the slaw? And I was like, you know, we peeled the stem
And we chopped it up and we grated it and we tossed it– – Yeah, yeah, yeah. – [Joel] And then we made a fried chicken and we took pickle juice and brined our chicken in there overnight. We think it adds a little bit of a punchiness to it, keeps the meat really moist. – Yeah, fried chicken and pickles, it’s such a great combo. I’m not even blowing smoke,
This is really good. – Hey, that’s scrapping, man. That’s it. Yeah, don’t listen to his– – [Dinner Guest] Can I get seconds? – Oh yeah, go, go, go, eat, eat, eat. – Go for it, man. – We’ve got a little vanilla pod brown sugar ice cream and roasted rhubarb. So enjoy.
You do ice cream so well here, man. – It’s the simple things. – That’s so good. You guys, to check out these recipes and to dive even deeper into the techniques of what you saw on the show, check out our online cooking classes at surlatable.com/scraps.
– Yeah, I won’t be there, but check it out. – All the more reason to sign up. Join me in the Sur La Table kitchen. Grab your knife. Tuck your fingers back. Jenn, are you a fried chicken fan? – Yes, huge. – [Joel] That makes for a really, really crispy exterior. – Did you have to boil the shells first? – No, these are totally just peeled raw shells.
– Thank you for this. – Thank you. – This is beautiful.
1 Comment
Excellent 🎉