Get A Load Of This Gourmet Meal Created By A Chef Using McDonald's French Fries And Chicken Nuggets That Idiots On The Internet Are Flipping Out Because It's Too Small
Metro - A chef has shared how she transformed a McDonald’s meal into a gourmet pasta dish. But her handiwork has left a sour taste with many viewers.
Danny Kim, 26, a content creator from Maryland, US, recently challenged chef Amy Brandwein to create tortellini using fast food ingredients. She was then given a Happy Meal box filled with fries, chicken nuggets, sweet and sour sauce and two apple pies – and tasked with completely transforming it.
Amy’s concoction has left TikTok users stunned, with the clip racking up more than 1.3 million views. However, many people were enraged by the tiny size of the plate – which is the antithesis of a McDonald’s meal
But, as skilled as it was, TikTok users weren’t sold on the final creation. ‘Bro all that food turned into three pieces of pasta,’ wrote one user. Another said: ‘She lost me when she mixed the apple pie with the chicken nuggets.’ A third viewer commented: ‘Is no one going to talk about how much went into that and how little it was?’ ‘My inner Italian is raging,’ added a fourth TikTok user. Someone else wrote: ‘I mean great job. You really just blended most of it.’
Again referring to its size, another social media user said: ‘Now it looks good and all, however I’m a growing boy and that is not enough even to snack on.’
First off, chill the fuck out Metro UK...
Nobody is "Raging" over this. People are being fucking morons on the internet which is like saying it will get dark tonight.
You give these neanderthals whose idea of "gourmet" is splurging for the "Freschetta" frozen pizza over the usual "Jack"s 5 for $10 special an opinion via social media and what do you expect?
These people (generally) have worst taste than Nate.
There's nothing to be upset about either. This isn't the fucking Olive Garden putting spaghetti and meatball nachos, or meatball pizza bowls on their menu. This was some weird grown man tik toker approaching a very well-trained and highly acclaimed chef with a fun, Chopped style challenge, and her knocking it out of the park.
Would I try this dish? Fuck yah I would. I live of the belief that we only ride this merry-go-round called life once, (unless you practice Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, or Sikhism, and believe in reincarnation) so we should all try everything at least once. After all, how can you say you don't like something if you've never tried it?
Also, I fucking love tortellini. I feel like this video just further proves my theory that they're making a giant comeback too.
When I was a kid I grew up eating them all the time in the winter when my mom would make chicken soup. Instead of big egg noodles, she'd substitute tortellini. If you've never tried this, give it a whirl, it will fuck up your whole perspective on shit.
In the last year, I've started seeing tortellini pop up on a few menus at places I've gone and I couldn't be happier. (Lago in Cleveland has an excellent dish. And Monteverde's in Chicago is lights out). The tortellini is the unacknowledged, but superior in every way, little brother to the ravioli. Raviolis get all the headlines, but tortellinis are the experts' pick.
For one, their shape and design allow for them to hold their form and texture better. If you like your pasta al dente the tortellini will get you there. The ravioli, to no fault of its own, sadly cannot. They have just too much surface area, spread across a wide square shape, pinched on the sides, that is asking far too much of the stretched pasta to hold in its contents.
Have you ever boiled non-frozen ravioli before? It's a shit show in the pot. You can always count on casualties and collateral damage.Tortellini have a much lower mortality rate... (Find me a better breakdown on pasta. You can't)
This also reminds me of one of the best dishes I have ever had in my life. Actually two. Both here in Chicago, at Alinea Group's offspring, Next and Roister, respectively...
If you have no idea what Alinea is, and you enjoy amazing dining experiences, do yourself a favor and book a reservation online (months out) and book a trip around it. Trust me. If you're not into that kind of stuff kindly ignore the following and go back to enjoying your Encore TV Dinner and Mountain Dew.
I'm good friends with the chef who opened up Roister for Alinea Group, Chef Andrew Brochu, so I was lucky to have a connect to get my friends and I in there pretty regularly. (Michelin star decorated, no big deal). Roister is Alinea's more approachable, more casual concept. They had this dish that was a deconstructed chicken noodle soup that sounds so fucking weird to describe and was truly one of those things you needed to try to believe.
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It came in a large, deep soup bowl, and had all the parts of a traditional chicken soup in it but they were separated in the bowl, and exaggerated. A couple times I ordered this there was even a matza ball in there which was also off the charts. When you combined them all it tasted like magic. You could also sample each part individually if you wanted. Sounds weird and strange and I'm not doing it justice whatsoever but it was just one of the dozen things on the menu that would rock your world.
Next door, at their other place Next, they had something equally crazy. (Next, was a step down from Alinea in terms of price and design, but not quality or experience) They feature a rotating menu which I think changes every quarter. It's a 12-course experience centered around a different theme. One of the times I went the theme was "Childhood" so it was all plays and spins on things you remember from when you were a kid.
For instance, one of the first courses was presented in those tin lunch boxes our parents had as kids with comic book and sesame street characters on them. You opened it up and there was these items in ziplock bags like you'd take to school lunch. One was a homemade Oreo using truffle in the cookie, and some kind of whipped cream in the center that made you feel like you were floating on clouds when you ate it. Another was a half of the greatest peanut butter and jelly sandwich you've ever had in your life. The ingredients all homemade from scratch. Another standout was a homemade fruit rollup also made from scratch that was incredible.
Anyway, the dish that I'm talking about came out on a giant glass plate and looked like a Jackson Pollack painting. Somebody took a bunch of squeeze bottles and squeezed what looked like ketchup, mustard, and thousand island sauces all over the plate in an artful way.
Our server explained that this was their play on a Big Mac and that we should mix everything up on the plate and try it. We did just that and holy shit it tasted like the freshest, most satisfying Big Mac you'd ever tried in your life. Mind-blowing stuff. (I realize I'm a weirdo about this stuff and honestly don't care. I love food and eating as much as I love anything.)
So all that said, everybody, chill the fuck out.
If you knew anything about haute-cuisine you’d know that it isn’t a true fine dining, gourmet experience unless you leave with your wallet feeling as empty as your stomach and you have to make a stop at McDonald’s (or Portillos) for a burger afterward. Sure you pay through the nose but don’t you dare expect to leave full.
Stop giving these losers on tik tok views who dump a ton of shit out on their kitchen counter and mess it up with their hands and then it off the counter. And stop freaking out about inventive challenge-type stuff like this. Totally different. And most of all, start showing some God damn respect for the tortellini.
Here's the whole video-
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p.s. - food processors are a complete game-changer. You ever wonder how chefs morph things into the craziest things? 9 times out of 10 it includes a food processor.
p.p.s. - Chef Amy Brandwein is a bad ass. I haven't gotten to go to Centrolina yet, but I've been to Piccolina and it's awesome. They do amazing focaccia and pizza. My godson and his family live in D.C. and the past few times I've visited I've been really impressed by how much the food game continues to elevate there. Last week we went to L'Ardente and ordered pretty much everything on the menu and I was seriously impressed.
p.p.s. - here's the video from the time I took a behind the scenes tour of Eminem's restaurant "Mom's Spaghetti" in Detroit