Drive Thru

Hey, y'all

Today on Paula's Party, we're going to be cooking up some of my favorite fast foods

I'm going to be making a Big Mike burger. Oh, that cheese is wanting to peek out of there. Look

Look, y'all. And I'm telling you, it's a mouthful. How skinny, just in case y'all can't see

And homemade French fries, y'all, with a dipping sauce. Yum. And guess what

It's PFC time. Move over, Colonel. Paula's fried chicken. And I'm going to be satisfying my favorite daughter-in-law's daily cravings

It's good. I'm surprised. With some deep fried ice cream. So buckle up, y'all

We're going to be hitting the drive-thrus. So you're ready to party

I don't know who I have to thank

for always putting me a little eye candy. So are y'all as good as you look

Because y'all look great. Another one that grows diamonds out their nose

I want to learn how to do that. Well, y'all, let's talk about food for a second

Y'all know how much I love to cook and be in my kitchen, but sometimes I just can't do it

So I want to share with y'all today some foods that I love to eat if I'm not in my kitchen cooking

And I think that y'all are going to recognize every one of these

They're probably the most popular fast foods in America. And while they're good, you know, I think we can make them a little better

Don't you think? I think so, too. And the first dish that I'm going to start out with is a Big Mike

You get it? So who's ready to party? Let's party! All right

Now, I'm going to need somebody to help me make this Big Mike

I almost said something else. I need somebody to help me. Now, who's got fast food experience

Come on up here, baby. Yes, ma'am. Now, what is your name

My name's Barry. Barry, you get over there, and you see we've got some ingredients

Now, I want you to get those prepped for me while I start on the hamburgers, okay? Okay

So you go to your station, and I want to see just how fast you are. Okay, gotcha

And I'll be back with you in a minute. All right, now let's come down here and start working on our burgers

I've got about a half a stick of butter. Half a cup of pecans

A couple of tablespoons of fresh chopped parsley. Two tablespoons of grated onion

Now, that's been grated to get all that juice out of it. Now, we're just going to mix those ingredients together

Y'all, I know this sounds sinful, but my family's favorite hamburger is when I get a stick of butter real, real cold

and I dice it up into pieces about this big, and I work it into the ground beef

It looks like cloves of garlic in this hamburger meat. and you put that on the grill

and that butter starts melting through that ground beef. It is out of this world delicious

Brooke and Jamie had been traveling. Jamie called me. He said, Mama, we're going to be home tomorrow night

and all Brooke wants is a butter burger. So I had her a butter burger waiting

All right, now we're going to take another burger, and we're going to seal those pecans in butter inside there

All right, how are you coming, Barry? Pretty good. I think I've got the tomatoes sliced

Is that how fast you worked in that fast food place? You must have worked at that place where I go and have to wait 30 minutes for my burger

Tell us how you did it in the restaurant. Oh, no. No, I cut my finger. You're not missing some digits, are you

No, they're all here. All right, now I've got this bacon kind of soft

Paula, now let me ask you. What, darling? I see you're using a cast iron fryer, right

Yeah. And you know, I'm from Georgia, from the small town, and my parents always would use a cast iron skillet

Yeah. And they always said it just tastes better. Is that true? It absolutely does

You can't run your kitchen with just cast iron. Right. But for some things, cast iron is the only workable thing

It has a wonderful, wonderful ability to distribute your heat evenly, and it's thick enough so that things won't burn and scorch on you

All right, now I'm going to take me some toothpicks, y'all. And I'm going to wrap this bacon just like this

Let me see if I got me a little bit of salt and pepper

It smells good. Doesn't it smell good? You know, I just want to come up with a room deodorizer that smells like bacon and onions cooking

Don't you think I could sell a ton of it? All right, now we're going to stick these burgers on the grill

Believe it or not, Barry, this hamburger is not even half done

This is only half of it. When we come back, we're gonna show you the other half of the Big Mike burger

Up next. One Big Bite for Mama. Welcome back, y'all

We're making fast food favorites. We're working on a Big Mike burger

Well, you know, I told you a minute ago, before we scooted out for a second

that this is only half our burger. Right. All right, I'm fixing to make the other half

of the burger that goes on this Big Mike. And while I doing that I want you to make up our special Mike sauce OK It everything that Mike likes It a cup of mayonnaise half a cup of mustard fourth of a cup of ketchup some hot sauce

and Michael loves jalapeno peppers. Okay. So get started mixing that up

I'm going to make the second burger for our Big Mike. How big is this burger going to be

I don't rightly know yet, son. A little bit of salt and pepper

We'll find out together. Okay. Do y'all remember when I was telling y'all about that butter

that I like to put in my hamburger meat? See how it's diced

You know, if you've got a special occasion and you really want to make that burger just extra, extra good

try this. Taking that hamburger meat, and in that meat, I'm wrapping it around a piece of cheese

All right, now this hamburger's gonna go right there. Miss Paula, I was wondering how much trouble

do you get in with Michael when you're cooking with your rings on? When we first married, he would get so upset

I said, wouldn't you rather have my rings on my hand dirty

than in somebody else's pocket clean? What type of ground beef do you like to use

that you think makes the best hamburger? You can't beat ground chuck

When I cook a roast, unless it's a stand-in-rib roast, I don't use anything but chuck roast

It's got enough fat in it to make it flavorful and tender

Woo! Burning up over there. Well, yeah, that's the butter in it. Oh

And I think I'm going to turn that grill off because I can't see y'all no more

All right, so I've got some that's already done. Ooh, that cheese is wanting to peek out of there

Look. Look, y'all. See that cheese peeking out of there? My grill is off, y'all

Paula, how hot do you want this special sauce? Um, you know, you can use your own imagination, Barry

Bring it on over here. Woo! I got the coloring, I think, right, but it may need a little more spice. Okay

Oh, that looks good. What do you think? All right, bring everything over. Bring all your fixings and..

That is so good. All right, let's put our burger together. Okay

All right, let's start with some sauce. And then we'll start with our bacon burger, and we'll want to make sure we take those toothpicks out

Some more sauce. Put a lot of that stuff in it. You like a lot of that stuff

Okay. Well, we'll put one more of those. Okay. And then let's put on this one, let's put some pickles

Barry, hold that little camera so they can see what I'm doing. All right

Now I'm going to put another burger on this one, and then we've got our lids

More special sauce. All right, and let's see. We've got to have a little lettuce because we're eating healthy today

We want to make sure. Get your greens in. We've got to get our vegetables in

Sure. All right. It's huge. I don't think we got our onion

You left the onion. Look. Okay. I knew it. Now, how's that for a burger? Wow

So they got me a box to take this hamburger in, and

I don't know what it looks like, but they told me I'd find it over here

Oh, and here it is. Ow. Oh. Oh, that's great. The Big Mike

That's my husband. Oh, wow. But you know what? I don't think his burger's gonna fit

Here, you be trying to do that. Okay. No, I don't think it's gonna fit

So if it doesn't fit, we must have quit. Why don't we eat it? We're gonna quit trying to fix it in that box

All right. Push it down. See, look. All right, you go first

Okay. And if it doesn't kill you, I may taste it. I don't know

Oh, no, no, no. One little nibble out of there. Yeah. That was the end that was sticking out

No, no, no. It's good, though. Mama's going to show you how to bite a burger

Oh, Mama. Okay

Can you give me some? Up next, there's absolutely nothing better than homemade french fries

And later, y'all, my grandma's secret recipe for perfect fried chicken. Welcome back, y'all

It's Paula's drive-thru today. Y'all, if there's any food I know about, it's a tater

In fact, the other day, Michael came in and he said, Paula, if you were going to be stuck on a desert island

what would you take with you? And I said, a potato. And I said, well, why

What would you take with you? He said, a boat. And then I'd come and pick you and your stupid potato

and bring y'all home. You see how my mind thinks. I was thinking about that potato

But I want to tell y'all how to make the perfect French fry. All you have to do is take your potatoes

slice them whether you like a steak size or a shoestring. Slice them, throw them in the fryer for about two to three minutes

But the French fry that I'm going to cook today takes me back to when my boys were real, real little boys

And this was their favorite French fry. Now I have taken these French fries and I pre them for two minutes and let them chill down And now I going to dip them into evaporated milk

Now you can use buttermilk if you don't have the canned milk around

I'm going to add a bit of salt and pepper to the flour because, you know, french fries are best if they're salty

Now if you use a buttermilk, a buttermilk will give them a heavier coating than like

evaporated milk because it's thinner. And y'all when I used to cook these I would hate to think how many calories were in them

So I wouldn't think about it. I just love them. All right, how about somebody coming up here and helping me

Come on up here, darling. I need for you to do something for me

I want you to pick up that ice cube camera. See it right there

Uh-huh, just pull that off. It's just Velcroed on. There you go

Sometimes it's hard to cook and be my own cameraman too, you know what I mean? All right

So I want you to help me make some sauces. I've got three bowls with mayonnaise in it

and I'll tell you what we've got to make our sauces with. We've got a taco seasoning, dried parsley, chili powder

grated Parmesan cheese, lemon pepper, barbecue sauce, mustard, green onion tops, and horseradish

So I want y'all to help me formulate a mayonnaise sauce to eat with our French fries

Anybody got any ideas? Horseradish. All right, come up here and put some horseradish in

Put however much you think. You want mustard in with a horseradish, okay

You come on up, too. What, darling? Taco sauce. All right, come on

Get in line. All right, get around here, baby. Walk right around there, because there's your horseradish

There's your mayonnaise. All right, now, we're making one sauce right this minute, right? Right

All these flavors are going to be in this one sauce. All right, there you go

All right, now what did you want? The taco sauce. The taco sauce. Tacos and horseradish

Sounds interesting, doesn't it? Anything else? We've got mustard, horseradish, mayonnaise, taco sauce

Y'all did not do badly. It's good, isn't it

Paula, that's gonna make me smack my mama. I love it. I've smacked my mama on a couple of occasions, too

Look at that. I think they're ready, don't you? Yes, ma'am. Wow

Kabow. All right, girls. Okay, y'all come on back here, girls. and let's put our sauce

in a pretty little bowl. Yummy. Whoops! My kitchen

ain't big enough. That's always the problem. We've got to clean up our counter so it can be pretty

up here. Alright. Alright. Now I want y'all to taste what y'all have created

Oh, I like that fat one. And see, I eat like lots of mayonnaise

Would you like one? Please. Baby, I ain't gonna feed your tail. I'm gonna get me one

You're gonna have to feed. I know. Oh, here, blow. Mmm. Mmm. Mmm

It's so good. Aren't they good? Surprise. Those are delicious. We're not going to be eating in front of y'all

Y'all are getting french fries, too. Thanks, girls. Come on in, girls

Look at these cute things. You didn't know that Uncle Bubba's waitresses could roller skate, did you

Aren't they cute? Y'all getting your taters? Eat up. We'll be right back in just a few minutes

Don't go anywhere. Coming up, fried chicken

How'd y'all like those French fries

They are so good, aren't they? And you saw how easy you can do that at home

All right, well, let's talk about our next favorite fast food that we're going to be cooking

You know, my grandmother Paul and grandfather Paul was in the motel and restaurant business

And they say that back when I was a little bitty girl in the 50s

they said that somebody came in to the restaurant and stole my Grandma Paul's fried chicken recipe

Now, I looked for him for years, and I think that I found him

So y'all come over here, take a look at this tape, and see if I'm on the right track

I think I found Bernie Sanders. Okay. Hey, how are you? Oh, fine. How about you

You look like Carl Sanders. Well, thank you so much. It took me a long time to get out of here and eat that sod, but I finally made it

Well, listen, I want to know. Yes, ma'am. Did you steal my granny's chicken recipe

No, ma'am. No, ma'am. Now, I heard that you did. I got mine sealed up in a jar

Okay. Well, you look just like Carl Sanders. Well, thank you so much

And y'all have a good one. We're going to have a ball. Okay. Well, y'all all know that the real Colonel Sanders is no longer with us

In fact, Colonel Sanders, I think, was 65, 64, 65, when he started his business

And it's just real funny that his first chicken was steamed. Well, my grandmother steamed her

She fried it, would pour off some of the grease, and then put the lid on it and let it steam

and it reminds me very much of Colonel Sanders' chicken, but she didn use all the herbs So I going to show y exactly how my grandma used to cook it And these help because it gets gumpy

Alright, baby, you wanna come mix my water in with my eggs

Yeah, you can. And how about you putting the pepper in there for me

Now the first thing that you wanna do, grandma always taught me, just put the water in there

for me, please, honey, beat it up and put that in there and stir that up. Now, my grandma

always taught me to make delicious chicken that you need to wash it in the morning, season

it with salt and pepper, tuck it away in the refrigerator, and then when you pull it out

to fry it for supper, it's soaked up all that seasoning. It's not just on the outside, but

the flavors all the way to the bone. So this has been seasoned good. Okay, thank you, darling

You're welcome. Thank you, girls. Now, I'm going to dip our chicken first into the egg and water

I'm going to start with the thigh and the legs. Because these are the dark pieces of chicken, this is the part that holds the blood

So it takes longer to cook. So we're going to put those in first

So those can cook a little bit longer than our white meat

At the Lady and Sons, we add a good Louisiana hot sauce dry eggs, and it just makes for the best chicken

You know, it's not hot. Believe it or not, the heat cooks out of it

But yet you wonder what that fabulous flavor is. Grandmama didn't put it on her chicken, but she would sprinkle Tabasco on it after she got through cooking it

You know, as she was about to eat it, everybody would have the Tabasco there

What kind of oil do you use? I like to fry my chicken in peanut oil

In fact, everything that we fry here at Uncle Bubba's Oyster House and the Lady and Sons, we use nothing but peanut oil

And it's a little bit more expensive. It's kind of on the pricey side. But you get a longer life from it

You know, it has a higher resistance to burning and tasting scorched on you

And it gives it a wonderful flavor. But you just have to be careful if you use it at home

and you have a lot of different people eating at your house that they have no allergies to peanuts

because it can make them terribly, terribly sick. But I'm almost... Ouch

Did y'all ever see one of my first shows? I was making hot wings

and one of those wings all but flew out of the pan

I mean, it burnt me good. I was the first host ever to be bleeped on Food Network

Because I call that chicken an ugly name. I mean, it hurt, and I almost fainted when I saw the show

Yes. What's the best way to tell if your grease is hot enough or not? Well, the best way is with a thermometer

And I like to cook my chicken at 350 degrees. But if I don't have a thermometer, I just dip my hands in a little water and sprinkle the water into the grease

And if it really pops, then you know it's about ready. It's a challenge to cook chicken at home because of keeping your grease, the temperature of your grease regulated

Here in our restaurants, we have naturally, we have deep fryers. and they have great regulators on them

Paula, when your chicken's done frying, do you like to dry it on a paper towel or a paper bag

I've done it on both, honey. But my mother and my grandmother use paper bags

because back then when you went to the grocery store, they didn't know what a plastic bag was

It was all paper. And sometimes if I don't have paper towels

I'll use a paper sack. But like I said, I don't have many of those around

like I used to when I was first married. But when I see it on paper bags

oh, it brings back so many memories because to me, Southern women

you know, they just make do with whatever they've got to work with

All right, so I'm going to fry this down, y'all, until it..

What's that? Y'all are talking about something and I don't know what y'all are saying

You said you make do when someone asks if you make do the husband. Sometimes if we're in a hurry

All right, y'all. I've got our chicken now. I've browned it on both sides

When we come back, I'm going to show you how Grandma steamed her chicken

So don't go anywhere. We'll be right back. Coming up, milkshakes with a twist

And later on, are you craving pickles too? No, but I have to have ice cream at some point every single day

Well, or else I'm not satisfied. We're going to be cooking for three

Welcome back. It's Paula's drive-thru today. Oh, y'all, this chicken is looking great

Now, I've got it nice and brown, just like my grandma would do

Now I'm going to just pour a little bit of this grease off. And when you do this, you'll want to be careful

because there's nothing worse than a grease burn. Now I'm going to put the lid on this chicken

and this is how grandma steamed her chicken. Well, listen, let's move on

because I'm going to let our chicken finish frying up, but now I want to move on to one of my favorite things

in the whole world that you get from a fast food restaurant

There is nothing better than a milkshake. Is it? Nothing better. Well, I put out the word that I was looking

for an unusual milkshake recipe, And this young woman named Chantel wrote in and told me that she makes her husband a milkshake that is his absolute favorite

And she makes them out of his favorite sweets. Cinnamon roll. We're fixing to make a cinnamon roll milkshake

Chantel, come on up here. Well, Chantel, I've been around the block a time or two

but I have never heard of a cinnamon roll milkshake. So I want you to show us how we do it. OK

I'll be glad to. So what we're going to do is take our ice cream

OK, now what do you have in here? In here is vanilla pudding, just instant vanilla pudding mix

And you could really use almost any mix, even Cheesecake pudding mix. That would be good

So you put your milk and your pudding in the blender, blend it up

Right, right. Okay. And so you got your vanilla pudding. How much milk to pudding? Do you make it thicker than you normally would

No, you make it just as it's described on the package directions, exactly as it is

Uh-huh. So make your pudding right in the blender. Uh-huh. And then you can add usually about four big scoops of ice cream

Uh-huh. If we can get it in there. Just get it off with your fingers. Sometimes they..

Okay Chantelle. All right, you ready to go? Yes. Okay, so we got our pudding, our ice cream

Now we're gonna add about a half a cup of milk. And then we're gonna add, this is about, I don't know

three heaping spoonfuls of caramel ice cream toppings. Okay, so you just buy that with the chocolate syrup..

Already made. It's found right where all your other ice cream toppings are

So we're gonna add that. And then this is sort of a cinnamon sugar mixture

It's about three tablespoons of sugar and about a teaspoon or two of cinnamon

And we're gonna add a little bit of that in here, not all of it, because we wanna reserve some of it

to sprinkle on top. Just gonna put the lid on this and blend it up

That's probably good, what do you think? Alright, look at that Chantelle. I think that's probably the way you want it, isn't it

I think so. I think that's perfect. Alright. Then we're going to take it off. Okay, so... Uh-huh

There we go. Uh-huh. Pour a little in there. Looks like eggnog, doesn't it

It does. Let's pour a little bit more in here. There we go. And then what we've done here is we've got prepared cream cheese icing

because you can't have a cinnamon roll without cream cheese icing on top. Just going to put a spoonful on top

Okay? Just like that. Maybe a little more. And she's skinny, y'all

Look how skinny. Just in case y'all can't see. Look at that

I can put my hand around her waist. This is not fair

So then we'll sprinkle a little bit more of our cinnamon sugar over top. And garnish

By all means. With a cinnamon stick. There you go. I so want to taste it

All right. Well, let's do it. How much does your husband weigh

Oh, he's right there. Look how good he looks. That one right there

He works out. He does. A lot. I going to have to get a bigger sucker

That is crazy delicious. That is sinful good, girl. And that big old glob of cream cheese is icing

It's so good. Well, I gotta finish up my chicken, because I think it's ready

Look at this chicken. Oh my goodness, look, Chantelle

My granny's back. It looks delicious. Look at that. It'll be so wonderful with that milkshake

It looks like my grandmother's, too. Does it? Would your granny put the lid on it and steam it like that

She must have, because it looks like that. Yum. Fried chicken and milkshakes

You can't beat it. Oh, gosh. All right, what color do you like

I like white. You like white? Yeah. Okay. All right, now it's hot, but look how sticky that's gotten from that steam

All right, put your camera down. Oh, oh, oh. Now be careful, but just kind of taste that little bite right there

Okay. And I like white, too. This is really good. Is it

Yes. I'm gonna take some of this home with me. I want you to, in fact

we can't have chicken without a bucket, can we? Let's see what kind of bucket they got for me

Move over, Colonel. The General's coming in the dough. When we come back, y'all, I'm gonna be making

my pregnant daughter-in-law, Brooke, a fabulous, fabulous deep-fried ice cream. It's that claim and right on the money

Thank y'all so much! Thank you so very much. Well I promised you before break that I was going to introduce y to my daughter to Jamie wife Brooke And I want to prepare y She eight months pregnant so her little belly out there

And every day she's facing cravings. Brooke, come on out, darling. Come on out

Y'all get a good picture of her. I said, if I was a guy, I would want her for my girlfriend

Yeah, we got a little boy in here, and they named him Jack

Jamie has told me, Brooke, that you're having one craving every day for the same food

Ice cream. Are you craving pickles too? No, but I have to have ice cream

at some point every single day. Or else I'm not satisfied. I hear you

Well, I invited you here today so that I could make you a special ice cream

I'm gonna fry you some ice cream. That'll add another five pounds

So let's come back here, and I'm gonna show you how we do it. Can you get three

I don't just have him do that. Y'all, you can see, y'all have eyes, you can see how beautiful she is

And, you know, that's not the most important thing. The thing that I love about Brooke is she's beautiful inside

She's got a beautiful spirit and a beautiful person. Oh, I just love you

All right, come on over here on this side. Now, I don't want you to get burned, but we're going to make a batter now

for our ice cream. I'm going to start with a cup of milk

one egg. I'm not used to being around frying grease and making ice cream at the same time

so I'm interested to see what it's going to taste like. Yeah, and this is kind of a weird combination, isn't it

All right, now I'm going to add a cup of flour. Just going to blend that together

Just like that. I'm going to add a little salt, a little bacon soda, a little cream of tartar, and just a little sugar

Because we want this batter to have just a little sweetness to it to go with the ice cream

All right now we got our deep fryer set on 350 because we gonna wanna fry this ice cream quickly before it has an opportunity to melt All right Brooke come on over here and we just going to take our ice cream sandwiches

Wait, we're going to dip it in the batter. Straight for the frying

You're hungry, aren't you? You're anxious. There you go. Get that batter all over it good

All right, and I'll dip this other one real quickly. Yeah. So here we go. And quickly, quickly do another one. Got one more, Brooke. And I'm

gonna wash my hands. And get your spider right here and be prepared to turn them

Hush your mouth, girl. Alright, turn the other two and pull those out and turn the other two

There you go. She's a lefty, y'all. Alright, now pull out those. Whoops

It turned back over on you. Pull out this one. Pull out that one. Pull out that one

Flip that one. one. There you go. Now keep a close eye on those two. Look at that, y'all. All right

now I'm gonna, I'm gonna get you one ready. Oh, my grand gravy. My hands are greasy. All

Oh my God. I'm going to put you a little chocolate syrup on it

Yeah. A little whipped cream. A few nuts. A few sprinkles for color

And a cherry. There you go, darling. Oh, it's so hot, it's melting

Paul, I have a question. Yes. I'm pregnant, too. Can I have one of those

You're pregnant. I'm pregnant, too. Can I have one of those? Come on, honey. Yeah. Is it good

Is it good? It's good. I'm surprised. Can you feel the baby

He's gonna be going nuts after this, I'll tell you that. Do you feel it kick

I think I feel him kicking. Or maybe it was gas. Y'all, I've had such a wonderful time

Thank you for spending a little time with me. And we send y'all loving best dishes

from our fast food kitchens to yours. We'll see y'all next week