Hot Potato

Hey y'all, I'm Paula Deen. And if there's one food I really, really love, it's a potato

So today, I want to show y'all some ways that I cook up a potato every way I can think of

And the first one I want to share with y'all is my oven fried potato wedges

One taste of these spicy spuds and you won't want a regular french fry again

And then I'm going to be sharing a recipe for a deliciously silky potato soup with shrimp and potatoes for dessert

That's right. I'm going to fix you my out-of-this-world, old-fashioned sweet potato pie that's sweeter than your mother-in-law's love

So y'all, please join me in the kitchen today because I want to teach you just how precious a potato can be

Music

Guess what this is, y'all? It's a hot potato. Actually, it's not a hot one yet

How many times have I told y'all what my favorite food is? Well, today is all about hot potatoes

And I am as excited as a June bride in a feather bed, I'm telling you

Because I love potatoes. and I think maybe one of the reasons why I love potatoes

so it's because my very favorite condiments go along with these, which is mayonnaise and butter

So the first recipe that I want to share with y'all, it's an oven-fried potato

Now we're going to take just a regular bacon potato, and I'm going to cut it in half

and then I'm going to third each half, cutting it into three wedges

Let me move that bowl so that you can see. Okay, now in this dish, I'm going to mix some mayonnaise

People used to think I was crazy eating mayonnaise with my french fries

But, you know, once I get folks to taste them, they agree that it's just delicious

All right, now I'm going to add a fourth of a teaspoon of onion powder and a half a teaspoon of house seasoning

Just going to mix that up. And I'm going to add a little hot sauce to give it just a little heat

Now I've sprayed this pan as well so they won't stick

And we're going to just coat our potatoes in this mayonnaise mixture

And then we're going to... Doesn't it look good? Could eat them raw

And then we're going to take our potatoes and we're going to dip them into a cornbread dressing mix

You can find this in the, I can't remember what section in the grocery store this is in

It may be in your baking department. And this is great because if you're doing this for dinner, you can do it up early in the day

It'd be yummy with steaks or char-grilled chicken on the grill or pork chops or ribs

Right there, that's the last one. All right, I'm going to sprinkle it with just a little pepper because Michael does like hot stuff

I think you're going to love this recipe. Now we're going to stick this in the oven and we're going to bake it for about 50 minutes

believe it or not. But we want them toasty and brown and crusty

Actually before we put this one in, I've got a pan already ready and here we're going

to take it out so you can see the final product. Don't those look out of this world

All right, let's move on. This is such a nice change from an ordinary baked potato

So love potatoes Look at him See what the mayonnaise did to him

And you see I've got a little dish of mayonnaise. Y'all just have to try this

This tastes like chicken that's been fried. And I've got to put these down because I could stand up here and eat them all day

and I really, really want to show y'all the next dish coming up

I'm going to clean up and when I see you back here, I'm going to show you how to make a quick, simple, delicious

out-of-this-world shrimp and potato soup. So y'all don't go anywhere and I'll see you back in the kitchen in like two minutes

Mmm. I've been waiting four years, y'all, to do a show on my favorite food, potatoes

I just adore them. Now, the next dish is called potato shrimp soup

And our water is boiling for our shrimp, so I'm going to run back over here, put our shrimp in, and I'm using a medium-sized shrimp

in the jacket. These are easy peel shrimp. I'm going to just let these cook

until they turn pink, which will be about, for this size shrimp

maybe two to three minutes. Not long because you remember they're going to go through

another cooking process in the soup. So just a couple of minutes

All right, the half a stick of butter that we put in here is melted. Now I'm going to add

two diced fresh carrots and one diced onion. And we're just going to let that saute

You know, I don't think today's the day to cut back. I think I'm going to go ahead and put that other half a stick of butter in

That looked way too skimpy. All right, now I'm using just a regular Idaho potato

and I've got some cut right there, and I've got one more to go in the pan

And we're just going to dice them just like we would like for potato salad size

And these will cook in about, gosh, these will probably be done in like 15 minutes

So this is going to be a pretty fast, simple soup to do

All right, we'll just add those to the rest of our potatoes

We're just going to saute that until the onions are just a little bit tender

All right. And our shrimp should be about ready. Yeah, see how nice and pink those are

And you can see where I deveined them, where they're already pulling apart

You know, the secret to cooking good shrimp is, first of all, having a good product

You always want to start with a good, fresh shrimp. We're so lucky in Savannah that we have access

to such wonderful fresh shrimp. One thing that you'll always want to remember

y'all are probably tired of hearing me say it, but you never want to overcook your shrimp

because they'll almost become like the texture of an eraser if you overcook them

You want to just get them there, which only takes just a couple of minutes

especially if they're the smaller shrimp like I'm cooking today. And you can see these have been cut down the back

Just all you have to do is take a knife, cut through the shell down the center, remove the vein, which is nothing but a sand vein

People can get a little squeamish about that, but it's nothing but the sand that's becoming trapped in the shrimp

So you can see how easy that peeled. Mmm. Mmm. Mmm

It's so good. It's gonna make a fabulous pot of soup. All right, our carrots and our onions are nice and tender

Now I'm gonna add a little flour to the pot so that it will make our soup nice and thick

And by adding it this way, we don't have to worry about it

lumping or anything like that. Gertie! Guess what I'm making? I'm making a pot of soup

Now, how am I going to feed you soup? I guess with a spoon

All right, so I've got that mixed up. I've got four cups of milk

that's just been heating on the stove over here, and I'm going to add that to our pot

And over in this measuring cup, I got two chicken bouillon cubes that I dissolved in a half a cup of milk So this is really going to give it a nice nice kick Now if you got some fresh chicken stock around

you can use that in the place of this. But in the meantime, we're going to go with the chicken bouillon

All right. That looks so good. Now I'm just going to add our potatoes

and we're going to let this cook for about 15 to 20 minutes

or until the potatoes are nice and soft and almost mushing down some of them

You know, if you don't have any shrimp, it would be wonderful to replace the shrimp

with a fresh kernel corn. It would be so good, a corn and potato chowder

Oh, that looks delicious. So we're just gonna let that cook. I'm gonna take a quick break

When we come back, I'm gonna peel the shrimp, add them to our soup, and then you won't believe what I'm doing next

The potato just keeps getting sweeter. How about sweet potato pie? Hey, y'all, in case you just joined me

in the last segment, I started making us a pot of potato and shrimp soup

and I'm so glad you showed up. That's why I showed up. It's one of my favorites. You smelled it, didn't you

I did. You're no better than Gertie. I'm fixing to add a cup of half and half now to our soup

And then as soon as Bobby finishes with the shrimp, we're going to toss those in

I'm going to season our pot with salt and pepper. Throw those shrimp in

Sure. Now, y'all, if you want to, you can chop these shrimp up, But since they're smaller, and I love to pop in a whole big shrimp in my mouth

so I'm leaving I was in here whole. How old were you when we had your tonsils out

I was 14. 14 years old. Yeah, I mean, you were just chronic

The trivia question is, what soup would I make you when you were sick so often with tonsillitis

Well, I remember you making me potato soup all the time as a kid. All the time. All the time

But I don't think we usually got shrimp in it. No, we couldn't afford shrimp

You're very astute of you, son. So my memory is pretty good. Your memory is excellent

All right. God, that looks good. Doesn't that look delicious? This is ready. Do you want some soup

I want some so bad. Well, I'm going to bowl you up some

All right. Okay. And I'm going to make yours all the way now, okay

Please. Doesn't that look delicious? It looks great. All right, now look at this

Mmm. You don't like cheese, do you? Just a little. Mmm. Doesn't that look yummy

And we cannot forget our green vegetable. You know how I feel about vegetables

Well, I will work around it. You'll work around it. And while you're sampling that soup

look, Gertie knows you're fixing to put a spoon in your mouth. Back up, Gertie. Doesn't the bacon just make it

And Mama hadn't had it in so long, it reminds me of when I was a kid. Mmm

All right, I'm going to go sit down and eat my soup. Okay. Jamie. Enjoy, son

Look what you're not having. Some things never change, do they? Doesn't matter how old they get

All right, let's move on to an old-fashioned sweet potato pie. I adore sweet potatoes

And to our two cups of sweet potatoes, I'm going to add a cup of sugar and two eggs

And then we're just going to beat this with a hand mixer until it's nice and mixed up

And these eggs are going to make those sweet potatoes like set up and they're going to be so delicious

All right, to our sweet potatoes and sugar and eggs, I'm going to add a teaspoon of vanilla

flavoring and a half a stick of melted butter. Put in a quarter of a teaspoon of ground ginger

a quarter of a teaspoon of ground cinnamon, and we're just going to blend these together

and then we're going to slowly add one cup of milk. And for today's pie, I'm going to cheat and go the easy way with a frozen pie crust

If you're having baked sweet potatoes for dinner and you've got them left over

make sure you have a sweet potato pie the next night. I like that so much better than boiling them

When you boil them the water just kind of breaks down the strength So this is just straight potatoes baked in the oven Now we just gonna pour this in our pie crust I have this on a sheet Just in case it makes a mess and runs over

it'll all be caught on the sheet. It's really so good. So we're gonna put this in the oven at 350

All right, so that'll be ready in about 35 minutes. And there's nothing better, hey, there's nothing better

than a sweet potato pie. You got two sons. I'm making some sweet potato pie with meringue on it

I didn't get any soup. Listen, son, I didn't know where you were. And listen, uh-uh

I tell you what your brother sang for his supper, you sing for yours now. No

You want me to cook, not sing. I've heard you sing, son. Finish making this meringue

Now just beat those until they're soft peaks and slowly add the sugar, and I'm going to be cleaning up

This doesn't look like potato soup with cheese and bacon on it. And then you can have some soup

How's that? I just want to get this mess cleaned up. All right, let's get your sugar in there

We want this to turn into meringue. I've cooked a couple of pies, Jamie

and I've got one in the oven, and this one is cooled and ready

Let me show you how. Show me how. Sometimes you've got to treat it rough

Slap it around a little bit. I'm familiar. What is that supposed to mean

You better love me. You better love me. So you want me to top this

Yeah. But this is so, so good. You know, lots of times I'll serve my pumpkin pies

with heavy cream, you know, sweetened whipped cream. But, you know, this is a nice change

And the one thing you'll want to make sure, son, I'm sure you know this

but when you're meringuing your pies, you want to really seal those edges good

because the syrup from the meringue will... Bubble over. You know what, yeah, and it'll cause the meringue to pull away

You want to put that in the oven for you? Yeah, we'll put this in the oven and let it bake for, oh, 10 or 12 minutes, something like that

And when we come back, I've got some tips for you on another good something that you can do with that sweet potato

And then the boys and I are going to taste this pie. All right, so you want me to dip you up a bowl of soup

Please, with bacon and cheese. Okie doke. We'll see y'all back in a few minutes. I want to share with y'all one of my favorite ways to eat sweet potatoes

So simple and easy. You can have a homemade sweet potato chip in just a matter of a couple of minutes

The only thing you'll want to do is make sure you wash your potatoes and scrub them good

Slice them fairly thin. And we're going to drop these in hot grease that's around 350 degrees

It'll only take a couple of minutes for them to cook. You can see they're immediately, look at the beautiful color they're turning as soon as I dropped them down in that grease

Keep those potatoes moving. And these look like they're just about ready

To finish up your sweet potatoes, this decision is going to be left up to you

Now, I'm going to do half in my house seasoning. which will make it savory

which is salt, pepper, and garlic powder. And this end, because I like my sweet potato chips sweet

I'm going to sprinkle with sugar. And no matter which way you try them

I think you're going to love them. They're just delicious. Guys! I got y'all some pie ready

Ooh, pie. Ooh, pie. Pie. Pie. Pie. Pie. Pie. Pie. Pie. Pie

Pie. Pie. Pie. Where's mine? Come on. I've raised a couple of nuts, y'all

All right, there's your piece of pie, son. Here's your piece of pie. I want y'all to try the sweet potato chips

I know how much you love those, Bobby. And the potato wedges, oh, my gracious

dipped in mayonnaise and the cornbread crumbs crumbs and the potato soup and the shrimp

And did y'all take, is it good? That's so wonderful. Good. I want to have some with you

So if you're tired of serving up that ordinary baked potato, those french fries, I hope that

you'll try some of these delicious potatoes. I think you're going to love them

And until next time, y'all, the boys and I wish y'all best dishes and love from our

tater kitchen to yours. Speaking of tater