Paula Goes International

Hey, y'all. I'm Paula Deen

And today, I'd like to share with y'all ways that you can help yourself to some international cuisine

without ever leaving the comforts of your home. I'm going to start with a Cuban sandwich with homemade chips

And then what do you say we run off to Europe for Alice Jo's spaghetti sauce

It's so sweet and savory. And arriba, arriba! How about we head south of the border and munch on a wonderful fresh taco salad

and Mexican wedding cookies. So y'all make yourself comfortable, because today, we ain't going nowhere

We're going to start today with a Cuban sandwich, but no sandwich is complete without a fabulously

wonderful homemade potato chip. I'm going to start by slicing a potato very, very thin

Now, this is the secret to wonderful homemade potato chips. Just make sure you have a good, sharp knife

Okay, so you can see how thin that is, and I really would have liked to have gotten it thinner than that if I could, but I don't have my glasses on, so I'm doing the best I can

All right, I've got a pot of oil here that's heated to about 350 degrees, so we're just going to drop our potatoes in there

There's nothing, nothing quite like a homemade potato chip. All right, so we're just going to let those bubble, and I'm frying these in peanut oil

And I'm going to keep that on pretty much a high flame

because I think I'd really like my oil to be up somewhere around 375

so we can fry them kind of quick and crisp. And you don't want to overstuff your pot

All right, I'm going to let those brown on off, and we're going to come down here and start on our Cuban sandwich

Any kind of good soft but yet crusty bread will work fine for this sandwich

Today I'm going to be using French bread. Now for our Cuban sandwich today, all I have is just a regular ham, which is certainly okay

But if you have the opportunity to go out and find a Cuban ham, it is so awesome

And I've heard that in Cuba they really, an original Cuban comes with like three different meats

Well, today I'm only going to use one. All right, so I'm going to put mayonnaise on one side of my bread

I'm going to come over here on the other and put some Dijon mustard

And I'm going to come in here with pickles. And just line that totally good with pickles

All right, and the next thing I'm going to come in here with is ham

You know, a Cuban sandwich is nothing like I had ever served in any of my restaurants before

So now we're going to add our Swiss cheese. It was so different from what I was accustomed to in the way of a sandwich

Now, at the restaurant, I have one of those little mini grills. It has a lid for making grill sandwiches, and that works great if you have one of those

But I don't have one here at the house, so I'm just going to butter this a little bit, put a little butter there

All right, I'm going to put that buttered side down and smear just a little butter on this side

And since I don't have a weight, I'm going to take the next smallest down cast iron skillet

and I'm going to weight this sandwich with that skillet. If your pot happens to not be heavy enough to hold it down

I'm going to come in here and I'm going to add a teapot. So that's going to help weight that other side down

And look over here, y'all, at our potato chips. I'm going to cut them off

Don't those look just scrumptilicious? All right, now I'm going to take my seasoned salt

and I'm going to sprinkle our chips with a little of that

and I'm gonna kind of toss them around. And this gives our potato chip a barbecue flavor taste

All right, now here our sandwich just a sizzling now that we've got some extra weight on it

Now it's time to flip our sandwich. And I'm gonna come in here and just take my spatula

and flip it over. While that grilling on off I gonna come over here and start putting our plate together for our Cuban And I got some beautiful Boston lettuce

Alright, so I'm going to just pile up my slaw. Add a few extra pickles to that

And I'm going to come over here and grab me a handful of potato chips

Oh, and I love them while they're still warm. Oh, hear the crunchiness

Mmm. So, so good. I'm going to take our sandwich out now

Oh, and it's hot, hot. How's that for a Cuban sandwich

I love the bread because it's like real crispy. Mmm. And the mustard and the pickles and the mayonnaise are all perfectly yummy together. Mmm

I don't know about y'all, but I think it's time to leave Cuba

and go on to what they say is one of the most beautiful countries in Europe

Let's eat our way through Italy. You want to try? So while y'all are gone, I'm going to be browning the ground beef

for Alice Jo's spaghetti sauce. So I'll see y'all back in a few minutes

Hey, welcome back, y'all, to International Meals today

And as promised, I've got my ground beef brown while y'all are away

Now, I've got about an extra pound here that I'm not going to need for our spaghetti sauce

So I'm going to pull out about a pound, leaving us approximately a pound and a half

because we're going to use this in a few minutes in another dish

All right, now to our ground beef, I'm going to add one onion that's been chopped

one green bell pepper, one clove of minced garlic, And we're just gonna saute that off just for a couple of minutes

The name of this spaghetti sauce is Alice Jo's Spaghetti Sauce. This is what Alice Jo cooks for the seniors at the church

Everybody has their own way of making spaghetti. I have my own personal way the way I like to make it

And, you know, it's just one of those dishes that you can personalize and make your own

But today, we're going to do it Alice Jo's way. Now, to this, I'm going to add a tablespoon of Italian seasoning

Miss Alice Jo puts in two tablespoons of sugar, which I don't normally do when I make spaghetti

And I'm going to use a tablespoon of Worcestershire. All right, now I'm going to add two six-ounce cans of tomato paste

All right, now I'm going to add a can of diced tomatoes or stewed tomatoes

All right, now I'm going to put a little bit of salt. I'm going to add a can of tomato sauce

And then I'm going to add a cup of water. And I'm just going to clean out that tomato

sauce bowl by pouring my water over in there and just rinsing all of that sauce out of there

So I'm going to bring this back to a rolling bowl and then I'm going to cover it and I'm

going to let it simmer for about 30 minutes. So I've got another pot ready down here

So I'm just going to take this lid and cover that. So you can see what our spaghetti sauce

looks like after simmering for 30 minutes. It's rich, thick, just loaded with flavor

All right, our noodles should be ready, and I'm using a box pasta, y'all

And I'm just going to drain this. a few shakes, and back in the pot it goes

Oh, it's so good. Miss Alice Jo takes some of her sauce and tosses everything together Oh it looks so yummy

Okay, now to plate this, I've got my spaghetti spoon

These are wonderful. If you don't have one of these, you'll want to see that you get you one

And you can buy them at the grocery store, you know, in that section where they have different utensils

Okay. All right, now I'm going to just add some extra sauce to that

Mmm. All right, that just looks perfectly yummy. I'm going to just dust it with a little Parmesan cheese

And I've got a little mozzarella salad over here and some French bread to go with it

Mmm. Look how yummy. I can't hardly wait to taste it

And I'm gonna put some butter on it and eat it the way I like it. Mmm, mmm, mmm, mmm, mmm. Mmm

That fixed it right up, Alice Jo. You forgot that stick of butter, honey

So good. Well, this end of the counter is Italy, y'all. Follow me down to this other end, and we're going to Mexico

We're going to make a taco salad today. Now, you remember when I said I was going to pull out about a pound of ground beef from earlier

Well, that's going to go in our taco salad. So I've got some lettuce that I started shredding

And then I'm just going to finally shred our lettuce. All right

So we've got our lettuce all shredded. And there's a number of ways that you can make this salad

I'm going to add just some diced sharp cheddar cheese. And I'm gonna add one onion that's been diced

Diced tomatoes. All right, now I'm gonna add some ground beef

that I reserved, and I'm gonna toss it. When we come back, I'm gonna finish fixing

this taco salad, and then I'm going to be making us Mexican wedding cookies to eat along with our

buttered spaghetti sauce. Welcome back, y'all. While you were away, I polished off my buttered

and it was so good. So we're gonna work our way through

the rest of our international meals, and I'm gonna finish up this taco salad

Now I've got our cheese in it, I've got our ground beef

I've got tomatoes, and I've got onions. Well, next I'm gonna add a flavored tortilla chip

and then I'm gonna add about a cup of salsa, And then I'm going to add about a cup or a little over a cup of Catalina dressing

So we're going to keep it all kind of red. Just going to give this all a toss

And if you have just a little bit of lettuce, naturally you wouldn't want to add that much wet to your salad

or if you had more lettuce than I have, then you'd want to add more

All right, now I'm just going to pile this up on our platter. Now all I'm going to do to this is add some just shards of fried tortilla chips

We're just going to kind of stick them around in there because they make the best spoons

And now I want to move y'all on down to the dessert that I'm fixing for y'all today

Now this is called a Mexican wedding cookie. It's a very simple cookie

It takes very few ingredients. I'm going to start with two sticks of butter

I'm going to add a half a cup of powdered sugar. I'm going to add one and three-fourths cup of all-purpose flour

And a teaspoon of vanilla. And we just gonna beat these together until they smooth This cookie has been given more names than any other cookie

People everywhere have a different name for this wonderful, rich cookie. All right, I'm going to turn this up a little bit

I think I've got it where I'm not going to spray myself with flour

All right, now the rest I'm going to do by hand. I'm gonna add a cup of finely minced pecans

And then I'm just gonna come in here with my hands. And the heat from my hands is gonna finish

softening that butter up. See how it's already sticking together? Now, you can make this cookie in a lot of different shapes

You can make them in fingers, you can make them in balls

but today I'm gonna make these in the shape of a crescent. And you just start off by giving them the shape of a finger

and then give it a little twist, and you've got a crescent. And it really doesn't matter how you shape these

They're delicious. Any shape you can get them. I remember my grandmother, Paul, making these so often

and Grandma would make them in different shapes, depending on the mood she was in

All right, that completes our pan. Now, I'm gonna put these into a preheated 275 degree oven

and we're gonna let them bake for about 40 minutes. The reason we're gonna bake them so long

is because they're a very dense cookie. They're kind of a heavy cookie

All right, so our oven is preheated. It's set on 275 degrees

and we're gonna let those bake for about 40 minutes. And I've got some in the other oven that's been baking

and they should be ready, and they are. you don't want this cookie to get too dark

You want it to be just a nice light brown. All right, now to finish this cookie off

I've got some powdered sugar here. And while these are warm, we're just going to pick them up

and just roll them in powdered sugar. And that's how we get them sweet

So I'd be willing to bet that if you had a sweet tooth

that you could go to the cabinet and find all of these ingredients right in your own pantry

Nobody will know that I slipped one. I don't think I'm doing a good job of slipping this cookie

I think it's going to wind up all over me. I'm going to clean up

I'm going to get rid of all the evidence. And when we come back, I've got a tip for y'all that's going to make your international traveling and eating easier. easier

For those of us that like international flavors, but don't get the opportunity to travel internationally

I've got a few tips that you can use to make your foods taste a little bit more international

If you love olive oils, these are some great tips. If you don't like olive oil, you can use a nice light vegetable oil

But if you'll learn to flavor your olive oils with different flavors, you'll just find more ways to use them

In this bottle, I have heated red pepper flakes along with the olive oil

and it turns the olive oil red and it's just wonderful on lettuce leaves or anything that

you want a little bite to. And in this jar I have olive oil, lime, and mint. It would be wonderful

on fish. And in this one I've added lemon and fresh dill that will also be great on fish. And

over on this side I've got a basil olive oil and I've got a rosemary flavored. And in this last

beautiful jar. I've emulsified a variety of herbs and I heated them up with the olive oil and there's

just going to be all kinds of wonderful flavors in this jar. So if you're looking for a way to make

your meals a little bit more international, I hope these tips are going to be just the trick

Manja, manja. Well y'all, I've had such a good time today. You know, I feel like we've been all

over the world and we never even left the kitchen. I didn't really have to because we had that

fabulous spaghetti and the taco salad and the Mexican wedding cookies and oh that Cuban sandwich

that I so do love. I'm so glad y'all were with me today. This is gonna have to do y'all until we can

do the real thing together. So until next time I send y'all loving best dishes from my international

kitchen to yours