01x10 - The Ratatouille Dish

[bunniefuu]

(upbeat music)

(glasses clink)

(bright upbeat music)

- [Narrator] Welcome to Sparklers.

Part cooking competition and travel show,

featuring some of the

world's best sparkling wines.

- So what makes this

show extremely unique,

is this is self judged.

Each of us within the episode,

have the opportunity to become the judge

that oversees what goes on.

You might side with your friends.

You might side with a foe,

I don't know, we'll see.

- First place took a big risk

and it wound up paying

off, Meg that was

- [All] Yeah.

- That was, that was awesome.

- I was feeling a little rough there

not winning anything for a very long time,

so it's nice to win a challenge.

- Second place, George, you crushed it.

- Thank you.

- So perfectly paired.

- I needed those points,

so it feels good to have the points

but we've all become closer and closer.

I love each one of these people.

It really sucks to judge your friends,

but that's your job when you

win the Perfect Bite Challenge.

So, certainly I have to.

- This is gonna be a little controversial,

but I am gonna go with the homie, Maryam.

- Oh, you're coming with me

Okay.

- Let's go, let's go.

Let's do it.

- Let's go.

- Let's do it.

- Oh my gosh.

(indistinct chattering)

(upbeat music)

- Today's challenge is interesting.

It's a Ratatouille,

which is a peasant dish,

primarily made of root vegetables.

It's not a dish that I

would immediately think of

to pair with champagne.

It'd be really interesting to see

what kind of spin they put on it.

So depending on what they do,

it could go really well

or really poorly, I feel.

(tense music)

The two teams will be

pairing Ruinart Champagne.

With addition inspired by

Chef Ludo's Ratatouille.

- I mean ratatouille is a simple dish.

It's a vegetable stew

from south of France.

And of course our France

we have tomatoes, zucchini,

eggplant, garlic, a bit basil,

and we take all these vegetable

and make a stew with that,

And it becomes the Ratatouille.

- [Meghan] So chances are,

you've heard of Chef Ludo before.

He's a Michelin Starred chef from France,

known for taking simple

traditional French food

and elevating it.

- What I start to do

is cutting the eggplant

and marinating the eggplant in salt,

to take up all the water.

(gentle music)

Then after I saute the

eggplant with olive oil,

give a little bit of a

coloration to make them crispy.

(bright upbeat music)

(eggplant sizzling)

Then we give a coloration to the onions,

the garlic together.

We add the zucchini, the bell pepper,

and we cook everything together,

to caramelize the vegetable

a little bit together.

(bright upbeat music)

And then after, we add diced

tomato, basil, chilly flake,

and we let cook slowly,

measured for like 30 minutes.

Then we add our eggplant

and we cook again for 20 minutes.

And after we had a lot of

chopped herbs to Ratatouille.

And voila! That's it.

That's the best Ratatouille.

That's the way.

The thing about all Ratatouille,

it need to be like a

stew, melt in your mouth.

Okay, you don't want the

vegetable to be too crunchy.

You don't want that much texture.

Not too many texture.

Okay, a little bit, but not that much.

(bright upbeat music)

Oh yeah, Chef Ludo,

it's cool, it's nice.

Look at this beautiful color,

the champagne have a beautiful color.

Look at this.

Champagne, Ratatouille,

you don't think too much about that,

but it works very well together.

Very well together.

'Cause the Ratatouille's

gonna be a little bit fat

with the olive oil, you know?

So acidity, fat go very well together,

just amazing.

Amazing combination.

(bright upbeat music)

- [Matt] Ready to make some Ratatouille?

- [Claire] I'm so ready

to make some ratatouille.

- How ready are you?

- So ready.

- Yeah?

- Some Matt

- Mattatouille, or Ratatouille?

- Some Mattatouille.

Matt and Claire touille.

- So team LA, I mean, this is big.

What we're doing right now

is trying to put you in sole

possession of first place.

- I know, so no pressure whatsoever.

- No, because if we don't win,

they're both in first place

- [Claire] I know.

- And you're in second place.

- I'm in second place

and I'll have to have an

extraordinary comeback

to make that work.

I think we have everything.

- We've got what we need,

except, we gotta hit the garden.

- We gotta hit the gardens

- To get some herbs.

Okay.

- You got scissors?

- I got scissors.

- Gorgeous.

Let's go to the garden and kick some a*s.

- Let's do it, let's win.

Shall we go to the theater?

- Let's go to the theater.

The Theater of Nature.

- [Matt] Na-ture.

(mellow music)

- Do they have what we need?

(footsteps pattering)

- I don't know..

- sh*t!

(footsteps pattering)

- Yeah, We're not feeding the chicken.

Sorry guys.

(chickens clucking)

(mellow music)

- [Claire] That doesn't look like sage.

I mean it does, but it

doesn't feel like sage.

- [Matt] Smell it?

- I guess that's sage.

- Is it? Here.

It is today.

- How much do we want?

- We want probably five or six sprigs.

(mellow music)

- There's gotta be rosemary somewhere.

- We think, right?

- Chickens, where did you put it?

- I've never seen it like this.

Is this rosemary with these flowers.

What the

- Let me touch and smell it.

- It must be, right?

- That's rosemary.

f*ck yes, thank God.

- I've never seen that kind of Rosemary.

- Just one of these.

- Let's do two, just to be safe.

- That's nice.

Okay, well we got sage and rosemary.

- Let's get to the kitchen.

(dramatic music)

All right, we've got our

bounty from the garden.

- We've got our herbs.

- Okay.

- So now we just need to get going here.

Have you made a ratatouille before?

- Never, I've seen the movie a-bunch.

- (chuckling) Same.

- So when you try to do

ratatouille a little different,

maybe you explore other

parts of the Mediterranean?

- Yeah, cause ratatouille is

already a Mediterranean dish

that you see like in south

of France quite a bit.

But yeah, we wanted to

- Tagine.

- add some, some warm spices there

- Go a little Moroccan?

- kind of on the other side of yeah.

- Well, apricot.

- Yeah.

- And then add some apple for sweetness.

- Add some apple, we just

want a little bit of sweetness

and we're gonna add some Mascarpone

- [Matt] Oh, Yeah

- to our tomato sauce.

It's kind of at the base of

all these beautiful veggies.

- Saucy.

- Just to add some fat,

this, the Ruinart Blanc

de Blancs is so lean.

It's like a razorblade of acidity.

So it's nice to add a little

bit of this fat in there,

that this can just slice right through.

- Oppa!

(dramatic music)

- Mhh, mhh, mhh okay.

So you're gonna start

getting the sauce ready

- Let's hope.

- Correct?

- Yep.

- I'm gonna just start chopping

a lot of things. (chuckles)

Jesus Christ, I don't wanna.

All right.

(fire blazing)

- Oh, hi there?

- (Claire chuckles) An amateur.

How are you doing?

- Doing all right, how about you?

- I'm doing well. (chuckles)

So not only could I potentially

take it away if we win this,

but we have, you know, our

so-Cal pride to defend

- We got so-cal versus no-Cal.

- 'Cause last time we were against them,

we kicked their a*s.

- We got to hold the title.

- Man, I said that no karma's

gonna come and get us.

- (sighs) No, I think

being confident is good.

I think that it's a

it's an important thing to be confident

because we have a really worthy team

that we're playing up against.

And you know

- Oh, they're great.

I know they did something

clever and creative.

- You got to go into it

knowing you're gonna win.

You can't hope you're gonna win.

You gotta know it.

(dramatic music)

- Yeah, I think just a

little bit of sweetness

from the apple will be really fun.

- Oh, I'm sure of that.

That's gonna be tasty.

These guys are almost ready

to make their way over

- To the sauce.

- To sauce.

- Ooh, I like the heated

- Does that smell good?

Oh

- That smells nice.

- Smells like Southern California.

AKA LA.

- Where there are winners.

- All right, so we added

our chopped up apricots.

- [Claire] Yes, sir.

- One of our kind of key ingredients

to make it a little more Moroccan.

A little bit more Northern

African-Southern Mediterranean.

Oh yeah, Tagine spice.

We got our apricots,

we got our red pepper,

garlic, shallot, thyme, sage.

The cheese is gonna add some fat.

- Yes it will.

- Oh my goodness.

I wanna just eat this.

This is how we get

Claire into first place.

(upbeat music)

- Heck yeah.

- Claire, I need your spoon

- And my face?

- and your palate.

It's been mildly salted,

two little dabs of mascarpone, Tagine.

- I say add more mascarpone.

- Cool.

I'm in.

- A tiny dash of pepper, more salt.

Oh, that's good.

- Okay, so at this point,

we're about to get this at

the bottom of our oven pan.

- [Claire] Correct

- [Matt] Which will be

our presentation pan.

- [Claire] And then I'll start lining in.

(bright upbeat music)

Okay, so just a nice base.

- I gonna cut some additional

basil right next to you,

just FYI

- Thank you, for this.

- For the top.

- Gotta make it look pretty.

Pretty for Meghan.

- She is absolutely a queen of the look,

and I mean that positively.

- Yeah.

- She really gets presentation.

(bright upbeat music)

All right, let's go get this in the oven,

and get you to first place.

Ready?

- Yeah.

- Vamonos.

- Yeah baby, let's go do it.

- Let's do it.

- Let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go.

There's no time.

(oven door creaking)

(suspenseful music)

I think it looks good.

- Feel good?

- I'm feeling good about it.

- I feel happy about it.

- I think it looks nice.

- It's beautiful.

- And I think it's gonna

taste really pretty as well.

- It's exciting.

- All those nice warm spices.

- We gotta get you in first place.

- We gotta get me in first place.

- Oh, let's do this, okay.

- (sighs) I'm so nervous.

I hope she likes it.

- Don't be.

- Oh, here she comes.

Hello?

- [Meghan] Hi guys, how are you?

- Good, how are you?

- Good.

- Glad to see you already have

some Ruinart in your glass.

- Yes, I didn't waste any time.

- No, we made you something lovely.

- We did.

- So we think.

- So yeah, it should be pretty fun.

- We're excited about all the

- Some fun basil, getting some

- Delicious bites.

- Delicious basil.

- [Meghan] How do you feel about it?

- I feel pretty good about it.

Like all the flavors are

coming together nicely, so

- No pressure for you, Claire.

- No pressure for me whatsoever.

(both chuckling)

Trying not to think about that.

Just trying to have fun with it, you know?

- May you enjoy it.

- Thank you.

- Am I supposed to do

the whole thing at once?

- [Claire] Put it all

in your mouth at once.

- [Matt] No, you can cut it up.

- That's gonna get

- [Claire] Bite-size.

- [Matt] Wanna make sure you

have all the right stuff.

- According to me.

- Thank you.

- Don't stare.

(dramatic music)

- (chuckling) I just love

people's faces when they eat.

- I'm gonna take another bite.

- Please.

- Does that make you more

nervous or comfort you?

- Both.

- I don't, I don't

I can't read into it.

- I learned in life,

if you're not nervous,

you're not doing the right thing.

- Oh, well

- [Claire] Being nervous means you care.

- Something about my whole

first part of this show.

- [Matt] Mmhh.

(Claire chuckles)

- Okay.

- [Claire] Okay.

- Thanks for

- She's very stoic.

- Our pleasure, Meg.

- Absolutely.

- I appreciate it.

- Enjoy the next round.

- Okay, will see you guys later.

- Cheers.

- But only mildly enjoy the next,

you know

(Meg chuckles)

We'll see.

- You feel okay?

- I feel good about it.

Like you know what?

- Yeah.

- I think we did a great job.

- But we gotta get you to first place.

- Yeah.

- Let's do this.

- Let's do it!

- Get your glasses,

let's get outta here.

- I'm gonna take this, 'cause

it's actually really good.

Now, I feel good, whoo!

- I can't believe I'm back

in the kitchen with you.

- I know, right?

We're about to crush it.

- I can't believe you chose me.

- (chuckling) I'm surprised myself.

I'm not gonna lie.

Let's do it.

Let's do it.

Heck yeah!

Woo! Hoo-hoo-hoo!

- Frenemies?

(both chuckling)

- Yeah, we're definitely

frenemies, for sure.

we have equal amount of points right now,

if I'm not mistaken.

- I know.

So we're like in this together,

but not

- At the same time.

- together.

- Yeah, exactly.

- I want you to win,

because I need to win.

- (chuckling) Exactly.

- But when this is over,

it's anyone's game.

- Oh, you going down.

You going down.

- Okay, all right.

- But for now

- You can keep talking.

- So cheers.

- Cheers.

- Yes, yes, yes.

So we're doing it pretty

classic style at first, right?

- Yep.

- But then we're gonna,

you have this amazing, brilliant idea

to kind of turn it, make

it into a sandwich, right?

- Yeah.

- So we're gonna do like an

open face-style sandwich,

make it super saucy,

so it's not really dry.

- And rich, because the wine is creamy

- Exactly.

- The Ratatouille is like,

hopefully, a longish cook,

but it's not super fatty.

- Right, exactly.

- So some butter on caramelized toast

should add a nice

- All of that.

- Yeah, layers of flavor.

Okay, but we also need more herbs.

- Yes, we should definitely

- We gotta go to the garden.

- Yes, let's do it.

- All right, let's go.

- Let's do it.

(dramatic music)

- We need rosemary a

little bit, and thyme.

And then you got chives, right?

- [George] I did get some chives.

- [Maryam] So maybe we

should grab some of those

for garnish?

- [George] Yeah, let's do it.

- [Maryam] This is so beautiful.

- We got enough thyme

(both chuckling)

- I like your witty pun.

Nailed it.

I didn't know this was

gonna feel like foraging.

- Right. (chuckling)

It's such a big garden.

- Mr. Sham now, I did a

little loop over there.

- Oh, okay.

- Chives are where?

- Chives are right over here

in this corner.

- All right cool.

- I think there might be some,

I don't know what's over there.

- Oh, those are some peppers.

(suspenseful music)

(footsteps pattering)

It's really nice.

- I think I found thyme, Maryam.

- It's about time.

- I think so.

It smells like it.

- No?

- No, it smells like it.

I think this is it.

- There's lavender,

but that's not really

what we're looking for.

(George chuckles)

- Is that it?

- Yep, this is great.

- Right, I'ma go head back.

- Yeah, I'm coming.

I've got some more little

freshies over here,

I'm on my way.

(chicken clucking) Okay,

we got a plan, right?

- [George] Yes, yes.

- Okay.

You get started over there,

I'm gonna stand here and chop some herbs,

and all that fun stuff.

- Perfect, perfect.

- I'm so excited to make

this into a sandwich

because a lot of times

vegetarians, you know,

they go to a sandwich

shop and they're like,

"Ugh! There's nothing for me to eat."

- Right, right.

- So I thought it'd be really

fun to do a take on that.

But at the same time also,

I feel like we talked about

this with the cassoulet.

You want like more, a

little bit more like flavor,

depth of flavor sometimes.

- Right.

- Plus you don't have a lot of time.

So it kind of helps give us some flavor

without needing a long, long cook time.

So we're gonna put a little

bit of our twist on it, right?

- [George] Yes.

- Some smoked paprika.

- Yes, definitely smoked paprika.

- I brought it from home.

- (chuckling) You always come so prepared.

- That already smells delicious.

(suspenseful music)

You know, we don't live that

far from each other in Napa,

we can cook together more often.

- We should. We should definitely

cook together more often.

- When this is all over.

- Yeah, for sure.

- I'm not gonna give you any

tips or tricks before that.

(both chuckling)

(vegetables sizzling)

- I think this would actually benefit

from a little reduction

from the champagne.

Just reduce it a little bit.

- Do you want to?

- Yeah, why not?

- Why not?

- Yeah.

- Go for it.

(vegetables sizzling)

That looks amazing.

(indistinct)

- I think it'd be good without.

(machine whirring)

Oh yeah.

- The good stuff.

- Oh yeah, I like that.

- [Maryam] Yep.

- Hey, I like sauce, so,

I think that's pretty.

- Plus we'll save some for

the bread, she can dip in.

- Oh yeah, yeah.

Is it like that?

- I don't know.

- Do you think that looks good?

- I don't know, not really.

I'm just kidding.

- (chuckling) I know you're not

Kidding, not kidding.

- Oh God, these people

like you see pictures of

Ratatouille and you're like,

"Oh my God, that's stunning."

I feel like this whole episode

and challenge with Ruinart,

for me, has been like

a lesson in discipline.

Like, just slow down and take your time.

Don't rush.

Maybe I needed it.

All right, we gotta get this in the oven.

Ready?

- Yes, let's do it.

(oven door slams)

- All right, let's go.

We got to plate up.

- Let's do it, let's do it.

- It looks amazing.

- I'm very excited.

- We only have a few minutes left.

So the bread is buttered,

and extra butter here.

- Now I like that, actually.

- Not enough butter, not enough.

Just kidding.

- All right, I'm trying

to heat this up now.

- Okay.

(sauce sizzling)

Yeah, cool.

- Perfect.

I think the marscapone down first.

And then the light sauce.

- Yep, go for it.

I'm coming over with this to you're right.

- Cool.

(dramatic music)

- Me coming in.

- Coming in hot.

And actually, we could

probably do two layers.

- Okay, I'm coming in, coming in.

So much for about a bite from the hat.

What do you think?

- That looks great.

- Oh, look at it, oozing mascarpone.

- Cheers, my friend.

That was fun.

It was good.

- Cheers.

- How do you feel?

- I'm so excited.

I'm excited.

- Good, good.

- I think we did something down here.

- (chuckling) We did something.

- Hey, Meg?

- Hi, fam.

How are you?

- [Maryam] Good, how are.

- Good.

- [Maryam] Welcome to our kitchen.

- Thank you.

- You have an empty glass

that needs to change.

- Whoo! You guys popped the magnum.

- Maglife

- Now we're talking.

- Maglife.

- Maglife.

Magnums can show you care.

- (chuckling) It's true.

- (chuckling) Thank you.

- Cheers.

- Cheers.

- Salute, my friend.

(glasses clink)

Cheers.

- Good to be back.

- I thought the Ratatouille

was a really interesting pairing.

So I'm interested to see

what you guys are showing.

Are you done with it?

- Yeah, yeah.

- We did too.

We wanted to make a classic ratatouille,

but we also wanted to like

present it in a different way.

So we were excited that

it was a vegetarian dish,

and decided to make kind of

like an open face sandwich

with it.

- Cool.

- It did look really

pretty in the cast iron,

but we think this looks very nice too.

- Do you know that if the other team wins,

Claire's in first place?

- That's wild.

- [Meghan] Which is crazy.

- Yeah, yeah.

- So do I like dip it in the sauce, or?

- However you like.

- Okay.

- Yeah, yeah, just bite in, go in

- And we have a little

towel on the side for you,

should you need a little on that.

- Right?

(George chuckles)

- It's quite the sandwich.

- [Meghan] It's beautiful.

It's like one that I would like eat alone.

So no one sees what it looks

like while I'm eating it.

- Sorry to make you do it, in this

- Very good.

(all chuckling)

(dramatic music)

- Yeah, make sure you get

all the veggies too in there.

That's, it's important

- I'll take a few bites.

- The veggies are very, very important.

(tense music)

- [Maryam] Pressure's on.

I always get so nervous at this part.

- Yeah, me too.

- Okay.

(both chuckling)

All right guys, if you

would gather everybody up,

we can go to the results.

- Okay.

- Amazing.

- Bring the magnum. (giggling)

- The magnum is definitely coming.

- Okay, thank you.

- Thank you, thank you so much.

- If we don't win this, we're in trouble.

- Right, right.

- In big trouble.

I really wanna win another

prize before this is all over.

- I just want to win

one prize. (chuckling)

I've come in second so many

times. (both chuckling)

- Does that mean we can do now?

We're here.

- All right, one cheers,

'cause that's over.

- Okay, cheers.

(dramatic music)

- Yes.

- Yes.

- Maglife.

- Whoo!

Well that was

- Yes.

That was a fun one, yeah?

- It was good.

- It was so fun.

- Another

interesting challenge.

- Yeah.

Have any of you made ratatouille before?

- Not until this day.

- Yeah.

- So anything could happen from today?

- This is intense.

- And look,

so-Cal versus no-Cal, what do you know?

- It's real.

- Here we are again.

- Here we are again!

Well, hey, this really like defines

what happens for the ending, I think.

- Yeah, this is where it

- Yeah.

- This is where things are happening.

- The three-way tie

It's about to get broken.

- Three-way tie will be broken.

- Yes, there's so much pressure right now.

- It's either gonna be single first place,

or a tie for first place with you two.

I don't know which one.

- It's tough no matter what.

- Regardless, yeah.

We're fighting to the end, no matter what.

- Of course.

- No matter what, cheers guys.

This is a good one.

This is a fun one.

- This was a tough one, and a good one.

- It's true, that magnum

- My precious.

- Hi team?

- Oh, hello.

- How's it going?

- Good, it's good.

- How are you?

(men chuckling)

- It's nerve wracking.

- Yes, yes, yes.

- Whoo! So ratatouille, I don't

know who came up with that.

- Sounds like rat

- I mean, you guys actually surprised me,

'cause I was like, how is

this gonna go with champagne?

And it just proved once again,

that champagne goes with everything.

Sparkling goes with everything.

So

- [Matt] Especially champagne.

- and you guys did not make my job easy.

And this one was really tough.

And as we know, there's a lot on the line.

- There is, we just spoke about that.

- They keep reminding us.

- Yeah, I mean, I tried to

like quickly run the scenarios

and it's kind of crazy.

- It's almost, yeah.

- So, if I've done my math correctly

- Uh-oh.

- If you guys win,

Claire's in first, and the three

of you are tied for second.

If you guys win, you're

duking it out for first.

But either way,

the final One Bite challenge

determines everything.

- So much more real now.

- Yeah.

It just got real competitive,

as we all became closer friends.

- So no pressure.

- So you know,

No pressure, yeah.

- I'll drink to that.

- No pressure at all.

No pressure, no pressure, no pressure.

Just some Ruinart.

(tense music)

- You guys both gave me

something really awesome.

You guys had beautiful plating.

You know, I love creative elements.

I love being a little off the

charts with my ingredients.

So it was really cool that

you guys included apple,

which was unexpected, and

the plating was beautiful.

And then you guys made a

lovely open face sandwich.

Also unexpected.

I loved the sauce on the side.

Everything was delicious.

It was really, really,

really, really hard to decide.

And I have to go with what

paired with the sparkling.

(Claire weeping)

Okay, are you guys ready?

- [Claire] No.

- Ready as we'll ever be.

- Yeah, no, I'm not actually.

- (sighs) This is this

is a really hard one.

So

(chuckling)

Claire and Matthew,

you guys with the little

bit of apple, and

- Wait, hold on, she

hasn't said we won yet.

- Yeah, yeah.

- You guys got it.

- You guys got it,

but that little bit of apple,

like kind of pop of acid,

that really matched

well with the champagne.

I have a special place

in my heart for you too

as you both know.

So automatically, I was like,

oh, it's definitely gonna

be George and Maryam.

But yeah, so that's the way it went down.

But both were really I mean, literally,

it was really hard for me to

pick a winner on this one.

So now we all have to go after Claire.

- Yeah, I was like, "That

was a target on my back."

- You're on top of the mountain now.

- You're going down.

- [Meghan] And now, Claire has to go down.

'Cause the three of you are tied.

- That's so gnarly.

- I think the most dangerous

zone right now is you three.

- Yes.

- I know you're not sorry.

I know you're not sorry.

- Whew!

- I think there's a way

I can still tie with you guys as well.

- I'm sure.

- There is?

- So that we're all on the same

page, Claire has 12 points.

The three of you are

tied with nine points.

I've got six.

So I'm climbing my way up from the bottom.

- Hey girl.

- Still

Claire, you're adorable, but

we're all coming for you.

(all laughing)

- [Matt] Yeah, let's do it.

- Go baby!

(all laughing)

- [Matt] Damn! The drama!

- So much drama.

- [Claire] The drama is palpable!

- [Matt] Drama for your mama.

- It's stress.

- It's going down though.

- This is gonna be

intense, this next episode.

- One last "One Bite Challenge."

- We have a lot of champagne.

- We do.

(crickets chirping)

(upbeat music)

- [Matt] The strategy involved

here is psychological.

- [Claire] There was

for me a clear winner.

- [George] I've been watching

Meg just kind of rise,

and kick all of our asses.

- [Meghan] Claire, are you nervous?

You should be.

- We're gonna throw a curve ball.

- You guys, I respect that.

'Cause that's what I would

do too. (Maryam chuckling)

- [Claire] This is it.

- [Matt] This defines a lot of our lives.

- [Maryam] No pressure.

- [Matt] Learned in this challenge,

we got to go big or go home.

And I'm not ready to go home yet.

(upbeat music)

(glasses clink)