>> male announcer: Funding for Chef Paul Prudhomme's Always Cooking was provided by: >> Prudhomme: [laughs] Crank up the oven.

Set it up to broil, yeah.

I'm Chef Paul Prudhomme, and today we're cooking some stuffed tilapia.

Ooh, it's good stuff.

Broiled tomatoes and honey chicken wings.

We got it all.

Come on back.

[lively Cajun music] ♪ ♪ Hey, everybody.

We're cooking, yeah.

We've got a great broiled stuffed tilapia, and it's kind of a complicated recipe, so I'm going to try to make it as simple as I possibly can and make it as quick as I can so you can understand it at home and make it work.

We've got a lot of ingredients.

And we've got tilapia fish.

So the first thing I'm going to do is, I'm going to start the fish.

And what I mean by "start" them; I season it, and then I'm going to just brown it off.

Now, just brown it off because I'm going in the oven with this with the dressing to really make it--actually put it under the broiler and let the broiler take care of cooking the dressing.

And the fish will be started, and I'll get some of the juice of the fish to help the dressing.

But it'll actually finish in the broiler.

So I'm going to season the fish, and at this point, because it has a dressing with it, you know, the fish can be fairly heavily seasoned, but it shouldn't be overly.

Of course, you don't want there to ever be too much seasoning.

But you see what I'm doing with the oil?

I got olive oil here, and I'm actually putting it on the fish a little bit at a time instead of pouring it in the skillet.

And the skillet's hot, so the hot skillet is going to react to the fish right away and give me a good brown real quick.

And it's also going to make the dish easier and quicker, so I like to start with a hot skillet.

So I've got the skillet going.

I've got it probably on-- let's see.

It's probably medium high.

And so we're going to drop this in.

And there's a little sizzle, which is great.

We need to have a sizzle, because if we don't have a sizzle, then I don't have it hot enough.

Browning of the fish is very important, because I don't want to put it a long time in the broiler.

The broiler cooks real fast, and so when you brown the fish off and you kind of get it at room temperature but get some nice color on it, you're going to have a better taste.

You're going to have a better taste on both sides, and you're going to have a great dish.

We started the potatoes, and we got them boiling, and they're on a simmer.

And we got garlic with the potatoes.

We got cream.

We got herbs and spices.

Got a little stock in there.

So that's all working.

And so we're going to check the fish out and see what's happening.

It's not sticking, which is good.

When you put the oil on the fish and you've got a good pan like this one that's a nonstick pan, it really makes it that much easier.

Now, see, I'm watching the fish, and see right here, where it's real thin, it's starting to change color, and right there?

So I'm going to just take it and turn it over.

And, see, it's starting to get this great color to it.

I do this fast enough so it won't cook all the way.

It'll finish in the broiler.

And so the pan that I have over there is for the fish, and I'm going to put it in there, and that's going to go into the oven.

And then I'm going to start with--I don't want to break it up.

Yeah, all right.

And then we're going to start with the onions.

Good hot pan, a little bit of olive oil.

You could use regular oil; you don't have to use olive oil with the onions.

Just put them in there and start cooking them.

Now, there's choices here that anybody that's cooking can make, and the choices are, you can give this a lot of color, the onions, or you can just give it a little bit of color.

Now, we're going to have lots of flavors with this, and when you have a top fire when you're broiling and you have a fire on top, it's going to brown things off, and it's going to give it a certain amount of sweetness.

If you go too far, of course, it's going to give you a bitternessbecause that's what happens when you overcook stuff.

But a light color or a roasted color to vegetables really helps them out, and this one's starting.

Now, I've got enough heat going, and I've got enough color on the vegetables, and this is, you know-- I can start putting the rest of the ingredients in.

Now, one of the keys to doing this as quickly as you can at home-- if you want the vegetables and especially the onions, if you want them to have a great color to them, go ahead and put the rest of the vegetables on top of them, but don't stir it right away.

Just let it set for a while.

And as it sets for a while, of course, the onions are underneath, and they're being pressured by the other vegetables, and they're starting to brown much faster.

And, of course, if the vegetables are cold, then that's going to really slow things down, so remember when you're cooking, the more you have room-temperature things to work with, the better off you're going to be.

The onions got some brown on them.

It's not a huge amount of brown, but it's enough to make it work.

And so we're going to continue cooking this, and I'm going to add some seasoning to it.

Now, at this step, we should probably just let it cook a few minutes.

I used all the rest of the seasoning.

I want to check out my potatoes and see how they're doing.

We cut them up pretty small, and they'll cook pretty fast.

But we want them to be really soft, and they're still hard, so we're going to let them cook.

So we're going to let this cook and get some good colors and good seasoning on it and to cook the seasoning as well as the vegetables.

I've got these while they're still a little bit crispy, but they're ready to go, so I'm going to make my stuffing, yeah.

We're going to put this in here, and I'm going to just put this on the side for a minute or two, 'cause I'm going to need it again.

And then we're going to pull this over.

And this is the potatoes and the cream and the seasoning that I'm going to make the stuffing with.

And so I'm going to put that right in with the vegetables and start mashing it.

I'm going to reserve some of the liquid to make a sauce with.

And so we're going to put a little bit of liquid in here, probably about a half a cup.

Or, actually, you can-- pretty much, yeah, a half a cup ought to be good.

And the rest of it just goes right in here.

Ready to go.

All right, so I'm going to turn my fire off, 'cause I don't want to leave a fire burning.

And then we're going to do some mashing.

Oh, this is mashing easy, yeah.

Boy, the smell.

Oh, you should smell it.

Man, it's just really wonderful.

It's a really good blend of herbs and spices, because that's what's giving it that wonderful, really strong smell to it.

Just about got it done.

Now, of course, we got lots of dressing, because we got four fish, but I only got two out here, because that works really good for me.

So I'm going to do that.

I'm going to take this and put it right here.

And it calls for about a cup.

I'm not going to measure it, but I like to mound a lot of dressing and especially when it's a kind of fish that's kind of small, you know, like this one, like tilapia is.

And just put it right on top of there.

Leave it in the broiler anywheres from six to eight minutes, ten minutes.

Just check it when you do that.

Just take and check it with a fork.

Check the fish to make sure it's cooked.

I mean, we're really cooking now.

The thing about cooking is being organized.

And when you're organized, it really runs well.

And so we got the fish out of the oven, and we're going to make the sauce.

And we got the reserves left when we did the potatoes.

I'm going to put a little butter in.

It don't take much, 'cause I already got some butter in this.

And we've got some of the stuffing, we've got some stock, and we have some yogurt.

And so we're going to turn the fire on.

We're going to bring this to a quick boil.

We got a whisk here, and we're going to start making the sauce-- or finishing the sau, because the making of the sauce is already done.

You know, I just want to point this out again.

This elephant garlic roasted, it just keeps giving me, you know--want to bite it.

It smells great.

It's mild.

It's wonderful.

Oh, the aroma's just incredible.

And so we're going to put the stock in, and that's going to give us some leeway to start putting the other ingredients in.

Now, what I mean by that is, putting the stuffing in is going to thicken it.

And so I've got about, oh, at most a cup of stuffing to put into this.

And I'm going to be careful, as I put it in, not to put too much, 'cause I don't want a real pasty sauce.

We just put the yogurt in.

All right, so we've got the sauce.

We're going to add some of the mashed potatoes to it that we mashed with all the vegetables and with the seasoning and all that stuff and just make sure we got the thickness that we want for the sauce to go with the fish.

I love this.

I think it's not getting real thick, so I'm going to put the rest of the stuffing in, because the stuffing with the potatoes, of course, is what's going to make it thick.

All right, our sauce is done.

I'm going to get me a clean spoon here and give it a taste.

Ah.

It actually--it actually would, I think, be better if we cooked it a few more minutes.

So the fish is ready.

It's out of the oven.

We've got this wonderful, beautiful stuffing on top.

And we're gointo just pour it right on just like that.

I mean, that's wonderful.

Look at that.

It's creamy and wonderful and delicious and tasty and gorgeous.

And that's the broiled stuffed tilapia.

And next we're going to have magic broiled tomatoes, yeah.

They're going to make you hungry.

Hi, guys.

Magic broiled tomatoes, that's what we're going to do, and it's an easy one.

It's really quick; at least I think so.

Sometimes things you think are quick are not.

But first we're going to do a stuffing with them, and we've got some cheese.

And you use the cheese you want.

I've got some great Parmesan cheese here.

And so we're going to put some seasoning in.

This is butter.

Got butter down there.

And then we're going to put the cheese in.

And the butter needs to be very soft, because you want to make a mixture with it.

And you want to make sure that you're putting enough seasoning in, because you're going to season this whole tomato and then broil it.

So I'm going to add just a little bit more seasoning, because as I look at it, I think it would be a little bit more.

One of the neat things about being a cook for a long time is that you sort of have instinct for something by looking at it or smelling or tasting it.

And you can do that at home too.

I mean, it's one of the things that we naturally do.

I'm going to take and cut this.

Now, you can do this all kind of ways.

All you need is be able to put, you know, like about this much of this in the tomato and then let it melt when it broils.

And so you can cut it like so.

I mean, literally just cut the top.

And then put a little bit out, and make a little hole in it like that.

And that's one way to do it.

The way we chose to do it was, we took, and we actually made little zigzags in the tomato.

And if you do zigzags in a tomato, you can make them small.

You can make them big.

And then you can pull the top off.

This part of it can be fun.

You can make it personal, you know.

And it just really works good.

So we've got--just get your knife in there, and just cut that part off, the middle of it off.

Just--see what I'm doing there?

Just take that off.

And once you got it off-- and if it stays stuck like this one, that means you haven't cut it all the way.

And you cut it.

I'm going to put that aside.

I'm going to take this, and, I mean, it's just this simple.

You just put it in there, and you just fill it up.

And, oh, the smell of this.

The tomato's just really wonderful.

And then you put it in a dish that can go into the oven.

And if you do this one, you can mound some on top like this, and that works good too, because it melts and goes in.

You can pull some of the tomato out or not.

And so I've got some in the oven.

I'm going to switch these over.

And so we're going to do that right this second.

You want a nice brown to it, but you don't want it to be too brown.

This one has got--it's got some beautiful brown to it.

Oh.

bang!

I mean, beautiful brown.

You shouldn't bang the oven door.

It's not good for the oven door.

It really isn't.

But it got away from my towel.

So we're going to take-- this is hot, but I'm going to take it and put it over here.

Right there.

And then put the other one there.

And this butter, a little bit of the seasoning, and a little bit of cheese is in here.

And we're going to take it and just pour it right over.

I'm going to try to show it for the camera there.

Put it right over.

And I'll tell you, you can use this as an appetizer.

You can--I mean, you need nice firm tomatoes.

That's really important.

By the way, do you know a tomato is a fruit?

It's not a vegetable.

That's just a little tidbit of strange stuff.

And whatever cheese you want.

And just roast it.

And right now, it's just ready to eat.

Broiled honey chicken wings next!

Can't wait.

Broiled honey chicken wings.

You're not broiling the honey, but you're broiling the chicken and its wings, and so it's really neat.

There's so much to do with chicken wings.

I mean, it's endless.

Let me talk about the cutting first.

And what I'm going to do is, I'm going to just take a normal chicken wing you'd get at a store and just sort of cut that.

When you're cutting them, if you just take and you break the joint like this, now, see, you can see right here where you put the knife at.

And then it just slides right through it, and you're not hacking it.

You know how sometimes when you do things, you got to bang it or you got to-- you know, you don't need to do that, especially with chicken, because chicken has joints in it.

And if you hit the joint each time that you're cutting with it, then it works very well.

And so we just hit the joint again.

See, right here.

And then all we got to do is just cut this off.

Now, this part of the chicken wing, like most people know, I mean, you could cook and eat it, but, you know, I mean, I can't imagine that.

There's not enough on it to take the time to cook it.

So what I like to do with it is drop it in hot water and make a stock with it, because stock is one of the things you can do with chicken wings that gives it real value, I mean, real value, because it just makes it so much easier to get flavors out of stock than it is out of just plain water.

And so that's what we're doing right now.

We're going to put the chicken wings.

Now, the stock, you can cook it for as long as you want.

I mean, I think that the longer you cook a stock, the better it gets.

And normally--but especially with chicken, I would like to put in onions or onion peelings.

I love, when I make stock, anything that you would just scrape off.

Like, you know, if you peel carrots, put the carrot peels in.

When you do the garlic or the onions, the peel of the garlic, the peel of the onion, just put it right in there.

Like the stem on an onion.

You know how some of the onions got a big stem on the bottom?

If you can't use them, you cut that, wash it.

Just put it under the faucet and wash it and put it in your stock, and it just makes it a better stock, makes it fuller.

And so we've got the chicken here.

Now, you can take the seasoning and, you know, be real nice and do it this way.

I don't like to do that.

I like to just take the seasoning and just spread it over, and especially with something, like, that's small, with chicken wings, you know.

You spread it, and then you turn it, and you just--I mean, just turn it over and get to the other side and sprinkle some more seasoning on it.

I think chicken wings need to have not a whole lot of salt, but they need to have a lot of flavor.

And I think it's one of the things that really is great to build flavors with.

So--and I can feel the heat of the pot.

It's probably at 275.

The skillet, it's probably at 275 degrees, maybe 300.

So I like to rub it in too.

You know, when you're doing herbs and spices on something, you know, just rub it in.

Don't let any of it be in the plate.

Just--you see, like, there's some right there.

Just take and put your chicken wings in it, because chicken wings need to have some good flavors.

Now, I'm going use butter to cook in this, and, if you notice, the skillet's dry, and so there's no butter in it.

But I'm going to put the butter in after I start getting the chicken--after I get the chicken wings in.

And so my butter won't brown too much, because I need to get some good flavors in the chicken, and the way to do that, of course, is with the color that you get on stuff.

When you brown things, that brown color is just an absolute wonderful flavor.

You know, it just really is great flavor.

So we're going to put the butter in, and we're going to let the butter just sit in there and just gradually cook.

Now, this is going to take a few minutes.

I'm going to put the onions in also, because I love the taste of those wonderful caramelized onions, and it just gives it an extra sweetness.

So I'm going to put that in, and then I'm going to let this cook on one side.

I probably have it at medium high.

No, medium low.

And so I'm going to cook it real slow and get one side of the chicken wings done, get the butter melted, and get the onions caramelized, and we're going to get back on it.

I don't know if the camera can see this, but there's starting to be a little bit of brown from the butter and from the onions and, of course, from the seasoning.

Look-a-there.

I mean, you know that's-- any time you see this wonderful color on something, that's going to be good.

And so we're going to turn it over, and then we'll continue adding ingredients in it.

So, as you can see, it browns in some places and not in the other, and it's just really slow cooking.

But it gives it a chance for the onions to really caramelize and get you a great flavor, because we've got a lot more to add to it, and we're going to start adding it right now.

I'm going to put the garlic in with the sherry, because, you know, when you put garlic in a dish like this, it's kind of hard to spread.

And so we're going to use the sherry to help spread it.

And so--and this is the process of making a sauce.

And we've got some honey, which we're going to put in a little bit later.

We got a little bit of soy sauce.

Ooh, that soy sauce really has a great smell to it.

I'm going to add a little bit more seasoning.

I don't want to put too much, but I want to add a little bit more seasoning.

Now, what's happening now is, we're getting some moisture in here, and so the browning is going to stop.

I'm going to put the stock in right now.

And then we're going to put-- we've got the honey left to put in to finish the sauce, and we're going to do that after we get this in the broiler.

So we're going to put the wings in the broiler.

I think one of the best things about cooking is making a great sauce.

Now, we've got some color in this, and we're going to put it in the broiler.

And putting it in the broiler's going give it even more color.

Matter of fact, I'm going to turn it over, because where the sauce was, there's not a lot of color.

And so we're going to be-- we're going to broil it and get some really crispy flavors to it.

And so it's going to make it-- now, look at the sauce.

See how it's got a nice texture to it so far?

I mean, it's just-- it's still thin, but it's cooking away.

And I've still got some ingredients to put into that.

And so we're going to brown this side of the--and so both sides will be brown of the chicken.

You know, it's always interesting to me to try to find out where things come from.

And, you know, growing up on a farm, the chicken wings-- [laughs] chicken wings was not our favorite thing.

I mean, I think if my dad would see today that you can take chicken wings and, you know, put a sign out that you're selling chicken wings and people will come and spend a lot of money for it, he would think that was just unbelievable, you ow, but also outstanding, because he liked things to happen that was unusual.

But chicken wings today is really part of the economy of food and especially of fast foods, you know.

And what I got left to do now is, I got to put the honey in.

I didn't want to put the honey in too much, because I've found that when you put honey in a dish and cook it a long time, you sort of leave some of the sweetness, or some of the sweetness goes away.

And so this way, we can put it in right at the end and then shut the sauce down, because this has got to go into the oven.

And so, by the way, you know where the name "broil" comes from?

It was from the French.

You know, I mean, I'm a Cajun, so I'm French, right?

It actually came from a word, you know, that is "burned."

Because when you put them in the broiler, you get the black part on them, and so it's bruiller.

Or bruiller is a way of saying really dark colors, really dark colors.

And I love cooking in high heat, but this is a very slow recipe, and it just really works that way.

One of the things that I think is so important is to taste.

And I didn't do a whole lot of tasting with this particular dish, but I think that it's an education to taste and it's a necessity to find out what things taste like.

I mean, you know, I have a solid recipe--you know, I've been cooking 50 years, so I have a lot of confidence in what things are going to taste like, and I still need to taste.

I mean, it just--it makes so much difference.

Ah!

The flavor of this sauce is going to go so well with the chicken wings.

I mean, it's just going to really be different, you know?

I mean, really different.

Different kind of buffalo wings; ain't no doubt about that.

I think that we're ready to put this in the oven and finish it.

We're going to actually put it in the broiler and finish it.

So we're going to do that right now.

And I took a peek on this while waiting, and it's got some beautiful colors on it, and some of them are real dark, you know?

But if you did it right and it's not really overcooked, it's got a sweetness to it and a little bit of bitterness.

Oh, I love that.

And the taste on them is just awesome and just really got lots of flavors to it.

And so it's fun and easy to do.

Involve the kids in it.

When you involve the kids in it, you know, you're going to involve the whole family.

And I'll tell you it's important to do family things together.

I grew up in a family of, as most of you know, 13 children.

And one of the things that was really important to us was the family time, you know.

Whether we were having a fun card game or we were helping Mom cook or we were just eating together, it was one of the things that we loved.

So I'll tell you, buffalo wings, even when they're too hot to handle, you can't hardly sist them.

I mean, ooh, just dip them in the sauce.

And as soon as I'm off the air, I'm eating this one.

And that's good cooking, good eating, good loving.

We love you guys.

Ooh, I get to--my fingers.

Mmm, yum, yum.

>> announcer: A cookbook featuring all the recipes from Chef Paul Prudhomme's Always Cooking is available for $15.95 plus $7.95 shipping and handling.

The cookbook features 97 recipes, color photos, and cooking tips from Chef Paul.

To order a copy of the companion cookbook, call: And pay by credit card.

Or send a check or money order to: Captioning by CaptionMax www.captionmax.com >> Okay.

>> Prudhomme: I knew that would get him started.

They don't want to hear any more of that.

And I'm going to wrap it up with the foil and-- >> Let's wrap and then show, okay?

>> Prudhomme: It's not fun.

I got them.

It looks better I have tongs.

Eat the cheese?

Okay, I'll do that too.

[laughter] Really?

That'll shake me up.

Neh, neh, neh.

You know what I think?

Neh, neh, neh.

>> Say "yum" or something.

Do it like that.

>> Prudhomme: [growls] Yum.

[laughs] >> male announcer: Funding for Chef Paul Prudhomme's Always Cooking was provided by: