(upbeat music) - [Narrator] This is a production of PBS Charlotte.

(air whooshing) - Whoa, whoa, whoa!

What are you guys doing here today?

- Kids takeover!

- Kids takeover!

- You're taking over, but it's "Dapper Dad's Kitchen."

- Dapper Kids'.

- Dapper Kids' today?

Did you run this by production?

- Yeah.

- Yes.

- Do you even know the format of what we're cooking?

- Steak.

- Yeah.

- Steak?

We're not just cooking steak, not just any steak.

We're gonna do a West Coast classic.

We're gonna do Dapper Dad's version of a French dip sandwich.

- And a giant cookie.

- You want to make a cookie?

I think we can make that happen.

Stick around.

(upbeat music) All right, on this episode of "Dapper Dad's Kitchen," I've got two great little helpers with me in the kitchen today.

We're gonna learn about a really cool sandwich.

You guys ready for that?

You like sandwiches, don't you?

- Hamm and cheese, yes.

- Ham and cheese, yes?

Okay.

We're gonna try something different 'cause you said in the other episode, you like beef, so I've got some beef today, and we're gonna make a really wonderful sandwich.

The cool thing about this sandwich is there are two West Coast restaurants, two old-school classic restaurants that actually think they both invented it, and there's a big argument over it.

But we'll get into that later, okay?

So all right, what we have here is a chuck roast.

Now chuck roast, it's a kind of thicker cut of meat.

It's not the most tender out of the package.

So we're gonna go ahead, and we're gonna braise it.

Do you know what braising is?

- Boil.

- No.

- [Tim] What's that?

- Boil, maybe?

- No, not boil, but kind of.

We're gonna slow cook it in some juices and everything, and it's going to come out super tender and then we're gonna shred it, and we're gonna make a sandwich later.

And then we're gonna make your cookie, okay?

Actually, maybe we'll make your cookie while it's going, 'cause this is gonna take about two and a half hours.

- That's a long time.

- It is a long time.

But let's go ahead and get started.

I'm gonna go ahead and turn the Dutch oven on.

We use the Dutch oven because it's cast iron.

It's a very heavy pot and it retains its heat, and it's gonna hold all the heat in there while we're doing the slow cook on this one.

Brooklyn, you've got the salt and pepper over there.

- [Brooklyn] Mm-hmm?

- Can you bring that over?

All right.

I got the salt.

Now with the pepper, you know how the pepper grinder works, right?

Go ahead and get us some pepper all over it.

All right, you can go back and forth.

You don't just have to turn it one way.

All right.

What we want to do is we want to make sure that we season all sides of it, okay?

I'll take it from here.

There we go.

All right, Sebbies, you give us a good sprinkle of salt.

And how do we do the salt when we do it?

- Don't put it in one place, but spread it all around.

- [Tim] By holding it up... - High.

- All right.

Go ahead, buddy.

Very good.

Give us a little more 'cause this is gonna- - Can I try?

- Yep, I'll let you do the other side.

All right.

Good, good.

Now what I like to do is I like to pat it in a little bit, and we're gonna flip it over.

We're gonna do the other side.

Sebastian, do you want to give it a turn?

Good job.

Let me give you a hand.

All right, Brooklyn, hit us with some salt.

I'm gonna go ahead and add some olive oil.

Okay, good job.

Good job.

Get us some on the side there, on the top and on the bottom.

That's good, that's good.

I'll hit it with a little bit more pepper.

When we say season on all sides, what do we mean?

Season on all sides.

- All sides.

- Now I'm gonna go ahead and put this in our oil, and what we want to do is we're gonna get it in here first just to brown it.

I'm gonna go ahead and turn it up, and we're gonna let that go for a little bit, okay?

We're gonna turn that up to high, and while that's going, we're gonna go ahead and chop in the onions.

I've got the rest of our ingredients here.

What we have here is beef broth.

- Is that Coke?

- No, it's not Coca-Cola.

It's beef broth.

It's basically like beef juice, almost like beef soup.

We're gonna take this, and we're gonna go ahead and chop the onion.

Now do you want to try and chop some of it?

Okay.

This is a very sharp knife.

What I want you to do is we'll all take a turn.

- [Sebastian] Brooklyn can use a sharp knife?

- [Tim] I'm gonna let both of you use a sharp knife because you're being heavily supervised at the moment, okay?

- [Brooklyn] Heavily.

- Heavily supervised.

All right, what I want you to do, I'm gonna show you first and then you're gonna do it.

Now what we want to do is we're gonna go ahead and slice these because we're gonna put them in there, and we're gonna let them settle down, get nice and soft and everything.

We're gonna slice.

So we're just gonna go, and this is a very sharp knife so you don't have to saw, you just have to push down.

We're just gonna do that, that.

Okay?

That's mine.

I'll let you go, Brooklyn.

- Can I use the small one?

- Remember, just push the knife down.

No, no, no, no, no.

Remember, curl your fingers in and then push this down.

There you go, just like that.

No, no, no, no.

No, no, no.

Let the knife do the work.

- I can't- - You can.

Push.

Push.

Push.

And then just chop that how you want to.

- Daddy, can I use that knife?

- [Tim] You want to use that knife?

No, we're not gonna use that knife.

We're gonna use this knife right here.

- Can I use the smaller knife?

- Slow.

Slow.

Good job.

That's good enough.

Go ahead and put it there, and we'll make it Sebbie's turn.

Let's go ahead and scoop that on top and put it on there.

Now, I'm not gonna lie, this is one of the challenges with me teaching my daughter to use a knife 'cause she is left-handed, so.

Oh, that's a good job.

Curl your fingers like that.

Push down.

Push down, push down, push down.

Do me a favor.

With your fingers, don't put them like that.

Do it like this.

Yeah, like Wolverine claws.

Easy?

Let Dad do the rest.

It's a little slippery, okay?

All right.

Now let's go ahead and check our steak here.

It's getting really brown on one side.

Perfect.

We're gonna go ahead and flip it over.

Look at that crust.

That's what we want to get on there.

We're gonna go ahead and flip it, do the same thing on the other side.

We're gonna save this cutting board because in a couple minutes, we're gonna go ahead and put the steak back on there.

But now let me go ahead and tell you the story about the steak.

There's two restaurants that claim to have come up with the idea back in the very early 1900s in California.

One place was called Philippe The Original and the other place was called Cole's Pacific Electric Buffet.

Now, one restaurant says that they accidentally dropped a French roll, a hard roll in a pan with au jus sauce, meat sauce, and it was for a police chief.

And the police chief says, "Don't worry about it.

I don't have time.

Just go ahead and give me the sandwich as it is."

So he took the sandwich away.

He came back the next day and he said, "Man, that was delicious.

How can we pre-create that sandwich with a dipping sauce like that?"

Now, the other restaurant, Cole's Electric Pacific Buffet, they say that they did it intentionally.

The chef, he had a really good friend, a customer.

He had some really sore gums and he said, "Man, this French bread, although it's really tasty and crusty, it kind of hurts my gums."

You know, like when we get our braces or when we get our cavities fixed.

So he says, "You know what?

I'm gonna go ahead and give you this meat sauce we got over here, this meat juices, and you can dip it in there."

While he says that he did that, and it became really wonderful, he also came back.

So the two of them fight over who really came up with the recipe, but we know it all came up around the same time.

Now, we've got a nice brown on this.

Now we don't want to cook it all the way through.

I am gonna flip it on its side because it's a big piece and get a nice brown on there, too.

Add a little more olive oil there.

And then what we're gonna do is, watch out, we're gonna put it back on this cutting board for just a minute, but we're gonna go ahead and get all sides done.

Now, what kind of sandwiches, you said you like the ham sandwich.

What kind of sandwich do you like the best?

- Peanut butter and fluff.

- Peanut butter and fluff sandwich, all right.

Yeah, that's pretty good.

Have you ever had fluff with bananas?

You're not a big banana fan, are you?

You do like bananas.

- Just plain.

- We have to try that sometime.

What about you?

You like a good-old just jelly sandwich.

You don't like peanut butter and jelly.

You just like jelly, outside of your ham and cheese sandwich with mayonnaise.

All right.

Watch out guys.

This is gonna be very hot.

It's not done cooking.

But we're gonna go ahead and set it there just for a moment.

Now we're gonna go ahead and add some little bit more oil to there.

We're gonna go ahead and add our onions.

Good job chopping the onions.

Thank you so much.

You guys didn't know you were gonna get into all this much when you tried to take over my show today, did you?

So, if I wouldn't have showed up, what would you have cooked?

- Cookies.

- Just cookies?

You know what goes good with cookies, especially hot-baked cookies like we're gonna do today?

- Chocolate milk.

- [Tim] Chocolate milk, but how about vanilla ice cream?

- Yeah.

- So what we're gonna do is we're gonna make a skillet cookie.

We're gonna bake it in the oven.

We're gonna put it in there.

I'm gonna have you guys make the cookie batter, the cookie dough, and press it out into the pan, so then we'll put it in the oven and let that go, okay?

And that one luckily doesn't take as long as this.

All right, so now if you take a look in here, see our onions have begin to soften up a little bit.

Got them stirred around.

Okay.

Now what I want to do is, can you pass me the salt?

I'm gonna go ahead and add just a little more salt and pepper 'cause that's what I like.

I don't think you can ever add too much pepper.

Maybe you can add a little too much salt, but the way this is gonna braise... - Not for me.

- We're gonna need a little bit more.

Good job.

Good job.

All right.

Step aside.

Now I'm gonna turn this back up a little bit, and I'm gonna take our beef broth.

We've got four cups of beef broth, one container, about 32 ounces.

- [Brooklyn] It looks like Coca-Cola.

- It looks like what?

- [Both] Coca-Cola.

- Looks like soda, like Cola.

- Why did the sizzling stop?

- Well, the sizzling stopped because we... That's a really good question.

Why did the sizzling stop?

The sizzling stopped because we had the hot oil in there with the onions, but now we put a bunch of, not really cold, but a lot colder, the beef broth in there.

So it's gonna take just a minute to get back up the temperature and start boiling again and start steaming off of there again, okay?

We'll let that sit for a minute.

And then what we're gonna do is we're gonna put the meat back in there.

Now that we've got a little bit of time, since you guys wanted to take over the show, let's do a little interview section.

Why don't you ask me the Dapper Dad a question or two about cooking in the kitchen?

- What's your favorite meal?

- My favorite meal.

Well, first off, I'm gonna say that any meal I have with you two is one of my favorite meals.

But you know me, I'm a meat and potatoes kind of guy.

So give me a steak, give me some chicken, some potatoes, maybe a good vegetable on the side.

What about you?

- Do you like cooking in the kitchen with us?

- Do I like cooking in the kitchen with you?

No, I don't like cooking in the kitchen with you.

I love cooking in the kitchen with you guys.

I think it gives us an opportunity to hang out together, do a little couple things, and I'm also teaching you guys some stuff that's so when you get older, you can build upon these recipes and you can make your own dishes, right?

So you do a little bit of baking.

Like I said, you like to make cookies and stuff already.

You know how to make... What are you good at making?

- An ice cream sundae.

- An ice cream sundae.

I was gonna say cereal, but I'll take ice cream sundae.

Okay, cool.

So what we're gonna do is we're gonna bring this up to temperature real quick and get it to a small rolling boil.

And then I'm gonna drop the temperature, and we're just gonna let it simmer.

And what's gonna happen is the meat, connective tissue, it's gonna break down.

And you saw that big chunk of meat, we're gonna be able to pull it apart and shred it and put it on a sandwich and have at it, okay?

All right.

Well, let's let this go for a little bit.

And what do you guys want to do in the meantime?

We got a couple hours.

- Cookie.

- We got to do the cookie later, man.

Let's go outside and play some soccer.

It's a beautiful day.

Kick the ball around.

- Ball around.

- All right, cool.

(upbeat music) Uh-oh.

Uh-oh.

Oh!

(upbeat music) All right, we're back.

We played a little footie.

Kicked the ball around a little bit.

Who do you think scored the most goals?

- Me.

- Okay.

Well, we'll let that see.

I think it was me, but anyways.

Now it's time... (Sebastian speaking faintly) (Tim laughs) - Now it's time to make your big cookie.

What we're gonna do is we're gonna make a skillet cookie.

First off, let's see how our steak's coming along.

Is it starting to look tasty?

- [Brooklyn] Yeah.

- [Sebastian] Yeah.

- I think it's good.

We're almost there, so we probably need about another half an hour, which is great, 'cause this only takes about 15 to 20 minutes to bake when we're done.

All right, now what I want you to do is I want you to grab the bowl.

Okay, to this, we're gonna start off with a whole stick of melted butter.

We've got some cup of all-purpose flour.

Do you want to go ahead and add that in?

While he's adding that in, Brooklyn, I want you to start stirring stuff around a little bit.

- [Brooklyn] Okay.

- Slowly, slowly, slowly.

This is vanilla.

Smell it.

Vanilla extract.

Smell good?

- Yeah.

- All right.

I'm gonna go ahead and put that in there.

That was about a tablespoon.

We've got a little bit of baking soda.

We'll go ahead and add that.

And now we've got sugar and sugar.

What kind of sugars do we have?

- [Brooklyn] Brown sugar and sugar.

- Normal sugar.

- And white sugar.

Great.

So math question for you.

I've got a quarter cup of white sugar and a half a cup of brown sugar.

How much sugar do I have?

- A lot of sugar.

- Yeah, we got a lot of sugar.

Brooklyn, fractions.

What do we got?

Three quarters of a cup of sugar.

Good job.

Good job.

We're gonna go ahead and add this in.

- Why'd you ask just a math question if we're not in school?

- Because math isn't everything that we do.

You've got to measure out things when you're in the kitchen, and you've got to know your measurements.

So yeah, there.

Now, how's it going over here, Brooklyn?

- Good.

- Gonna go ahead and whip that up.

Okay.

- What's the difference between brown sugar and white sugar?

- Well, white sugar is kind of just like pure sugar.

It's been refined, and what they do for brown sugar is they put molasses back into sugar, 'cause molasses is part of the process that's extracted from sugar when they're refining it.

Now... - Chocolate chips.

- Chocolate chips.

The recipe typically calls for bittersweet, but I know these kids, so I went ahead and got milk chocolate chips.

All right, let's go ahead and put those in there.

- [Brooklyn] Not all of them.

- Not all of them.

Go ahead and let Sebastian stir this around a little bit.

Good job helping out.

- Why aren't we putting an egg in?

- We're not putting an egg in because we don't want it to really rise like that.

We've got the baking soda in there, and the baking soda is gonna help it even out.

We don't want a thick, puffy cookie.

We're gonna put it in here.

And we're gonna... - That's a circle.

- Yep.

It's a circle.

It's a skillet, and we're gonna go ahead and put it in here.

It's gonna even out.

It's gonna be kind of like a thick and chocolatey.

So let's not do too much.

We don't want to beat up the chocolate.

Okay.

Do you think we need a little bit more?

- No.

Yeah.

- All right.

Now, what we're gonna do is... - Add more chocolate chips.

- We're gonna go ahead and put it in here.

Go ahead and put it in.

I'll let you scoop it in, Sebastian.

Yep.

Hold it up that way.

There, now you've got more control over it.

Okay.

Now, let's use our fingers because we washed our hands and we're gonna press it out.

No, no, no, just your fingers, not your whole hand.

And we're gonna press it out into the bottom of the pan.

(Sebastian whispering faintly) - What are you whispering over there?

- Nothing.

- What, does it feel weird?

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- Okay.

Watch out.

Let me smooth it out with this a little bit.

Get it over here.

Is this gonna be the biggest cookie you've ever made?

- No.

- Yeah.

- I made one bigger.

- When did you make a cookie bigger than this?

And who are you making cookies with?

- Brooklyn.

- Brooklyn?

All right.

I'm gonna put a couple more of these just on top and press them in there easily.

Easy.

Okay, cool.

We're gonna go ahead and put this in the oven.

We've got the oven preheated to 350 degrees.

It's gonna take about 15 to 20 minutes, okay?

And by that time, we'll go ahead and clean this up.

We'll get some plates ready, and we'll begin getting our bread ready to toast.

(air whooshing) So man, we're right there.

We're ready to make our sandwiches, but first, we're gonna have to free up some oven space to put our rolls in there so that we can make them nice and toasty.

Let's go ahead and get our cookie out.

Is that the... (Tim laughs) Look at your face.

Is that not one of the biggest cookies you've seen?

Now we're gonna have to let this set.

So we're gonna let it sit, and we're gonna let it cool off just a little bit, okay?

And then we'll dish that out, and we'll have some ice cream.

I know you're getting tired.

So let's go ahead and get these rolls in the oven.

We're gonna go ahead and cut our rolls in half.

We don't want to cut all the way through.

So that's why Daddy's doing this.

We're going very slow.

Stand up, sit up, sit up, yawny boy.

Okay.

Now, we're gonna use Daddy's secret hack again.

Instead of melting butter, we're gonna just put some butter on here.

We're gonna go with some spray butter.

- It's not really a hack, but- - That's not really a hack.

Why do you say it's not a hack?

- It's not.

- Because it's not?

Okay.

Well, you know better than me, right?

- [Sebastian] Sort of.

- Sort of.

We're gonna put that on there.

Okay, now, to juice this up just a little bit, what we're gonna do is we're gonna put a little bit of garlic powder on these before we toast them.

Do you like garlic powder?

- [Sebastian] Yeah.

- You like garlic bread, right?

What do you have garlic bread with?

What's one of the things we always have garlic bread with?

- [Sebastian] Garlic powder.

- Spaghetti.

- With spaghetti.

We always have garlic bread with spaghetti, right?

Okay, so we're gonna go ahead and we're gonna put this in the oven for just a few minutes to let them toast up and get nice and crispy.

All right.

Now, we've got these right here.

This is where we're gonna put our au jus that we're gonna dip our bread in when it comes out.

I'm gonna get us a cutting board out so we can cut our sandwiches in half.

- Do you want to hear a joke about pizza?

- [Tim] Yeah.

- Nevermind.

It's too cheesy.

- Oh, that's a good one.

I'm gonna grab us a ladle, a spoon, so we can get some of the au jus out of here, and that's how we're gonna start, okay?

So I'm gonna turn this off.

I'm gonna get the lid off of there.

Man, that all looks delicious, doesn't it?

So we're gonna start off.

We're gonna go ahead and fill these cups.

And this is why they call it the dip.

So the cool thing, it's a French dip sandwich, but it's not really even from France.

It just uses French bread.

You want to try a little bit of sauce?

- [Brooklyn] Yeah.

- So dip it in there.

It's hot.

That one's yours.

So dip it in there.

Just don't pull the spoon out but just dip it and let's (speaks faintly) and then give it a taste.

What's one of the first things that you taste?

- Pepper.

- Right.

It's got the pepper from the steak and everything.

What about you, Brooklyn?

- The steak.

- Yeah.

It tastes like beef.

It's, like, it's got the beef boiling on it, and it's got all the juices and the fats from the steak.

Yep.

So I want you to take a look.

Remember how that was such a big hunk of meat?

Well, I want you to look at it now.

It just comes apart.

- [Sebastian] It just rips.

- Super tender.

It's gonna taste great on a sandwich.

So we're gonna go ahead and put this on here and you can just pull that with a fork.

Would you like to try a piece of it without the bread?

- Yes.

- Yeah.

- Okay.

Get it all out of there.

Okay, so what are a couple things that we learned on this episode with me, guys?

- French bread isn't from French.

- So a French dip isn't from France.

It's just used as French bread, basically, right?

- Yeah.

- And we also learned that with tougher cuts of meat, you can stew it, braise it for a long time where you cook it in a lot of its own juices and anything, and it becomes very, very... - Soft.

- And... - Tender.

- Tender.

All right.

And what have we learned about the cookie?

That you don't always need... - Eggs.

- Eggs to make a cookie.

Okay.

Let's see how our bread's coming along.

It is toasting up just fine.

We'll pull that out in just a minute, and we'll go ahead and get some sandwiches made.

While we're waiting on that, do you guys, you know, I'll let you cheat since mom's not here.

Do you want to have your cookie first?

Okay.

I've got some ice cream.

While this is cooling off, we'll put the ice cream right there.

We're gonna go ahead, and we're gonna cut it in a pizza shape.

How about that?

Oh, man.

Ooey gooey.

- I want a square.

- You want a square?

- Yeah.

- Okay.

Let's get you a square.

There's one in every crowd, right?

Oops.

Okay.

Now, spoon for you, spoon for you.

And I'll use this one, and I'll scoop a little bit of ice cream on top there.

It's still warm enough.

It should melt your ice cream if you give it just a second.

I'm gonna go ahead and double check our bread real quick, and it is ready to go.

We are gonna let it cool off for a second.

Look at that toasted golden brown.

All right, go ahead and dig in.

Don't tell mom that we had dessert before dinner.

It's quiet, so that can mean one of two things, but like what... How is it?

- Really good.

- Really good?

What do you think, Sebs?

- Really, really good.

- All right.

That's what I'm talking about, little buddy.

Now, we're gonna do this for a second.

We're gonna set these aside.

I'm gonna go ahead and start off with one of these, and we're gonna put a little bit of beef on there.

Probably what I'll do is you guys can share one at first to see if you like it, okay?

So we're gonna go ahead and we're gonna put that on there.

Oh, man, you know what I almost forgot which is gonna make this even better?

What makes everything better?

- Cheese.

- Cheese.

I've got some provolone cheese here.

We're gonna put a slice of this on top.

- [Brooklyn] I don't like cheese.

- That's okay.

I'm gonna put this sandwich together for you guys like that.

We're gonna go ahead and cut it in half.

One on there for you with your au jus.

One for you with your au jus.

Put a little bit of provolone on there for me.

Put that right there and then grab my au jus.

I'm gonna come around you here.

All right.

Now, what you want to do, take it.

I would take the pointy end and dip it in au jus just a little bit, not too much.

It's gonna soak it up.

It's gonna be kind of hot, okay?

And then take a bite.

What do you think?

- That's good.

- [Tim] Really?

Two thumbs up.

- [Sebastian] Mm-hmm.

- I appreciate you, bud.

What do you think we could do to make it a little better?

When it comes to sandwiches, you can add anything that you'd like to add a little more flavor.

Sandwich like this especially, you can add some banana peppers, you could add some hot sauce, you could even put some chow-chow on there, some giardiniera.

This is a wonderful, versatile sandwich because the meat is kind of heavy.

It's very savory.

So using anything to brighten it up or lighten it up that's kind of got a vinegar base could even make it even better for you.

Recipe's just a recipe.

It's not really a meal until you put your own final touches on it.

So that's what I always like to say about sandwiches and other meals and things like this.

So what do you guys think?

- I think it was really good.

- You think it was really good?

Okay, now, honest answer, honest answer for everybody out there.

What was better: the sandwich or the cookie?

- Cookie.

- Sandwich.

- Wow.

Okay.

Sandwich and cookie.

So we've got a 50/50 tie there.

I'll take it any day of the week.

Once again, thank you two for joining me on the show, even though you tried to kick me off and take the show over for yourselves, but I'm glad we had our time today in the kitchen, learned some things, learned how to make a new sandwich and make maybe not the world's biggest cookie, but probably the biggest cookie we've made in this house, huh?

- [Brooklyn] Mm-hmm.

- Yep.

All right.

Well, thank you all for joining me and my kids here on "Dapper Dad's Kitchen."

We'll catch you next time.

(upbeat music) - [Narrator] A production of PBS Charlotte.

(gentle bright music)