There are quite a few of us out there that can recall eating macaroni and cheese with hot dogs. This is one step up from that, at least until Babish gets hold of it since the idea of cooking spaghetti noodles in root beer should produce all kinds of reactions, but genuine pleasure feels like an odd one to experience when it comes to soaking noodles in something so sweet for any length of time. Adding in the Cheeto’s is even worse since sweet and salty elements aren’t such a bad thing, but in these types of proportions, one can’t help but think that only kids and cartoon characters, like Babish mentioned, would be interested in such fare. Just thinking about this is making my mouth pucker at the moment since back in the day it might sound like a great snack, but as of now, it’s nothing more than a whole mouthful of ‘nope’ waiting to happen. But as you can imagine, Babish took one taste of this dish and did pretty much the same. But then he also did something else that people have come to expect of him, he went the extra mile to make it better.
Okay, so that’s an understatement, he went above and beyond to make it better by taking the short ribs and making his own pasta as one could have guessed he was going to do since a recipe like this kind of calls for making things from scratch as much as possible. For many people, this is probably kind of difficult simply because those who say making pasta is easy are probably right, but it’s easier since they’ve done it more than once and have figured it out. The average person might know next to nothing about making pasta, especially since the average person might not have the kitchen space that Babish has to work with. It sounds like an excuse, but having the counter space to use for one machine or another is something that many people kind of need.
Anytime Babish gets hold of a recipe one knows that something interesting is going to come from it since this guy isn’t just a great chef, he’s someone that people can see if they know where to go, someone that is there to be viewed but isn’t flashing his skill all over mainstream TV. It is interesting to think that Babish might one day be seen on big-time TV since he could definitely hang with the other big-name celebrities that have come before. But watching him in the kitchen is still a fun and cathartic experience between listening to his voice and watching him work. The kind of things that this guy can do in the kitchen is amazing to some folks since watching a meal come together in such a manner does make a lot of people wonder if they could do the same thing if they were dedicated enough and had the right tools. It’s been said more than once that anyone can cook, but the fact is that a person still needs to have the desire and the ability to follow the directions to any given recipe that they might want to create.
The spare ribs and the homemade pasta are a far cry from the bagged pasta and hot dogs that this meal started off with. The gagging mixture of artificial cheese and root beer would have been enough to turn just about anyone’s stomach, but the spare ribs and pasta actually sound kind of interesting. Apparently, it wasn’t all that great, but it does sound as though the meal was habit-forming all the same. Cheese and meat are usually a great combination, but this still feels like something that might be kind of dodgy if it’s not made just right. The inclusion of regular noodles might be something that wouldn’t matter quite as much, but the whole Cheeto angle is something that might be a little tough to get around, as would be the root beer idea since a lot of root beers tend to be insanely sugary and as a result, the meal to be made would be a little too sweet for a lot of people.
But as usual, Babish found a way to make it a little more palatable and actually use the ingredients in the root beer to help build the dish rather than to overwhelm it. That’s how impressive this guy is since thinking of how he’s going to make a dish better is usually a lot of fun, but watching him put it all together is even better. In a big way, it does make me want to invest in a number of cooking tools just to see if I could do the same thing, but the sad part is that after making one or two recipes they’d probably get socked away in a cupboard, never to be used again. Yeah, watching Babish is easier.
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