- [Announcer] This is a production of PBS Charlotte.

- [Pamela] The following episode of Charlotte Cooks is brought to you by Central Piedmont Community College and viewers like you.

Thank you.

- Coming up on this episode of Charlotte Cooks, we have a contestant from the Great American Recipe joining us, chef Tim Harris.

(happy music) - Welcome to this episode of Charlotte Cooks.

I'm so glad you're here today 'cause we have got a very special guest.

We have got Tim Harris from the Great American Recipe and I'm so glad you're here.

- I'm so glad to be here.

Chef.

Thank you very much.

- I've watched your show and it's just a lot of fun.

- Yes.

- Just a lot of fun.

So, while we are cooking today, I want you to tell us all about your stories about the show, 'cause I know you said what you're gonna make us today was something from a contestant and a fellow contestant on the show.

- Yeah, it was definitely inspired by the show.

One of my favorite episodes was the recipe swap, where we took somebody else's recipe, or I should say we were given somebody else's recipe and we had to cook that.

So this is something that I cooked, this is a slightly different variation that I made once again, I came home, but on the show, what I did was I took a recipe from my fellow castmate Mae, she's a Chinese American from Malibu, California, and I took one of her recipes and I kind of Southernized it.

- [Pamela] Okay.

- But I still wanted to stay true to her recipe and give it the respect it deserved.

- Okay.

So what are we gonna make today?

- So today we're gonna make pulled pork and pulled chicken egg rolls from some pork and some chicken that I've smoked and brought in.

We're gonna do that with a Carolina slaw.

We're gonna roll those egg rolls up, we're gonna fry 'em off, and then we're gonna get some plum sauce.

We're gonna add some heat to it with some south ern hot sauce.

And then we're just gonna serve it up and enjoy.

- So what are we gonna start with today, Tim?

- First off, we're gonna start off with some cabbage.

We're gonna go ahead and get our cabbage sliced.

- [Pamela] And this is just everyday green cabbage.

- [Tim] This is just everyday green cabbage.

I'm gonna cut the core out and then I'm just going to start slicing.

We're gonna use this to make our slaw.

And this isn't like your typical mayonnaise based coleslaw.

This is going to be what I call a Carolina slaw.

We're gonna make a hot dressing to put over it and let it soak in there for a little bit.

And what that'll do is that will help take some of the crunch out of the cabbage, but yet impart a little bit of a vinegary flavor to it.

We'll get our bowl here.

We'll go ahead and break this up and get it in there.

So the Great American recipe is a cooking show on PBS.

It has contestants from all over the country.

It's specifically home cooks.

Every dish has a story.

- [Pamela] Yes, they do.

- [Tim] And every person has a story too.

So by all the contestants and all of us sharing these recipes, we're sharing a bit of ourselves with America.

- [Pamela] Absolutely.

- [Tim] Just like true to the show, this is a recipe I got from somebody that I've put my own spin on.

But like I said, I like to try to keep it as original as possible so that I give the respect from where it came from.

We're gonna grate some carrots into our slaw.

I'm just gonna use this box grater.

Try not to grate my fingers while I'm at it.

- Yeah, and one of the great things about using a box grater or a shredder like this to grate your carrots is you're not gonna have a really hard crunchy carrot in that salad when it's.

- Right.

You want a little bit of texture in there, but we don't want too much texture.

The recipe that Mae gave me had some cabbage as well as some onions.

And it was a vegetarian recipe.

The thing I learned about her recipe is through her style of cooking we're traditionally used to cooking based on weights.

- [Pamela] Okay.

Yes.

- [Tim] Cups.

- [Pamela] Yes.

- [Tim] Ounces.

All of hers were measurements.

So it was all weighed out.

She said, oh, you gotta use X amount ounces of this.

Get yourself a scale.

Because I was grabbing measuring cups.

She said, no, get yourself a scale.

You're gonna need this.

We're gonna get this blended in.

I think that's a nice blend on it right there.

- So, Tim, now that we have the ingredients for the slaw, we're gonna make the dressing right?

- That is correct.

- And this is a hot dressing.

- This is a hot dressing.

And we're gonna put it over this just so it coats everything nice and give us that vinegar bite.

We're gonna start off with the vinegar.

This is apple cider vinegar.

Next we're gonna go with a quarter cup of granulated sugar.

Quarter cup of vegetable oil, about four tablespoons of spicy brown mustard.

- Could you use another kind of mustard if you wanted?

- You could use a Dijon mustard if you wanted and you could just use good old fashioned yellow mustard if you wanted to.

It's all gonna have that mustard flavor to it.

I like the spicy brown 'cause it just adds more of a spice more bite to it.

- I do like my food a little on the spicy side.

Right now we're just gonna whisk this together a little bit and we're gonna keep that on medium heat until the sugar dissolves.

We are gonna bring it to a fast boil once all the sugar is dissolved.

- All right.

- To this, we'll go ahead and add a little bit of salt and pepper.

Now this is a little different than Mae's recipe.

This is what kind of I've done after I left the show and came back home to make it a little bit more of Southern.

On the show, you're given their recipe card and their ingredients.

Now we have additional ingredients in our pantry as well as in our refrigerator.

So that's where I kind of got where I could put a little southern spin on it.

But I came home and made it even a little more southern.

And this is a great dish for game days, just for snacks.

One of the great components of it is the smoked pulled pork barbecue.

Yeah.

Or the pulled chicken.

- Yeah.

- Because a lot of times you're like, what am I gonna do with my leftover barbecue?

- If you have any.

- If you have any, yeah.

You can only have so many barbecue quesadillas and sandwiches after that.

So this is just a really cool way to do something different with it.

- [Pamela] And you can freeze 'em too.

- Yes, you can prepare them en mass and freeze them and save them for the game day.

Because rolling egg rolls is quite labor intensive.

And nobody wants to be doing that while they're pre-gaming, right, - Right.

- We're gonna take this and we're gonna just dump it over our slaw.

- Nice.

- Use our tongs.

We're gonna toss it and as quick as we toss it in there, we're gonna put it back in the colander and we're gonna allow majority of that dressing to strain off because the enemy to all egg rolls is moisture.

And if you need to, you can even use the bowl and kind of slightly press to make sure that you're getting a lot of that out there.

- [Pamela] Yeah.

A lot of that.

- [Tim] Moving on while the vegetables, the slaw is straining off, we're gonna go ahead and make our dipping sauce.

You can use any sauce you like, after all, they're pork barbecue egg rolls, you can use your favorite barbecue sauce, whether it be vinegar, mustard, or ketchup based.

On the set I was given her plum sauce.

She uses this plum sauce.

It's very sweet.

And once again, to add a southern spin to it, I decided to add some hot sauce to it.

- Ah, there you go.

- I like a sweet heat, almost like my own sweet and sour.

More of a sweet heat.

We'll start off with just a little bit.

Now the plum sauce is very, very sweet.

So I noticed the first time I did this that I had to add a lot of hot sauce.

So it's gonna look like I'm adding a lot of hot sauce, but trust me, it's not gonna be that spicy.

The plum sauce is very sweet and very strong, full of flavor.

- [Pamela] So that's just a matter of mixing the two together.

- Just a matter of mixing the two together until you get the taste that you like.

One of the really cool things was just being selected to be on the show.

- Yeah.

- You're really on the show with some of the greatest home cooks in the country.

I don't know how many people I was selected from, but I think, a lot of the southern flavor that I bring to the table is one of the things that set me apart from being from the south, from the low country, just some different dishes that are very just to our area that you can't find across the Mississippi or even up north.

So I did some wonderful things.

I did some chicken bog.

- [Pamela] Oh, okay.

- I did some crab cakes, I fried some flounder.

It was a really wonderful time.

- [Pamela] And so they found you through your Instagram account?

- They found me through my Instagram account.

Dapper Dad's kitchen.

- Okay.

I had started an Instagram account a couple of years ago and I just wanted to take pictures of the food I was making.

I was just bored with how social media was going on my end with my algorithm.

And so I decided to switch it up and I started a new profile, new handle, and I just started taking pictures of the food I was cooking and the followers I gained and the people I started following just in the food space kind of helped push me to elevate my game.

- [Pamela] Okay.

- And to start pushing myself to try different things for dinner and for lunches and cooking more for others.

- That's great.

- Alright, - So we've got our coleslaw draining.

- We've got our coleslaw draining.

- We've got our plum sauce made, - What are we missing?

- We're gonna have to start building egg rolls.

Are you ready?

- Okay.

I'm ready for egg rolls.

Okay, let's do that.

- Let's start doing some egg rolls.

So here we have our pulled pork and we have our pulled chicken.

- [Tim] Pulled chicken.

- [Pamela] And we have our egg roll wrappers.

- [Tim] Yes.

We've got our egg roll wrapper right over here.

- Okay.

And we're gonna use something called the envelope method, right?

- Yes, that is correct.

- But before we fry these things, I'm gonna show you guys a little bit about how you can tell when your oil is ready.

Because you were just telling me that Mae told you something and we keep talking about Mae, Mae was a contestant.

And she was one of my favorite contestants too.

- She was one of mine as well.

- She was what, 70 something?

80 something?

- I'm not gonna say.

I don't for sure so I'm not gonna say she - An elderly woman who really just knocked it outta the park on the show.

- She did.

- I was really impressed by her energy.

She was great.

- She brought some really great things.

I've never heard of savory oatmeal until then.

- Yeah.

Right.

- But that said, that's what the show does.

It brings all these meals and plates from across the country and puts 'em on the show for you.

The greatest memory I have of her is, as little as she was, she had this big cleaver and she used that to slice, dice, chop everything.

And of course her walk, her famous walk.

But she always told me, throw a grain of rice in there when you're heating your oil and when it's brown it's done.

- Okay.

- But then you've gotta fish out your grain of rice.

- Right, right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

- Burnt rice.

Okay.

- So what I'm doing here is I've got a dry wooden spoon, not a wet one, a wet one won't work.

A dry wooden spoon.

And I just put the end of it into the pot.

And when air bubbles come out the end of the spoon, then that oil is gonna be hot enough to start frying in.

So I have it in here right now so I can keep an eye on it while we're wrapping our egg rolls so that oil doesn't get too hot.

Because if it gets too hot, it's gonna burn our egg rolls before it cooks.

And so I'm gonna be able to adjust my heat right here while I'm watching my spoon talking to me.

Going, I'm ready, I'm ready.

And then I'll turn it down so it'll be ready and not too hot when you're set.

- Okay.

Great.

- Okay.

You ready?

Alright, now make your slurry.

The slurry is a combination of corn starch and water.

A lot of times we use this to thicken liquids, but you do have to remember that if you use this to thicken a gravy, when the gravy gets cold, it gets rather stringy.

And it also doesn't give a really pretty appearance to your sauces.

It gives a kind of a translucent kind of a thing.

So a lot of times when we're thickening sauces, we'd rather use something like a roux or a reduction.

But cornstarch is a way to do it.

But we're gonna be using the slurry right now for a sealer on our egg roll wrappers 'cause we don't want 'em opening 'em up, do we?

- No, we don't want 'em to open up.

And this will help seal it in there.

We are going to take our egg roll skin.

We're gonna lay it out in a diamond with one of the points towards you.

What you're gonna do is you're gonna grab some of your filling, your meat.

You're gonna place it just above the center.

You want to eyeball about three tablespoons.

- [Pamela] I was just gonna ask, how much do you put?

- [Tim] I eyeball.

- [Pamela] That's a good amount.

Three tablespoons.

And then we're gonna take some of the slaw and we're gonna make sure to lay the slaw across the top.

- [Pamela] Alright.

- [Tim] Hope I didn't go too much on this one.

You're gonna fold up the center like an envelope.

You're gonna fold over one side.

- [Pamela] Oh, so that's why it's called the envelope method.

It's gonna look just like an envelope here in a second.

- [Pamela] Okay.

- [Tim] And you're gonna get like this.

Now when you get to, lemme get this tucked in here.

When you get to this stage, you're just gonna take a fingertip in your slurry and kind of just go around the edges.

You don't want to use too much just to dampen that.

- [Pamela] Alright.

- [Tim] And then you're gonna roll.

- [Pamela] Ooh, it looks good - And there's your egg roll.

- There you go.

Oh, look at that.

That's a good leg roll.

So you had mentioned something about smoking and barbecuing.

So where did this beautiful meat that we're using right now come from?

- I smoked this myself at home.

This is a pork shoulder Boston butt.

- Okay.

- I season it with some rubs.

Sometimes I make it myself.

Sometimes I see what I have in the pantry.

Other than that, I smoke it low and slow.

I like to use cherrywood or pecan.

- [Pamela] Yeah.

Yeah.

- I have three smokers at the house.

I'm really infatuated with my latest one, it's a charcoal smoker and auto feed charcoal smoker.

So it does .

- [Pamela] Oh nice.

- [Tim] Help me out in certain situations and takes some of the guesswork out of timing.

It'll hold the temperature so I can do some other things.

But on the weekends, I'm true to the game.

And I like to just go ahead and sit there and keep checking on it and keep checking my air flows and everything and making sure that everything's going right.

- I think our oil is about ready over here.

I'm gonna redo this one.

- I'll redo mine and we'll step over there and start frying.

- See about doing the oil.

- I was gone in Nashville for about three weeks.

- [Pamela] Okay.

- It was a.

- [Pamela] You had to make a three week commitment, huh?

- [Tim] I had to make a three week commitment to film the episodes and do the interviews and everything.

- [Pamela] Okay.

- [Tim] It was tough at times being away from my kids.

I've got two small kids.

- [Pamela] Aw.

- [Tim] Eight years old and five years old.

- [Pamela] Okay.

Do they like to cook too?

- [Tim] My daughter Brooklyn, she's eight.

She likes to bake.

- [Pamela] Oh she does.

- [Tim] So she loves to get in the kitchen with me and try to bake some things.

Sebastian likes said he's just coming around.

But he likes to make pancakes.

He likes to work with me in the kitchen when I've got the waffle iron out or when we're making pancakes or something.

- You're gonna have to show your daughter the Oscars show where he did the jello pudding cake.

- I will, I for sure will.

She will make me try that.

I know she will.

She will make me try that.

- [Pamela] She'll probably love it.

She'll be Dad, that's my new recipe.

- We're about ready to cook.

- So what's your favorite thing about cooking?

- My favorite thing about cooking is learning new techniques.

Sharing techniques.

Most your techniques are learning from others.

Most importantly is pushing myself to try something.

- Yeah.

- Try something different.

Try something that looks hard.

- Not being afraid to push yourself.

- Yeah.

- Just trying to level up every time.

You can cook the same thing over and over and be good at it.

But I like to try to change it up a little bit.

Maybe add a little something.

And being a just a home cook dad, sometimes you have to switch your recipe based on just what's available in your pantry.

- It's called mystery box every day, right?

- Yeah.

Sometimes when you've got plans on making something and you realize you're missing something, you don't have time to run to the store with twp kids tearing the house apart, you just gotta go for it.

- They just need food.

- Yes.

That is true.

- [Pamela] See all the bubbles coming out at the end of that spoon there.

- [Tim] That's so simple.

- [Pamela] Isn't that easy?

- [Tim] That's so awesome.

Alright, we're gonna start frying them.

I just gently place them in the oil.

- [Pamela] Okay.

Oh, now see how that bubbles up just perfect.

- [Tim] Perfect.

Now you want to be careful not to crowd your pot either.

- Right.

- So I think for this size pan three would probably be just perfect.

- [Pamela] Okay.

Three at a time.

Alright.

Now how long do they take to cook?

- They take about three to four minutes.

- Okay.

- Depending on the stuffing.

But like, I like to just get 'em, as soon as it starts going, I like to flip it over.

- Oh yeah.

- So that we get the other side nice and even.

We're starting it.

And then keep an eye on the.

- And it also sets that wrapper too, so it doesn't unwrap.

- And then other than that, it's just kind of waiting till they get nice and golden brown.

Another thing is not to put too much oil because they will float.

- Right.

- And unwrap.

So just enough to where they're just hovering off the bottom and they can't really flip themselves over.

'Cause a lot of times what you'll notice is when they do flip over and you try to flip it back, - It'll go right back over again back to where you have that white spot on the top or on the other edge of it.

Yes, so that's a good tip.

That's a good tip.

Don't put too much oils where they can continue to flip.

That's good.

- So this is again, a wonderful example of learning a technique and learning a recipe.

And then I wouldn't say completely flipping it upside down, but taking the basics of it and making it your own, with your own flavors from your own home.

- Yes, absolutely.

These are nearing completion.

When they get nice and golden brown like that, that's when we know that they're done.

Everything else on the inside, we're not trying to cook what's inside.

Everything else is on the inside's already cooked.

So we're just trying to get that nice crispy, golden brown.

We'll set these on our rack here so they're not just sitting in oil and they can actually drain off a little bit.

- Now do we salt them or anything at this point?

- You don't salt them, but what I did bring is I brought a little bit of, if I can step over here.

- Sure.

- A neat little trick.

This isn't in the recipe, this neat little trick.

As soon as they come out, take some of your barbecue rub.

Some Oh, there you go.

- And sprinkle it over the top.

- Oh, that's a wonderful idea.

- Just to give it a little more.

- Because they always say if you fry something, you better salt it.

- [Tim] Right.

So this, instead of salting, we're adding a little seasoning.

And that's lovely.

- One of the greatest takeaways from the show was to know and learn there's a lot of other folks just like me that haven't been to culinary school.

That aren't chefs, but they're doing wonderful things in their home kitchens.

- Yes.

- Every day of the week, sharing recipes with friends, feeding their family, learning things.

And we developed a lot of good relationships with the castmates, with each other.

We had, as soon as we got there, we had started a group chat.

- [Pamela] Oh yeah.

Good.

- [Tim] And we've kept it to this day.

- [Pamela] Oh nice.

- [Tim] So yeah, everybody we were chatting on there, like when the episodes were coming out we were like, oh my God, look at you.

Like here we go guys.

And it was really cool to keep in touch and to still have kept in touch.

We said it's like I have a whole new group of brothers and sisters.

- [Pamela] Yeah, yeah.

And they're from all over the country.

- [Tim] And they're from all over the country, from different walks of life.

- [Pamela] And that's really nice.

That's really nice.

- [Tim] The judges were awesome.

They weren't, like you said, they weren't there to tear us down and tell us everything we did wrong.

- [Pamela] Right.

- [Tim] They did provide a lot of feedback and one of the main things about that was making sure we paid attention to what they said.

- [Pamela] Yeah.

- [Tim] For the next round, 'cause they were looking at things like that.

- [Pamela] Ah.

- [Tim] There was a point, I remember where the judges were telling us, like, we may seem like we're getting nitpicky, but that's because we were making it so hard for them, they told us.

They said, for some home cooks.

- [Pamela] Yeah, - [Tim] We might appear like we're nitpicking stuff, but that's what you've brought us to with all the power that they brought to the table and everything.

So it was really good.

- [Pamela] Oh, that's really great.

- [Tim] Let's go ahead and plate.

We're gonna start off with some of our sauce.

- [Pamela] You gotta have something to dip.

- [Tim] You have to with these.

We'll go ahead and place this one on here.

We'll just go ahead and cut this in half.

- [Pamela] Ooh, didn't that look delicious?

- And then we'll just garnish it with some green onions there.

And here we have a.

- [Pamela] Wow.

- [Tim] Pulled chicken barbecue egg roll with a little vinegar slaw.

- [Pamela] So here we go.

Look at this.

What a beautiful presentation.

- Thank you.

- They look wonderful and they are fabulous.

So thank you.

I really, really, really appreciate this twist on an egg roll.

- Well thank you for allowing me to share.

- Absolutely, Tim.

So here we have our pulled pork and pulled chicken egg rolls with a sweet heat plum sauce with a, what kind of slaw would you call that?

- [Tim] We call it a Carolina slaw.

- [Pamela] Okay.

- [Tim] It's not your typical mayonnaise based cole slaw.

- [Pamela] Right.

- [Tim] So you just kind of flash it with the hot dressing and it tastes great.

Usually you'd serve it immediately if you were serving it as a side.

- Thank you so much for being on the show, Tim.

This was fabulous.

Thank you.

- Thank you so much for having me .

It's a great experience.

- This is really wonderful.

We really enjoy this and I think everybody at home is gonna try this.

Thank you for watching this episode of Charlotte Cooks and you can grab the recipes off of our website for pbscharlotte.org.

And thank you, Tim for being here.

Thank you for watching our show and we'll catch you next time on Charlotte Cooks.

(happy music) - [Announcer] A production of PBS Charlotte.