- I'm gonna start, y'all.
Hey, it's Selena.
Start with this camera.
As you all know by now,
I'm not the best cook.
Let me get this one on.
But I am a great student
and I'm not going to stop
trying to get better.
So I'm back in my kitchen
to get lessons from the best chefs.
- This is actually really heavy.
- They're at home and I'm at home...
- This is gonna make me puke. - Oh, my God.
And we're going to make
a meal together... apart.
That's so scary when I put the cameras on.
Hi, JJ!
- What's up, Selena? How are you?
- I'm hanging in there. How are you?
I'm hanging in there, too.
- Today, I am joined by chef JJ Johnson,
a James Beard award-winning author, a humanitarian,
and a true talent in the kitchen.
- "Field Trip," his Harlem restaurant,
is a rice bowl shop,
featuring flavors from all over the world.
I can't wait to see what he has in store for me.
I just brought my friends Raquelle
and my new quarantine buddy, Teresa.
Hello!
- Yeah, nothing like having quarantine friends.
- That's right! - Yes.
- I want to know what you're going to teach us
how to do today.
- So I'm gonna teach you something really simple.
It's just gumbo.
- Okay!
- This gumbo's inspired from my time
that when I cooked in West Africa.
When I came back, I started to research my family
and that's where a lot of my food comes from.
It's like who I am, like, really on the plate.
And you're just gonna use one pot to make your gumbo
and then the second pot you're gonna use
to make some rice.
I love rice. I've traveled the world.
I consider myself a rice connoisseur, so...
- Yeah, I like that.
- Grab two onions, grab two peppers,
grab a clove of garlic.
We'll kind of start there.
- Two red peppers.
- How are your knife skills these days?
- Um, I know how to do this...
- Selena terrifies me with the knives.
- Okay, so I'm gonna try to help you out here
so we're gonna take our time.
Let's start with the peppers first.
So the key-- it's all about the balance
of the vegetable, so...
What I want you to do is the pepper shaped in a square,
just cut it straight down.
Can you see me? - Yeah.
- So just--yeah, straight down just like that
and then rotate it.
Don't worry about if you get the seeds;
rotate it around, like, clockwise.
Come down again...
and keep rotating it till you have no more.
- Oh, my God. - Careful.
- Oh. - No, why are you doing that?
Why are you doing that? - Because there's--the thing...
- Just find the little groove.
Watch your fingers, please. - Okay.
- And we're gonna cut them in slivers.
Turn the pepper with the skin side down...
and now cut in slivers.
However you want to cut them and so they could be big,
small, doesn't matter.
There you go. - Beautiful.
Thanks, guys.
- JJ, where are you from?
- I'm originally from Pennsylvania.
- Okay. - And I live
in Harlem, New York,
right in the heart of Harlem.
My dad is from Harlem and the Bronx
so Harlem has always been like a second home to me.
Love that.
- Guys, stop!
- Teresa, tell him what you just said.
- We wanted to tell him that we also lurked his Instagram.
- Oh, yeah. - Yeah, we were on
your Instagram earlier. - You lurked my Instagram?
Yeah!
- Did you find anything interesting?
- You have such a beautiful family!
- A beautiful, beautiful family.
- Oh, thank you very-- thank you very much.
Yeah, my--normally if my kids were here with me right now,
they would be trying to cook with me
'cause they love to cook. - Oh, I love that.
- But I just needed to keep them out of here
so I wouldn't get anxiety.
How's life during quarantine?
- We've tried to make everything
as light as possible.
Well, we've been really taking it seriously.
- Coronavirus is real. I didn't get a chance
to close my restaurant; I kept it open
and tried to show some hope
into the New York City Harlem community.
We feed teachers, children--
I've started to feed hospitals right in our community.
Almost like 100,000 meals we've done.
- That's so nice. - Aww, yeah.
- Your peppers look good. - Thanks, JJ.
- So just grab, like, a pan or a bowl...
and we're just gonna line it up here.
Now we're gonna get to onions. - Yeah.
- So grab your onions.
- All right, peel off the skin part
and you want to try to get them in, like, small dices.
Are you crying over there? 'Cause I'm crying.
- I actually never cry with onions.
I mean, if you were to shove one in my eye,
obviously, yeah.
- Okay, those look good. Those look good.
- Whoo-hoo! Ha.
- All right, let's grab your garlic.
You got your garlic near you? - Yes, sir.
- Just crack it open
over your bowl or on your cutting board,
whatever you wanna do.
Can you get it? Take out some of your anger.
I know you got some anger in there!
I do, I do.
No, I don't. Sorry, I don't have a lot.
Ugh, help me.
- Okay, then put it on the cutting board
and smash it down with your hand.
- Oh. - There you go.
- Go, T! - All right, there we go.
- Whoo!
- All right, so just take your knife.
Just put one clove underneath your knife and smash it.
And then the skin should come right off
and peel the skin right off. Just like that.
Oh...
- Did that fly off the counter?
- Yep. - Sorry.
- All good. - Oh, Selena.
- I'm trying, babe. This is not easy.
- This is the easiest part of the recipe!
Help me.
- Nana made her way in.
- What? - What's that?
- You put it in there and it rolls it off.
- Wait, what? No way.
- Uh-oh, look at the trick! You got the tricks!
- And you just peel it. - Wow!
- Oh, my gosh, Nana! - Where'd you get that from?
Nana, what's up, Nana? - Hi.
- Did you just have that in your back pocket, Nana?
- Sure did.
- She literally swooped on in.
- So chop that garlic the same way
you chopped the onions.
You're doing good, Selena.
Don't let them tell you otherwise.
- It's very therapeutic for me.
- Cooking is therapeutic?
- I just feel like when I'm, like...
doing things like this, it makes me happy.
- The chopping - Well, that's what's up.
- Okay, so I have all of my garlic.
- Throw it in that pan with your onions and peppers.
It's okay if you throw it right on top of your onions.
- Perfect!
- And then you're gonna grab the celery.
- I got one. Will you need two?
- You need four stalks of celery,
so just pull 'em off.
- What? - Is it gonna be enough
for all of us?
- You said, "Is there gonna be enough food
for all of y'all?" - Yeah.
- Oh, I got you covered! Don't worry!
- You think I'm skipping out on the recipe
because Selena's knife skills aren't good?
- Only four sticks of celery?
- Don't worry, there's gonna be plenty of scallops,
plenty of shrimp... - Thank God.
- Plenty of all the good stuff.
Chicken sausage, all that good stuff.
- This is the easy stuff. - All right, Selena,
you wanna cut it my way
or you wanna cut it your way? - Your way.
- So take the celery and cut it in half.
Oh, all four at once. Amazing!
Boom!
- Looks like she cut it her way.
- Now we're gonna cut these straight down the middle
like a matchstick.
And then cut it into small squares.
And Selena?
If you use just the tip of your knife
and run it down the middle,
you don't have to use both hands.
On the next one we'll do it. Yeah, keep going.
Watch your finger, watch your finger.
Watch your finger, please!
- It's so scary, isn't it? - I know.
- I'm so happy to have, like, a buddy today
to hold on to. - Oh, gosh.
Oh. - All righty.
- All right, Selena? Do you have a smaller knife?
I think that's tje problem.
That knife is like a 10-inch knife.
What's the next size? Let me see.
Yeah, let's use that one. That's a utility knife.
Yep, there you go. Keep on going.
- Oh. - We got a couple more to go.
- This... part?
- Yeah, yeah, all those. - Okay.
- You don't want to do any more?
No, I just--
You're giving me a hard time over here.
- If we would have said no, Teresa would have been like,
"What are you guys doing?"
- Let's just do two more. - Okey-dokey.
- Nice! - That utility knife is good.
You have picked up in speed in cutting celery already.
- Yep. All because of you, JJ.
- Boom. - You did great.
Okay, now throw those celery leaves and your celery
on your pan with your onions, peppers, and garlic.
Grab some tomatoes.
All right, so let's cut the tomatoes and half
but I want you to get the smallest knife
out of the wood block. - This one?
It's called a paring knife.
- Yeah, that looks good.
All right, so we're gonna cut the tomatoes
just right in half. - Oh.
- The knife game switch-up for you is amazing right now!
Like, I'm just watching you cut tomatoes.
- I know, she's on a roll.
- When you're done, take those tomatoes
and throw 'em in a bowl.
Now we're gonna get to the fun part.
We're gonna start making this gumbo.
We'll come back to cut a couple of things,
but I'm not gonna put you through any more nightmares.
- Okay. - All right.
Let's turn your pot on to medium heat.
The pink--the pink pot.
- Oh, okay. - I love the pink.
I feel like it's matching my sweater.
- It does.
- So get butter and get oil. - Olive oil?
- You're gonna get the vegetable oil.
So let's add four tablespoons of butter
and a 1/4 cup of oil to your pot.
Mix the oil and the butter together.
Measure 1/2 cup of flour.
- Good job.
- And this is the process to make a roux.
- Okey-dokey.
I have to put a-- - Here, I'll put the cup in.
I'll put the cup in for you. - No, I have to...
put a dollar in the money thing.
- You said "okey-dokey" again? - What?
- She's been saying "okey-dokey" so much
that she's, like, "Every time I say it, I'm gonna put--"
- I have to put a dollar in the jar.
And then I want you to mix the flour and everything together.
We're gonna start making a roux.
- Okey-dokey. - You said it again!
- All right, Selena, this is the most important part
right now. - Okay.
- We gotta get the roux to milk chocolate.
The color of milk chocolate.
So it's really important that we keep watching the roux
'cause if it gets past milk chocolate,
it's gonna be burnt and we're gonna have to start all over.
- Ugh. - Oh, no.
- All right, let's make the spice mix while that goes.
I'm gonna throw a bunch of spices your way to grab.
- Kay. - Smoked paprika.
- Red chili flakes, cayenne,
onion powder, garlic powder,
dried thyme, oregano,
salt and pepper. - That's it?
- Somebody needs to stir the pot of roux.
- Maybe T can monitor that while you do the spices.
- Okay, let's get a small mixing bowl and a fork.
- Fork. - And then a teaspoon.
- Okey-dokey.
Ahh! - My arm's getting tired.
- I want you to put one teaspoon
of each spice in your bowl.
- This is-- - This is a...
- Tablespoon?
- Yes, one teaspoon.
Right?
- It says one teaspoon, 15 millimeters.
- Teaspoon has a smaller "t" on it.
It's like the lowercase "t."
Tablespoon has the capital "T."
Yeah, there you go.
This is the gumbo spice mix.
It's gonna give you most of your flavor right here.
Selena, how's that spice mix smell?
- Going great.
- Now, open up a bay leaf... and then you're just gonna,
like, crack one leaf with your hands right into the bowl.
Now take your fork and just mix your spices up.
This is gonna get it nice and aerated.
- JJ, it's looking like we're at a caramel color.
- Oh, yeah, you're there, you're almost
at milk chocolate. - Whoo-hoo!
Okay, Selena, where are those vegetables you chopped?
- Right here. - Let's throw them
right into the pot, just throw everything in there.
- In the what? - In here.
- Oh, really? - Right into the roux.
Be careful. Don't burn yourself.
- Whoo!
- And now let's sauté the vegetables all together.
- Okay. - In the roux.
- Let's see what it looks like.
- Here, will you sauté--
JJ? This is my Papa.
- Hi, JJ. - What's up?
Hi, Papa. How are you?
- Kinda happy, these poor girls
are the blind leading the blind
over here so I gotta help you out.
Thanks for jumping in.
- I feel sorry for you today.
- That's--that's my Papa.
Believe it or not, he has his own fan account.
- Selena, can you add 2/3 of a cup of gumbo spice?
And we need 1/2 cup of dried shrimp.
Okay, those tomatoes you cut?
Throw those tomatoes in there too.
Can somebody grab Selena tomato paste?
Go by the gumbo pot with Selena
and push in 1/4 of the tomato paste.
- Okay, you know what that looks like?
- I don't know what that is.
- Push it in, go ahead. - Come here.
- Okay. - Add tomato paste, push!
- Right where there--no, not the whole thing!
- I'm not doing the...
- 1/4 of it. - Right there.
- You got it. - Okay.
- Selena, stir! Selena, stir!
- What the hell? - Stir!
- I pictured that whole pot coming off of the stove.
- I know, I know.
- Ugh, this is such a hard thing to stir.
- Do you want an oven mitt so you can hold the pot
when you stir?
- Yeah, get an oven mitt or a side towel.
- We're just getting multiple of things.
- All right, let's get our chicken stock,
and we need five cups. Keep stirring.
Grab some chicken sausage from your fridge.
- All right. Here you go.
- Throw a couple sausage on your cutting board,
like five pieces.
All right, take the back side of your knife
and we're gonna use that back side
to push out the sausage meat.
You see?
Yep, just like that. Push, push, push.
No, no, no, no. - Can y'all help me?
- You see the other side of your sausage?
The casing is open.
- Okay, so, like... - You see where it's open
and the meat's coming out?
Push the meat out that way.
- Like Teresa? - There you go.
- Whoa. Oh, my God.
- You know how to do it. - There you go.
- This is wild!
- Teamwork makes the dream work!
- T!
- I can't wait to tell your boyfriend!
- Oh, God, he's showing, don't--
- Were--are you a sausage maker?
Uh...
- No, but she does love sausage.
- Not in that way.
Although that way too.
- Oh, my God. - Oh, my God.
- Here. - Whoa, Teresa!
She's just squeezing it out.
- It's just, like, so unnatural.
- Okay, throw them in the bowl. - This, right?
- Yep, yep, right in the glass bowl right there.
Take your sausage meat, put it right into the gumbo pot.
- I'm so sorry!
- You don't dump it like that. - Okay, okay.
- I meant to tell you that--
not to dump it in there,
just to let it flow out slow.
Sorry. - Kay.
- Make sure you break up that chicken sausage
so it doesn't stick together. - Kay.
- Teresa, you feel like we're gonna have enough food?
- Yeah. - Now you finally do.
Do I... keep stirring?
- No, you're good. Put the top back on.
- Okey-dokey.
Oh, no.
- You ready to make rice?
- Yes, I am. No, but yes.
How is your rice game?
- I can make Spanish rice, but I don't know anything else.
- But you know how to cook rice then, right?
- Yes.
No. - Okay, so let's get a--
- Do you have a pan, or-- I call this a sauce pot?
It's like 2 1/2 quarts. - Kay.
- Cooking rice is all about the width of the pot.
You don't want to overcrowd it
because if you overcrowd the pot,
the bottom will be cooked and the top will be crunchy
or the top will be perfect and the bottom will be mushy.
So we can make that work.
Grab jasmine rice.
Do you have some jasmine rice over there?
Right there, the purple bag.
- Oh, just kidding. Thanks.
- I want you to pour in enough rice
just to cover the bottom of the pan.
So...
I know some people wash their rice.
I don't wash my rice.
I like the starchiness in rice.
- Kay. - So, look.
This is the trick I use. I don't ever measure.
I do the finger trick.
You're gonna stick your finger into the pot
and then pour the water to come to your first knuckle.
Like this, so it should go, like, straight down.
Bing! All right, beautiful.
Now take the water, pour it in
until it gets to the first knuckle on your...
- Put your hand in. - Put your middle finger in.
- On your finger. - Oh, right here.
- Pour it till it gets to your knuckle.
- Middle finger? - Yeah.
Middle finger.
- And then just fill it up.
- Till it reaches your knuckle. - Perfect, okay.
And throw in, like, one or two bay leaves in there.
Now we're gonna throw this on the stove to medium heat.
It's gonna cook in about 12 minutes.
- Kay. - And then put the top on it.
- Kay. - All right.
Let's peel some shrimp.
You can put it down on your cutting board.
Grab it from one side with the shell...
and you can push it over
and it all comes off.
- I have no shrimp finesse.
- I'm sorry.
- It's all good, you're good. Can you show me
how to do it your way? Maybe I can do it that way too
with you. - Okay, well...
so, basically, I, like, go towards the middle.
Like, I get all of the tail stuff off.
- Okay. - And then for...
obviously the rest, I have to wait till I get to the bottom.
And that's the way I--I mean,
that's the way I learned from Hooters, so.
From who--from where?
- Hooters? - Hooters.
Okay.
- It's working. They look good.
You need to stir your gumbo to make sure
it's not burning at the bottom.
- Oh. - Oh, shh--
- Oh. - Ooh!
The smell is-- - It smells so good.
- And you--now you need to check your rice.
How does that rice look?
- It looks good. - So good!
- Okay, let's take the top off and turn the heat off.
Okay, so, combine your shrimp and your scallops together.
- I have the scallops here.
- Just add it straight in there.
Beautiful. Oh, this is gonna be good!
Look at everybody's face. They can't wait.
They can't wait for this!
- Wow...
- Whoo! We're pumped!
- All right, we're gonna season our shrimp
and our scallops. I want you to take...
- I told you, you got complaints from last season.
No one told me that!
I would have left my phone in a room!
- Come on, Raquelle. We're almost there.
- Whoo! - Okay, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
So we're going to put what in it?
- All right, we're gonna season our shrimp and our scallops
so you're gonna take some salt, you're gonna season it.
- I do a pinch of salt? - Yeah.
- Okey-dokey. - We're gonna do just four
turns on the pepper mill.
One, two, three, four.
And then we're gonna take a spoon and mix it up.
Mix that up.
Put that bowl to the side and let's get our okra.
- Okay, here we go.
- You love okra? - I'm obsessed with okra.
- So I picked, like, the perfect dish for you.
I didn't know you loved okra so much.
You know "gumbo" means "okra"?
- It does? Okay.
- Because originally in West Africa
in Senegal and Ghana, when they make gumbo,
they use the filé, which is the okra seeds...
- Hmm. - To thicken the gumbo.
They don't use the French method; they don't use roux
in the okra, which you see in the French and the Creole.
So the meaning of "okra" is "gumbo,"
which points back to West Africa.
- Love that. - So I didn't know
you loved okra like that. Now it's, like, meant to be.
Okay, let's get into this okra.
Okay, we're just gonna cut them into coins.
Don't worry about the ends or the tops.
We want to have those in there too.
- Okey-dokey. Just do all of them.
- Hold on, Selena. Switch your knife.
Get that--let's get that utility knife.
There you go, yeah.
- She looks like she's about to, like,
start sword-fighting.
- Every time, she's like "ah!"
Okey-dokey.
- Every cooking show I watch from this point on,
I wanna see you using the utility knife.
No more chef's knife. You tell those other chefs.
- Okay, I promise.
- "JJ told me." - Okay, I promise.
So we have a lot of okra.
- Yeah, yeah, all good. That looks good.
Now throw that right into the bowl
with the shrimp and the scallops,
and then let's open up the gumbo pot.
All of this is going right into the gumbo pot.
- Okay.
- Who doesn't have enough food now?
Look at that pot.
- Yeah, definitely enough food.
Overflowing! - I know.
- Let's try to get the lemon juice and the Worcestershire
in there and fluff our rice.
- Lemon juice... - Because the shrimp
and the scallops cook really quickly.
- Okay, so...
- Let's cut our lemons in half.
- But some of these are big, look.
- I know. - Flip it over.
- Are they really big lemons? - Yeah.
- So let's just do two. Don't do three.
I don't want too much lemon juice.
Let's just do two.
It's so weird.
- Strong.
- You have your Worcestershire...
or Worcestershire sauce?
- Yes, I do.
- Let's just do one tablespoon. - Okey-dokey.
- Right with the lemon juice.
And then pour that right into the gumbo.
Oh, this looks delicious.
Mix up your gumbo really well. - Mmm!
- Turn your heat up to, like, low medium.
I don't want it to overflow. - Okay.
- And then bring your rice pot and let's fluff the rice.
- Is it okay if my rice is a little sticky?
- Yeah, sticking to, like--sticky to the bottom?
- Yeah.
- Yeah, rice that sticks to the bottom of the pan,
that means you cooked rice the right way.
I call it "concon," which is, like, Dominican
for "crispy, bottom of the pot rice."
- Nice. - Do you have
your fresh thyme anywhere?
- I mean, in general, I don't have time.
Just kidding.
- You need, like, four sprigs.
Try to get none of the stems...
- Oh, this smells amazing!
- Just the sprigs of the thyme.
- Got it. - All right, now take
a little salt, season it up, stir it.
Let's get a bowl and let's taste this gumbo!
And then let's eat. - Whoo!
- Okay... here it goes. Guys, I'm gonna try it.
Where's the spoon?
- Oh, the spoon.
- Is it good? - Mmm, God.
- I want to try! - Let's go.
- Get your bowls ready. - Okay.
- Oh, my gosh. - Nana and Papa?
- We're coming. - Come try!
- He's like, "We're coming."
- Oh, yeah. Papa's gonna tell us the truth.
- Oh, my God. The spice...
The spice in this is unbelievable.
- The color of your gumbo looks so good.
- Dude, I got some--oh, I got some sausage right here.
- Oh, my God. I want seconds.
- Okra looks great, the shrimp looks perfectly cooked.
- Mmm! - I love it, so good.
- It's really good. - Wow.
- They're into it, y'all. Y'all see them?
Mmm!
- They--there's no words.
Selena's crushing it now.
She can cook.
- Okay, literally... best recipe ever.
What's your rate, guys? - Don't lie to me.
You can say you don't like it, it's okay.
- No, I love it. - We definitely don't lie, so.
- Five out of five. - Mmm.
- What do you think, Papa?
- What out of five? - Five and a half.
- Whoo!
- Hey, it's good. - I did something wrong.
- Something right?
- "I did something wrong."
- That's my granddaughter. - Thank you!
So, JJ, can you tell me a little bit
about the charity you're working with?
- So I'm working with a charity called Harlem Grown.
It's founded by a gentleman named Tony Hillery
who has built a hydroponic farm
right in the middle of Harlem.
He's taking underprivileged kids
and he's teaching them that planting one seed at a time
can change the world. And then he's helping
them get through college.
So any way I can support Harlem Grown at any time,
I'm always willing to roll up my sleeves
to support him and his organization.
- Well, we are very happy to donate $10,000
to your charity of your choice,
which seems like a great, great partnership
in what they're doing, so...
What we love to do is we love to cook together
but we also love when we can cook something for someone else
and I think that's really special.
- Thank you very much. It's an honor to meet you
and to cook beside you
and to see you make my beautiful dish.
It means a lot.
Nobody's talking, which means a good thing
and I can see Pops in the back eating.
- Oh, so is my Nana! - He's killing it.
You've done amazing.
- Oh, this is the most I've ever seen you eat.
- Everyone's, like, shoveling it.
- Devouring it.
No,.
She had--she had two bowls!
- It's just that good! What can I say?
- Thank you, JJ. - Talk to you soon.
- Talk to you soon, thank you! - Bye!