Twelve angry shrimp! Twelve angry shrimp!
I'm at Peaches HotHouse in Brooklyn, New York
taking on the 12 angry shrimp challenge.
I had the extra hot shrimp one time.
Everywhere it hit, it just stayed.
It never leaves you.
[Casey Webb] If I can finish 12 ghost pepper-laced shrimp in 12 minutes,
I get a T-shirt and eternal glory.
That is the smoked ghost pepper.
Yeah, don't get it on your lips.
And no crying. If you're crying, you're disqualified.
Casey! Casey! Casey!
Come on, Casey. Let's do it!
Beat it, you little shrimp.
[cheering]
[Casey] For years, food's army has grown unchecked.
Oh, my God.
[Casey] Bigger...
Wow.
spicier...
Whoo!
bolder.
What is that?
But a hero rises...
This is tremendous.
ready to taste the nation's most epic eats.
Uh...
[cheering]
I'm Casey Webb...
Yes!
holding the banner of man and armed with years of experience
in the restaurant industry...
Casey! Casey!
I go into battle.
Bring on the steak!
Food, your days are numbered.
It's gonna be a wild ride.
The mighty Casey has a taste for victory.
Whoo!
This is Man v. Food.
My eating escapade takes me across the bridge to Brooklyn, New York
for a barbecue-meets-deli feast
an Italian seafood staple,
and a seriously spicy shrimp challenge.
Brooklyn may go hard,
but so does my appetite.
Across the bridge from Manhattan,
Brooklyn is New York City's newest culinary hero.
A hip, cutting edge dining destination serving diverse cuisines,
ranging from old-school Italian
to Southern barbecue fusion.
Brooklyn is the new kid on the barbecue block
and no joint proves that more than Fette Sau.
Here they're combining Texas barbecue with a New York deli twist
serving up the Empire State's best smoked meats.
When Brooklynites are looking for Texas-style barbecue
but also want the foods that make New York famous,
they know to pop over to the laidback garage turned restaurant, Fette Sau.
- What is that? - That's pastrami.
I could really taste the quality of the meat compared to other places.
[Casey] By combining locally sourced ingredients and recipes
with Southern barbecue and heritage-bred meats,
Fette Sau reinvents the grill game.
The flavor explodes.
- It's like a rainbow of flavor. - Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[Casey] Chase the rainbow, guys.
I'm here to try a New York deli favorite,
pastrami,
but Fette Sau barbecue style.
You see how thick that bark is?
None of this puny little pastrami you see at New York delis.
[woman] No, this is thick-cut, lots of bark, fat still on.
Once you go big bark, you can't go back, right?
You're not gonna go to a New York deli ever again.
Size does matter.
I head to the kitchen to meet Joe
and learn the secrets behind his people-pleasing pastrami.
- Joe. - Hey, Casey. How are you?
I'm doing great, man.
Thank you for having me here.
- A boy from Jersey, I understand. Just like me. - Yep. That's right.
So, we're doing barbecue in Brooklyn.
[Joe] Yeah, really wanted to do a barbecue place,
and at the time in New York, there was very little barbecue.
We took a little bit out of central Texas barbecue
and then we have a similar thing in New York called delicatessen,
and kind of married the two things
- to put it in the New York context, you know? - [Casey] Yeah.
[Joe] New York is such a great venue for doing this type of stuff
because we would get Koreans from Queens who would come here
and freak out over the pork belly
and old New Yorkers who loved pastrami coming in
and the old Italians from the neighborhood coming in
for the Italian sausage.
So, it was just like really tied in.
You built a little empire for yourself
- and it's pretty great. - Thanks, thanks.
So, where do we start? We're gonna start with we're gonna make our brisket,
- so we're gonna do our brine? - Yep.
[Casey] Fette Sau's brine components are salt, pink salt for curing,
brown sugar, whole garlic cloves,
and honey infused with pickling spice.
- Bring 'em to a boil. - Yeah.
And then we have to let it cool.
- Then you brine. - [Joe] Yeah, you don't want to pour boiling water over it.
[Casey] Yeah, otherwise you're brine-cooking your meat.
Try that at home once and then...
And then cool your brine to actually brine your brisket.
[Casey] Brining is as much about the length of time you brine your meat
as it is about the ingredients,
and they don't rush anything here at Fette Sau.
It's gotta brine for a week.
It's gotta sit in this for a week.
- Oh, I came here a little too early. - You did.
- Come back next week and we'll eat. - Happily.
[Casey] Once the brisket is fully brined,
we add a proprietary rub.
So, this is our house rub that goes on everything we do
augmented with coriander
because that's one of the main components of pastrami.
Traditional pastrami is just coriander and black pepper.
[Casey] We start with brown sugar,
espresso, salt,
freshly ground black pepper,
garlic powder, cinnamon,
cumin, cayenne pepper,
and finally...
[Joe] Crushed coriander seeds.
That's so great. Can I get some of that to go home?
- Of course. - Really. Like, I wanna just bring some home.
- Put some in your pocket? - Yep. Put in my hand.
[Joe] It's usually from the husk of the coriander seed.
[dreamy music playing]
[Casey] We mix up all the ingredients
and then give the beautiful brisket a relaxing rub.
[Joe] So, you actually really want to rub it in.
Can't leave any naked spots.
[Casey] For great barbecue, you gotta cook it slow and low,
so this brisket will cook at 220 degrees for 14 to 18 hours.
A mere 17 hours later, our brisket pastrami is finally ready
to come out of the oven.
- You're wrestling a badger. - Oh, look at that.
[laughing] Oh, my God.
Look at that bark.
I hope it doesn't have any bite on there.
[Joe] By the touch of it you could tell that's done.
[Casey] Because this isn't the typical sandwich pastrami,
Joe slices it a little thicker,
pulling from the fatty center of the brisket.
He's like a mad scientist.
[Casey] We assemble a deli tray with bread,
pickles, sauerkraut,
and most importantly, the perfect pastrami.
I'm gonna go with my hands.
[Casey] The bark has so much flavor.
You're getting all those nuances of all the rub that we put in there,
and the richness of the espresso comes through.
The coriander is just that rich citrus pop.
This pastrami dropped on its head in a good way.
This barbecue is heavenly, but I got a date with a devil ahead of me.
The first one will be easy,
and the second one will be a little bit harder.
And by the third one, you know.
Spicy shrimp, get ready for an even hotter Casey.
[imitates sizzling]
I'm in Brooklyn, New York awaiting trial
with the 12 angry shrimp challenge.
But first, it's time for some of the freshest seafood in Brooklyn
Italian style.
For Italian that rivals the motherland itself,
you gotta come to Brooklyn to Randazzo's Clam Bar.
A nearly 100-year-old seafood institution is the Italian king
of Kings County.
From their humble beginnings as a seaside raw bar,
Randazzo's grew over five generations
adding legendary Italian dishes along the way
and becoming a neighborhood institution.
Now, how long have you been coming to Randazzo's?
Since I'm... What am I, 57? Thirty-seven years.
- Thirty-seven years? - It's as good today as it was 37 years ago.
It's exactly the same.
[Casey] A devilishly delicious dish at Randazzo's is
the shrimp fra diavolo over pasta,
a meal so dependably great,
the locals know exactly what they're getting.
Oh, my God. It's a little spicy red sauce.
Shrimp fra diavolo. Six shrimp, two mussels, two clams. Good.
[Casey] Then there's this spicy fried calamari
or "galamah" to the neighborhood Italians.
The "galamah" in the sauce is addicting.
The hot sauce is to die for.
- So, this is spicy? - Yeah, that's hot.
- Ohhh. - I like it hot.
Me, too. I like it hot, too.
All right, here we go.
It's even smoky.
- Yeah, isn't it amazing? - What is that?
- It's so good. - Like, the hot sauce is to die for.
[mouthing] Hello?
[Casey] But the dish the locals say is gonna give me
the most authentic taste of old-school Brooklyn is
their take on an old Italian classic,
linguine with clam sauce.
[woman] It's just fresh clams with garlic, white clam juice. Just amazing.
And how's the pasta? Is it...
Al dente.
- It's al dente. - To the bite.
- So it's not mushy. - No, not at all.
I'm not a baby. I could chew.
So I head to the kitchen to see if I could stir up some linguine with Lopez.
All right, so, Lopez, where do we start?
- [Casey] We start with the clams? - Right, the clams.
Lopez has been working at Randazzo's for 47 years,
so, naturally, he hands me a knife and asks me to open the clams.
No pressure.
Gotta wedge my clam knife and then you pop it open.
- Oh! - No.
- Oh. - No, you can't open it.
Oh!
[Casey] There we go.
When it comes to clam quality,
the darker the shell the more flavorful the clam, so these are pretty dark.
Once we've shucked a pound of clams...
Boop!
There we go.
we heat a frying pan with olive oil and garlic.
That's a lot of garlic.
Wait, so all this garlic, Lopez,
- this is going into linguine with clams? - [Lopez] Yeah.
[Casey] When the oil and garlic are nice and hot,
we add oregano, basil
black pepper, salt,
chili flakes, and parsley.
- See this? - Whoa.
Then comes the pound of clams.
While it's frying, we add clam juice and white wine.
[Casey] So, there's two types of clam sauce.
There's red that's just tomato based
and then there's white, which brings out that strong clam flavor.
And so we're making white today.
We boil our linguine, but not too long,
to keep it al dente.
See, often times pasta is named by their shape,
and so spaghetti translates to little strings.
Linguine is little tongues.
So, it's gonna pick up all that flavor.
And our marriage made in Italian heaven,
a pound of white wine clams atop al dente linguine.
[Casey] Come on, that's so many clams!
This looks so good and it smells amazing.
- Now everything's fresh. - [Casey] Everything's fresh.
This is Randazzo's white wine and linguine clams.
That's good?
-Are you kidding me? It tastes great! -That's good.
[Casey] The pasta is very al dente, so there's a bit of a bite.
You want that bite from your pasta.
The clams, I mean, they're just fresh and juicy and you get that great brine.
And we have so much garlic. I love garlic so much.
So, garlic, oregano, salt and pepper,
and then we have our chili flakes, so there's a little bit of hot.
It's perfect.
White wine and the garlic, there's just so much going on.
If you want classic Italian linguine white wine clams, come to Randazzo's.
So good.
You guys go get your own. I'm gonna eat mine.
Get outta here.
I'm happy as a clam now,
but I'm about to get angry.
Beat that heat! Beat that heat!
He's looking up to the sky like God's gonna save him. I don't know.
Watch out 12 angry shrimp challenge
'cause I'm coming in hot.
I'm at Peaches HotHouse in Brooklyn, New York
taking on the 12 angry shrimp challenge.
If I become the first to finish
12 ghost pepper smothered shrimp in 12 minutes,
I get a free T-shirt.
Twelve angry shrimp challenge,
I'll give you something to get angry about.
Peaches HotHouse has been serving up Southern comfort food
to Brooklynites since 2008.
Here the food isn't fussy.
It's just great homestyle plates of bold flavors
from the creamy mac and cheese
to the fried green tomatoes
and the cornmeal-crusted spicy catfish.
[woman] Days I don't feel like cooking,
I just run down to Peaches
and I know I won't be disappointed.
[Casey] The signature dish is the hot chicken,
a type of spicy chicken
that hails from Nashville, Tennessee,
featuring a spicy and peppery dry rub.
Peaches offers many levels of heat,
but the flavor is always big and bold.
It's hot, but yet it still has flavor.
So, Peaches doesn't wanna burn you.
Peaches wants to give you flavor,
- but you might get a little burned. - A little kick.
You might get a little scorched on the way.
But I'm here to take on the 12 angry shrimp challenge.
Twelve succulent fried shrimp marinated, dredged, and coated
with the million Scoville smoked ghost pepper.
Just think about it.
The, like, spice and, like, how your body feels is a later-you problem.
- Not, like, a present-day problem. - Not a now-me problem.
- Yes. - It's a later-you problem.
- I think you're gonna be feeling it right now.
[woman] It's really a mental game,
so you just wanna tell those shrimp, "Hey, shrimp,"
you know, "I'm the boss around here, okay?"
You'll want more of that comeback sauce to cool you down.
Wait, what's comeback sauce?
Comeback aioli is the sauce here.
So, that's creamy and it's gonna kill the heat?
[man] It tries to.
[Casey] Hopefully their barbecue aioli comeback sauce
does more than just try to cool me down
because I'll need all the help I can get.
I head back to the HotHouse kitchen
to prepare these hellaciously hot shrimp.
- Craig. - Hey, how's it going?
- Be gentle. That's all I ask. - Yeah, yeah.
- Glad to have you here. - Yeah, I'm happy to be at Peaches.
So, what goes in to the 12 angry shrimp challenge, Craig?
Well, we start off with our regular marinade.
We add some additional ghost pepper to the marinade.
So, you gotta eat 12 of these extra, extra hot shrimp.
- I get it. - And you gotta eat them in 12 minutes.
And no crying. If you're crying, you're disqualified. [Casey laughs]
All right, so we're gonna start with the marinade for the shrimp.
[Casey] We mix salt, black pepper,
powdered garlic, onion powder, cayenne pepper,
and then...
That is the smoked ghost pepper.
Ghost peppers grow naturally in northeastern India,
and they've traveled all the way to the US
to become my greatest nemesis.
We toss all the spices together,
and I foolishly take a ghost pepper test-drive.
Yeah, it's hot.
Ooh, yeah, there it is. [coughs]
Yeah, it comes on.
All of a sudden, the inside of your entire mouth starts watering.
Yeah, don't get it on your lips.
[Casey] The shrimp get coated in the ghost pepper-laced spice rub
and marinate overnight.
It'll just permeate the entire shrimp.
-It takes over. Makes them angry. -Right.
[Casey] Once the shrimp are fully marinated,
we add the ghost pepper spice mix yet again to the flour dredge.
I see you add little by little
and then you just dump the whole thing in anyway in the end.
For a guy like you, I really should add the full one.
- Oh, how kind of you. - Yeah.
[Casey] It's time to fry the shrimp.
Air tossed in the hot dredge,
dipped in egg wash,
and dredged again before being dropped in the deep fryer.
They puff up a little bit, right?
- They get real strong real quick and even angrier. - Oh, yeah.
[growls]
[Casey] Just a few short minutes later,
these crabby crustaceans are ready.
Now we're gonna make them really angry.
They're gonna be irate when I'm done with them.
I think they look pretty angry.
Craig adds another liberal dusting of the HotHouse extra hot spice that contains,
you guessed it,
smoked ghost pepper.
All right, so, let's plate this thing.
So, at this point we go ahead and...
Hope it doesn't burn the lettuce.
[Craig] I like to set them up around the plate like a clock...
- Ticktock, ticktock, ticktock. - to get these 12 shrimp...
[in creepy voice] Come and play with us, Casey.
Come and play with us.
[Craig] I'm gonna offer you our two house-made sauces
[Casey] Oh, lovely.
But that's it. The 12 angry shrimp.
They look pissed off.
[cheering] Twelve angry shrimp!
[cheering]
So, Casey, just like there's no crying in baseball,
there's no crying in the 12 angry shrimp challenge.
You have 12 minutes to eat those 12 little shrimp. [Casey chuckles]
- [all] Three, two, one! - Whoo!
[Casey] These shrimp are well-seasoned and juicy,
but I know that's just a trick to get me to let my guard down.
[all chanting] Peaches! HotHouse!
[Casey] Shrimp number one down the hatch.
I'm gonna ghost these shrimp and forget all about them.
Perhaps I spoke to soon.
Shrimp number two is burning me up,
and I can tell it's only gonna get worse.
His face is red.
He's sweating a little bit, but you know what? He got this.
[cheering]
[Casey] This is shaping up to be a tall task at a hot house.
[Casey] I'm at Peaches HotHouse in Brooklyn, New York
taking on the 12 angry shrimp challenge,
but so far I'm finding these ghost pepper-spiced crustaceans.
Too hot to handle.
He's made a pretty good dent in the shrimp. I think he's gonna crush it.
[Casey] The only thing being crushed right now is my soul
under the weight of a million Scoville scorching units.
[groans]
Multiple people told me crying isn't allowed in this challenge.
Fortunately, these peppers have me sweating out any water
before it can reach my eyes.
Casey, you are halfway through this challenge.
I can see the sweat coming down.
I want some peaches right now.
I just need something sweet. Whoa!
I'm burning up.
I just keeps getting worse with each shrimp,
and I still have five left to go.
These ghostly shrimp have me on the ropes.
[groans]
I'm about to get knocked out unless I can make some kind of...
comeback.
That comeback sauce to cool you down.
- [man] Comeback sauce. - [deep voice] Comeback sauce.
[deeper voice] Comeback sauce.
[Casey] In my fiery haze, I remember the comeback sauce.
Come on, Casey. Let's do it!
- [cheering] - [woman] Yeah!
- [woman 1] You got it, Casey! - [woman 2] Go!
[woman] Yeah, Casey! You got this!
[woman] You can do it!
[whooping]
Casey, yes! You got this!
You got this!
[Casey] These devilish shrimp are no match
for the Brooklyn love I'm feeling right now.
[all chanting] Beat that heat! Beat that heat!
Beat that heat! Beat that heat! Beat that heat!
[Casey] After a comeback for the ages,
I'm finally down to one puny, pissed off shrimp.
[all chanting] Last shrimp! Last shrimp!
Last shrimp! Last shrimp! Last shrimp!
[all cheering]
You did the challenge. You beat the challenge.
Seven minutes and 37 seconds.
Yeah! Whoo!
In the battle of man versus food,
man won!
[all cheering]
Thank you, Peaches. Thank you, Brooklyn.
I love you and I always have.
[all cheering]
Whoo!