Why We Love Sam the Cooking Guy (& a recipe with tips)

One of my favorite things to do it watch cooking shows. I don’t really do it to get ideas on things to eat, but more to watch technique and to see how the different personalities create flavor combinations. While watching these types of shows is not high on my husband’s list of favorite things to do, he humors me most of the time and even rather enjoys a few here and there. One that we both love is Sam the Cooking Guy. Part of Sam’s appeal is the fact that he is a real person; he’s not classically trained and oftentimes he’s not terribly prepared. What he is: charming, approachable and infallibly real.

Let’s take a minute to break that down, shall we?

Reasons we love Sam the Cooking Guy

Charming| He’s a handsome guy; the superman glasses draw you in and then the occasional vocal inflections remind you that he’s from Canada while the Bad Pickle t-shirts that he often wears show you that he’s probably got a great sense of humor (and he does).

Approachable| One of the things that we talked about at great length was that some cooking shows you watch just end up leaving you hungry and the recipes or ingredients involved were so complicated or random that your only decision is to go out to eat (or eat your bowl of cereal in anger). Sam’s goal for his shows is for you to get through the show and say, “Wow, that looks good and simple and I bet I could make it.” More often than not, you are going to have the ingredients on hand and you’re going to have the time to make it. On the topic of ingredients, Sam noted, “I never wanted to send somebody to like a weird specialty market across town just to find, you know, a $20 ingredient that they needed, you know, like one-quarter of a teaspoon from. ”

Infallibly Real| I saw this with the most respect and admiration, Sam is a bit of a goofball. He forgets things, misplaces kitchen tools, almost used cornstarch instead of baking soda and almost ALWAYS takes a bite of too hot food and burns his mouth. These are endearing qualities, things that make us love him even more. Why? Because he’s just like me, or you. I don’t know about you, but I didn’t go to culinary school and I may not even know how to properly sharpen a knife, but I know my way (well enough) around a kitchen and I can follow a recipe like no one’s business. That’s real life.

I learned so much from Sam in our close to an hour phone call that I really struggled with how to relay that in a single article and after a little pondering I decided to split things up a little. What I decided on was parsing things out based on the tips that he gave along with some recipes that we received. Sound good? Let’s get it going, then!

The first recipe that I received tat really blew me away was his eggs benedict recipe. Why? He makes his hollandaise in a blender. A blender. I recall one hiliday where my famiy came over in the middle of m making a hollandaise and I was too terrified to leave the kitchen to greet them, because I couldn’t stop whisking.

While we were talking about all things Benedct, he blew my mind again. “Here’s the thing about poached eggs that people don’t know.  If you make poached eggs right now, take it out of the pot and then you put it in ice water, you can store that poached egg in the fridge, in the water for a couple of days no problem. And then at the last minute, all you have to do is slip it into simmering water for about a minute or a minute and 15 seconds, and it is just like you made it right then without the hassle. ” Can you even imagine???

I called him a genius, he agreed and then said, “And for people that might stress and it might take them four eggs to get two perfect ones, you can get all the perfect ones ahead of time.”

We’ll start of the Sam the Cooking Guy Series with this recipe for Hollandaise. Just remember that you can top just about anything with your poached eggs; from the traditional ham to lox to crab cakes or sauteed spinach. It’s your dish, make it how you want it!

original photo credit to Sam the Cooking Guy/ Finlandia Imported Butter

Also, make sure to check out Sam the Cooking Guy online and then follow him on Facebook and Instagram so you never miss his videos. We made this one last night.

Sam is currently partnering with Finlandia, makers of high-quality butter and cheese. He believes that using the highest quality ingredients, lends itself to the best tasting end result! Finlandia is available at local Costo stores; I was lucky enough to pick up some at my local Safeway, so its worth a look!