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Podcast Summary: This Is TASTE Episode 266 - Ham El-Waylly
Episode Overview In this episode of "This Is TASTE," hosts Aliza Abarbanel and Matt Rodbard welcome Ham El-Waylly, a talented chef, recipe developer, and video creator based in New York City. Best known for his work on NYT Cooking channel alongside his wife Sohla, Ham shares insights into his background, culinary journey, and evolving views on food and cooking.
Key Themes and Discussions
Early Life and Culinary Background
- Cultural Influence: Ham discusses his diverse background growing up in Doha, Qatar, with Bolivian and Egyptian parents who were involved in the food business.
- Culinary Education: He learned to appreciate various cuisines through the lens of his multicultural upbringing and local influences, including Middle Eastern and South American ingredients.
Culinary Journey
- Restaurant Experience: Ham began his career in fine dining and mentions his time at notable restaurants like WD-50, where he was encouraged to understand the "whys" behind cooking techniques.
- Transition to Recipe Development: After closing his restaurant "Hail Mary," Ham pivoted to corporate chef roles, where he learned valuable management skills before focusing on recipe development and video content creation.
Cooking Philosophy
- Evolving Traditions: Ham expresses his thoughts on the concept of "traditional" food, emphasizing that cuisine evolves over time and should not be confined to preconceived notions.
- Fusion vs. American Cuisine: He critiques the term "fusion food," arguing that it often undermines the authenticity and complexities of culinary identities and experiences.
Personal Life and Interests
- Relationship with Sohla: Ham shares anecdotes about his partnership with Sohla, highlighting their collaborative cooking and the joy of exploring new dishes together.
- Graphic Tees and Music: Their conversation also touches on Ham’s love for graphic tees, live music, and the cultural significance of attending concerts.
Current Projects
- Strange Delight: An upcoming New Orleans-inspired oyster bar in Brooklyn, where Ham serves as a partner, focusing on creative oyster dishes that balance authenticity with culinary innovation.
- Cookbook: Ham is working on his debut cookbook with Clarkson Potter, aiming to redefine American home cooking through personal recipes and modern techniques.
- Podcast: He and Sohla are developing a podcast called "Deep Dish," exploring the origins and recipes of specific dishes.
Rapid Fire Segment
- Oysters: East Coast preferred due to their flavor complexity.
- Snack Choices: Pop-Tarts over Hot Pockets, specifically brown sugar flavor.
- Bodega Snack: Fritos.
- Favorite NYC Restaurant: Superiority Burger.
- Most Underrated Equipment: Cast iron skillets over non-stick pans.
Conclusion This episode offers a rich exploration of Ham El-Waylly's journey through food, touching on personal experiences, cultural influences, and future projects. Listeners are left with a greater appreciation for the nuances of cooking and the importance of collaboration and creativity in the culinary world.
For more insights and updates, visit [TASTE online](https://tastecooking.com).
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00This episode is brought to you by Resi and American Express. Resi is a digital platform that connects restaurants to restaurant lovers by elevating dining experiences, providing original industry content, and helping to fill some of the country's most exciting dining rooms. Because restaurants have always been more than just places to eat. The amazing world of restaurants is just a few taps away in the Resi app and at resi.com. Before we get to the show, I want to let you know about a live event we're doing in New York. This is Taste is coming at you live again on August 17th with two very special guests, authors Natasha Pickowitz and Claire Saffitz, in conversation with me, Eliza Barbanel.
0:38We'll be at Rizzoli Bookstore talking about summer baking, making their latest dessert-centric cookbooks, and more. And it's free to attend. So see you there. First come, first serve.
0:55the whole bizarre foods things of like i'm gonna go eat the grossest thing i can find but it's like it's not gross to a very large group of people so we always like to approach just a new food or just food in general with like a pretty open mind
1:16This is Taste. I'm your host, Eliza Barbanel.
1:23Ham El-Waley is a chef, recipe developer, and video creator based in New York City. You may know him from the New York Times Cooking Channel, where he shares ingenious tips and whips up opulent feasts from niche ingredients alongside his wife, Sola. But you probably don't know Ham's rich history in food. From growing up in Doha, Qatar, to Bolivian Egyptian parents in the food business, to running R &D at Momofuku Ando. Today we dig into it all, plus his love of live music and graphic tees. And I hope you'll enjoy.
2:00Hi, Ham. This is Tase. Thanks for coming on the podcast. Hi, Eliza. Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here. That was like the most formal hello we've ever done to each other, probably. We've already said hello downstairs. So this is like the podcast hello, the official hello. The official hello. And the official first question, I guess, I'm curious, what have you eaten today? What's been good? Oh, okay. I'm not a big breakfast person. So I usually have a smoothie or like a protein shake or something in the morning kind of to get my stomach going. Because if I have something too substantial, I just feel a little nauseous.
2:35So I had protein shake with some chia seeds in there in the morning. And then I got some tacos for lunch. There is a Takambi that opened in my neighborhood recently and I've been wanting to check it out. So I just popped out really quick. I grabbed some Suadero tacos, which were really good. Highly recommend. And they're pretty tough to find in New York. They're not nearly as good as Taqueria Ramirez's though. I was going to say. They're like top tier next level tacos. But it's like if I don't feel like going all the way to Greenpoint, it's like it'll do. It's good to know because I feel like Takambi is something that when I first moved to New York, I went to as a lot of people do when they first moved to New York.
3:19And then it's been a minute since I've gone. But sometimes, you know, they're all over the city. I feel like they're kind of it's a good taco option. So it's good to know that the Sweatero was doing it for you. Yeah, it's like it's it won't be the best taco in town, but it's definitely not the worst. It's like a means to an end. It'll get you, it'll like satisfy your taco fix. Their pastor isn't bad as well. Okay, good to know. Hot tip. If you're in the East Village. I feel like Yellow Rose is your go-to spot though. It is, but it's, they're different. So tacos are like, it's a broad category.
3:53So if I'm feeling Tex-Mex flour tortillas, then Yellow Rose is unbeatable. I feel like there's no one doing it better than them in the city. But there's a lot of like there are a lot of options for for Mexican tacos right now. Yeah, we're lucky. Yeah, we're lucky. We'll take it. Yeah. When we when we first moved here like 15 years ago, it was pretty bleak. And you're moving here from Los Angeles, right? Yes. So you're going from like cornucopia of tacos to maybe less options. Yeah. And so I ended up working at M.P.O.N. That was my first job here in New York to, you know, make my own tacos. Yeah.
4:32What was, what kind of tacos were you making at Ampeyon? So it was all kinds. So it doesn't really, it doesn't focus on regions. It's kind of like Mexico as a whole. So we did barbacoa tacos. We did Baja style fish tacos. We did like carne asada tacos. Like there were so, it was a great way to kind of learn about Mexican cuisine as a whole because I've never cooked it professionally before, but I learned a lot. I learned about salsas. I learned about the different regions. I learned about adobo, learned about like cochinita pibil. I learned a lot, like proper guac technique. People think like you just throw avocados in a bowl, mash it up.
5:12And then no, there's like proper avocado technique. You want to fold it. You want to fold your mix-ins into your avocado, like as gently as you're folding in the egg whites into a souffle, because I like to, you want to be able to identify all of your mix-ins in the guac. Like you want to see that cilantro peeking out. You want to see that onion peeking out. You don't want it just to be mush. Cause I feel like there's a fine line between like perfect chunky guac and just like borderline baby food. Yeah. I love that. Is this also where you learned the technique of, um, pushing avocado halves through like a mesh, uh, try, what is it called?
5:48Um, yeah. A wire rack, a wire rack. Is that where it came from? That is where, cause we were making like cases and cases and cases worth of avocados every single day, like right before service, because you want to make your avocado as close to serving as possible, just so it stays really, I feel like once the acidity from the lime gets into that avocado flesh, it kind of, it's not bad by any means, but it turns it into something else. You kind of want that acidity floating above the fat. So you get like, you get that gradients of textures as you eat it and like flavors and tastes. So you get like the fatty and the acidity and the crunch and the herbaceousness.
6:27So if it just sits together for too long and it's just overmixed, it just becomes this one mass of things that's not great. So yeah, it's a necessity. When you're making that much guac, you can't really scoop it out with a spoon and then chop each avocado into little cubes, like just splitting all the avocados. It would be like six cases, all split, and then we'd assembly line it. So someone would split open the avocados and pit them, pass it on to the next person who would press it through the wire rack into a big hotel, into a big hotel pan or bus stub, slide that down to the person who would gently fold in all the mix ins.
7:05It's like it's a process. It's streamlined. It's streamlined. And it makes sense because you also have like an industrial like kitchen dishwasher. So you're like this is a tip that I've seen you do on a New York Times cooking video before. And I don't have a dishwasher and I'm not making a restaurant's worth of guac. So that's not something I have tried, but there's been a lot of other ones that I have picked up that I think we can get into. But maybe just to zoom back for a second, I want to talk a little bit about your background because I think that maybe it's something people don't know as much about you.
7:33Like, can you tell me a little bit about what it was like for you growing up, where you were and like what kind of food you were eating? Yeah. So I'm Bolivian Egyptian. My mom's Bolivian. My dad's Egyptian. they met at Howard University in DC and then they got married and moved all the way to Qatar where I was born and raised I don't know why they moved like that that like bit of information in the story is all has always been left out even though I ask it's like one of these like immigrant parent secrets that I will never know so my dad got an opportunity running a couple of supermarkets in Doha.
8:13And then he grew that business into like an import export business. And then he grew that into a kind of Mongolian grill franchise. Yeah, like in the Middle East, there's like a bunch of bunch of waves that I'm sure we'll talk about later. But I ended up growing up there. And it's a very international community. Because it's Doha now is very different from Doha, like 40 years ago. It was still small. It was still growing. ExxonMobil wasn't ExxonMobil yet. It was Exxon and like mobile. There's like separate companies. So I ended up going to an international school where there were local Qatari people, a lot of Americans whose family worked at the army base in town, a lot of people who worked in the oil and natural gas industry.
9:07And then there was this whole like wave of just general people from all over the world who were just there, like either being doctors or like managing random businesses or so I like kind of fell into that group. So I grew up eating Bolivian food, but through the lens of like Middle Eastern ingredients, things that you can find there, Egyptian food that my mom learned from my dad's like friends and family members. Um, my mom also really liked the Julia Child cookbook. I actually still have her copy of it. So we had, we would have like a random roast chicken dinner out of there. Um, and then I would also eat things at the homes of like friends.
9:55So I would have like shish barak from this Lebanese friend, which is one of my favorite dishes. Are you familiar with shish barak? A little bit, but maybe tell me about it and what you love so much about it. So it's this dumpling that's filled with meat and it's a really, really chewy dumpling and it's cooked in this yogurt sauce. It's cooked in this yogurt sauce that's topped with like a buttery, garlicky pine nut. And it's lamb, right? It's lamb. Yeah. Yeah. It's, I just love the textures. I love how that yogurt can be used as a sauce. And there's like some good technique there because when you heat up yogurt, it breaks.
10:33So by adding like either an egg or some cornstarch, you can stabilize it and then you can actually cook things in it. One of my favorite things to cook in yogurt is zucchini, like zucchini or summer squash. Like you can just sear it up and poach it gently in that yogurt and top it with like a garlicky, some breadcrumbs and some garlicky butter. So, so delicious. So I really liked that technique of cooking in yogurt. And then, I mean, the dumplings pretty much is pasta. So it's like a ravioli cooked in yogurt sauce. What's not to love? Yeah. And I think Sola maybe developed a recipe that was like a pasta inspired by sheesh barak that I've made before.
11:08That's right. Yeah. That's right. That's right. I love that recipe. That was inspired by sheesh barak that I've made from her. Yeah. So you see the trickle down effect coming from all the way from Doha. Yeah. Your kitchen is like the most collaborative kitchen in the entire world, probably. Yeah. And like I had pancit. So Filipino pancit, which is like the stir fried noodle dish. So there was a lot of international food that I just grew up eating. And I also grew up in a very large Brazilian community because my mom, when she left Bolivia, she didn't go straight to the States. She went to school in Brazil for social work.
11:52So and she ended up being a social worker in Brazil for a couple of years before she moved to the States. So she spoke Portuguese fluently. She cooks Brazilian food really, really well. And there isn't really a Bolivian community in Doha. There isn't really a it's tough to find a Bolivian community anywhere. I think there's a pretty big one in in Virginia in the States. But there's like stuff to find Bolivians outside of Bolivia. so she kind of there there are a lot of brazilians in in doha because they're really really into football there soccer here um and so they they would hire a lot of brazilian coaches and trainers to to move there and kind of train their team because they were the best in the world at the time um some may argue that they're still the best but that's not my debate to have it's a different podcast.
12:42That's a whole other podcast. So she befriended them. And that's where we spent a lot of our weekends. They'd have churrascos, which are like Brazilian grills. So I would have feijoada on the weekend. I would have like grilled picanha with farofa, which is probably one of my favorite things to eat. So it's like a toasted tapioca crumb that's really buttery and crunchy. and you just, they treat it like a condiment. So you can sprinkle it on top of your beans. You can sprinkle it on top of rice. You can sprinkle it on top of grilled meats. So I would sprinkle it on everything. So for me, it wasn't a condiment.
13:21My like plates, whenever I went there, would be like 50 % farofa. I loved it. So there was like a lot of different things that I grew up eating and I didn't really think of it as international food. It was just like food to me because I didn't really think of where it, or where it came from or where anyone was. It was just like, this was the community I grew up in. This is like all I know. This is the food I grew up around. So it didn't really feel foreign or strange or weird to me. So like food always just, I never really had, I feel like a lot of people now put food in like these boxes. Like this food is from here.
13:57This food is from here. Like it's just, but it's like, it's food. It's food. It's delicious and embrace it. Learn how to make it, learn how to do it well. I think it's important to know where things come from. But like a lot of food evolves. Like in that's why like when I when I think of the food I make now, I feel like a lot of people ask me, oh, what kind of food do you make? And it's like it's not I make American food because I'm an American with all these different experiences. But I use American products with techniques I may have learned elsewhere. But it's all American food. Yeah. How do you feel about the term fusion food?
14:33I don't like it. Why? I don't like it at all. It seems, well, fusion food makes it feel like things are forced together. That's what I think of with fusion. It's like you're taking this thing and fusing it with this other thing. Yeah. Fusing it like it kind of— It's very active. It's a very—exactly. It's a very active word, and I feel like it—I don't know why, but I feel like it kind of has like a negative connotation. I think it definitely has a negative connotation partially from an era of like white chefs fusing together cuisines that they like didn't necessarily belong to or like have the same kind of education and background from.
15:12You think about like the 2010s and fusion food maybe. Yeah, like we're going to take like we're going to take bulgogi and top it on top, put it on top of nachos. There's like Korean Mexican fusion. And it's like it's like I don't I don't know about that. Like it's like that's fine. It's delicious. Like you can like that. Roy Choi. Yeah. That's exactly. Yeah. Covey taco. Roy Choi famously does that. But it's it's not fusion food. It's his food. Right. Because he's Korean American. He grew up in California around a lot of Mexican food. It's not a it's not a fusion. It's it's Roy Choi's food. It's him.
15:49It's like it's it's this it's this thing that that makes sense to him because it's a part it's an expression of the community he grew up in. And that's that's all it is. And I feel like fusion kind of dumbs it down. Yeah, I appreciate that. So you grew up this like very well fed, curious kid. When did you decide that you wanted to make food your career? So I I was always into food. My favorite show growing up was Yan Can Cook. So good. I was so impressed by Martin Yan's knife skills. I would just watch him mesmerized like debone a chicken or just like he he did this thing where he would like chop scallions and pretend he was all focus focus and then he'd look up and smile at the crowd and then just keep chopping and so I was I was blown away by that I'm like that is so cool I'd like to one day be able to cut precisely without looking at it which I got yeah I got I got there look at me now if you're listening him is chopping something while we're talking but it's like it's my my desire to work in restaurants goes beyond just just cooking so I was uh I was a sick kid I had like this chronic disease called ITP which is like it's this rare autoimmune disease where my body like attacked my own platelets so I couldn't really my blood wouldn't clot so there was a lot of things that I couldn't do so I like from age eight to let's say 15, I kind of had to like live my life like the bubble boy because I couldn't really do much because everyone was worried that I would like get a bad bruise and like bleed out pretty much because or get like really bad internal bleeding or so.
17:36So there was a lot of things that I really wanted to do that I just couldn't. So one of the things that really attracted me to to the restaurant industry and specifically fine dining was how difficult it is. So I wanted to prove to myself that like, yes, I can do this. I can do this. I'm like strong enough now to do this. I'm mentally tough enough to do this. I'm physically tough enough to do this. So that was like the cooking aside, which was something I always liked. I love cooking. I love eating. I love feeding people. I love seeing the, there are a few things more like satisfying than feeding someone you care about something that they like.
18:12And then they try it. You see that expression on their face. Like it just, it feels good. It's very satisfying. But that's actually what attracted me to the restaurant industry was like how difficult it was. So when I first started, I knew I wanted to be in fine dining. I knew I wanted those long hours. I like volunteered for every clopin, like every close into an open shift. I volunteered for every brunch double. I volunteered for every like this was back in the day where where you could you would you could show up to work and not clock in just so you could be at work and see other people. prep and just learn things that you wouldn't be able to otherwise.
18:50So I would go in as early as I could to watch all the fish butchers break down fish, to watch all the even receivers, how they would receive the produce and check it to make sure it was up to par. I would help them break down their boxes. So I was all in. I wanted to learn as much as I could from this industry that I was really interested in being a part of. I was just as interested as being a part of this restaurant culture as I was to actually becoming a better cook. Yeah, knowing you, I feel like that makes so much sense and is also kind of what you need if you're going to be working in that space, because it isn't easy to be doing that kind of work, even if you're not, you know, like gold star going above and beyond into those things.
19:32It is such a demanding industry. And obviously you worked in so many different places. We don't need to linger too long, but I'm wondering if you could tell me a little bit about some of the places you worked and maybe like meaningful experiences that you had there? Well, I did my externship at WD50. And that I think was one of like the more formative jobs that I've ever had, period. Because it wasn't so much about what I learned. They really, what like Wiley Dufresne and his team at the time really pushed forward was the idea of understanding the whys behind cooking and not just the hows. So everything came with an explanation, which I love.
20:15So it's like, we cook our pork this way because of this, this, and this. We cook venison this way because if you cook it as slow as you do the pork, it tends to be gamey and get a little mealy. So we actually cook it to this temp. So understanding the hows, the whys, and all those little parts really helped me become a better cook. So it was, it's kind of like experiencing Harold McGee's on food and cooking in real time around me. And, um, and just the general culture of, of how they put creativity at the forefront. I, I never, since, since I was, so Doha's like Qatar in general, like it's conservative and a pretty conformist society.
20:58and I like always struggled with that. So I never really, I feel like rules are made to be broken. That's just how I, unless you can explain to me why this rule has to exist, like if I will explode, if I break this rule, I don't really, I think most rules are just made up by society just because they feel like these, like there's no reason for most of them. And I really liked that they didn't really believe in rules. They're like, it doesn't, if this tastes good, if this is an interesting technique that pushes the boundary. Like they tried to make every dish different. They didn't like to repeat techniques.
21:37They didn't like to repeat flavor profiles. Everything needed to be new. So they were constantly pushing for not just correct technique, but new technique, new ideas. And being in that hyper-creative environment really kick-started my brain into thinking about food in a different way. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And then where did you go from there? Or maybe where did you go before you decided to pivot into this era of doing more like recipe development, video, like this era that you're in now? So I worked in fine dining for a while before Sola and I opened our own restaurant, Hail Mary. Once that closed, I was kind of in— Which timeline, that was like 2017, right?
22:242017. 2017. Yeah. Once that closed, I was kind of in a panic because you put in everything you have into this project and financially everything you have. So we closed and then I just felt the panic of like, okay, I need to find a job that I think is secure. So I worked at a Momofuku spot called Ando, a startup. Which was this was the delivery only momofuku? Yeah, this was a delivery only momofuku. It was it was a lot of fun. I learned a lot of things there. I that was my first foray into kind of casual dining. I'd mostly lived in the fine dining world. And I actually wished I had spent more time in the casual dining world before opening a restaurant because we opened a diner.
23:18So opening a diner with a full on fine dining mindset mistake. You opened a diner where like Solo was making the sprinkles herself. So the fine dining was all still there. It was all very much still there. Like we were, there was one dish where we made soft tofu to order from fresh soy milk that we made ourselves. We grilled our burgers on a Japanese grill fueled by white benshotan, which is the most expensive charcoal that you could possibly find on this earth. That's insane. And also people didn't like get that really. No, no, because we were we were weird. Like we didn't we felt like, no, it's a little we don't want to put that on the menu.
24:03It's a little too gauche. So let's just let's just keep it chill. We'll just say burger. They'll get it. No, it was so many mistakes, so many mistakes. And then people will be like, why is this burger? Fifteen dollars. It's just a single patty with American cheese and bread. We made the bread. we made the American cheese with a poise, which is expensive. Which also, you know, today in 2023, a burger that hasn't been made in that way at all would still be at least$15 on a menu in New York. So definitely easy, easy. 20. 20. Yeah. So I wish I had done that because casual dining is just as difficult.
24:40And that ties into a lot of what I'm doing now, which is developing recipes for home cooks. So worked at Ando for a while that ended up closing. And then after that, like after experiencing two closings back to back in less than a year, I was kind of done with like startup restaurants and, and, and like independent restaurants. I wanted to go big. So I ended up working as a, as an executive corporate chef for E2 hospitality for, for a few years, which also was a very gratifying experience because you learn a whole other, um, skillset that I didn't have before. Cause I was managing big teams across the city.
25:26And that, I think it was that experience and work, working with the people that I did there, I really learned how to become an effective manager and actually, which is just as important part of being a chef as being able to cook well. Like, it doesn't matter if you're a very good cook. If you can't express to this team of 10, like way, way, way less experienced cooks than you are, how to, how to execute that, then it's, it's useless. It's useless. So that kind of, I feel like those experiences really came together and created the person that is here now. Yeah. And that was working for you in terms of a safety mechanism until the pandemic happened.
26:14Not to rub kosher salt in the wound. Diamond crystal. Diamond crystal, Maldon. And then everyone had to close. And that's when you started doing home cooking. So especially going from, you know, running such a big restaurant group, how did you transition to cooking just at home for yourself and Sola? It was really it was really tough. It was really, really hard because I'd never I'd never not worked at a restaurant in New York. That was kind of all all I knew. And it was all that I wanted. I had no idea. Like all my dreams began and ended with either working at a very successful restaurant, owning a very successful restaurant, running a very successful restaurant.
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26:59Like that was just the world I knew. That was the world I could imagine. I really hadn't pictured myself outside of that world. But then the pandemic taught me a few things. One was how much I missed my wife. So we hadn't, working in restaurants, you never really spend much time together just because the hours are really tough. And by that point, Sola had already transitioned into food media. So at least before when we were both in restaurants, we were both working the same hours. We're both coming home at the same time. So we're both kind of living the same life. But when I was still in restaurants and Sola had already kind of transitioned to still long hours, but quote unquote a day job where she was home in the afternoons, I felt an even bigger disconnect.
27:48It was like we were just coming and going because the times that I were exhausted, I was exhausted, was really not the time she was exhausted. We didn't have weekends together. So I would say that made it even tougher because when we were in restaurants, we still like kind of advocated to get the same days off, which is something that a lot of restaurants do. If you're a couple of restaurant people and you talk to your manager, most of them will be like, okay, what days off does she or he – what time off do they have? And then we can try and finagle some things so you at least have one day off together.
28:23That's a very common ask in the restaurant industry. It's not that big a deal. But it was tough to just – because there was no overlap because the days she had off were Saturday and Sunday. and I could get a Sunday off once in a while, but there's no way you're getting a Saturday off in like the restaurant industry. If you do, you're probably bad at your job and they don't want you around on a Saturday because it's really busy. But that, the pandemic just made me realize we were spending a lot more time together. It's like, wow, this, we were cooking together in a way that we hadn't since, you know, the first time we got together because when we first got together, we would just, we'd cook all the time.
29:03We'd, we'd, we spent, probably six to seven weekends in a row, just making mole poblano until we felt like we perfected it. And we would just make it over and over and over again. We're like, no, we had to toast it a little bit more. We got to burn the plantains a little bit more. We got to blend the nuts a little smoother. And we just, it just was years of not experiencing that again. So pandemic hit, we start experiencing that again. And it's like, oh, wow, there's like this whole relationship that kind of went unattended. Like it just got kind of got pushed to the side and forgotten. And so the pandemic really helped grow that relationship, which is something I'm like very grateful for.
29:50Yeah, the like six week long Mole Poblano, or was it Poblano? Yeah, that project, that's like the most romantic thing I've heard for you two. That's so cute. And it's really like, you know, the mystery menu videos that you do together for the New York Times, like your rapport is so evident. And I, you know, I read YouTube comments because I love this series of people talking about how they should show you two and like couples therapy to people. And I think what people maybe don't know is you ran a restaurant together, like you had this whole career of like what people are seeing as the result of like so much practice collaboration between you two that like maybe that isn't communicated, you know?
30:27Yeah. It's like we, we weren't like this magically. It didn't, Like it didn't just matter. We didn't see each other and immediately became these people. That's something that is kind of missed when you see just a YouTube video and you don't see all the context or anything around it. Like it took a lot of work to get to work, like active work, a lot of communicating, a lot of like we're kind of each other's therapists a lot of the time. So there's a lot of communicating and work and time that goes into getting a relationship to that point where you feel comfortable just talking about anything, no matter how uncomfortable it may seem or or just working together or kind of reading each other each other's mind, knowing knowing where her mind's going to go as it goes there.
31:15So you can like anticipate and kind of work together better. It's it takes a lot of work. It's a lot of work. yeah and that comes across and I think like that's one of the best things about those videos is that you always seem like you're having so much fun when you're cooking together I'm curious like if there's a favorite ingredient that you ever did for the mystery menu series it the mystery menu series I think is one of my favorite things that we do because it's like it's something we love competition shows like Top Chef it's fun Top Chef is one of those things that we kind of we grew up in the industry kind of watching it.
31:51So we kind of evolved with Top Chef as it evolved into the show that it is now. So we would always ask ourselves what we would do in like that scenario and what would we make with that ingredient? What would we make with that timeframe? Like that's just, those are just exercises that we do on the couch whenever we're watching a competition show. And so to actually be able to do it is amazing. So I think my favorite ingredient has to be durian, which is what we did recently. I think it's this season. Yeah. Because it's not an ingredient that we're familiar with at all. And it's really exciting to work with something that maybe you've tasted a couple of times.
32:36You have an idea of what the flavor profile is, but you don't know it well enough to go in and like bacon, cornflakes, masa. those things are, we use those so much that it's easy to just think of dishes right off the top of our heads. And it feels, it's still challenging, but there's like a safety net under it. Cause we kind of know how things are going to come out just cause we're really comfortable with those ingredients. But throwing in something like durian, which is a base ingredient that you can do a lot with because it's, it's just, it's a fruit. So here's a fruit. What can you make with this fruit.
33:11And it has such a complex flavor. So it's like, it's funky. It's sweet. It has like some allium notes in there, which is also, which is weird for a fruit, but it, it's, it was a lot of fun. That, that's, I think, I think my favorite episode so far. And it's a sweet episode because durian has this reputation of being, you know, very pungent, like not good. Some people would say, and you two don't have that reaction at all. You're so excited to cook with it and you make such delicious looking things with it. Have you cooked with durian since doing the video? We haven't, but only because we haven't really come across it.
33:50I'm sure if we walk into, I'm not sure if they have it at H Mart. I don't think they do. But if we come across it somewhere, I'm sure we'll like pick it up and try some. But it's not something we've cooked with since. But it is something we're interested in having again. And it's I don't really like it when food is so personal for so many people. And I feel like durian especially. It's like there's so many it has like that like a lot of YouTubers or like social media people like to have like the shock value of trying to maximize how gross it is. They're like, oh, my God, it's durian. We're all going to die.
34:31It's like world's grossest fruit in like all caps across the video. Yeah, exactly. No one needs that. I really don't like food being presented that way. Like there's that like the whole bizarre foods things of like I'm going to go eat the grossest thing I can find. But it's like it's not gross to a very large group of people. So we always like to approach just a new food or just food in general with like a pretty open mind. It's like if it's an ingredient or a dish that's close to someone, it's important to treat it with respect. Yeah. And also, like, I got to try some of the jackfruit durian curry that you made for that video.
35:12And I was, like, obsessed with it. Oh, really? Yeah. I want to get the curry paste recipe later because I really, like, I have jackfruit right now on my countertop. And I was, oh, I kind of want to, maybe I don't have durian, but I want to do something like that again, you know? Oh, definitely. Oh, I'm glad you liked it. But yeah, green curry was one of the weekend experiments that we did a while back. So you can green curry anything with the proper technique and the right base ingredients. You can turn anything into a really tasty green curry. Another thing I like about these videos is that they get to showcase your graphic tea collection, which is just so good.
35:46And I'm wondering if you have any holy grail graphic teas. Okay, the graphic teas. I like I really like going to shows, but I even when I was a kid. So like I was really into music when I was younger because it was like I said, it was a very conformist society. And so like many kids, like my my way to like rebel and break out was was to find interesting music I liked, which was a lot of the times like things that you can really find around there. It's very much a Billboard Top 40 town. So breaking away from that was my way of like, oh, I'm different. Like you do when you're younger. Yeah, I'm different and you can tell because I'm wearing this sick T-shirt.
36:33Exactly. Look at my Converse's. They're untied. Like that was kind of the way. Or like I have a T-shirt on, but I'm wearing my dad's blazer on top of it. I'm quirky. I mean, I would wear that, yeah. It's a good move. I still do that now. So that's like, I still kind of dress like I'm a child now, I guess. So the graphic tees, I always wanted to be somebody who went to a lot of shows. Like I was, I'm really, I really, there's few things as satisfying as being in a very, just you feel the energy in a concert where everyone's really into it and really excited to see the performer and know all the words like you kind of the hair stands up on your arm you get like some goosebumps and you just you just feel it and that's you can't really get that from a lot of things so that's one of the reasons why I like going to shows so much and I try to get I don't believe in getting like just band shirts online.
37:41I feel like you need to get it from the merch table. That's like, that's the, that's like my rule for, so like all the, all the band shirts that I wear, they're like from shows that I've, I've gone to. Um, and I think probably the one that I like the most would be the, or my Holy Grail tea would be the, my Japanese breakfast one, just because that was the first show that I went to after the pandemic. So when I first moved here before, just first, first moved here, I was 20. I started going to shows in Manhattan. I moved to Jersey. That's where my dad was living. And then I stopped because I was in the restaurant industry, didn't have time, didn't have the means.
38:28It just wasn't something that could happen. So that Japanese breakfast show right after the pandemic was probably the first show that I had been to in over 15 years. Wow. So it was like it was a big it was a big deal. I was really excited. I was really looking forward to it. And it was totally worth it. And I loved it so much that that kind of kickstarted my like desire to go to shows again. So that's I think that since it like marked the beginning of this new show going ham, I would say probably Japanese breakfast tea. I love the ham renaissance of going back to shows. OK, so that was your first one.
39:09Is there one you went to recently that was really fun? So I got tickets to go to Carly Rae Jepsen yesterday at Pier 17. and I don't know if you heard, the show ended up getting canceled like four or five songs in because of the thunderstorm and they rescheduled for now. It's right now? It's right now. Oh, Pam, if you had told me, we could have rescheduled. Oh, no, it's fine. This is totally fine. Oh, but I love Carly Rae Jackson. She's amazing. She's amazing. We could have gone together instead of doing this. That would have been great. So I was like, it was one of those shows like where you could feel it in the crowd, like what we were talking about, like that like special energy where everyone's super excited to be there.
39:53Everyone knows all the words. Everyone's jumping around. And as she started, she did run away with me. And then it starts raining at the end. It's like, oh, this feels really special right now. This is going to be awesome. And then thunder hit. And then she just stopped. She's like, all right, for everyone's safety, we need to get the hell out of here right now. So that I feel like that would have been up there. But probably the best show I've been to all year, this will be weird, is the Aqua reunion show. It was amazing. It was amazing. And it's, I used to listen to Aqua unironically the entire album as I drove around Doha for a long time.
40:34So I know all the words. I know all the songs. It's like it's just it's the equivalent of, you know, how a lot of people watch like TLC to kind of like melt their brain, like smooth brain. You just relax. You kind of just just soak it in because it's good times. It's kind of like the same reason why I'm into like wrestling now, because it's like it's like a smooth brain thing. You can just sit down. It's like theater. You don't need to think too much. You just like soak it in. So that's like what Aqua was to me. So being able to relive that was really, really fun. And they put on a good show. And Aqua fans are maybe some of the best fans that I've seen at any concert.
41:15They go for it. They dressed up. They sang along. They jumped around. It was great. Okay. I'm truly so upset that you're missing Carly Rae for this. But I'm glad that you got Aqua for a similar bubbly, smooth brain experience. Exactly. Because that sounds like it was special. Do you think they timed the reunion with the Barbie movie? For sure they did. There's no way that they didn't because I think it was the first time. It's the first time that they toured since 1998, which is when Barbie called. Like that. I don't buy that coincidence. Tinfoil hat. Yeah, they knew. Yeah, they definitely. Greta Gerwig tipped them off.
41:52She probably paid for the secretly paid for their tour. Whoa. That was. And also Caroline Polachek was also a great show. So fun. Really, really fun for also like dancey, poppy type things. Okay, I mean, we could do a whole music podcast. We could go down that road. Which I would love. But I want to talk a little bit about your projects and what you're working on right now, because there's a lot of cool things. One of which being Strange Delight, which is this New Orleans-inspired oyster bar that's going to be opening in Brooklyn. Can you tell me a little bit about your involvement and how that process has been for you?
42:25Strange Delight was kind of like the dream of a friend of mine who I actually met at Ando. We worked together back then. Yeah, he's a Momofuku guy. Yeah, he's very much a Momofuku guy. He's like employee number five or something. I think so. Yeah. He's been there for a while. And Michael, who also works with Moon Burger, upstate. Yeah, like around Hudson, right? Yeah, around Hudson. And so they approached me initially to kind of consult on the menu, to, you know, develop some NOLA-ish oyster dishes for this concept that he'd been dreaming of for quite some time. And we started working together and then I just got, I really, really fell in love with the project and then they really liked the work I was putting out and then all the stars aligned and then I got brought on as a partner.
43:24So I've worked with, somehow I don't know how this happened, but I've worked with oysters a lot in my career. It wasn't, it's not like I woke up. Well, the fine dining guy is like, somehow I worked with a lot of oysters. Yeah. Oysters and oyster bars. So it's like, it's, it's something I really like. It's, there are a few things that, that are as delicious, completely untouched as they are like dressed properly. And oysters are one of those things. Like if you start with a, really good cold oyster and you just shuck it and have it right there that is it's like such a pleasurable experience like you get that brine you get a really nice creamy texture like you really get a taste of the ocean and I that's like one of the main reasons why I like working with oysters so much is that they're yes they're really versatile you can fry them you can poach them you can stew them you can you can do a whole array of things with them but they're still just as amazing unadorned, freshly shucked and eaten.
44:27Um, and so I conveyed like my, my love for oysters and all this thing, all these things. And then, and then it, it, it just, it just clicked. And so we ended up going, going to new Orleans together and eating up both a bunch of new places like, uh, Miss River, which, and Pesh, which both have incredible spins on classic new Orleans cuisine, uh local local ingredients treated perfectly well and we also went to the classics like our nods and and galatoires so good um really good the rockefeller at galatoires is actually what we based our rockefeller on um but we like obviously tweaked the method and the ingredients but but that was we knew we knew that that fennel forward smooth spinach kind of vibe thing on top of the oyster was what we wanted.
45:23It is so, it's, it's perfect. It's perfect. It's just such, such a delicious, delicious oyster. And, um, that, that I think is, is I'm really excited for people to try our spin on that. I can't wait. That's, I'm really proud of where we are with that. It's like, it's a lot of, it's a lot of work. I'm sure it's, uh, I'm sure it's a, the prep is a little bit more elaborate than what they do over there, but it's like the payoff is huge. I'm really excited for people to get like these things that you can't really find here. Like there are people who do spins on the Rockefeller and stuff, but they like they go so far that it feels like it's its own thing.
46:02And it's really tough when you do an oyster with like a topping or or to not go overboard because it's so easy to overwhelm the oyster because it's it is such a delicate thing that you need a pretty, pretty delicate hand to make sure that you're balancing all the flavors well. and that ultimately you finish with a nice clean brine. Because that's like, that's the goal when you're eating an oyster, whether it's cooked or raw, you want to finish with that brine because that's what keeps you going back for more and just keeps you eating, like keeps you craving more oysters. So that's probably one of the things I'm most excited for people to try.
46:41And there's, we're doing a whole bunch of New Orleans inspired classics. So we're doing barbecued shrimp. We're doing our spin on Felix's charbroiled oysters, which is also really exciting. There's a certain smoky smell that kind of wafts in the air when you walk into Felix's and you know you're there. We went there twice because we loved it so much. And as soon as you walk in, that kind of hits you in the face. and when we're testing our version of it, we got that same exact smell as it came off the grill and that's when we knew like we nailed this. This is spot on. So there's like, I'm just - You're just excited.
47:24I'm excited. I'm just excited for people to try what we've been working on for almost like a couple of years now. Yeah, and there's been some pop-ups. I went to one. I had the Hush Puppies I think were the standout for me just because like it's just so delicious. Oh, thank you. But do you have a sense of when it's going to open? Um, not really. We know that it's going to be in the Fort Greene area, but we're not quite sure where or when. So stay tuned. Keep your eyes open for some Strange Delight news. Yeah, follow him Strange Delight on Instagram to find out. Another exciting thing you have in the works that I want to talk about is your debut cookbook, which I know you're working on with Clarkson Potter.
48:06Can you tell me a little bit about that? So I'm really excited to like release this thing into the wild because it's my exploration of home cooking based on the home cooking I grew up with. So it's not the main thing. So I want to get past this like idea of like only traditional food is acceptable because like what is tradition, especially in food? It like morphs over time. There was a point in time like most people when you think of kimchi these days, it's like that red Napa cabbage kimchi. You go far, you go back far enough. Kimchi used to be white. So that like, that's an evolution. And there was a time where, there was a time in Mexican cuisine where pozole wasn't a big like national dish.
48:54That evolved over time. There was a time where, I'm sorry to go back to Korean food again. Sol and I are working on a podcast with the Sporkful that kind of dives into the history of specific dishes and how they're made. And we recently did an episode about dokboki. So I have like Korean food history on the top of my mind. So there was a time. So initially dokboki or Korean rice cakes was made with rice flour. So you pound rice into these cakes, these like really mochi-esque chewy cakes. And that's how rice cakes were made. And then Japan kind of colonized Korea and then took the rice away. And so then they ended up making dokboki with wheat.
49:47And once that was over and they regained rice, dokboki went back to being made with rice. So it's like at a different point of time, there was a different thing that was considered traditional because food changes. It morphs based on techniques available at the time, equipment available at the time, ingredients available at the time. So it's like an ever-changing thing. What's like traditional now may not be traditional in 50 years. Or like if you think about it, tomatoes are such a cornerstone of what we consider Italian food today. Tomatoes aren't from Italy. What did they eat before they got tomatoes?
50:27I think about that with chili peppers a lot also that, you know, chili peppers have spread over the entire world. They're so integral in like East Asian cuisine, like Thai cuisine, things like that. But they're not native to Thailand. They're not native to Thailand. They're native to South America. Potatoes, native to South America. Like that's you think of the Irish. You only think about potatoes. Like that's like. What were they eating before? What the Irish eat before potatoes. Like they're not native there. So it's I really don't like like this idea. Like it's important to preserve traditions.
50:56Don't get me wrong. That's not what I'm saying at all. But what I'm saying is like holding this idea that like if it's not a traditional food, it's like garbage and I don't need to learn it or respect it or make it. It's just it's just not true. So I kind of want to want to tackle that. And I'm taking these home cooked dishes that I grew up around and making them my way. So I'm kind of like infusing techniques that I've learned over over the time, ingredients that I'm around making this like a purely American cookbook. Like this is going to be, it's not like a global ethnic kind of thing. I don't like either one of those words.
51:32It's an American cookbook. It's American home cookbook. That's going to just show you new ways to use spices, ingredients, and techniques that you may think that you know or definitely have access to, but like show them how to put them together in a new way. and hopefully, you know, spice up your home cooking a little bit. Yeah, I'm really excited for it even more after this conversation just because everything you've talked about growing up eating sounds so delicious and knowing all the things that you've learned in different restaurants and just like the way you can combine technique and tradition and flavor.
52:10I feel like that's something that a lot of people are looking for, you know? Yeah, I hope so. I hope so. I hope so too. I hope so. And you mentioned a podcast a little bit that you're working on with Sola. What's the concept behind that? So it's called where we're it's like a spinoff from the Sporkful, which we listen to all the time. And it's and you're guests on sometimes. And we're guests on sometimes. That's true. That's true. Yeah, it's called Deep Dish. And it's we basically pick a dish and then we deep dive. So there are interviews or recipes. There's a whole bunch of banter. It's it's fun.
52:46It's a lot of fun. Hopefully coming out soon. Can you mention one of the dishes or is it top secret? Well, tōpoki is one of the dishes that we explored. I think that's, I'm going to keep the rest kind of close to my chest, but it spans all over the globe where there's no stone left unturned. Right. And one more collab that you're working on with Sola is your baby, which is dropping soon. Baby dropping soon. Baby dropping soon. Early fall. Are you guys going to be those parents that make baby food? Oh, definitely. So we got this ridiculous piece of kitchen equipment called a thermomix. So it's something that I like used at WD-50 to make a temperature stable hollandaise gel.
53:35So you could freeze it and deep fry it without it exploding all over the place. So that's what I initially used it for. But essentially what it is, is that it's a blender that can cook at the same time. It's really popular in Europe. They kind of use it like their microwave. You can steam on there. You can make risotto in there. You can make broth in there. You can even fry in there. So we got a thermomix because the thought is we want to go to the farmer's market, get like some really nice peas when they're in season. And all you need to do is pop them in this blender, add some water, set the temp, and then blend it.
54:13And then boom, you've got perfect, warm, fresh baby food. So we're like very excited to test this out, to really see how it works. We have like really high expectations for her palate. Yeah, we're really excited. We're like – we've done a lot of research both online and like asking other parents about how you can avoid like a picky eater because that's like a fear. Yeah. Because it would – yeah, it's a fear. It would break our hearts if like she just wanted – if she was scared of vegetables and just wanted to eat chicken nuggets. But there's really nothing you can, I mean, we'll love her regardless.
54:50Right. And I mean, you've done the research. I feel like, I don't know if this is true, but I've heard that like what the parent is eating during pregnancy is very much affects the baby's palate. And I imagine that just all the things that Sola is eating, like there's no way this kid is not going to come out craving, I don't even know why, everything, you know? Craving durian. Craving durian. Honestly, that's going to be the first thing you're using. The Thermomix? Is that what it's called? Yeah. The Thermomix. Well, I hope the experiments go well. And if you need like a human, an adult human to try them, I'm very, I'm very curious.
55:20You can start me with durian. I won't even care. Okay. And to close out, you know, this is taste and we talk a lot about guest taste. So I have a little like rapid fire taste check for you. So I'll throw some categories at you and you can just give me the first thing that comes to mind. Okay. Okay. Ready? Okay. East coast oysters or west coast oysters or Gulf coast oysters? Ooh, that's tough. Okay. So I know these are quick. Are these just yes or no answers or can I give reason? You can tell me why. I can tell you why. Okay. So at the beginning of my career, I preferred West Coast oysters because they're smaller.
55:55They're less challenging. They have like a cleaner flavor, like less brine and like it's just a more subtle flavor. So if you're like new to oysters, I would start with West Coast, but I'm like an experienced oyster eater at this point. So I'm East Coast all the way. East Coast. Okay, Hot Pockets or Pop-Tarts? Ooh, that's tough. So like growing, I didn't really eat either of those growing up because they were American imports. So they were very, very expensive. So like here, like a Hot Pocket, if it's like a dollar, it's easy to get because it's like, oh, it's junk food. It's a dollar. It's fine.
56:37It's not a big deal. But like it's tough to justify. like my mom couldn't justify spending like three dollars on something that she didn't consider like real food right so i like had i i had both fairly recently and i have to go with a pop tart i am not a fan of hot pockets at all watch the hot pockets mystery menu episode yes oh yes for context not a fan of hot pockets at all pop tarts all the way and brown sugar pop tarts specifically didn't you make like a Pop-Tart crust recently for something on Instagram? Am I making that up? Yes. Pop-Tart Pandauti. Pop-Tart Pandauti. Okay. We're not even rapid fire anymore.
57:16We got to get back in it. We're just talking. Okay. Go-to bodega snack. Go-to bodega snack. I like Fritos. Favorite New York City restaurant. Super Yorty Burger. Favorite New York City bakery. Ooh, Cabra. Something you'll never make from scratch. Canalies. Most underrated piece of kitchen equipment. Okay. I think people need to throw away their non-sticks. They're useless. They don't give you a good sear and they don't, like, they kind of don't last forever. Cast iron. Cast iron is the way to go. Okay. Go-to diner order. Go-to diner order. I like, so Veselka is my go-to diner. So I like to go with two eggs over easy, latke, sausage, and challah toast.
58:05Any time of day? Any time of day. It sounds like a great diner order. And this has been a great conversation, Ham. Thanks so much for coming on. Thank you. Thanks for having me.
58:18This is Taste is hosted by Matt Rodbard and me, Eliza Abarbanel. The show is produced by Shalia Harris and Pat Stango and edited by Clayton Gumbert. Theme music by Steve Rydell. Visit Taste Online at tastecooking.com and make sure to subscribe to our newsletter for updates on all cool things happening.
From the publisher
Ham El-Waylly is a chef, recipe developer, and video creator based in New York City. You may know him from the NYT Cooking channel, where he shares ingenious tips and whips up opulent feasts from niche ingredients alongside his wife, Sohla. But you probably don’t know Ham’s rich history in food, from growing up in Doha, Qatar, with Bolivian-Egyptian parents in the food business to running research and development at Momofuku’s Ando. Today we dig into it all, plus his love of graphic tees and live music, and I hope you’ll enjoy it.
And as you heard at the top, it's the return of TASTE Live, an IRL events series with our friends at Rizzoli Bookstore in Manhattan. Our next event is August 17 with authors Natasha Pickowicz and Claire Saffitz. Natasha and Claire will discuss what they are baking this summer, the making of their latest cookbooks, and much more. The event will be recorded live for this very podcast.
MORE FROM HAM EL-WAYLLY:
Chicken Stroganoff [New York Times Cooking]
The World’s Smelliest Fruit? Sohla and Ham Try Cooking With Durian [Mystery Menu]
What Happens When a Brown Chef Cooks White Food? [GQ]
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