You’ve seen us highlighting other “food truckies” to help their business, this time it’s OUR turn to reach out to them for help!
We’ve been teasing and perfecting our NEW blackened grill menu with the help of a well-known name in the food industry. Chef Jamie has not only helped perfect some of our favorite seasonings but has started a new project in the form of a food truck!
Learn more on our second episode of Homegrown Highway!
Support Chef Jamie with ‘Chef’s Table by Jamie’ at facebook.com/Jamie-Burton-Mcafee-114657897041306
Find us on Instagram at @EatMyCatfish and @EatMyCatfishNWA
Follow us on Facebook: facebook.com/EatMyCatfishAR
Chef Jamie
Travis Hester:
All right, here we are with a very special episode of the Homegrown Highway. Today, we’re headed down to Pine Bluff Country Club to visit our buddy, Jamie McAfee. For years, y’all been asking us for some blackened catfish or some real catfish options. And hopefully today, Jamie will help us figure that out. Many of you probably know Chef Jamie from Pine Bluff Country Club. He’s been in business a long time, really great at what he does. He studied under some of the best chefs in the world, and most recently started a food truck called Chef’s Table by Jamie. We couldn’t be more excited to work with Jamie today, and hopefully, he can show us the way of his blackened catfish and shrimp, and we can add some dishes for y’all to try out soon.
Travis Hester:
Chef Jamie? Hey man, pleasure to meet ya.
Chef Jamie:
Pleasure to meet you.
Travis Hester:
Thanks for having us in today. It looks like you got us all fixed up.
Chef Jamie:
I do. Glad to have you in.
Travis Hester:
You’re going to teach us how to blacken some fish.
Chef Jamie:
I’m going to teach you how to blacken fish, and you can use already blacken cheese in it, but I’m going to teach you how to possibly make one of your own.
Travis Hester:
I saw it here that you studied under Chef Paul, it that right?
Chef Jamie:
I did.
Travis Hester:
Tell me about that.
Chef Jamie:
I met him, I think it was in 1980 in New Orleans at the National Chef’s Convention.
Travis Hester:
Wow.
Chef Jamie:
He was unloading a van, and I asked him if he needed help, and we just developed a friendship from there. He’s been here seven, eight times.
Travis Hester:
Yeah.
Chef Jamie:
My son worked for him. I’ve worked probably 50 events with him, and we just became fast friends. In the last month, my son worked for him, he worked in his spice test kitchen. He developed spices for pot pies. He developed spices all around the world.
Travis Hester:
Wow.
Chef Jamie:
Everybody thought his restaurant is what made him, but his spice business did almost 6 million a year.
Speaker 3:
Wow.
Travis Hester:
That’s crazy. What a great story.
Speaker 3:
[crosstalk 00:02:01] incredible.
Chef Jamie:
But let’s make some of this up. Now, the great thing about mixing your own, and this is a season salt, which is typically very salty.
Travis Hester:
Yeah.
Speaker 3:
Yes.
Chef Jamie:
But you can control your salt this way.
Speaker 3:
Okay.
Chef Jamie:
And you can also control your heat.
Speaker 3:
Okay.
Chef Jamie:
But typically what we do is, first of all, we want to get all the excess moisture off of it, because the water in this fish, when you put it on that hot skillet, the water mixes with oil is what causes it to flame and do things of that nature.
Travis Hester:
All our fish is fresh, so it’ll help us a little bit in that sense. We still need to dry it off, but it has no additives at all. There’s no tripolyphosphate in there from when they do freeze it, so that’s good.
Chef Jamie:
That’s a good way to buy it.
Chef Jamie:
I’m going to slip over here and turn these iron skillets on. Let’s go over here and stink up the kitchen.
Travis Hester:
Yeah, let’s smoke it up.
Chef Jamie:
I’m going to put a little oil here.
Travis Hester:
The right side we dreg, the left side we just sprinkle. The bronze’s on the left. Got some color coming up. All right. The bronze shrimp is done. I’m going to try it out.
Chef Jamie:
Now, this is bronze. This is baked, and this is pan seared a little, and this is your blackened. But what you will see is none of these will be too salty. It might be a little hot.
Speaker 3:
Awesome.
Chef Jamie:
Now, if you was to squeeze lemon over this, it really brings down the heat, too.
Speaker 3:
Okay. That looks good.
Chef Jamie:
Now taste these.
Travis Hester:
That’s good. That’s really, really good.
Chef Jamie:
And see how you [crosstalk 00:04:28].
Travis Hester:
Not too salty, has a great flavor, and I could eat all that. Hi, Jay.
Chef Jamie:
This is my son, Jay. Now, he actually worked for the great Paul Prudhomme. I just worked events with him.
Travis Hester:
What prompted you all to get into the food truck?
Chef Jamie:
I think it’s a simple solution. The younger generation likes to have weddings and venue that don’t have a kitchen, and we was just trying to attract to being able to still do weddings.
Travis Hester:
Tell me about-
Speaker 3:
[crosstalk 00:04:59].
Travis Hester:
The menu on the food truck, mean by it, what’s the inspiration behind it?
Chef Jamie:
I’ll tell you where I get a lot of my ideas from is watching Beat Bobby Flay and Guy Fieri’s, the Diners, Drive-ins-
Speaker 3:
I love that too. It’s such a good show.
Chef Jamie:
I might watch it for three hours, pick up one.
Travis Hester:
Yeah.
Chef Jamie:
One of the best sellers we’ve had was Beat Bobby Flay, and they did jerk-
Jay:
Pulled pork.
Chef Jamie:
Pork, and then they did a sweet potato with it, so we just started stuffing jerk pulled pork and a sweet potato, and people loved it.
Travis Hester:
All right, Jamie, this has been unbelievable. It surpassed every expectation I had. You are truly talented, man.
Chef Jamie:
Thank you.
Travis Hester:
We’ve got to get this on our menu. We’re going to go back, and start training our folks on it. We may have to get you up there-
Chef Jamie:
I’d love to.
Travis Hester:
To maybe get a taste test before we launch it and let our guests [inaudible 00:05:49] to try it.
Chef Jamie:
And if you want me to come just to practice on the flat top, we up there every Monday teaching, and we through 1:00.
Travis Hester:
Really?
Chef Jamie:
Yeah, so 1:00, 1:30, no is it?
Jay:
We got 2:00 until we’re done.
Chef Jamie:
From 2:30 on, we could run by.
Travis Hester:
We’re going to take you up on that.
Chef Jamie:
Yeah.
Travis Hester:
This is great.
Speaker 3:
Yes, absolutely.
Travis Hester:
Yeah. Man, it is awesome. Can’t thank you enough.
Chef Jamie:
Enjoy doing it.
Travis Hester:
Appreciate you having us down.
Chef Jamie:
Yeah.
Speaker 3:
Thank you so much.
Travis Hester:
All right, that’s a wrap. We’re heading back to Little Rock, and we’ll see y’all soon.