Weird Food with Weird Al's UHF (#104)

July's movie was the cult classic UHF by Weird Al. In this film, Weird Al becomes the manager of television study and has to come up with original shows for it. There are a lot of food scenes in this film, but I knew that I needed to go with the weird Twinkie-weiner sandwich featured near the start of the film. It's an iconic item from this film that has a bit of a following of its own. Dessert was harder to choose. I discovered that in the movie, there is a spoof commercial of a Ghandi movie where Ghandi is an action hero and is completely different that he was historically. In one scene, he orders a medium rare steak at a restaurant. This reminded me of the raw steak fudge that I had made for Poltergeist. I decided to try to do something similar but with a steak that looked cooked rather than raw.

Once I had picked out the food, I wanted to find ways to make the night a little more fun. While researching this film, I had discovered the scene where water is sprayed into someone's mouth during one of the shows, with the catch phrase "You get to drink from the firehose!" This inspired be to make a Firehose cocktail, which was served from a fire extinguisher water pump.

Twinkie-Weiner Sandwich

At first glance, this might seem like a super simple and super weird dish. It is. But doing it well requires some subtlety. I had never eaten this before, so before making it, I read a lot of reviews online from people who had tried it. One thing that I noticed is that there were some inconsistencies in exactly how it was made. This is a three-ingredient sandwich, but how you prepare it does make a difference.

There are different kinds of hotdogs and there are also different ways to cook hotdogs. That can make a big difference in the flavor. From what I saw online, most people agreed that all beef franks were best. I wasn't surprised, because they are my preferred hot dog as well.

Deciding how to cook them was more challenging. In the movie, they don't show him cooking the dog, and it has no grill marks or indication of how it was cooked, or even if it was. For this reason, some people eat it with raw hotdogs. I didn't like this idea. Technically, hot dogs are precooked so it should be safe to eat them raw. However, cold hotdogs typically don't taste that great and can also be cold and wet, which would be problem with the Twinkie. Grilling or searing can add char flavor to the hotdog, which is normally great, but doesn't go well with the other ingredients of this dish. I knew that my goal was going to be to cook the hotdog in a way that it stays true to its original flavors. For awhile there, I thought that I would end up boiling the hotdog, but I was nervous about them becoming too wet or waterlogged. Ultimately, I decided to steam the hotdogs, which is something I have literally never done, but it allowed the hotdogs to cook through without absorbing a bunch of liquid or getting any burn or char flavor. It ended up working really well and maintain the authentic flavor of the beef frank. 

Ultimately, here are the ingredients and how I made them.

Ingredients:

All beef franks (not bun sized)

Twinkies

Can of American flavored Easy Cheese spray cheese

Directions:

1. Steam hotdogs until cooked. This should not take long. You'll see the hotdogs darken when they are cooked. Overcooking can cause them to split.
2. Put a Twinkie on a plate, flipped upside down so that you can see the three white cream spots. Gently cut it long ways and unfold like a hot dog bun.
3. Place the hotdog in your Twinkie bun and top with a zig-zag of American Easy Cheese.

I was really nervous about eating this. People online said that it wasn't as bad as it looked, but the concept is so bizarre that I normally would never give it a chance. I have to say, based on the way that I made it, it was not just better than you. It was actually pretty tasty. I expected to only take one or two bites, but I easily finished it. So did all of my guests. I thought for sure that people wouldn't finish them, but we did. I was shocked. The flavor is a bit salty and a bit sweet, which works well.

I will say that I couldn't have eaten several of these back to back. The sweetness is good, but would be too much if you ate a few. So, in addition to having these Twinkie-weiner sandwiches, I also had more traditional hotdog buns and toppings available.

Ghandi's Steak Fudge

The goal for this dessert was for it to appear as a seared steak that would be pink in the middle when sliced open as if it was a medium rare steak. I did this by making a red fudge and coating it in chocolate.

Ingredients:

Coconut oil spray

melting chocolates

2 1/2 cups white chocolate chips

1/2 cup milk chocolate chips

14oz can sweetened condensed milk

red food coloring

Directions:

1. Using aluminum foil, form a large steak shaped mold. Make sure you leave an inch or so of height along the outer edge. Once complete, spray the inside of your handmade mold with the coconut oil.
2. Melt the melting chocolate in a double boiler set up or in a metal bowl placed above a steaming pot of boiling water.
3. Once melted, use a spatula to brush a thin layer of chocolate along the bottom and sides of the mold. Let it cool and harden, but save the rest of the melting chocolate. You will need some of it later.
4. Melt the white chocolate and milk chocolate chips in another double boiler set up.
5. Stir in the condensed milk and food coloring until it is the correct shade of pink to resemble a medium rare steak.
6. Once combined, pour fudge into the chocolate coated mold and refrigerate to cool.
7. Re-melt the melting chocolates to brush over the top of the fudge.
8. Once everything has cooled, remove the fudge from the homemade mold. It will be shiny and will have some weird edges to it. Use something rough or course to sand down the edges of the chocolate coating. I used a mesh strainer. The top of the fudge will be too shiny to look like steak. You can rub it with coco powder or hot chocolate mix or something similar to dull it and also give it the look of a seasoned steak. Below is picture of mine when I had finished these steps.
   

It did come out looking a little dry, so before it was time to cut the fudge and serve it, I sprayed it with a little coconut oil to give it a little more moisture back and look more like a fresh steak. Store at room temperature in an air tight container. If you choose to refrigerate it, make sure that you allow it to reach room temperature before serving.

Fireball Smash

For my firehose cocktail, I used flavor pods for my Bartesian that are usually used to make Whiskey Smash. I decided that I wanted to make something similar to the smash, but with Fireball. You're not suppose to put flavored liquors in the Bartesian, so instead, I opened the flavor pods individually poured the liquid out to combine with water and Fireball. For each pod used, I added 1 oz of water and 2 oz of Fireball. Then, I finish it off with a little cherry juice for the color and sweetness. Overall, I feel like it came out pretty good. I served the drink out of a water pump drink dispenser designed to look like a fire extinguisher.

I decided that I didn't really need to keep the fire extinguisher after the party, so I would gift it to one of my guests based on a game that I had also created for the night. When we had our 100th movie night, we played a game where we pitched improved movies. Since this movie is about making tv shows, I decided to do something similar with tv shows. What I did is create a small Mad Lib style game where guests would fill out a card with blanks for place, group of people, adjective, number and object. Then they would randomly draw a Show card from a group that I had pre-written. Each card had a type of tv show and description of that show with blanks to be replaced with the things they had already written. Once the card was drawn, the player would describe their peculiar show and improv any additional information they feel would sell it. They should also give their show a name. The best pitched show won the game.

Example:

I don't remember what the winning player wrote for their location, but they drew the card for a court show, similar to Judge Judy or Divorce Court. Based on their ad libs, their court show focused on cases between 90's sitcom actors with their pilot episode focusing on a dispute over an etherial chainsaw valued at $13.

Overall, the game was silly and short, but fit well with the theme of the movie and I was able to give the winner the fire extinguisher pump to take home as a trophy or keepsake. I also had some toy fireman helmets available as gifts for guests who decide to "Drink from the firehose!"

All said and done, it was a fun night and everything tied well with the theme. My only regret is that it didn't pull a bigger crowd. It's not a very popular movie, so that may have had something to do with my smaller group size.