ANNOUNCER: And now, "Signature Dish," a WETA original series.

SETH: Today, on "Signature Dish," we're checking out three fan favorites.

After taking things for a slow-roasted spin... KATARINA: This is the heart of our restaurant.

It's what makes the magic.

SETH: My mouth was watering at the rotisserie, but my hunger levels are now just off the charts.

...We'll get a mouthful of bold Korean flavors.

DANNY: The main goal is to fit everything into one bite.

ANGEL: It's a small one.

SETH: It doesn't seem doable, but I'm going to try it.

ANGEL: There you go.

That's a wrap.

SETH: And stretch ourselves to the limit.

EDDIE: All right.

SETH: I want to suffer for my mozzarella to make a sublime sub.

Cheers, chef.

I'm Seth Tillman, WETA producer and DC native.

And I love good food.

Good to see you.

That's why I'm traveling to restaurants across the DMV, at each stop, looking for the one thing you just gotta try... that signature dish.

SETH: Our first hot tip from viewers like you leads us to the eastern market section of Capitol Hill to pay a visit to The Duck & The Peach, a new American restaurant opened by accomplished restaurateur Hollis Wells Silverman.

When she opened the restaurant in 2020, her first hire to head up the kitchen was Chef Kat Petonito.

KATARINA: I'm a Maryland native.

I grew up just loving food and loving what it did to bring people together, and I decided to follow that passion.

I always had this really big dream of opening a place where you could host a dinner party with your friends, but have us do all the work for you.

SETH: Since the restaurant's opening, Kat has worked in tandem with award-winning pastry chef Rochelle Cooper.

ROCHELLE: Kat was looking for a pastry chef to head up The Duck & The Peach, and I couldn't wait to have that conversation.

I really was drawn to the women-led-and-operated aspect of the business.

Kat and I have always worked well together.

Our flavors are very similar, and our styles are very complementary.

SETH: The Duck & The Peach draws heavily on California and New England culinary traditions.

KATARINA: For me, a California cuisine is fresh ingredients locally sourced with a French twist.

ROCHELLE: We really like to bring those bright, vibrant, fresh flavors from California cuisine with those homey dinner party flavors and textures from New England, sometimes they don't match up, but what we do is really hyper-focus on local agriculture.

We work really closely in our seasons to make sure that we're giving the fresh and best quality ingredients that we can possibly do.

SETH: Kat.

KATARINA: Seth.

SETH: Good to meet you.

KATARINA: Nice to meet you, too.

SETH: Rochelle.

ROCHELLE: Lovely to meet you.

KATARINA: Welcome to The Duck & The Peach.

SETH: Well, I'm excited to be here.

And it's The Duck & The Peach, so I'm guessing there's some duck on offer today?

KATARINA: Yes.

We're doing our signature dish, our rotisserie duck with a warm panzanella salad.

SETH: Oh, that sounds really good.

ROCHELLE: And I've got some really great sides to go along with it that actually utilize all the parts of the duck.

KATARINA: So, Seth, why don't you come with me, and I'll show you our rotisserie.

SETH: That's awesome.

Let's do it.

KATARINA: Okay, Seth, so this is the heart of our restaurant.

This is our Rotisol rotisserie.

This is what cooks all of our ducks here at The Duck & The Peach.

It's what makes the magic.

SETH: Wow, talk about magic, that is really a sight to behold.

KATARINA: So, with the ducks, we brine them for about 36 hours, then we blanch them, and then we hang them for another 24 hours.

That allows the excess water to drip out and the flavor to concentrate, and so, as they're roasting on a rotisserie, it's a pretty high, direct dry heat, and it's kind of imitating a slow cooking process, so it's able to render the fat and crisp up the skin.

(duck fat crackling) SETH: And, even as you're talking, I can hear a little bit of crackling... KATARINA: Yeah.

SETH: ...as the fat is dripping off.

And are these ducks coming from around here?

KATARINA: Yeah.

They actually come from a small farm in Pennsylvania called Joe Jurgielewicz.

He's actually a veterinarian-turned-farmer, and he raises all of these beautiful ducks for us.

The ducks we get they're actually bred to have a thicker fat cap on them.

SETH: And I see all the fat is dripping down in the pan.

KATARINA: Yes.

SETH: That's all going to get saved?

KATARINA: That's all gets saved.

We turn that into our duck fat croutons that also go on this dish.

And the funnel cake we fry in our duck fat as well.

SETH: Well, the aroma coming out of this rotisserie is incredible.

Are these just about ready to come off?

KATARINA: We have about 30 more minutes on these ducks, but I do have one ready for you if you follow me.

SETH: Oh, let's do it.

KATARINA: Okay, Seth, so here is our rotisserie duck and panzanella salad that I'm going to make for you today.

So what we do is we take a little red watercress.

We'll do some fresh herbs, some freshly torn mint, and then we have our croutons that we actually make with duck fat.

SETH: Of course.

More crunch.

KATARINA: You know you can't have enough crunch.

And then we have a citrus vinaigrette as well.

And then we take our very crispy duck.

We take all of our dark meat off, and that's what we're putting into our panzanella salad.

SETH: So the duck is actually going to go into the salad itself?

KATARINA: Yes, but first, we take the skin off and we kind of chop it up, and then we get snack it on the plate for our guests.

SETH: Oh, okay, what about for television show hosts, do they get a little snack?

KATARINA: Oh, you definitely get a snack.

SETH: All right, here we go.

KATARINA: It's good, a little bit of a mouthful.

SETH: Crispy on the outside, but hiding right under there.

KATARINA: Yep.

SETH: Delicious fat and a little spice as well.

KATARINA: So we use a Chinese five-spice in our brine.

That gives it a little of a warm feel.

And the fat of this actually helps coat the watercress as well.

SETH: So the watercress will maybe wilt a little bit?

KATARINA: Yeah, so the goal is to be a nice, warm salad.

And we'll give it a little toss.

(Seth laughs) So we put it on top of our nice, crispy skin.

So, now, I'm going to start breaking down our breasts.

SETH: And how did you guys decide to use this salad as the showcase for the duck?

KATARINA: So we are a California-inspired restaurant.

And one of California's most prestigious institutions is Zuni Cafe in San Francisco.

And they have a similar set, but done with a rotisserie chicken.

SETH: Mmm, all right, so you guys are putting your own little twist on it with the duck.

KATARINA: Yes.

And then we're going to place it right here, and then we're finishing off with that second breast.

SETH: All right, my mouth was watering at the rotisserie, but my hunger levels are now just going off the charts.

I can't wait to try it.

All right, Kat, Rochelle, it looks like we got all our ducks in a row here.

Should I just go for it?

KATARINA: Yeah, go for it.

SETH: All right, a little salad and maybe a little... KATARINA: Salad, and... SETH: ...white meat as well.

KATARINA: ...make sure you get some breasts... SETH: Okay.

KATARINA: ...and a little bit of that crispy skin.

SETH: The moment of truth is at hand.

Get a little crouton as well.

Get everything in one bite?

KATARINA: Yeah, one full bite.

It's good, right?

SETH: You got to be kidding me with that.

It is warm.

It is comforting.

The richness of the duck though is complemented really nicely with that citrus vinaigrette.

A little herbaceousness knocked it out of the park.

KATARINA: Amazing.

I'm glad you liked it.

SETH: All right, I'm going to try a little bit of this white meat as well.

And I can just see that fat cap you were talking about underneath the skin.

KATARINA: Yeah.

Definitely.

SETH: Wow.

I can see why you guys made this an anchor of your restaurant.

And then, these other dishes, are these utilizing the duck as well?

KATARINA: Yeah, they are.

So this is our duck liver pate and our potato funnel cake.

SETH: Ooh, funnel cake.

Well, maybe I'll save the dessert for last.

How is the pate prepared?

ROCHELLE: So we make almost a custard base with eggs with a little bit of wine and butter, and then we cook it low and slow in a steam combination oven.

And then, once it's done, we'll butter it on the outside.

And it's served with a mandarin jam on the bottom, as well as with our house-made pan de cristal bread.

SETH: More rich duck flavor and a little sweetness, too, from the mandarin.

That's kind of straddling the world of savory and pastry right there.

KATARINA: Yes, that's exactly what it is.

SETH: And then funnel cake, obviously.

KATARINA: So the funnel cake, funny thing you said, you said dessert.

It's actually not a dessert.

It is savory, but this is a 100% Rochelle's creation.

ROCHELLE: So our potato funnel cake was inspired by all the excess duck fat that we are using now to fry our potato funnel cake in.

And all the flavors from the duck, from the brine are imparted into that fat.

Underneath it is a white truffle Mornay sauce and, on top, a little bit of black Périgord truffles.

It's just fantastic.

SETH: Well, if I were ranking problems to have in the world, having a glut of duck fat would probably be one of the best problems to have.

ROCHELLE: It is.

SETH: And I'm imagining a lot of times the pastry program, the savory program are kind of siloed, but it looks like the two of you work together really well.

KATARINA: Yeah, I think that kind of speaks to us just being friends for a number of years.

ROCHELLE: Yeah.

KATARINA: Every day, we get to collaborate kind of with our best friend.

ROCHELLE: Yeah.

KATARINA: So, hopefully, it translates to our food.

SETH: Oh, it translates through and through.

And I cannot wait to come back to see what you guys do with the duck next.

Thank you so much.

KATARINA: Of course.

ROCHELLE: Thank you.

KATARINA: Thanks for coming.

SETH: Our next fan recommendation takes us to 18th Street in Dupont Circle to visit Anju, which has quickly become a DC institution.

The restaurant is led by two celebrated chefs, Angel Barreto and Danny Lee.

DANNY: My parents moved to the DC area around late '70s, early '80s.

They're kind of like part of the first Korean immigrants to settle down in the northern Virginia area.

As I grew older, I started to realize that my mom was an incredible chef and cook.

We opened up Mandu in 2006.

And, at the time, it was DC's first full-service Korean restaurant.

SETH: After a decade-plus in operation, Mandu suffered a devastating fire in 2017.

Chef Danny worked to rebuild, opening Anju in the same space two years later with Chef Angel tapped to lead the kitchen.

ANGEL: Both my parents they were in the military, so they would travel around Korea.

My dad lived in Busan.

My mom lived in Dongducheon.

She fell in love with the food, the culture.

When I grew up, she would tell me stories about Korea, and we would have Korean food at home, too.

But I decided international relations wasn't for me, and I decided, one day, like I wanted to do... go to cooking school.

I knew I wanted to cook some sort of Pan-Asian foods, so I went to Wolfgang Puck, working my way up from cook to sous chef to executive sous.

And then Danny reached out to me about the opportunity to become the chef at Anju, and I knew this is what I wanted to do.

Anju means food you pair with alcohol.

Initially, we wanted it to be more of a almost like a gastropub, a modern Korean bar.

DANNY: We wanted to really push the boundaries of Korean drinks, Korean cocktails, Korean spirits.

In addition to food that paired well with it, we wanted to pay homage to street food, some modern trends, some of our own takes on Korean food.

ANGEL: There's a word in Korean called hansik.

Hansik means like traditional, core Korean values.

We always try to imply that with the food we do here, but also give ourselves space and breadth to adapt and grow and change.

When we opened up, it was such a huge explosion.

We didn't really expect it.

We were busy from day one.

Every seat in the restaurant was completely packed.

SETH: After being open for just five months, Washingtonian Magazine shocked Angel and Danny, and their partner Scott Drewno, with a number one ranking on its annual best -restaurants list.

SCOTT: Yahtzee.

Who's that a good-looking guy right there?

DANNY: And for a Korean restaurant to get that accolade and to have hundreds of guests waiting in line, I took a lot of pride in it.

Being Korean-American to have that much interest in our restaurant and in our food was incredibly special to me.

SETH: Chef?

ANGEL: Hey.

How are you?

SETH: I'm doing great, and I am thrilled to be here.

ANGEL: Excited to have you.

SETH: What are you cooking up?

ANGEL: We're going to do our signature dish at Anju.

That's our ssam board.

Ssam in Korean means like lettuce wraps.

So, at Anju, we do a boneless short ribs that we marinate for about one day, and then we grill it.

SETH: All right, so grilled marinated short rib sounds a lot like Korean barbecue.

ANGEL: Absolutely.

Yeah.

SETH: All right, and you're doing the actual work to grill it, so I can just sit back and enjoy it.

ANGEL: Absolutely, yeah.

SETH: All right, so how do you get started on this process?

ANGEL: So it starts off with a really delicious marinade.

So we're going to start, first of all, with some scallions, and then we have some aromatics, garlic and ginger that we pulse together.

Next, we have some toasted sesame seeds.

These are toasted and crushed, and you get a lot of nuttiness.

And, of course, it wouldn't be a marinade without a little bit of soy sauce.

I like to use light soy here because regular soy can be a little bit too heavy for this dish.

And then we have a little bit of mirin.

Mirin adds a little bit of sweetness to it.

This is, here, an onion puree with a little bit of garlic also.

Then we're going to add a little brown sugar to this dish.

SETH: Because, with a Korean barbecue, that sweetness is going to give it that nice kind of caramelized... ANGEL: It's that balance, right, where you want sweet and savory out of this dish.

And that extra molasses helps to get a little bit more depth to it.

Can you hand me the black pepper?

SETH: You got it, chef.

ANGEL: All right.

That adds a little bit of spice to it.

And, of course, some sesame oil.

Lastly, we're going to do a little bit of a lemon lime soda.

SETH: Just generic lemon lime soda?

ANGEL: Generic lemon lime soda.

That carbonation and citrus is going to punch through a little bit, and it'll also help tenderize the meat.

SETH: Nice, now, I feel like maybe we missed out on a sponsorship opportunity here.

We'll save that for the next episode.

ANGEL: Next time, right?

Yeah.

All right, now that we have the marinade, we're going to process some short ribs.

SETH: Oh, that looks like a nice cut of meat right there.

ANGEL: Yeah, so we're using Creekstone boneless short rib.

This is the prime cut.

So we're going to slice this in half.

You can really see all the marbling out of this.

SETH: Oh, that is beautiful.

ANGEL: Really, really beautiful.

And I'm going to do what's called a pocket cut.

So slide it open.

Cut.

Cut.

So, next, I'm just going to start doing some diamond scoring.

SETH: And this is really going to help the marinade absorb into the meat.

ANGEL: This is also a tenderizing process, too.

Doing this allows the marinade to penetrate through.

We're going to do it on both sides.

All right, so now this is scored and ready to go.

We're going to take that marinade that we just made and throw it in there.

We want to let this marinate for about one day, so you're going to get max flavor out of this dish.

Really, really delicious.

SETH: Max flavor.

I love it.

ANGEL: We have some that's already ready.

So, after one day, you can see the meat is very, very pliable and tender.

So, the next steps, we're going to take that marinated meat.

We're going to throw it on a very hot grill.

We're going to get a nice char on it, so we're going to cook it for about two minutes on one side, flip it, and then another three minutes on the other side.

And then we're going to throw it right into the oven for about three to four minutes.

Pull it out, let the meat rest, and then slice it.

So now we're going to assemble our ssam board.

We're going to take some toasted sesame oil and ssamjang, red leaf lettuce, perilla and some other accoutrements like roasted garlic, crispy shallots.

After that, we're ready to enjoy the ssam board.

SETH: All right, Angel, Danny, this looks incredible.

It looks like the drinks are a little far away from me though.

What's the story here?

DANNY: We wanted to kick things off with a Korean drinking game called "Titanic."

So what we're going to do is we start with this delicious Korean beer.

And then you just want to pour about halfway through, but, considering that Angel and I both think that you're going to lose, I might put a little bit more in.

SETH: Have you rigged this game so that I would lose?

DANNY: We'll see.

And then we're going to take a soju glass and then just float it.

And now what we're going to do is take turns pouring however much of soju you want into the soju glass.

SETH: Oh, boy.

All right.

I wonder what's going to happen.

And there we go.

ANGEL: Well done.

DANNY: Hey.

SETH: On an empty stomach, no less.

All right, so how do we start to attack this ssam board here?

DANNY: I think I'll make you my preferred way to doing it, so we're going to take a little leaf of lettuce.

We're going to stack the sesame leaf.

And then what I'd like to do is then first do a nice little paste of the ssamjang.

And then, on top of it, and, remember, this is a one-biter, we get a little bit of the garlic.

SETH: With the beef?

ANGEL: Yeah.

DANNY: Then we're going to take a couple pieces of the galbi.

SETH: There you go.

All right, double meat.

DANNY: Stick it right there.

And, I'll be gentle, I won't put rice in this one.

ANGEL: I think it'd be nice.

DANNY: Yeah.

Well, you know what we should do?

A little bit of kimchi.

SETH: Oh, yeah, there you go.

And so this one bite?

DANNY: Yes.

This is tiny.

ANGEL: That's a small one actually.

DANNY: Yeah, that's tiny.

So what you want to do is just roll it together and open your mouth as wide as you can and think that you're just like stuffing your whole fist into your mouth.

SETH: This is just obscene eating on "Signature Dish" today.

Oh, my God.

DANNY: It's doable.

It's a small one.

SETH: It doesn't seem doable, but I'm going to try.

DANNY: There are 90-pound Korean women that do this, and it's even... ANGEL: Bigger platter, yeah.

There you go.

DANNY: See?

ANGEL: You did it.

Yeah.

(laughter) Cut.

That's a wrap.

(mumbles) (mumbles) DANNY: We're not screwing with you.

You just did what you were supposed to do.

ANGEL: Yeah, legit, this is how we do it.

DANNY: Keep chewing.

CREW: This needs to be like part of the fun.

ANGEL: And then he passed out.

DANNY: Where did he go?

(laughter) "B" for effort.

ANGEL: You got it down.

There you go.

DANNY: Honorary Korean.

SETH: "B" for effort.

"D" for execution.

DANNY: No.

"A" for effort.

You went after it.

That was great.

SETH: But I have to say, as embarrassing as that bite was, the flavors are incredible.

The sweetness of the marinade has created such a nice crust and the vivaciousness of the leaf, the kimchi, just a lot of exciting flavors.

DANNY: Yeah.

I mean, for us, we think that's a hallmark of Korean cuisine.

Korean dining, it's okay for a dish to have just one note mainly because you have something pickled.

You have the freshest from the fruit.

You have the lettuce.

You have the bitterness and earthiness coming from the sesame leaf, and then you have the funk coming from the ssamjang, right?

And, altogether, it creates this beautiful harmony that is honestly so unique to Korean food.

ANGEL: Yeah.

It really encompasses what the beauty of Korean food is.

Normally, in Western cuisine, we want to fulfill everything in one box, while, in Korean food, you kind of build your own adventure.

You make food adjust to you.

SETH: Well, this place is fun.

The food is amazing.

I'm done with my bite now.

I'm ready to go in for a lot more.

Thank you guys so much.

DANNY: No.

Thank you.

ANGEL: Thanks for coming.

All right, now for some soju?

SETH: Let's do it.

SETH: Our final piece of audience advice has us heading to Old Town Alexandria.

On a quiet stretch of King Street sits Eddie's Little Shop where owner Eddie McIntosh is offering a chef-driven touch to the classic deli.

EDDIE: I'm originally from Bronx, New York.

I grew up with food my entire life.

With my mom being from Italy, I mean, an amazing cook, just sitting next to her doing my homework while she was cooking each night.

The food culture in the '80s when I was growing up, just going to each specialty market, you were talking to the person who owned the shop, speaking to maybe the butcher or the fishmonger about what was the freshest ingredients, so, for me, there was a sense of pride behind it.

CREW: Hi, welcome to Eddie's!

EDDIE: Eddie's Little Shop and Deli started from this idea of, while I was working in kitchens, I was always behind a closed door.

You really don't have that accessibility to people, so it was kind of a mix of being able to do what I love, but then also directly connecting with people.

Eddie's Little Shop is going to be a place that surprises you.

We make our cannoli.

We make our own mozzarella.

We make every sandwich to order.

SETH: Across from the deli, Eddie's also offers hard-to-find grocery items, many imported directly from Italy.

And the shop is awash in nostalgic touches.

EDDIE: I brought in things that I had in my childhood collection in my attic, in my basement because I want people to feel like there's a connection to feel like maybe they walked in here 20 years ago and don't remember it.

About two months before we had my daughter, we opened up Eddie's, my wife and I, so Emma is just as much of the shop as anything.

For me, it's not just about the business, it's about growing together.

SETH: Eddie.

EDDIE: Seth.

SETH: Good to meet you.

EDDIE: Good to meet you.

How are you?

SETH: Oh, I am doing great because I love sandwiches.

I love subs.

But, no meat, no bread, what are we starting with here?

EDDIE: So, here, we make mozzarella every day.

It's so important to us because making this fresh is entirely different than it is just getting stuff store-bought.

It's night and day.

SETH: How do you get started?

EDDIE: Oh, we have about five pounds of mozzarella curd here.

The big thing for us at Eddie's is we just want to use the highest quality products available, so what you want to do is you want to go right in and start breaking it up.

The main ingredient here is you're going to start with your curd and some hot water.

What we're looking for is anywhere between 180 to 185 degrees Fahrenheit.

SETH: Ooh, we're playing with some hot water today.

EDDIE: I hope you're ready.

We're just going to pour this onto the side.

SETH: Oh, boy.

EDDIE: All right.

SETH: I'm a little scared.

EDDIE: You'll be fine.

And we want to just gradually bring up the temperature of this curd until it gets to the point where it's smooth and stretchable, because, if we just pour hot water on this curd right now, all the butter fat is going to just drain out of this.

SETH: After breaking up the curd a bit more, we start to drain the mixture and add some fresh water.

EDDIE: As you can see, the texture has already changed.

It's a lot softer.

The other thing is, then you don't want to see yellow in your water.

So yellow would be your butter fat, and that's just deliciousness.

You're going to dump that back in.

We're going to do this a few more times.

♪ ♪ Here's where we're going to add our salt.

Okay?

We're going to add a little bit more water.

SETH: And, this time, I think we're really going to be filling it?

EDDIE: Yes, we should.

SETH: All right, here we go.

EDDIE: How's it feel?

SETH: Hot.

Very, very hot.

EDDIE: You get used to it.

All right, do you feel yours kind of coming together a little bit more?

SETH: It's starting to congeal a little bit in a good way.

EDDIE: All right, so we're almost kneading it like a dough.

That's going to kind of help cycle the water through.

All right, very nice.

All right, a little bit more water.

What do you think?

SETH: Sure.

Yeah, why not?

Let's go scalding this time.

Oh, God, that is no joke.

EDDIE: So, if you do want to use the spoon... SETH: I do not want to use the spoon!

EDDIE: All right.

SETH: I want to suffer for my mozzarella.

EDDIE: All right, so... SETH: Ow!

EDDIE: All right, we're kind of turning it into a raft.

So, if you kind of pick it up right now, it's going to end up becoming a lot smoother all right, and coming together.

SETH: I don't think I've achieved raft-like status just yet.

EDDIE: All right.

SETH: So I keep pressing?

EDDIE: And that's fine and this is where we keep adding more water, okay?

SETH: God.

No.

What are you doing to me, chef?

[groans] EDDIE: The great thing about this is you can't do it wrong.

Right?

So, at the end of the day... SETH: You might find out that's not true.

EDDIE: So, once you have that raft, you can start lifting it up and stretching it.

And what we're doing is, right, you're going to see it's going to fall apart.

And so we're starting to see the stretch.

Okay and this is really the important part of bringing it up.

SETH: This is the famous mozzarella stretch.

EDDIE: This is, all right, and we're going to kind of let gravity do its work.

SETH: Wow, look at that.

EDDIE: All right, we're going to add a little bit more water to yours, okay?

SETH: It's just my hands, chef.

I don't need them for anything.

Ah, there we go again.

After one final stretch...

It's time to shape the mozz.

EDDIE: We're going to do large balls.

Okay?

So what you want to do is you want to pick it up.

All right?

And then, again, you get that nice stretch.

All right?

SETH: Yeah, nice-ish.

EDDIE: So what you want to do is you want to kind of tuck it into itself.

SETH: All right.

EDDIE: Keep creating that ball.

Squeeze it in between.

All right?

And you're going to pinch.

SETH: All right.

EDDIE: And this is going to go into our cold water bath and just start helping the cheese to seize up a little bit.

And this is where you can have a little bit of fun with it, so you can do knots, you can do larger balls, you can do logs, but then you can also do the smaller types of shape as well.

SETH: You know what, chef?

I think I'm just going to snack on that just to... EDDIE: There you go.

SETH: Oh, wow.

All right, fresh mozzarella, right from the expert's hand.

Well, chef, that's some dynamite mozzarella right there.

I'll be coming back here soon for some remedial instruction.

EDDIE: Well, thanks for making me look good.

Why don't we take some mozzarella right now and walk over and make a sandwich with it?

SETH: Sounds great.

Let's do it.

EDDIE: This is where we're going to make our Signature Dish, "The Emma."

So we're taking our fresh mozzarella that we just made.

So we cut into it.

We're looking for that nice milkiness.

SETH: Oh, yeah, nice, and lots of good moisture is still in there.

EDDIE: So that's what we're looking for.

Right?

And so, when we slice it to our mozzarella, we're looking for big slices.

Because we take all this time to make it, we want this to be the star.

SETH: A big honkin' piece of mozzarella.

EDDIE: Yeah.

We use fresh ciabatta for this.

We've toasted this twice.

We want kind of like a nice kind of hard toast to this.

It's going to help the sandwich not get soggy.

So what we have here is a pepperoni cruschi paste.

All right?

We bring in peppers from the Basilicata region of Italy.

They're dried sweet peppers.

We smash this up in pestle and mortar with fresh garlic, sun-dried tomatoes, dates, extra virgin olive oil, and a little bit of salt.

SETH: Ooh.

EDDIE: So, besides the pepperoni cruschi, we have our mozzarella, so we put that down.

For all that work that we did, we have to enjoy it.

On top of that, if you don't mind me handing you the pesto, as we make it fresh daily, it's also nut-free.

Then we're going to do our fresh arugula to add a little bit more sweetness, a little bit of a fig glaze.

SETH: Ooh.

EDDIE: So we top it off with a ciabatta, and then let's dig in.

SETH: Time to eat.

EDDIE: That's it.

SETH: Beautiful.

Yeah.

EDDIE: To you, Seth, to Emma, thank you so much.

SETH: Cheers, chef.

(crunch) EDDIE: When you start doing the hand thing like this, we know we're in a good place.

SETH: I will keep doing it over and over again because, just on the texture alone, that creamy mozzarella with that nice, sturdy, toasted ciabatta and all the sweet elements, too, that's a really, really great sandwich.

EDDIE: Thank you, Seth.

With excellent mozzarella, great layering of chef's mentality, it kind of balances itself out.

SETH: And mozzarella is an interesting cheese, too, because the flavor is not overpowering, but you can just taste the freshness.

EDDIE: It is.

So, one big seller that we have at Eddie's and an opportunity that we have for our guests is that they get to build their own sandwich.

And I want to give you the opportunity to build your own.

SETH: All right, time to make my own sandwich.

EDDIE: So, starting with the bread and working your way down, yeah, we really want to know what sounds good to you.

SETH: After mulling over the menu, I decided on a sub roll with citrus mayo, then added layers of Virginia ham and my favorite deli meat, capocollo.

From there I went with the pickle, stay with me here, folks, and, of course, the mozzarella.

On top of that, went some tomatoes, onions, and arugula with the balsamic glaze for some sweetness to round things out.

EDDIE: All right, here we go, "The Seth."

SETH: "The Seth."

Let's give it a rip.

EDDIE: All right, let's go.

SETH: All right.

EDDIE: We've got it.

Nice job.

SETH: We're doing it again.

Well, I'm pretty happy with that creation.

You know, I thought throwing in the pickle was a little bit of a wild card, but I think it works well.

There's a lot of good acid with that great ham.

But, obviously.

If I was going to make a sandwich, I had to have the mozzarella.

EDDIE: It did.

The pickles is great and then nice with the Virginia ham.

That saltiness is really adding to it as well.

SETH: Well, I'm glad that my sandwich picks might be a little better than my mozzarella-making skills.

EDDIE: What we love to do is, when this show airs, we're going to put this on the menu.

We're going to give a portion of the proceeds to charity.

SETH: I am really honored.

This has been a great experience from the get-go.

"The Seth," "The Emma," hard to choose between the two, but, uh, maybe the viewer at home can pick which one they like the best.

EDDIE: I can't wait.

SETH: Thanks, chef.

EDDIE: Thank you.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ANNOUNCER: To find out more about great food in the Washington Metro area, visit weta.org/signature dish.