Shadowing Practice: I Cooked Against My Girlfriend - Learn English Speaking with Video
Creating lesson...
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Nick: Today will be my most difficult cooking challenge yet.
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I'll be competing against my girlfriend Isabelle.
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We'll have three rounds consisting of an appetizer, entree, and dessert.
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But there's just one thing.
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Isabelle, how often do you cook?
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Isabelle: Never. Nick: Never.
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So I'm giving Isabelle a huge advantage in each round to level the playing field.
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If I lose, I'll take her on a one week luxury vacation to any destination of her choosing. But if I win, I don't think I'll have a girlfriend for much longer.
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Isabelle: Let's cook. Nick: Round one will be an appetizer round and I will be blindfolded.
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I'll be making what I call a blindfolded Bloomin Onion, and it's certainly not going to be easy, but I'm going to give it my best shot.
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Isabelle: Today I'm going to be making a poke bowl.
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So I've made poke bowls before, but never with a full salmon here.
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I don't really know how to approach this.
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Look at him. He's so cute for.
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Nick: The bloomin onion. I'm gonna chop off the head of the onion.
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And the idea is we want the onion to look like this.
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So I'm gonna chop down all of the sides of this onion, being very, very careful with my fingers as I do it. And when I feel like I've gone all the way through, I'll open the onion up and hope that it holds together.
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The key now for me is going to be to make the batter for my Bloomin Onion.
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We need this to be extremely flavorful, especially because the judge I'm trying to impress today is none other than my cameraman, Manny.
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Manny has been locked in a soundproof room and has no idea who has cooked each dish.
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Isabelle: I feel like I'm doing this, you know, semi correctly.
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And our first piece got some scales in there.
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We'll fix that later. Now I'm going to try to get the skin off here okay.
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This is a bit harder than I anticipated.
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I feel like they make it look so easy when they do it.
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have to give it the love and care that it deserves.
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Isabelle: Okay, now we have all of our ingredients so it's time to plate.
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So first we're going to put the rice into our bowl. Nick: 100 bucks.
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She doesn't season the rice guaranteed.
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Not even salt.
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Isabelle: I'm gonna flatten it out.
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And then of course gotta use some Osmo throw some of this on here.
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Nick: Not even salt.
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Isabelle: Then I'll add on the rest of my ingredients and top it off with some special sauce and sesame seeds. And we're done.
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Nick: My Bloomin Onion is complete.
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I'll place it down on the center of my plate.
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Then I'll press in on that section in the middle and in goes our sauce.
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Done. Isabelle: Do you think it looks good?
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Nick: I actually think it looks really good.
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Isabelle: Are you feeling a little nervous now?
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Nick: No. Because you didn't season your rice.
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Manny: Okay, so I don't know who made which dish, but I'm gonna taste both and rate them out of ten. I'm gonna start with this poke bowl.
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This looks good I love salmon.
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All right, this is what I'll say.
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I thought all the sauce was gonna be like a spicy mayo, but it tastes like a thousand island dressing. But the salmon tastes fantastic and fresh, and the bowl looks beautiful. I'm gonna give this a 7.8 out of ten.
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Okay, now moving on to this blooming onion.
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It looks like it's pretty well fried.
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The coating seems like it's pretty good.
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I'm trying to pull a piece off, but the batter just completely separates from the onion. So this is not looking great for whoever made this.
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I think I'm just gonna have to try it with just the batter.
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The batter tastes great, but I'm getting all bloomin and no onion.
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I'm sorry, but this is a four out of ten.
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Nick: Round two. I'm feeling a little bit sad after that loss, but this one shouldn't be as bad for me. This is the entree round, and for this round, I get to pick just three pieces of cooking equipment for this recipe.
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I'll need my potato ricer.
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Only one pan and it's hard to cook without a chef's knife.
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I'll be cooking a recipe right out of my cookbook, what I call the Yolky gnocchi.
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Because I don't have access to an oven, I need to boil my potatoes, which for gnocchi is not great, but I've got no choice.
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Once my potatoes are in, I'll cover them with water and we'll let these cook until they're nice and tender.
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Isabelle: We're gonna do a spaghetti here with some shrimp, and we're gonna make a nice red sauce. So we're gonna start to season because Nick was making fun of my rice last round. Garlic powder, smoked paprika.
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And this will reduce as we work on everything else.
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Nick: I just almost grabbed a fork to test if they're fork tender and also this pair of tongs, but then realized I can't use either of those.
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This is a real life game of hot potato.
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I'll wrap these potatoes in the towel to let them steam.
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Oh shoot, there's a towel county's kitchen equipment.
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Isabelle: Now we're starting the shrimp.
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We're gonna put a little oil in the pan, get it hot, and then we're gonna stick these bad boys in straight in the pan.
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Nick: Every time she turns the heat on with the oil, that's what it ends up as.
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Whoops. I don't know how it hasn't become something she learned after doing this.
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Isabelle: A little bit of garlic powder.
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On top, a little bit of paprika.
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Whoa. May have been a little too much.
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They're getting a little bit smoky in here.
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Nick: Oh my God, no.
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Isabelle: What's wrong with.
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Them? Nick: What do you mean, what's wrong?
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Isabelle: I seasoned them a little.
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They're honestly doing great.
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Nick: I'm telling you right now, you're going to set the fire alarm off.
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Isabelle: Should we restart?
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Nick: No. At this point I'm going to peel my potatoes.
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And the idea is that we want to keep these as light and fluffy as possible.
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The most difficult part with this is that you want to peel the potatoes when they're still nice and hot, as I explained in my cookbook, but it becomes difficult to do it without burning your hands. Now it's time for me to use my second piece of kitchen equipment, the potato ricer, which in my opinion, you cannot make gnocchi without using my hands. Now, since I have no other option, I'm going to go ahead and make a little well in the middle of my potato here, then sprinkle over all of it with a touch of salt, a very light pinch of ground nutmeg.
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Then into the center, I'll crack one egg and begin to sprinkle in some of my all purpose flour. Now I'll gently begin to mix.
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Gnocchi is one of my favorite things to make in the entire world, but I've never done it with such a minimal amount of kitchen equipment, so we'll see how it works out.
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Isabelle, what did I make you on Valentine's Day for the entree?
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Isabelle: Gnocchi.
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Nick: And how was it?
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Isabelle: It was quite good.
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Nick: So are you going to lose this round?
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Isabelle: No. Nick: When it comes to rolling out my gnocchi, this is one I need.
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Equipment. Number three, the knife to roll out my doll, hit the cutting board with some flour and cut this dough into about half and begin gently rolling back and forth.
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With this, I'm looking to make nice logs of gnocchi.
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I feel like I got this round in the back.
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I'll slice them into these beautiful pillows.
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Then once they're cut, give them a little pinch and that's ready to go.
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Isabelle: All right. We're just stirring up the sauce here a little bit okay.
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Don't don't show this.
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Let's remove this. We're gonna start on the pasta.
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I'm trying for the perfect al dente.
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Nick: Did you salt the water?
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Let me guess. No.
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Isabelle: You know, I should have known that he always goes salt your water like the ocean.
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Okay, it's.
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Nick: Time to cook our gnocchi, because I need this pan for some other things.
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Normally, I would not cook the gnocchi this far ahead, but I don't have a choice today.
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If you don't already know, knife drop is out right now.
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So if you want to make this gnocchi like I'm doing right now, make sure to go get yourself a copy.
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Isabelle: Now we're going to check the pasta, see if we've reached that al dente.
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I think only a couple more minutes and then we're good.
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Nick: Oh, my God, I don't know how to strain these.
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I didn't think about that with the potato ricer.
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So here's my idea. I'm gonna clean this thing out and I'm gonna use this as a strainer. I don't think anyone has ever done this before.
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My gnocchi is complete, so I'll come on over here and try to drop it right into my strainer. Oh, it's working so well.
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I'll dump these out onto the counter, but they're not done yet.
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Isabelle: Time to.
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Strain. I don't know where Nick keeps his strainers.
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I think I'm gonna use the frying bin.
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I think this will work.
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Ready? Yeah. Go.
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Oh. Sabotaging me. Nick: To finish.
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Up, it's time to get our gnocchi.
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Nice and crispy. This, to me, is my favorite touch that I put on this dish.
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The one extremely difficult part for me here is that I don't have anything to really move these around with, but I'm gonna have to figure out a way to make it work.
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These are looking beautifully golden brown.
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I want you to hear how crispy and golden these are.
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It's time now to plate.
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My hands are getting burnt by just touching this.
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I'll continue layering these up until I've achieved a beautiful tower of milk.
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To finish this off, I'll separate out an egg yolk.
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And I do have to be extremely careful here as I do this last part.
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If this doesn't rest perfectly on top, all of our hard work goes to waste.
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Isabelle: The key here is to make it look pretty, and make those spaghetti swirls that you see in all the photos looking good.
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I'm gonna put a nice even layer of sauce.
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Now I've got to add on all of my amazing shrimp, and I'll finish it off with some parmesan cheese.
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Finished product.
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Nick: I hope Isabel won't be upset about this, but I am going to have to borrow her microplane just to go ahead and finish my dish with a little bit of parmesan cheese, and I'll finish with just a little bit of this beautifully brown butter.
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This is my favorite flavor that you'll have in this dish.
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Manny: Round two entrees.
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Let's get into it. All right. Right off the bat I don't really know about this presentation. It kind of looks like a shrimp bloodbath.
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It could taste really good though so I can't judge it yet.
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It's better than I thought I would taste.
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All right, I'm going for one shrimp.
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I feel like I have to. It's part of the dish.
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Oh my God. It tastes so...
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I don't know what's wrong.
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Manny: 6.3 out of ten okay, so moving on to the second dish.
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I gotta say the presentation is pretty impressive.
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All right, let's cut this egg yolk.
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Oh my God. Look at that go.
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Before I even try it it looks homemade.
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And if I know Isabelle, I don't think she could pull anything like this off.
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So it might be Nick's dish. Hey.
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Sorry, Isabelle. All right, I have to try this.
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This looks so good. Mm.
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This is really good. 9.3 out of ten.
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Excellent dish. Nick: Round three is the dessert round.
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The final round of today.
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I have one win and Isabelle has the other.
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Why are you standing like, what are you. What are you saying?
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Isabelle: What do you want me to do?
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Nick: The twist for the dessert round is that I have to cook my whole dessert in an Easy-Bake oven. Hopefully we get a dessert good enough that I don't have to take her anywhere in the world for a whole week.
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Isabelle: This one's gonna be an easy one for me.
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We're gonna do a Cookie Monster ice cream sandwich.
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So right now we're mixing together our dry ingredients here, our sugar and our brown sugar, and then also our butter.
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Here we go. Next, eat in the eggs and vanilla.
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We have Charles here, good old Charles.
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Now we're slowly going to start to combine the dry ingredients into the wet.
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It's getting thicker.
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Nick: Before we begin I'm going to preheat my oven.
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And what I love about this there's no 350.
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No 375. It's just off or on.
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Probably the toughest part is that this is all we've got to bake things.
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This is the smallest container ever.
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For dessert, I'll be making a blueberry crisp.
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I'll start with some brown sugar, then a nice drizzle of melted butter.
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And I'll mix this all up.
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Now in with some all purpose flour and also a little bit of regular sugar.
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And of course a nice little splash of our homemade vanilla extract.
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And once I've mixed this up once more, I'll go ahead and add in some of these blueberry oats. Now I just want to mush this together so that we begin to get that nice crumbly form. I'll spray my baking dish now down with some of these frozen blueberries, and I'll top this all off with my crumble.
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This is ready to go into our oven.
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You gotta be careful. It looks like to fit this, I'm gonna have to press it down as best I can. Then we can go in.
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That's good. All right.
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Isabelle: We're gonna try to shape this into more of a dough with our hands, and then add the chocolate chips. And we made them pretty big so that they can fit the ice cream inside.
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Okay, now that we have our three cookies, we're going to stick them in the oven.
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There you go. We got here some blue ice cream.
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We're going to fill up this mold here and try to get a perfect circle with the ice cream. To fit in between the cookies.
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I got to work fast because it's already melting out here on the bottom.
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So we're going to stick this in the freezer while we wait for the cookies to finish.
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And a lot of meat in here.
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Bulking season.
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Nick: I'm at the point where I want to check on this.
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So we're supposed to push it all the way through and then you stick this in.
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Theoretically, I can just pick it up and pull it out.
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Oh, that is not cooked at all.
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I'm convinced this thing is pretty much doing absolutely nothing.
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This is about all I can do.
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The plate, my dessert. I'll first go down with a few scoops of my beautiful blueberry crumble, which I must say turned out better than I thought, but is not quite as crispy as I wanted it to be. I guess that's what happens when you cook in an Easy-Bake oven.
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Then I'm gonna go ahead and take a nice scoop of my vanilla ice cream, which is gonna go right on top of my tart, and we'll finish it with some nice fresh lemon zest, maybe a little blueberry juice on top to finish.
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Isabelle: It's time to plate the dessert.
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I'm gonna cut around the edge here, make sure it comes out nicely.
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Stick the other cookie right on top here.
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Kind of like an open mouth.
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And then for the finishing touch, we're gonna stick to eyes made from white chocolate right on the top. And here we have our Cookie Monster ice cream sandwich.
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Whew. Manny: All right. Dessert round.
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These are the final dishes.
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It looks like I have a ice cream sandwich here.
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Looks pretty good. I'm gonna take a bite.
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Whew. It's really cold.
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It was so thick, I honestly couldn't get a bite out of the whole thing.
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Absolutely delicious.
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Before I give it a rating, I want to try the other one.
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All right, we got our second dessert here.
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Honestly, looks like a little bit of a mess.
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All right, let's go in for a bite.
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Compared to our last dish, the presentation is really lacking.
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However, it's much easier to eat.
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I think I've made my final decision.
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Nick. Isabelle.
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I've tasted all three of each of your dishes.
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I've tallied up the results and I have a winner.
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One of you finished with just under 21 points and the other 23.5.
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Congratulations goes to.
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Isabelle. Isabelle: We're going to Japan!
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Manny: Can I come? Isabelle: No.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This B1 speaking lesson is built on the video “I Cooked Against My Girlfriend”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: Isabelle, Nick, round, gnocchi. This video has 224 sentences and 2900 words to shadow. The speech runs for 12:41. The speaker talks fast, about 229 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. Only 79% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is demanding.
Key vocabulary in this video
The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| dish noun | /dɪʃ/ | A vessel such as a plate for holding or serving food, often flat with a depressed region in the middle. |
| gnocchi noun | /ˈnjoʊ.ki/ | Italian pasta-like dumpling(s) made of potato or semolina. |
| onion noun | /ˈʌn.jən/ | A monocotyledonous plant (Allium cepa), allied to garlic, used as vegetable and spice. |
| dessert noun | /dɪˈzɝt/ | The last course of a meal, consisting of fruit, sweet confections etc. |
| potato noun | /pəˈteɪ.təʊ/ | The edible starchy tuber of the plant species Solanum tuberosum. |
| oven noun | /ˈʌ.vn̩/ | A chamber used for baking or heating. |
| cookie noun | /ˈkʊki/ | A small, flat, baked good which is either crisp or soft but firm. |
| blueberry noun | /ˈbluˌbɛ.ɹi/ | An edible round berry, belonging to the cowberry group (Vaccinium sect. Cyanococcus), with flared crowns at the end, that turns blue on ripening. |
| shrimp noun | /ʃɹɪmp/ | Any of many swimming, often edible, crustaceans, chiefly of the infraorder Caridea or the suborder Dendrobranchiata, with slender legs, long whiskers and a… |
| batter verb | /ˈbætə/ | To hit or strike violently and repeatedly. |
| ingredient noun | /ɪnˈɡɹiːdi.ənt/ | One of the substances present in a mixture, especially food. |
| bake verb | /beɪk/ | To cook (something) in an oven (for someone). |
| crispy adjective | /ˈkɹɪs.pi/ | Having a crisp texture; brittle yet tender. |
| entrée noun | /ˈɒntɹeɪ/ | The main course or main dish of a meal. |
| strainer noun | /ˈstɹeɪnɚ/ | A device through which a liquid is passed for purification, filtering or separation from solid matter; anything (including a screen or a cloth) used to strain… |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| go ahead verb | /ˌɡoʊ əˈhɛd/ | To proceed with; to begin. |
| roll out verb | To deploy or release (a new film or software, etc.); to launch (a product or service), especially in a gradual fashion across multiple regions. | |
| come on over verb | to visit someone's home or other location. | |
| come out verb | /ˌkʌm ˈaʊt/ | To be discovered; to be revealed. |
| end up verb | To bring to a conclusion. | |
| figure out verb | To come to understand; to discover or find a solution; to deduce. | |
| fill up verb | To make (something) completely full. | |
| go down with verb | To catch or contract (an illness). |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- Isabelle, how often do you cook?
- I don't really know how to approach this.
- I'm gonna chop off the head of the onion.
- Because you didn't season your rice.
- I'm gonna start with this poke bowl.
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | I've made · I've gone · has been locked |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | will be blindfolded · has been locked · is not cooked |
| Advice with “should” should + verb — saying what is a good idea | shouldn't be · Should we restart · should have |
| Comparatives -er than / more … than — comparing two things | harder than · better than |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 171 contractions and reduced forms, such as I'm, I'll, gonna. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: dish /dɪʃ/, shrimp /ʃɹɪmp/, presentation /ˌpɹɛzn̩ˈteɪʃn̩/, splash /splæʃ/, destination /dɛstɪˈneɪʃən/
- Long words — get the stress right: ingredient /ɪnˈɡɹiːdi.ənt/, appetizer /ˈæpɪˌtaɪzə/, beautifully /ˈbju.tɪ.fə.li/, cameraman /ˈkæm(ə)ɹəˌmæn/, anticipate /ænˈtɪs.ɪ.peɪt/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like dish, gnocchi, onion.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.