You Can Soon Screw Up a Matt McCallister Recipe in Your Own Kitchen

You probably don’t have anything close to chef Matt McCallister’s culinary skills. He may not be the kind of nice guy who's willing to accommodate a wedge salad, but dude knows his way around a kitchen. Usually, though, chef Matt’s creations look more like something out of a museum than a dish that you could actually create on your own, but now he’s teamed up with Blue Apron to help you not be such an inept cook.

Blue Apron, the delivery service that will drop off pre-portioned meals with cooking directions at your front door, launched in Dallas just a few weeks ago. Now, they’re planning a collaboration with McCallister for the third week of September, which means you’ll be able to make a McCallister-approved dish right in your very own terrible apartment kitchen. Fortunately, they're providing plenty of instructions, so you probably won't screw it up. 

The dish, a Southern-style chicken cacciatore with creamy grits, isn’t something you’d see on the menu at FT33, but we imagine it’s going to be pretty damn good. McCallister’s own heavily tattooed arms guide you through the cooking process in photos. If you screw up, yell a bunch of expletives and throw a pan at the wall for a truly authentic executive chef experience.

The recipe looks deceptively easy — make the grits, put together a simple sauce, sear the chicken — but who knows, maybe you will need to drag out those tweezers to perfectly place the basil leaves on your plate. And considering that Blue Apron estimates it will take you 35 to 45 minutes to complete the dish, the wait time will be considerably less than at McCallister’s restaurant in the Design District.

Curiously missing from McCallister’s recipe are any (labeled) locally sourced ingredients. Blue Apron meals likely ship from out-of-state, but you’d think they would have sourced greens from an abandoned field or foraged for some other ingredient to stay true to McCallister’s locally minded culinary approach. That said, the recipe does largely take advantage of in-season ingredients — no mealy tomatoes here.

Chef Matt McCallister’s Blue Apron recipe will be available the week of September 20, which means you’ll need to order it by September 14 if you want to try your hand at this recipe. The instructions don’t say you need any special or weird equipment like you’d see in the kitchen at FT33, but you should probably go ahead and prepare the blast chiller and tweezers (we know you’ve been watching Chopped) just in case.