Hotline Feature – Chef Paul Smith: Breakfast Meat Rankings, Scrapple, and the Secret to Perfect Rice

Chef Jeff Paul Smith joins Dave Weekley for a Monday food segment covering two essential kitchen topics. The breakfast meat debate opens the conversation — with Smith ranking bacon, sausage, and country ham nearly equal, making the case that a restaurant specializing in great ham has a competitive edge, and admitting he'd happily order all three at once alongside breakfast potatoes over biscuits and gravy. The scrapple question follows, with Smith acknowledging the mystery of its ingredients while endorsing the spirit of it. The conversation shifts to rice — a make-or-break element for Latino and Asian restaurants — as Smith walks through his techniques for jasmine rice and his two signature rice recipes at Bad Happy, covering toasting, triple-rinsing, the knuckle water method, seasoning the cooking liquid, and the differences between long-grain jasmine, sushi, and Arborio-style rice.