Simone Ashley Cooks Smash Burgers and Cookies While Sharing Career Stories

Can you take the seal off? Okay. Oh god, no. The lid's gone and the ketchup is all going to Hi Vogue. I'm Simone and I'm going to be cooking for you today. Cookies? A smash burger and my favorite, a vodka martini with a twist. I found out today that this cocktail is literally all vodka. That's probably the reason why I love it so much. You're going to want to get a chilled glass. We shot my Vogue cover in London for Vogue Germany and the theme of it was just there's a lot of vodka. I may as well There we go. Let's just finish the bottle. And the theme was day in the life of a fashion girl. I'm going to put a tiny bit of

vermouth in. I don't like too much, so and we were like filming on the streets um of like central London. I actually forgot to put the ice in first. We're going to put in a couple of scoops of ice. Wait, I'm putting this the wrong way. Can you see I've never done this before? Right, okay. And now we're going to shake it. You're going to shake it. It's good workout the arms. Whilst that's just chilling, we're going to cut a peel. I'm just going to get my knife and try my best to get the majority of the skin. Oh, actually kind of good, but I got a bit of the fruit on it. But it's okay. You just got to kiss the glass, kiss the rim with the lemon peel and pop it in. And then we're going to just ah,

there we go. Just going to pour it in. Yes. Strong and fresh, just like my personality. We're going to first make the cookies. Whilst they're in the oven we can then make the burgers. I love food. I've loved food since I was a kid. And actually when I was a kid I used to make my own YouTube cooking videos with my webcam and I had maybe about five viewers, but they were my loyal start to what is my career. I like making brown butter cookies because when you brown the butter makes it super nutty and caramelly. We're going to start off with a little bit of our Dutch courage. And we're going to throw in our butter into our pan. So, we're

going to talk music whilst I'm giving the butter some love. My EP is coming out in April. I've been singing since I was a kid and I always wanted to do it professionally. We've been cooking away. Cooking away. It's the most nervous I've ever been in my life. Just because I think it's something that's so close to my heart and I feel really proud and really brave for doing this. But the title of my album is called Songs I Wrote in New York. So, it's kind of what it says on the tin. It really came to life during a summer that I had in New York last year. Oh, we're getting browner.

We're getting there. And now we're going to crack two eggs into my stand mixer. I like using a stand mixer just cuz it's efficient. If I'm hosting guests at dinner party, it means I can like chat and gesticulate just gesticulate gesticulate gesticulating. I can gesticulate with my hands. I'm going to pour that in. You know what? You want to make sure that you Oh, that's hot. You want to make sure that you don't scramble the eggs, so I'm actually just going to let that be for a second. We're going to put the butter in a glass bowl. That's going to help things cool down a little bit more. My mom makes ghee which is like clarified butter. It's like a traditional Indian butter and the smell of brown butter really reminds me

of that. We're going to just put in the sugars, brown sugar for my brown butter cookies. And then we're going to put some white sugar in and now we're just going to pour in the butter. Just bit by bit we are going to add in our vanilla. Okay, we're going to put our salt and baking soda in these cute little bowls. Our flour. I had like a cooking class in my high school and the cooking teacher was really scary. Of all teachers you wouldn't have thought that the cooking teacher was the one that was going to whip your ass, but she was. We're going to just lift this up.

Mhm. We're going to go in with the vanilla toffee. Oh my god, it's going to That's going to take some muscle. Crunchy cornflakes. For me, the ideal chocolate chip cookie is soft and chewy, slightly salty. Okay, we're going to go with the dark chocolate chips. Ideally fresh out the oven, so they're nice and melted. There's a few places in New York. Levain is really good, but I feel like I haven't really been on the cookie hunt. I've been on the martini hunt, the burger hunt, the pasta hunt, the roast chicken hunt, but I'm Oh my gosh, this is really This is getting really thick. I love these Village. That's one of my favorite neighborhoods to go to. Actually, Momofuku is one of

my favorite places to go to. So, there is a waiter at Momofuku that looks like Bad Bunny and every time I go there I'm like, "Oh my god, I'm being served by Bad Bunny." I go there to just stare at the pretty waiter and to eat the great foods. I think my dough is ready. But cannot make cookie dough without eating it raw, so Okay. So, my dough has been made. We're going to make them into little balls. I'm just going to go rogue and go with my hands because this is a really thick dough. I used to work and serve FroYo with Nick Grimshaw. I saw him the last time like at a shift where we were serving FroYo together. And then years later the next time I saw

him was actually at the Met Gala, which is just kind of crazy. Devil Wears Prada, we filmed kind of the first half on the streets of Manhattan in the summer, which was just such a wild experience. Then we moved over to um studios in Queens and we shot all the runway stuff there, which was kind of surreal to be stepping into the runway offices. Final part of filming was in Milan, which was really fun. And then we wrapped in October. This is super rogue rustic cooking. So, some are big, some are small, but that's okay. We're an accepting cookie community here. And now we're going to put them in the oven. I'm going to make my favorite, which is a smash burger. It is my go-to snack / dinner whenever I'm in New York. I'm

going to make up a burger sauce. We're literally just going to wing this. I like mine to be quite mustardy. We're going to throw in a little bit of spicy brown as well cuz we all love a bit of spicy brown. Oh Can you take the seal off? Okay. Oh god, no. The lid's gone and the ketchup is all going to Whoop, that's enough. That's more than enough. This is dill pickle. And we got bread and butter pickle. Dill is a little bit more savory and I want a little bit of the pickle brine just to like cut through the fat of the burger. Whoo, that is way too much, but it's okay. We're going to mix it in. Throw just a tiny bit of ketchup in. When it comes to beef and burgers, I just think the simpler the better.

Oh. I nailed it. This is Genie, my amazing food stylist and she's been helping me out with my recipes. Right, I nailed it. Give me a high five. Joe. Yeah. Oh, I think my cookies are done. Well, ding to that. Cookies are out of the oven. So, we're going to really quickly make our burgers. I don't want any tomatoes or pickles or salad. I just need cheese, patty, and sauce. And to make them, thank you Genie, we're going to have a bit of parchment paper. First, let's smash this down. This is the best bit. Ooh. And you want to go low and slow. Can someone put a 2-minute timer on for me? The perfect burger for me is

one that I can eat with one hand and I'm going to build it in such a way where it doesn't fall everywhere. That's the worst when you have a burger and you take a bite and it just falls everywhere. I want to take a bite and a clean bite and be able to enjoy it. I'm going to put the heat way high. We're in New York City, everything's got to be done quick. The Devil Wears Prada 2, it's 20 years on from the original. This movie is a true reflection of what is happening with journalism, fashion, and media and more that you'll have to find out. We're going to flip now, so we're Oh my goodness. Okay, we're going to take off our parchments. I'm going to use cheddar cheese. There's an amazing

additional cast to this movie. We've got Lucy Liu, we've got Justin Theroux, and so many amazing cameos. I don't want to ruin it too much, but it was the best summer of my life filming this movie, so I'm very grateful and very proud to be a part of it. So, I'm just going to take the patties off and they are going to rest. We're going to get the burger buns and we're going to toast them and they're going to just mop up all of the juices. Whoo, it's getting hot in here. I set up a production company about 5 years ago. Margot Robbie actually inspired me to set up a production company. I just love seeing artists, female artists especially, just take things into their own hands and take control of their

artistic journey and I'd like to think that I'm doing the same thing. Let's see how the burgers are doing. Whoo, oh my goodness, they're about to burn, so let's turn them off. Whoo, I kind of nailed it. Whoo, hot buns coming in. I think this is my favorite bun. I think it's toasted perfectly. So, I'm going to put a little bit of sauce, so we're just going to pour the rest of this just so we have a little bit more courage when we're making this burger. Mhm. Cheers. Here's a fun fact. Pilots used to have a term called $100 hamburger where they would get on a flight back in like the '80s, '90s, which would be like 100 bucks around then, and they would fly just to go to an airport just to eat

a hamburger and then fly out. So, let's pretend that's what we're doing now. I'm going to get my dill pickles cuz I want something slightly savory. And then we're going to put in the second patty, a little bit more sauce. That is my burger. I'm not going to lie, I'm really proud of that. We have a bowl of what Americans call chips and what Europeans would call crisps because I think it makes more sense cuz they're crispy. This is my smash burger. Before I try my masterpiece, I'm going to get my cookies out the oven. We have two trays of delicious rustic-looking cookies and they smell amazing.

Put it on the side there. We're going to add a little bit of sea salt, flaky sea salt, very important. I'm kind of nervous. All right. Oh, I nailed it. I'm just going to put in a few crisps in here. I've never done this before. I think what's really important for me work is kind of crazy at the moment and I'm traveling so much. Um it's spending time with my best friends and the people I love. So, that usually involves food and a cocktail. So, that's going to be my lunch for today.

I'm really excited about this. That is the perfect cookie. It's warm, it's salty. A cheeky cornflake appears out of nowhere. A bit of toffee. Mhm. Making burgers, cookies and cocktails. This has been a dream. Thank you.