Pati: The most famous chef in all of Nuevo Len isn't a chef at all.
He's a mechanic who goes by the nickname Weber.
Gualberto Elizondo is a man who appreciates fast cars... [Speaking Spanish] Pati, voice-over: drawers full of fine meat... Pati: Whoa!
This is insane.
[Sizzling] Pati, voice-over: and having the best mustache this side of the border.
Today, I'm invited to his exclusive fire patio just outside Nuevo Len's capital city of Monterrey, where he's cooking up a Norteo classic, cabrito con salsa.
[Crunching] Pati, voice-over: Just a few minutes down the road, I'm headed to a cozy nook, where a younger generation of fire kings is proving that that the North isn't just carne asada.
Pati: That is the most beautiful octopus taco I've ever seen!
Pati, voice-over: Now I'm sure you're itching to fire up your own grill, so in my kitchen, I have two recipes that will be perfect for your next family barbecue, succulent chile lime baby back ribs and a pile of grilled queso fundido potatoes because I know you love cheesy delicious mess as much as I do.
You can grab--no, no.
Come grab this.
This is the best part.
Oh, what?
It doesn't stop!
Mmm!
Mmm!
Ha ha ha!
Mmm!
Man: I am going to give you a secret!
Yes.
I love secrets.
Pati: Mmm.
Mmm.
Mmm.
It's like nothing I've tasted before.
Announcer: "Pati's Mexican Table" is brought to you by... La Costea--por sabor!
Traditional recipes, authentic flavors, and ingredients.
A taste of Mxico in 90 seconds.
Somos--food from the heart of Mxico.
Singers: Avocados from Mexico Over 40 years, bringing authentic Latin American flavors to your table.
Tropical Cheese.
Stand Together, helping every person rise.
More information at StandTogether.org.
Here, the typical arroz con pollo...or not!
Unfollow la Receta.
Mahatma Rice.
King Arthur Baking Company.
Find out more about our masa harina at KingArthurBaking.com.
Cozilumbre--cookware, bakeware, and kitchenware for cooking of tradiciones in your cocinas.
Gobierno de Monterrey.
Pati, voice-over: 3 things make up Weber's universe in no particular order.
One--cars.
See you later, cowboy.
He's been fixing them in his garage since the eighties.
Two--family.
[Weber speaking Spanish] Weekly carne asadas filled with giggling grandkids, and Abuelo's recipes keep everyone together, and 3--fuego.
Weber cooks the old way, the way we have for two million years, in many cases directly on the coals.
Uh-huh.
Pati, voice-over: That's when his kids told him he should start posting his food on social media.
Tens of thousands of followers later, he's still going.
Pati: And now all the local chefs, like, look up to your father.
He, like, changed, like, 180 degrees because he used to be like a normal dad with tricks.
The tables have turned.
Yes.
Pati, voice-over: Our day begins with a light snack of asado de puerco and chicharrn, both classic dishes of Northeast Mexico.
This is my first taco in Weber's patio el lumbre.
Ha ha ha!
Mmm.
Mmm!
Mmm!
This is...incredible!
Pati, voice-over: That was just a presnack to the actual snack, which he keeps in this drawer.
Pati: Whoa!
[Sizzling] Pati, voice-over: Another light snack-- tomahawk steaks, short ribs, and more sausage.
This is insane.
Pati, voice-over: But these snacks are just tiding us over for the main event-- cabrito con salsa.
If there's a signature dish of Nuevo Len, it's cabrito, or baby goat.
Cabrito is most commonly slow grilled on fire spits at carne asadas, but cabrito con salsa is more of a stew served at celebrational feasts and made with a fiery, tangy salsita.
Muy.
Muy!
OK.
It has the flavor of smoke.
Mmm.
S.
Pati, voice-over: Cabrito is a tradition passed down from the Sephardic Jews, who came to Nuevo Len to escape religious persecution during the Spanish Inquisition.
The region was abundant with pork, which Judaism prohibits, so goat was the best alternative.
Uh-huh.
Uh-huh.
[Crunching] Mmm!
Mmm.
Superdeep.
Pati, voice-over: It would be hard to imagine anyone matching the indulgence of a Sunday afternoon on Weber's fire patio, but I have a few recipes that I think you should try.
I'm gonna make some chile lime baby back ribs.
You know, I feel like everyone in Nuevo Len is a master parrilla.
Everyone is at their grill every weekend, and I learned so many tips and tricks and marinades, and I'm gonna give you all those resources so that you can become a parrilla, too.
So I want to start with the marinade.
So we start by adding one cup freshly squeezed lime juice, and then because I want to intensify the acidity, I'm adding two tablespoons of white distilled vinegar, and it goes really well with citrus.
Then I'm gonna add a half a cup of olive oil and 12 peeled garlic cloves, and, no, it is not a lot.
And then one full tablespoon of dried oregano.
This is oregano straight from Nuevo Len.
The oregano from Nuevo Len is just so intense and robust and packed with flavor.
I'm adding one tablespoon of dried pequin chiles.
Let's talk about the pequin chiles.
They're small and cute and have the cutest little nicknames like the... but don't let the size fool you because they're like 7-8 times spicier than jalapeos, so these little guys are superfeisty, and you're gonna love them.
And them adding salt, and I'm not being shy with the salt because we have a lot of lime juice and vinegar.
I'm adding a teaspoon of freshly ground black pepper, and then I'm gonna puree this until completely smooth.
Here you just have some of their most important flavors combined, and...ahem.
It's a little spicy.
Well, it's a lot spicy, and it's citrusy, and it's just like Nuevo Len.
It's the oregano, it's the chile, it's the citrus.
So delicious.
So I'm gonna let this sit for a second.
Baby back ribs are already cute and small and adorable, but now we're gonna make them even cuter and more adorable, and they're gonna make for irresistible bitesize pieces.
So what you do is you go to your butcher.
Ask the butcher--because you're gonna be nice to the butcher, and you're gonna ask him really nicely, and, yes, they can do it.
He's gonna cut it halfway down the middle, and then you want to remove the back membrane so that they cook beautifully and you can get a really nice bite.
So you want to cut a little into the membrane, and then you just pull it off like this.
One beautiful thing about baby back ribs is how meaty and tender they are, and they're very lean.
Now I'm cutting every 2-3 bones just like this, and then you're gonna have the cutest, you know, like, little baby back rib, and I'm gonna pour the marinade right on top, and I want to make sure they're super well-covered.
You can marinade your mini-baby baby back ribs up to, like, 48 hours covered in the fridge, but if you are ready to put them on the grill, you can just go ahead and make these mini-packets.
I'm gonna add... enough to make a single layer.
You don't want to stack them on top of each other.
And we want to seal the packets.
We're gonna cook them first in the packets so that they cook kind of steamed in the packets and get all tender and--do you say--oh!
That's the word I was looking for.
The word I was looking for was succulent.
I have my baby back ribs packets, and now I'm gonna make a giant baby potato packet because I'm gonna make some grilled queso fundido potatoes with bacon.
I have two pounds of baby potatoes.
Just gonna throw them in here, and I have 4 tablespoons of unsalted butter that I already diced.
Here.
And if you want, you could add a little bit of oil, too, or more butter, but this is enough butter for me, and I'm adding a teaspoon of salt and half a teaspoon of ground black pepper, and then just make a quesadilla-style package.
It does look like an empanada or a quesadilla, right?
I want to put my baby back ribs and my baby potatoes on the grill.
While the grill preheats, I want you to meet someone who's out to prove that the North isn't just carne asada.
When you visit Cara de Vaca in San Pedro, you may notice the sweet, smoky scent of copal incense, a tree resin used in rituals by ancient Mexican tribes.
Chuy Villarreal believes his daily ritual cleans the space of stale energy and renews it for a new day.
After all, good vibes are essential when you're an artist and head chef inventing mouthwatering combinations of Lebanese, Mediterranean, and Mexican dishes.
Pati: Hola, Chuy.
Hola, Pati.
Heh.
Wow!
Pati, voice-over: Chuy was never formally trained, but his background in marketing, food photography, and video producing gives him a unique worldview on the full dining experience, even the smells.
Pati: Ha ha ha!
I love that.
Ha ha!
Pati, voice-over: Speaking of smell, there's a local oregano native to Nuevo Len known worldwide for its intense, woodsy flavor.
I want to take it down.
I've noticed that you probably have just as much cumin in your restaurant, right?
Like, oregano and cumin, like, it's a thing.
S.
Pati, voice-over: With plenty of chargrilled beef on his 4 separate fire grills, Chuy honors traditional Northern cooking, but he's interested in doing much more by experimenting with flavors from around the world.
Ooh.
Que rico.
OK. Pati, voice-over: Dishes like his Lebanese-inspired chickpea hummus with a zesty Apache meat, a cross between raw kipe and a meat-based ceviche with pico de gallo.
Mmm.
Mm-hmm.
Pati, voice-over: And his tacos el pulpo, almost as beautiful as they're bursting with flavor.
Octopus grilled in Morita chile oil tucked in a refried bean taco and smothered in his tangy aguachile sauce.
That is the most beautiful octopus taco I've ever seen!
You made this up, no?
No.
It comes together so beautifully.
I feel like whoa.
And it's so indulgent because you're eating an entire tentacle in a taco, no?
Pati, voice-over: It's a delicate balance to maintain tradition but keep the fires of innovation ablaze.
Maybe it's Chuy's good vibes, but so far, it's working, and it's crazy delicious.
OK.
This is super nice and hot.
It's over medium high heat, and I'm just gonna put my packages.
I have the baby back ribs and the potatoes, and I have a smoked jalapeo sausage, and I'm gonna make a salsa cruda, or a raw salsa, that is gonna be perfect for dipping those baby back ribs or for putting over or under, or you can do anything you want with the salsa, but it's also perfect to add to the potatoes if you want it because that's one of the beautiful things of Mexican salsas-- you can do whatever you want with them.
So I have a quarter cup of the chile pequin cruda.
So this is the same chile pequin that I added on the marinade that went on the baby back ribs, but this is the raw chile pequin.
Oops.
I hope Mila doesn't like chile pequin.
You can see the tiny, little chiles, and I'm just chopping them.
Wait because I think I need to flip my sausage.
Here.
Oh.
So yum.
It is a lot of heat.
So the fresh oregano, and then I'm adding two garlic cloves fresh.
I'm gonna add... a cup of freshly squeezed lime juice.
Then I'm adding a half a cup of olive oil, and then I'm gonna add a lot of salt.
So I got to do, like, a tablespoon.
You're gonna add freshly ground black pepper.
You could whisk with a whisk.
You could mix with a spoon, but if you have something like this... you can just shake it.
[Sloshing] There's salsita.
This is--oh, my gosh.
This making my mouth water so bad because I'm already thinking about dipping those ribs in there.
I'm gonna take out my potato packet, but first, I'm gonna cut my jalapeo smoked sausage.
Just gonna do it into bitesize pieces.
Oh, you can see all the jalapeo in there.
Mila, I'm gonna give you food, too, but I'm not gonna give you jalapeo smoked sausage.
Yum!
There's a woodpecker in this house that has been waking us up every morning, and I think he's at it again.
Oh, there it is!
There it is!
Do you see it?
Oh, I think you did get it.
Man: There he is.
And he's just pecking on that wood, and he's eating all my fruit, and he gets me so angry, and then when I come and see him, he's just so cute.
OK.
Opening my potatoes, and this is hot, so be careful because it's gonna be steamy.
And this already is so tasty because it has the butter and the salt and the pepper, but now I'm gonna add some of that smoked jalapeo sausage, I'm gonna add so much Oaxaca cheese that I already shredded.
I'm adding so much that you're gonna think it's ridiculous.
But it's not ridiculous.
[Mila barking] OK.
So I'm gonna try to close this packet again.
OK.
So I'm gonna put the packet back in there because now I want all the cheese to melt over the sausage and the potatoes, and then I'm gonna take the ribs out.
It smells so good.
Oh, my gosh!
These are so perfect.
They're already, like, nice and browned on the bottom, so I just want to finish whatever is not perfect and brown and crisp.
Everything's back from the grill, and I'm opening the potato packet.
So it's like a grilled potato, jalapeo sausage thing.
So I'm gonna give you all the toppings, and you add as much as you want, OK?
On top of the whole thing?
Yeah!
OK?
Fun?
Fun.
OK.
So now we're gonna add tangy, salty Mexican crema.
With a spoon or just-- No.
Just.
OK. Just pour it on top?
Yeah!
Like, as much as you'd want.
You know, like a baked potato, where you add, like the sour cream?
Here we're adding Mexican crema, we're dressing it.
It's like a giant baked potato of sorts.
Mm-hmm.
I want to do queso cotija... OK. like chk, chk, chk, chk, chk.
That's so much cheese.
I know.
Put on the... bacon bits.
Bacon.
OK.
I would add it all.
Is that your favorite topping?
I love bacon.
And then... How spicy is it?
Is it very spicy?
Superspicy.
OK. Superspicy, but the fun, fun, fun thing is that this has the garnish of the dried pequin, and the salsita for the ribs has the fresh pequin chile, the green.
Oh, OK.
So don't add these with your hands.
Yeah.
I'll do it.
With a spoon.
Add it with a spoon.
Just a lit bit, huh?
I mean, I like spicy, but you go for whatever you're feeling like.
And now we're gonna chop some chives, but I need a knife.
Let me grab a knife.
OK. Don't try to sabotage me.
It's pretty good, Juju.
OK.
So let's add it all.
It's gonna be so beautiful.
OK.
I think this is a beautiful thing!
Ready?
Yeah.
Dig in?
Yeah.
I'm totally benefitting from your cheese pull.
OK. Oh, my God.
Look at this.
Wait.
You can grab-- no, no.
Come grab this.
This is the best part.
Oh, what?
OK. That's--OK. That's too much cheese.
[Slurps] Mmm!
Mmm!
Wow!
Mmm!
Mmm!
Mmm.
The potato with the sausage is so good.
It's like the perfect combo.
These ribs--so you know the baby back ribs?
Mm-hmm.
OK.
So there's these, like, perfect, little bites.
Mm-hmm.
You can pour the salsa on top, or you can just dip them.
Dip them.
I mean, I'm gonna go over top.
I think this is, like, so good because it has, like, just one--this is for you.
You want me to bite it right now, or we bite it at the same time?
What do you want to do?
I'll bite it right now.
Ready, set, go.
Mmm!
Oh, my God.
Mmm!
I mean, look at this piece of meat.
It is like--OK.
I'm gonna dip.
Mmm.
I could just eat these all day.
Mm-hmm.
Mmm!
Insane.
It doesn't stop.
Oh.
What a delicious mess.
Yum.
Pati, voice-over: It may be time for something sweet to change the pace, and luckily, Weber refused to let me leave without trying a decadent dessert from his childhood, toasted orejas Whoa, whoa!
Mmm.
Like, all your food is about sharing, bringing people together, and everybody digging in, and it's not pretentious.
It's just absolutely delicious.
Pati: For recipes and information from this episode and more, visit PatiJinich.com and connect.
Find me on Facebook, TikTok, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest @PatiJinich.
Announcer: "Pati's Mexican Table" is brought to you by... La Costea--por sabor!
Traditional recipes, authentic flavors, and ingredients.
A taste of Mxico in 90 seconds.
Somos--food from the heart of Mxico.
Singers: Avocados from Mexico A tradition of authentic Latin flavors and family recipes.
Tropical Cheese.
Stand Together, helping every person rise.
More information at StandTogether.org.
Here, the typical arroz con pollo...or not!
Unfollow la Receta.
Mahatma Rice.
King Arthur Baking Company.
Find out more about our masa harina at KingArthurBaking.com.
Cozilumbre--cookware, bakeware, and kitchenware for cooking of tradiciones in your cocinas.
Gobierno de Monterrey.
Proud to support "Pati's Mexican Table" on public television.
Passport
Follow Us