(salsa music) - I love San Juan, culturally, the energy, the color, the vibe, the food.
At the end of the 1800s two hurricanes devastated Puerto Rico and many Puerto Ricans sought to find work elsewhere, some even migrating to Hawaii.
The Caribbean is no stranger to hurricanes or tropical storms but after Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico, instead of having history repeat itself, some Puerto Ricans were determined to stay and rebuild.
One of these people is acclaimed chef, Maria Grubb.
- It's so spicy!
- I told you!
A few years back I traveled with Tiara and we felt right at home at Chef Maria's restaurant, Gallo Negro.
- Hey!
- Chef Maria!
- How are you?
- So Gallo Negro was the creation of Chef Maria and her brother Johnny.
- This is Gallo Negro, welcome.
I have a few dishes for you guys that I am dying for you guys to try.
One of them is based on the stuff that we picked up at the market the other day.
Actually the gandules that you helped shell.
- [Tiara] Oh yeah, the one that I shelled?
And that he disappeared on?
- Lechn!
A pork was calling!
- [Maria] He was busy, he was busy.
- Oh so busy.
(salsa music) - [Bartender] Shall we start with a cocktail?
I noticed you got a huge whisky collection.
- We are a whiskey bar, we started a couple of years ago trying to enrich Puerto Rico with some lesser known whiskies, bourbon, ryes.
But to be honest with you down here, just because of how hot it is, people are into more refreshing - Yes - Fruit forward tropical cocktails, if you will.
- I'll let you surprise me.
- Sounds wonderful, would you like to be surprised as well?
- As long as it has tequila in it.
- You wanna go tequila?
(laughter) That's not a problem, absolutely.
So we switched this up a little bit, this is generally made with gin but since you're a tequila fan this is called the Floral Cucumber Collins so with muddling a little bit of cucumber into it, tequila, a little bit of lavender simple syrup that we make here, it's fresh lavender from Puerto Rico and lime juice.
- Oh my god, the smell is playing tricks on me right now.
- Hers, so you have a Red Passionflower, vodka base, a little bit of passion fruit juice, lime juice, a touch of Aperol to add a little bit of bitterness and bitter orange, egg white and a little bit of simple syrup just to balance it out.
- [Tiara] It's so good.
Can I try yours?
- Mmhmm.
- Wait whoa, I didn't say you could try mine!
(laughter) Yours is really strong.
- But it's not sweet, I love that it's not too sweet.
- It's not, it's really light.
- So much more refreshing.
All my favorite chefs across the world have always been female chefs, I feel they cook from the heart.
- What we have here is my take on arroz con gandules, it's basically the traditional Arborio risotto and then with the local gandules I do the guisado de gandules from scratch and then I add the risotto to that and then we have here the Pernil, which is like the meaning of Christmas is Pernil in Puerto Rico.
- [Tiara] Oh really?
- [Maria] Yes, it's roasted pork basically.
- [Ed] So is risotto something that you've kinda learned in your culinary travels along the way?
- Yes, Maialino, a very popular kitchen in New York, I was part of the opening team there and one day-- - Nice, Nick Anderer?
- With Nick Anderer, that's right.
But it was actually his sous chef, Hone who took me to the side and showed me how to make this beautiful risotto and you know it's a labor of love, it really is.
Okay so here, when you go out to eat Pernil in Puerto Rico everybody fights over this guy over here.
The crackling.
That's the ticket.
- I love that style of it.
- [Maria] This is my mom's recipe like there's not a single thing that has been altered about her recipe in the this gandule making process.
I just make it fancy by adding risotto.
(salsa music) Here at Gallo Negro we do this thing, we like to show hospitality to our guests, regulars, people just having a good time, we wanna show them the love, the Puerto Rico love and this is the Ron del Barrilito.
- Nothing says I love you like rum.
- Absolutely.
- We just sip it right?
- No we shoot it.
- Shoot it.
- Well not that much.
I'm not a bartender.
(laughter) Oh maybe that's the chef in me, I dunno.
- Yours is a lot bigger than mine!
- I'm gonna do half of this by the way or... - Sabotage!
- I'm okay with this, I'm just starting service!
- I can't believe you!
- Salud!
Oh she went for it!
(laughter) That's awesome.
(salsa music)
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