[ Sizzling ] -The sounds of sizzle, the smells from the grill.
Don't you just love it?
Look at these you guys.
These sights and sounds go by many names.
A barbecue, a cookout, a parrilla.
But in Mexico State of Sonora, these delicious weekly gathering of family and friends is known simply as a carne asada.
Mm, so good, so good.
And today, I'm bringing that traditional carne asada experience right into my own back yard with the help of some very hungry and suddenly much taller boys.
I don't... -You need to flip it soon.
-I don't see any sweat.
-I don't see any sweat.
-I see, I see some sweat.
-You don't have the chef's eye.
-We're making a fire roasted salsita, a chunky chili verde guacamole, a Sonoran-style macaroni salad, dressed with a spicy mayo and mixed with grilled ham and crunchy corn and chunks of cheese; and these outrageously satisfying crunchy tortilla, refried bean, juicy steak and melted cheese, a handful of bliss.
Lorenza taco.
This is ridiculous.
And the perfect rustic treat to finish it off, this crunchy peanut and grape galette topped with peanut butter whipped cream.
Oh, my yum.
I really think that the carne asada celebration and ritual is like an open door for Papi to start cooking for us on Sundays.
I'm just totally putting you on the spot.
-Every Sunday?
-[ Singing in Spanish ] -Pati's Mexican Table is made possible by... -La Costea.
-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.
-BanCoppel, your recipe for sending money to Mexico.
-Mahatma rice lets you unite ingredients and flavors.
Mahatma rice unites.
-Divine flavor.
-Norson.
-So you know that I come from a family of four girls and I am the youngest, and all of my sisters are incredible cooks and bakers and one of my sisters is actually a pastry chef, Lisa.
She makes the most beautiful tarts and pies and cakes and I've never been that great at baking.
So I found this rustic way to make a tart, which is called galette.
I love it 'cause it's easy and it doesn't have to be perfect.
We're making a grape jelly and peanut butter galette.
So we're going to start with a dough, and to make the dough is just your basic dough for a pie or a tart.
I'm going to add 1 1/4 cups of flour into my food processor.
One stick of unsalted butter, or 1/2 cup -- and you want it chilled.
A teaspoon of sugar.
I want to pulse a few times.
And I just want the butter to start breaking into the flour, just like this.
I'm going to show you how it looks.
It looks like little pebbly.
A pinch of salt.
A little bit of water at a time as I pulse.
And then you want to continue pulsing until the dough can come together.
And you can see when that happens because the mixture becomes a lot more moist.
You gather it in your hand and if it can stick together then it's ready to come out.
Wrap it in plastic.
Gather it into a disc.
That's it.
That's my dough.
The part that is really easy about this is you don't have to be super precise with how you roll it out -- you're going to see.
I'm going to put this dough in the fridge to chill for about an hour, but I made one earlier.
So, now we're going to make our filling, and the filling is going to be grape jelly flavored and then I'm going to top the tart with a peanut butter whipped cream.
What I need is four cups of grapes.
These grapes are called jelly berries.
They come from the same family of grapes as wild American Concord grape.
So they have that really intense, sweet grape jelly taste.
I'm going to zest and juice this lemon and mix it with the grapes.
These grapes are so sweet that the zest and the juice of the lemon are going to highlight the acidic and tart qualities of the grape.
Turn your hand into a lemon or lime squeezer.
Half a cup of sugar, 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract, 2 tablespoons of corn starch, which is going to help this mixture become sort of jelly-like, sticky.
If I'm feeling like I need to add a little bit more grapes I can add a little bit more grapes.
Usually, in baking, you have to be so precise, so this rustic tart is great for personalities like me, that are more spontaneous.
Maybe this works for you too.
And if you need precision then you can follow my recipe exactly.
I have my dough.
I'm going to roll it on my floured counter.
Roll out the dough to a round or a somewhat shape of a round of about 14 inches.
You want it to be thinner than a quarter of an inch.
This is a dessert that really goes with a carne asada spirit of just throwing some fresh food into a very rustic dough.
Coarsely chop a half a cup of salted and roasted peanuts.
We're going to put it as a base under the grapes.
They're going to absorb some of the juices from the grapes as they bake, so that the bottom of this rustic tart doesn't become soggy.
We want the peanuts under the grapes and then we want the peanuts over the grapes in that whipped cream that we're going to make.
So it's going to be a peanut butter and jelly experience all over.
Yum.
My dad, every time he visits from Mexico, the first thing he makes for himself is a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
Like for him, that's American.
He's going to be so happy when he tries this one.
Close and fold -- no rules.
As long as you don't break the dough.
Lightly beat an egg right in here.
So the egg wash is not only going to give it a glossy, beautiful color, but it's also going to help me because I'm going to add some turbinado sugar.
So when you bite into it you're going to get all those sugar crystals.
This is so beautiful!
Look, it's already like a gift.
I have my oven at 400 degrees and this is going to bake for about 40 to 45 minutes.
Now we're going to make a super soft, velvety and cold peanut butter whipped cream.
A half a cup of peanut butter and I like the peanut butter that's not chunky, because we already have the chunks in there.
1/2 cup of my heavy whipping cream.
I first want to mix the peanut butter with some of the whipped cream and 1/4 cup of confectioner's sugar to get that peanut butter mixture in.
Then I'm going to add the rest to get the volume.
Add the rest of the cream into the mixture.
So now we're going to beat it until it really rises.
But you have to be very careful to not over beat it because then it will curdle.
I know what would go really, really well with this -- banana and strawberries, and then you drizzle chocolate and then you add this whipped cream!
Or with vanilla ice cream.
No, no, pound cake, marble pound cake.
It is ready.
Oh, the beauty.
See how it's nice and thick.
Mm, mm, mmm!
Oh, my God.
This turned into ice cream.
Mm, I going to put this in the refrigerator.
A true Sonoran carne asada has a few rules and traditions.
On a recent trip to Ciudad Obregn, my new friend, Belin, invited me over to show me the ropes.
[ Conversing in Spanish ] You know that people here grill a lot because they know you need something next to the grill to cook stuff.
-Exactly.
-This is a grilling culture, you can tell.
Okay, so you chose this cut of meat.
Is this a cut of meat that people in Sonora love to grill?
Is this the standard?
-Yeah.
yes.
Chuck roll.
-Chuck roll?
-In English, or diezmillo, we say.
-Diezmillo, okay.
-You want to steak, you can choose a rib-eye or you can choose a ranchero.
This is for tacos.
Don't be shy with the salt.
-Okay.
Carne asada, is it a weekend thing?
-It's a weekend or maybe to break the week.
-You would say come to my house for a [Spanish].
-That's right.
-Exactly.
-The occasion, the celebration, is called... -Carne asada.
-Carne asada.
So give me your top three tips.
-Okay.
Salt for one side.
-And you don't ask people if they want it medium, medium-raw, medium-well?
-You don't get to say if you want it rare, medium rare, medium well, no, you just get the carne asada from the carne asada master and you eat your tacos and you say thank you, okay?
-[Spanish] -Like bite size?
-[Spanish] -Mm!
Mm, mm, mm!
-That's it?
That's it?
-Mm.
So juicy!
-It's not my work, it's the cow's work.
[Spanish] -I'm ready for the taco.
Belin's mother-in-law and his wife make a quick guacamole and pico de gallo salsa, and they invited our whole crew to eat.
Mm.
I totally see now why people love the carne asada experience.
It's like super welcoming, delicious, festive.
Gracias, Belin, for welcoming me and my team to your home.
You really showed us what a carne asada experience is all about and everything that Sonora has to offer.
Mm.
It's beautiful, and I can't wait to eat this with a whipped cream.
We're going to make two things to go with our carne asada.
We're going to make a salsa tatemada, and we're going to make a chili verde guacamole.
So I'm going to start with the salsa tatemada.
A pound of tomatoes, a half of a white onion that I cut into pieces, five Anaheim chilies.
All of these ingredients have been charred.
Salsa tatemada is a combination of tomato, onion and chili but it just uses the chilies of the region and, of course, in Sonora it has verde, or Anaheim.
White onion, salt, and then we are mashing it.
If you don't have a molcajete, you can just mix this in a bowl.
It's just going to look more special.
Plus the walls of the molcajete, since they're very porous, are going to start storing in their memory the flavors of the ingredients that you use.
So my salsa tatemada will taste very different from your salsa tatemada.
So when I invite you over to my carne asada, it's going to taste like my carne asada.
Mm, mm, mm.
It's chunky, it's juicy, it's tangy.
Because of the Anaheim chili, which is a little citrusy, it's so good.
So now I'm going to make a chili verde guacamole.
In my mind, avocados and limes just go hand in hand.
But when I got to Sonora, people were, like, appalled at the thought.
No one uses lime and they find it quite shocking if you do.
They have a point.
It tastes absolutely delicious without lime or lemon, especially if you're adding a chili verde.
Salt.
The roasted Anaheim.
Onion.
I have 1 cup of cilantro.
Look at the beautiful color -- it's just all green.
Mm, mm, mm.
The crunchy onion and the fresh cilantro and the citrusy chili, and I have like a more intense experience of the avocado, which is great.
So another surprising thing that I learned in Sonora is that they love a good macaroni salad and it's called pasta fria, and of course you can taste the influence from the United States 'cause, you know, Sonora borders with Arizona, but it has its Mexican spin, and sopa fria is so very loved that they serve it for Quinceaeras, and you know, Quinceaeras are huge in Mexico, and they serve barbacoa.
I'm adding a pound of elbow pasta.
This is so yummy 'cause you're going to see all the things that go in there that are crunchy and sweet, and we're going to grill some ingredients too, but we're going to start with the fresh things.
Two celery stalks.
In Sonora they eat the pasta fria or the macaroni salad with barbacoa and for big celebrations.
Ever since I landed in Sonora people started telling me about the carne asada and have you had a carne asada, and I was just connecting it to the carne asada tacos that I've eaten since I was a little girl in Mexico City where carne asada is just the grilled piece of meat that you put into taco.
But carne asada for Sonorans is like a verb.
You're going to carne asada, you're going to come for a carne asada, and it is a meal, is a gathering, it's a social experience.
So here we have the celery, we have the onion, 1 cup of fresh peas and I'm going to quickly dunk them in here and really less than 1 minute.
The pasta's ready.
I'm going to drain it.
And I'm going to make my creamy dressing for the salad.
1 cup of mayo, 1/4 cup of Mexican crema.
It's tangy, it's a little bit funky and cheesy and so delightful.
2 very generous tablespoons of yellow mustard, fire roasted pimentos.
Coarsely chop them to make it easy for my blender.
Chipotles dulces or sweet chipotles, which is a version of chipotles in adobo, and they're dried chipotle chillies but packed with vinegar and piloncillo and they're so charming and so sweet.
Like me, you're going to become addicted to them.
1/2 a teaspoon of salt, 1/2 a teaspoon of pepper, and now I'm going to puree these.
Let's see.
Mm, mm, mm.
It's tangy, it's sweet, it's spicy.
Mm, I can taste -- I can taste everything.
This is going to be so good.
A little bit more of the sauce.
Muenster cheese.
When I go outside and grill my carne asada I'm going to grill some corn, shave off the kernels and throw them in here and I'm also going to grill a big piece of ham and I'm going to dice it and throw it in here.
Yum.
Mix this up.
Mm.
Finally, we get to the star of today, which is the carne, which is the meat, which his the soul of the carne asada.
There are certain cuts of meat that people expect for a carne asada.
One is skirt steak.
So skirt steak has a lot of flavor, a lot of texture.
It has some nice marbling of the fat throughout the meat.
Skirt steak is a little bit of a more refined cut of meat, like for people that are a little more picky.
Chuck roll is a must.
It's an affordable piece of meat that has really soft meat but it also has fat that's nicely distributed throughout the chuck roll piece.
I slice them into 1/2 to 3/4 inch.
Time to grill.
In Sonora they're so proud about their meat.
I'm going to teach you the tricks they passed onto me so that you can then become the parrilleros of your homes and invite Papi and me over.
So before we get started with the meat, I'm going to grill some corn and ham to chop for our cold pasta salad.
Here's a big secret about carne asada.
The only thing that can touch the meat is salt.
You only salt the meat on one side, like generously, yeah.
-That's a lot of salt.
-Pero, look at how much meat that is, that's like 3 pounds of meat.
In Sonora, instead of greasing the grill with oil, they grease with beef fat.
-Not wasting any meat that way also.
-Not wasting any meat, and you're like seasoning the entire thing with the beef flavor.
-That's for me and what's for them?
-[ Laughs ] The meat is going to start to sweat, you will see, like in three to four minutes and then you flip it, and once you flip it it's like three to four minutes and that's it.
The carne asada, you have to taco it, right?
So in Sonora they do it with flour tortillas.
There's that thing called Lorenza, and Lorenza has corn tortillas that are brushed with water.
Juju, you're going to help me with these, okay?
-Okay.
-Brush la corn tortilla con agua.
-Okay.
-After you brush it you're going to sprinkle it with salt and then you put these on the grill.
So you're making tostadas without frying them.
After they toast you put the beans, the meat and the cheese, because then you have a sturdy shell.
-The meat sweating means it's starting to get ready.
We need to flip it soon.
-I don't see any sweat.
-I don't see any sweat.
-I see some sweat.
-You don't have the chef's eye.
-No, it needs to be bubbling.
We're going to give it another second, but we know what we're going to do now.
We're going to take out the ham because the ham is ready.
-It's sweating.
-Oh.
-We have the corn.
Who's going to help me cut the ham?
-Pops you should cut the ham.
He said he wants to.
See.
-Hey.
-Oh.
-Look at that fork.
-He's so precise.
-Wow.
-It's going to practice.
-Perfect.
-You're all testing it, I should test it too.
-You guys.
-What we testing?
-I don't know.
-Yum.
So we have the pasta salad and I'll help Sammy mix it up.
When I meant that the meat was sweating, do you see how it's sweating?
It has like the puddles of liquid.
Then you know that you need to flip the meat.
Scallions.
-You put the pepper on.
-Oh.
-Oh!
-Ah, pops is cooking.
-Oh, he's a chef now.
-Voila.
-Buena parrillero makes his carne asada, takes it out.
He dices it.
When you bring this to the table it's ready for people to make their tacos.
Typically, at the table you will have refried beans, guacamole and salsa, and you can make your tacos with flour tortillas but I'm going to use some of this meat to make the Lorenzas.
So Lorenza is the tortilla that you helped me brush with water and salt.
Frijoles de fiesta, the style of refried beans they make there.
Chorizo.
Meat.
Look at this, you guys.
Shredded queso Oaxaca and queso Quesadilla.
Over medium heat now.
The cheese melts over the meat but it also melts over the toasted tortilla.
You know what's amazing about this one too?
You're putting the Lorenzas back on the grill that has the beef fat and where the beef cooked.
So the Lorenza has all that flavor too.
Mm-hmm!
Mm, mm!
This is ridiculous.
It's like everything has a carne asada taste.
-It's like everything we love, all like stuffed in one like little tortilla -- frijoles, queso, carne asada and aguacate.
-I think we should spread the carne asada experience basics, you know.
It's similar to like the grilling tradition.
-Here maybe people do different types of meat, put different kinds of things on it, but everyone has some kind of a grilling culture.
-And people love Mexican food.
I really think that the carne asada celebration and ritual is like an open door for Papi to start cooking for us on Sundays.
I'm just totally putting you on the spot.
-Every Sunday?
-It really does taste like PB&J.
-It's so rustic.
It goes with the whole carne asada theme.
I like this for Sunday.
-Yeah.
-No?
It's a great Sunday meal.
-I like having the table here too.
-Mm-hmm.
Love, love, love.
For recipes and information from this episode and more, visit Patijinich.com and connect -- find me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest at @PatiJinich.
-Pati's Mexican Table is made possible by... -La Costea.
-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.
-BanCoppel, your recipe for sending money to Mexico.
-Mahatma rice lets you unite ingredients and flavors.
Mahatma rice unites.
-Divine Flavor.
-Norson.
-Proud to support "Pati's Mexican Table" on public television.
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