Pati: In the tiny town of Mata Ortiz in the 1950s, an artist stumbled upon pottery from the ancient civilization of Paquim, kicking off an artistic renaissance that is still going strong today.
Now younger artists like Laura Bugarini and her cousin Tavo Silveira are even getting noticed around the world, carving their own unique path in pottery.
After I try my hand in ceramics unsuccessfully...
It's a little like making a tortilla.
Pati, voice-over: it's time to do what I'm best at.
[Speaking Spanish] Eating!
And Tavo is famous for his smooth and saucy asado de puerco.
Heh heh!
What a feast!
Pati, voice-over: Then we'll dive into these bold flavors with my discada Chihuahuense, a smoky mixed meat meal... Pati: Oh, oh, oh!
Pati, voice-over: and finish off with sweet sopapillas, which taste like a cross between a small buuelo and a thin churro--irresistible!
It's not...possible to not love these.
What a feast!
Mmm!
So succulent.
These beans are insane.
[Laughter] Mmm... Announcer: "Pati's Mexican Table" is brought to you by... Announcer: La Costea.
por sabor!
Men: Avocados from Mexico Announcer: Texas A&M International University-- going beyond borders.
Announcer: Eggland's Best available in your grocer's egg aisle.
Visit egglandsbest.com.
[Acoustic guitar plays Nationwide jingle] Announcer: Levenger-- nearly 40 years of craftsmanship for readers, writers, thinkers, and doers.
Pati: The tiny town of Juan Mata Ortiz just down the road from Casas Grandes is home to an artistic revival that has reached global fame.
It all started in 1955 when the late artist Juan Quezada stumbled upon ancient pottery in a nearby cave.
It was believed to be from the ancient civilization of Paquim, known for their intricate geometric designs and sophisticated use of color.
[Speaking Spanish] Pati, voice-over: Tavo Silveira was mentored by Juan Quezada, and he's known for his extreme attention to detail, making his art the most prized in town, even earning him a commission from Pope Francis.
[Speaking Spanish] Uh-huh.
Pati, voice-over: Today, Tavo has a special piece he's worked on for weeks and wants to show me the last step, the final firing that transforms the look and creates a resilient ceramic masterpiece.
It takes about an hour and can be stressful as a lot can go wrong, erasing weeks of meticulous effort.
[Speaking Spanish] Pati, voice-over: As the flames extinguish, I can't help but think how life's fires forge resilience within us.
Now we hope that's the case for this piece.
[Speaking Spanish] OK. [Scraping] [Speaking Spanish] Whoa!
[Speaking Spanish] Pati, voice-over: Lucky for us, the embers are still hot enough for Tavo to fire up a Northern Mexico classic-- asado de puerco, a punchy pork stew richly seasoned with chiles, cumin, and garlic.
The enticing aromas have persuaded Tavo's family and friends to join us in celebrating another beautiful work of art.
[Speaking Spanish] Uh-huh.
Uh-huh.
[Sizzling] Pati, voice-over: Tavo is using a circular tool that you'll see all over Northern Mexico called a disco, ideal for frying and sauting a variety of meats and vegetables over an open flame.
While Tavo finishes cooking the asado de puerco, I'll show you how to make your own discada Chihuahuense with the tools you have at home.
Pati: So in Chihuahua, they have a lot of dishes that they cook in the disco.
So the disco is the field plow.
When it's old and they don't use it anymore, they flip it over, and you cook in it like a disc, and Tavo, who showed me how he used the disc, is the potter that I told you that he was telling me his mom showed him how to make pottery, and he made this pot.
Sami: Oh, that's the one he made?
I showed you.
Yeah!
How beautiful, is it, no?
So Tavo shared this with us, and he shared the asado de puerco, but there's a dish called discada, and it's what we're gonna cook now.
So we need to chop a lot of things, OK?
So I have a half a pound of bacon, and then I have one pound of chorizo.
You need to remove the casing.
Like, cut, like this.
Remove the casing.
Oh, this is fun.
You get to chop, I get to watch.
How do we chop up the bacon?
Just bite-sized pieces.
[Speaking Spanish] Chunks.
Uh-huh.
I'm gonna start adding, OK?
This is fun.
You chop, I add.
All of it?
All of it.
We're not adding any other fat because the bacon and the chorizo are gonna render their own fat.
Once it starts browning-- you can add the chorizo.
Now we need the potatoes.
We need to cut them into bite-sized pieces.
After the potatoes, we're gonna need onion.
Sami: Yep.
So the potatoes are ready, but we still need to brown this a little bit more, so now you can help me cut some chile verde.
All the chiles are green, right?
The chile verde is not that spicy.
It's kind of citrusy, so that's why I'm throwing in a... Jalapeo.
A jalapeo.
So you want to cut into a size that you know you're gonna want to bite into, so, like, I would cut like this because it also looks really--you're gonna see- it looks really pretty when you add it to the dish.
OK. You want to add the potatoes.
[Sizzling] You can start thinking about the flavor the potatoes are gaining.
We want to season with some salt and pepper.
[Speaking Spanish] Sami: Good?
Ha ha ha!
OK. Look at this.
This is so beautiful already!
We want this to cook for a little while because we want the potatoes to half soften, right?
Sami, you want to throw in the onion in here?
Yeah.
We need to chop the jalapeo, and we need two cloves of garlic.
Juju: Do you want me to get rid of the seeds or no?
Um, I like the jalapeo seeds.
All the while we're talking, the potatoes are just, like, basking in the glory of these gorgeous fats.
Let's add the chile verde.
Gonna make room for the chile verde.
This is a one-pot meal.
Like, you don't need anything else.
It's so easy.
And then the jalapeo.
You want to throw it in here.
Yes.
Let me mix this in.
Sami, you want to add the garlic in here.
I'm gonna make room for the garlic.
OK. You chop a tomato, I chop a tomato.
[Speaking Spanish] And I do want every bit of the tomato.
I don't want to remove the seeds.
Like, we want to have the flavor of the seeds and the juices and everything.
Now you're gonna make room in the middle for the tomatoes.
Sami: Why make, like, a hole in the middle and not just sort of stir it in immediately?
It gives me satisfaction to add a new ingredient.
I love watching the colors and the ingredients come together.
It does look good.
It's just for joy really.
Now we're gonna add some chipotles.
OK. Take two chipotles out.
Just the peppers?
Yes.
We'll take all the sauce we can get.
I'll eat the sauce.
Yeah.
That's my favorite.
You know, Chihuahua is the land of chipotles and the land of chipotles in adobo sauce.
It has the biggest production in all the country of jalapeos that are then dried and smoked and turned into chipotles.
"Chi" comes from chile, which comes from the Nahuatl "spicy fruit," and "potle" comes from smoke.
OK. Let's add the chipotles.
We have a pound of pork loin and a pound of beef tenderloin.
We're gonna cut it into bite-sized pieces.
It's like such a luxurious, generous meal to celebrate, but it also extends the uses of the meat.
Salt.
OK. Pepper.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
And I'm adding ground cumin, which is a spice I'm really loving.
Should we mix it up?
Go for it.
Yeah.
I'll do it.
If we were in Chihuahua and we had a gigantic field plow, we would just cook the meat in here, but we have no space, so as you guys wash your hands, I'm gonna scrape this into this bowl.
OK.
I'm gonna add a little oil.
Sami: Looks ready.
Juju: Awesome.
So I want this really hot.
Juju: Do you want me to stir it in?
Yeah.
Pero, before you stir, let it brown a little and gain a little crust.
The meat barely fits in that, though.
I know!
So much.
All right.
Let me rinse my hands.
So once this cooks and seers all over, a little pink inside, but we don't want it raw.
Don't want it raw.
[Speaking Spanish] OK. Can you put that back in the meat?
Mmm!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
OK. [Speaking Spanish] Ooh, mira.
They're puffy.
Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh!
You could also totally eat this on its own.
Oh, absolutely.
Yeah.
Cheers.
Cheers.
Mmm!
Whoa.
I love that those chiles, they're, like, caramelized.
They're, like, all soft.
The meat is so soft, too.
Mmm!
Mmm!
Wow!
The potatoes!
Mmm!
No wonder this is one of the iconic dishes of an entire state.
They're so proud about the discada.
Pati, voice-over: While the aroma of Tavo's simmering asado de puerco makes me feel so hungry, I must somehow concentrate on the meticulous craft of pottery making.
Tavo's cousin Laura Bugarini and her husband Hctor Gallegos, both award-winning ceramists, teach me their craft.
[Speaking Spanish] Pati, voice-over: Hctor and Laura are now passing the tradition on to their children Paula and Hctor Jr. [Speaking Spanish] Each pot can take anywhere from days to weeks to months to complete.
Laura's style is especially challenging, painting precise geometric shapes using baby hair because a fine texture allows for even greater detail.
It's a little like making a tortilla.
Pati, voice-over: Just like in the kitchen, the best way to learn is to get your hands dirty.
[Speaking Spanish] Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Ah.
OK. OK.
It's like making tacos.
[Speaking Spanish] Mm-hmm.
So after making many chorizos, and you make, like, smaller chorizos, and then you make something beautiful like that with a lot of skill, which I don't have yet.
Pero maybe you take apprentices.
[Speaking Spanish] They take students if you want to come and learn.
Pati, voice-over: Now the only thing left I'm interested in learning is how Tavo's asado de puerco is turning out.
He's on the final step, the bold and smoky chile sauce.
[Speaking Spanish] [Sizzling] Pati: Oregano.
Tavo: Oregano.
Ahh!
[Speaking Spanish] Pati, voice-over: This is a good time to mention that Northern Mexico is is renowned for its exquisite oregano.
Now for some charro beans with chicharrn, Mexican red rice, and homemade salsa verde, and we have ourselves a feast!
[Speaking Spanish] What a feast!
Come see, come see, come see.
[Speaking Spanish] Ohh!
[Speaking Spanish] Mmm.
Mmm!
Mmm.
Pati, voice-over: The succulent asado de puerco paired with warm, handmade flour tortillas is crafted with as much care and skill as Mata Ortiz's renowned pottery.
Both are rich, flavorful, and unforgettable.
[Speaking Spanish] Muy bien.
Ha ha ha!
Talking about family-friendly, fun foods, sopapillas is a typical Northern Mexico-style dessert and treat, something that I definitely didn't grow up with in Mexico City, but something I wish I had grown up with because I love buuelos, I love churros, and this is like a small version of both put together.
Gonna first add one teaspoon of baking powder, 3 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour in here.
So I have my dry ingredients already ready, and then I'm gonna add a teaspoon of salt.
Just gonna mix this a little.
I have vegetable oil that's heating over medium heat, and I have about a half of an inch of oil.
It has to be very hot by the time I add my sopapillas.
I'm going to whip 2/3 of a cup of vegetable shortening in here.
Now you can choose which fat you want to use.
You could use butter, you could use lard.
I find that vegetable shortening works really well.
You want to make sure there's no clumps.
Now I'm gonna add my dry ingredients in here... and now what I want to do is combine all of this fat with the flour, and it's easy to do because the fat is now whipped and soft, and just like when you're making flour tortillas, when you add the water, you want to make sure that the water is hot.
It makes a difference.
1 1/4 cups of hot water.
So I'm mixing, making sure that there's no big lumps.
Then I'm gonna add two tablespoons of sour cream, and I love it because it makes them cushiony and pillowy inside, so they have a lovely, like, fluffy resistance, and it also adds a dimension of tang.
Meanwhile, my oil is heating.
When you can pick it up in one swoop, you know that the dough is ready.
I'm gonna cover it, and it's gonna rest anywhere from 20 to 30 minutes, but I have one that has been resting and is ready to be rolled out.
See, like, when I touch it, it holds the shape of my fingers?
This is ready to be rolled out.
I wanna break this dough into 16 pieces because it's manageable.
You could make larger and less rounds.
OK.
So I have a rack here where I'm gonna drain my sopapillas.
I am going to mix my sugar with cinnamon to make cinnamon sugar for dusting the sopapillas.
You want to flour your surface a little, and you want to flour your rolling pin.
You want to go one by one, so make a ball and then just roll.
So you want them this thin, like as thin as you would make your flour tortillas.
You can cut whatever shapes you want, and the stranger the shape, the better it will be.
If they're all different, it's more fun.
OK. You want to make 2 or 3 slits in each of them because you don't make a slit, it just puffs up like crazy.
So we're gonna test the oil to see if it's ready for us, and it is ready if the bubbles are actively and enthusiastically jumping around whatever you add in there.
Perfect.
So it's gonna be 10 to 15 seconds per side.
I want them to be golden brown.
See how when you don't make slits they get these gigantic bubbles?
What's even better is if you make the slits and then you do something funky to them like give them a twist like this.
Look at what happens.
Like little bows or bow ties.
They get all these spaces for the cinnamon sugar to hide itself in.
The first time I had them in Chihuahua was at El Gallito Maanero, and when you come to the table and you sit for breakfast, the first thing they bring when you sit down is the sopapillas fresh out of the heat.
You can use a spider or a slotted spoon to take them out, and then you don't want to wait that long until you cover them in cinnamon sugar.
So see how the cinnamon sugar goes in all the spaces?
I was eyeing this one because I gave this one a little fold, so you can see... How when you give it a little fold before you fry it, it has areas that are more brown and crisp, and in the middle, it stays softer and pillowy because that's where you bent it.
[Crunch] There's nothing that confectioner's sugar is not good with.
Or drizzle some honey.
The honey over the cinnamon sugar, over the sopapilla... [Crunch] Mmm!
Now I don't know which one I like more, the cinnamon sugar, the honey cinnamon sugar, confectioner's sugar cinnamon sugar.
It's not possible to not love these.
[Clap] Bam!
I needed to say, "Boom!"
Ha ha ha!
Pati: For recipes and information from this episode and more, visit patijinich.com and connect.
Find me on Facebook, TikTok, X, Instagram, and Pinterest @PatiJinich.
Announcer: "Pati's Mexican Table" is brought to you by... Announcer: La Costea.
por sabor!
Men: Avocados from Mexico Announcer: Texas A&M International University-- going beyond borders.
Announcer: Eggland's Best available in your grocer's egg aisle.
Visit egglandsbest.com.
[Acoustic guitar plays Nationwide jingle] Announcer: Levenger-- nearly 40 years of craftsmanship for readers, writers, thinkers, and doers.
Announcer: Proud to support "Pati's Mexican Table" on public television.
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