Steven Raichlen's Planet Barbecue

[Steven] When it comes to South American grilling, most of us think of the southern half of the continent, but the barbecue tradition is alive and well in northern South America.

[Geronimo] I'd like to add white wine as much as you like.

Save a little for us.

Absolutely.

[Steven] In today's show, the "Planet Barbecue" twist on two Peruvian classics.

These explode with flavor.

Anticuchos made with tuna instead of beef, and paired with fiery yellow pepper sauce.

This is unlike any potato salad I've ever tasted.

And papas huancaina, Peruvian potato salad.

In this version, invigorated with wood smoke.

Plus, a popular Venezuelan specialty, Asopao.

It's so much fun to have this on your grill.

You fire up a grill and it's a party.

A seafood rice classic reimagined by Caracas-born chef Geronimo Lopez.

Thank you so much.

[Steven] From the Friendship Tower in San Antonio, I'm Steven Raichlen.

Welcome to Planet Barbecue.

[opening theme music] [announcer] Steven Raichlen's "Planet Barbecue" is made possible by... [narrator 1] This is the Big Green Egg, where fire and flavor come together.

You can roast, bake, and sear with the versatility of a grill, oven, and barbecue smoker combined.

Locate a dealer at BigGreenEgg.com.

[narrator 2] Fire Magic, combining style with the versatility to sear, smoke, rotisserie cook, and charcoal grill.

Crafted in America for over 80 years.

[music] Shun Cutlery handcrafted in Japan.

[narrator 3] Father's Cooker, multi-fuel, multifunction.

[narrator 3] Argentine Beef proudly supports "Planet Barbecue."

[narrator 4] Truly wireless temperature starts with Maverick.

[announcer] And by the following: [Steven] When Pizarro and his Spanish conquistadors invaded what we now call Peru, they found the most advanced civilization in the pre-Columbian Americas.

At its height, the Inca Empire stretched for thousands of miles across the continent with a highland capital called Cusco in the soaring Andes Mountains.

A vast network of roads brought a cornucopia of indigenous foods to Inca cities: native grains like quinoa and corn, native vegetables like squash and potatoes, native meats like llama and guinea pigs.

The Incas love barbecue and passed it on through the generations in the form of sizzling kebabs of spice meat they called anticuchu.

Mountain cut, literally.

Peruvians still eat anticuchos, today traditionally made with beef hearts.

Venezuelans share their love of grilled meat, seafood, and vegetables as do all peoples of the northern South America.

Talk about a culinary globetrotter.

Chef Geronimo Lopez was born in Venezuela, educated at the Hotel School of Beaune in Burgundy, France.

He has worked at luxury properties as far-flung as Lima, Peru; Dubrovnik, Croatia; Puerto Vallarta, Mexico; and the Big Island in Hawaii.

A teaching gig brought him to the Culinary Institute of America here in San Antonio.

In 2016, he opened his acclaimed restaurant Botika, and he may just have the most awesome first name in the business.

Geronimo, welcome to Planet Barbecue.

Thank you so much for having me.

[Steven] What do you have for us today?

Today we're going to do an asopao, which is a very typical Espaa, African and Latin American dish.

We're going to do it with beautiful seafood that we have here, marinating.

[Steven] What's in the seafood?

So the seafood selection that we have today is mahi-mahi, shrimp, calamari rings, octopus, and we have some beautiful shells out here, but you can do it with any selection that you like.

[Steven] Any seafood.

Okay.

[Geronimo] In the marinade we use cilantro, garlic, red pepper flakes, olive oil, and a touch of lime juice.

Okay, great.

So you want to be generous with your marinade and let it rest for at least 30 minutes to two hours.

Once we have that, then we're going to put our grill really high, and what we're going to do is grill it at a high temperature, but you don't want to grill it all the way because we're going to finish it off in the rice later on.

So you're grilling the seafood, you're going to lay on a smokey char with the grill before it goes in the rice.

Exactly.

And that's going to give obviously that extra flavor to the rice and it's going to make it just delicious.

[Steven] Great.

[Geronimo] All right.

[Steven] Beautiful.

[Geronimo] And we're going to season it up.

[Steven] Great seasoning with salt and pepper.

So, tell me more about asopao.

When I hear asopao, I think of the word soup in English.

Yes.

[Steven] The idea is it's a wet soupy rice?

So yes, it is a soupy rice.

It is very much comfort food, you know, and it has this amazing ability to be a dish that can be served either in hot weather or in cold weather.

We eat it basically year-round.

Year-round.

And you grew up on this in Venezuela?

Yes, yes.

So, it's basically one of those dishes that we used to do on Sundays for family meal, and it brings a lot of good memories.

That's nice.

[Geronimo] All right.

So we're almost there.

All right.

Is there a big grilling tradition in Venezuela?

Absolutely.

We love grilling, especially on coal or with wood.

With charcoal.

[Geronimo] You know, as a difference to this more South American grilling, we like direct heat, and we love finishing either soups or big pots of soups or dishes like this, rice dishes, in the grill directly.

Okay.

Right on the fire.

[Geronimo] Right on the fire, yes.

Yes.

And of course, in the southern part of South America, Argentina and Uruguay, beef is king.

What about in Venezuela?

Is it equal seafood and beef or...

There is a difference in the regions.

I grew up in the Caribbean side, so definitely for us, the seafood is very, very important.

But on the south side of Venezuela, we have a big, big cattle community.

I see.

And then definitely beef is king down there as well.

Fantastic.

[Geronimo] Okay, so now we're going to take it out.

[Steven] I love the aroma of fire-charred seafood.

[Geronimo] Oh, it's just delicious.

All this flavor is going to transfer fantastically to the rice.

[Steven] Okay.

So, that's step number one.

The sofrito.

Now, the sofrito is really the heart and soul of so much Latin American cooking.

Not only Latin America, but I mean, Spain.

In France there's a mirepoix.

-Yes.

-In Italy it's called sofrito.

The ingredients vary slightly.

This one is going to start with extra virgin olive oil.

Yes, that would be great.

And what are we adding next?

[Geronimo] So with that, we'll add chorizo.

[Steven] Chorizo?

-Yes, sir.

-Sausage.

The onion and the garlic.

And minced garlic.

And we will cook these ingredients until fragrant.

[Geronimo] Yes, sir.

We're going to add what next?

[Geronimo] The red bell peppers and the green onions.

[Steven] Red bell pepper, and the green onion.

[Geronimo] And the cilantro.

[Steven] By the way, your restaurant is called Botika.

Yes.

What does Botika mean exactly?

So Botika is the pharmacy-slash-bodega that we have in every neighborhood.

When I grew up in Caracas, these were places where you could find anything from avocados to beer to a bottle of aspirin.

Oh.

You know, and it was a gathering place for the neighborhood.

Normally in the bodegas, you will find the best TV when we had just one TV and three channels.

-Remember that?

-Okay.

So when we had that, people will much rather go to the bodega to watch the game than to stay at home, because it was a lot more fun.

Social activity.

[Geronimo] And to me, the bodega was the gathering place.

The Botika was the gathering place of my neighborhood growing up.

So Botika is that.

It's what I ambition it to be.

A place of gathering.

A place for people to just hang out and do different things and eat and be merry.

Okay.

And we had a very interesting meal at Botika when we were scouting San Antonio for the shoot.

Well, thank you.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

[Steven] So, that's our sofrito.

What's next?

That's our sofrito.

And now we're going to go to start the rice.

First thing we're going to do is put a nice pan in our grill-- [Steven] That looks like a paella pan on steroids.

Exactly.

Right.

And then we're going to let it heat up.

And we have our rice.

Now what kind of rice are you using?

So you can use bomba rice, Calasparra rice, or any short grain rice with a high content of starch.

That's what you want.

And what's important about the starch?

The starch is going to help us bind everything together to create that texture that we all love.

Okay, and the kind of rice you're using now?

So this one is actually Calrose.

Just a simple Calrose rice.

Calrose, okay.

So you can find that in any supermarket.

-But short-grain.

-But short-grain.

-Very good.

-For sure.

[Geronimo] We start with a little bit of olive oil.

What we want to do is slightly toast it.

[Steven] Now, what are we looking for with the rice?

[Geronimo] We just want a light toasty coat on the rice.

So, are we looking for color or is it more an aroma?

[Geronimo] A little bit of both.

Okay.

So now if you hear it, that's that little, that little sizzle.

[Steven] Oh yeah.

[Geronimo] And this little white color that you see here.

[Steven] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

-See how it changes?

-Cool.

[Geronimo] So there's all we want, really.

At this point we'll add our sofrito.

[Steven] All right.

So, here is the sofrito.

Great aroma.

[Geronimo] Yes.

Perfect.

So now we're going to sear that up and our rice is ready to go.

At this point, I want to add my shells.

[Steven] Mhmm.

So, there you have mussels.

-Mussels.

-And Manila clams?

And manila clams, yes.

Fantastic.

Okay.

[Geronimo] Once we have that going, I like to add some white wine.

[Steven] All right.

Add white wine.

As much as you like.

Save a little for us.

Absolutely.

And then we're just going to burn off the alcohol.

All right.

And in this case, I already brought my seafood stock.

So this is basically a rich seafood broth.

Tell us how you made this.

[Geronimo] So what I do is I use the spine and the heads of-- I like using white meat fish.

So red snapper, drum...

In this case mahi-mahi does really well.

We use the same ingredients as the sofrito, so a lot of garlic, onion.

And I use a little bit of tomato to give it a nice color.

And once our wine is dry, then we can add our broth.

And at this point we're going to let it go.

And we want our grill not to be over 300.

So, we're going to keep it-- Keep the heat about 300.

Yes.

Total cooking time?

I will say it takes about 10 minutes, depending of course on the amount.

In this case, we're doing it for about four people.

[Steven] So you never want the rice to dry out?

[Geronimo] No.

You want to keep it soupy.

And at this point, when you see that it's already taking the consistency that you want, you want to not move it too much.

So, the next step is that we're going to put our seafood in so that we can finish it.

Very good.

[Geronimo] You know, like we said, definitely play around with all our seafood.

[Steven] Great.

Mahi.

Beautiful.

[Geronimo] And now we're going to cover it up.

[Steven] Okay.

[Geronimo] And let it finish.

[Steven] Great.

[Geronimo] All right.

So now our rice is going to be almost ready, if not ready.

[Steven] Now how do you know it's ready?

[Geronimo] So as you can see, the rice has taken a little bit of the liquid.

[Steven] So the grains swell up.

They swell up a little bit, yes.

[Steven] They're translucent.

Beautiful.

Okay.

That looks amazing.

Thank you.

But looks alone won't do it.

All right.

So, for plating, you know, you go as you please and you kind of go around the table, ask everybody what they like.

But what I like to do is make sure that everybody gets a little bit of everything.

And what I like to do is I'd like to cut a little bit of that beautiful fish.

[Steven] Mm.

Mahi-mahi, yup.

[Geronimo] And some fantastic octopus that we have.

Super tender.

All right.

And then the little accoutrements is about half the fun.

Obviously, a little bit of salsa criolla always.

And what's in the salsa criolla?

[Geronimo] So these are onions that have been washed three times in cold water to take away the acidity.

And there's just a little bit of lime juice, aji rocoto and cilantro.

That's it.

[Steven] Okay.

[Geronimo] The rocoto aioli that we have.

[Steven] Okay.

[Geronimo] So that's going to be a little spicy.

A little bit of huancaina, why not?

[Steven] Okay, beautiful.

[Geronimo] And a little bit of that mojito.

[Steven] Mhmm.

Now in Puerto Rico, they would call that something like ajilimjili, right?

Ajilimjili , exactly.

Similar-- A little different.

It has a little bit more garlicky.

This one is a little more green.

[Steven] Okay.

[Geronimo] I will say a touch-- [Steven] Mmm.

[Geronimo] --of lime on top and maybe a little bit of cilantro just for the sake of it.

And here you go, sir.

This looks amazing.

[Geronimo] Cheers.

[Steven] Mm.

Tender.

[Steven] The rice is perfectly cooked.

Little bit of chew to it, but it is soft and creamy on the outside.

And what is fun about this dish is that, depending on how you garnish it and how you play with it, you can have different flavors and different textures.

[Steven] There's a kind of singeing, charring quality, you know, that just caramelizes the proteins in the shrimp, the other seafood.

You know, plus, it's so much fun to have this on your grill.

Have everybody gather around.

Yeah, absolutely.

You can see the presentation is just a lot more dramatic this way.

Geronimo, this has been such a pleasure.

I have eaten at your restaurant.

Now to have you here on the Planet Barbecue show.

Thank you for a wonderful job.

Grill on.

Thank you so much.

Anticuchos are Peru's national kebab, chunks of beef heart marinated with fiery amarillo chilies and char-grilled over charcoal.

I'm not sure these tuna anticuchos ever turned up at a Lima grill stall.

But the contrast of sanguine meat and lip stinging chilies is right on the money.

Instead of beef hearts, I'm using blood red bluefin tuna.

Cut it crosswise into one-inch slices.

Then cut the slices into one-inch cubes.

Now place the tuna cubes in a glass bowl.

Save the fish scraps for a tuna tartar.

Season the tuna with sea salt, freshly ground black pepper and ground cumin.

Cumin, an indispensable seasoning throughout Latin America.

And toss the tuna to coat with the seasonings on all sides.

Let the tuna cure with the seasonings while you cut the vegetables.

Cut the pepper into one-inch cubes.

So cut off the top.

Cut off the bottom, make a cut in the side and roll the pepper open, cutting away the veins and the seeds.

Now cut the pepper lengthwise into a one-inch strip and crosswise into one inch squares.

Cut the onion in half widthwise, then cut this half in eight pieces.

Now break the onion wedges into individual segments.

Save the onion scraps for soups or stock.

Set the other half onion aside.

You'll see why in a sec.

Now, stem a bunch of fresh mint, taking the largest leaves.

Now, assemble the kebabs.

Start with a cube of tuna, then add a square of onion, yellow bell pepper, a fresh mint leaf.

And repeat again.

Tuna, onion, yellow bell pepper, fresh mint.

In Peru, they use an herb called huacatay, black mint.

Hard to find in the United States.

So, I'm using fresh mint.

Once the anticuchos are assembled, make the marinade.

It starts with aji amarillo, Peruvian yellow chili.

It's fruity, piquant, and definitely has a bite.

Next, finely chopped garlic.

Freshly squeezed lime juice.

Distilled white vinegar.

And vegetable oil.

Pour the marinade over the anticuchos.

I love this vivid yellow color.

Turn the kebabs.

Marinate the anticuchos for 30 minutes and fire up the grill.

To make a simple sauce for serving with the anticuchos, add aji amarillo paste to mayonnaise.

Next grate in a little fresh lime zest, aromatic oil-rich outer rind of the lime.

And finally, a little freshly squeezed lime juice for acidity and brightness.

Stir the ingredients together and there's your sauce.

Mm.

Piquant and spicy.

Now to the grill.

Set up your grill for direct grilling and heat to high.

Brush the grate clean.

Check out this cool tool for oiling.

Oil your grate with a half onion and rub across the bars of the grate.

Arrange the anticuchos on your grill grate.

Leave about an inch between each kebab.

Grilling time is pretty quick.

A couple of minutes per side.

We'll turn four times.

After two minutes, give each anticucho a quarter turn.

When the Spanish arrived in Peru, the Inca had been enjoying anticuchos for centuries.

The name came from the Quechua anticuchu, meaning mountain cut, or perhaps antiucho, meaning mixture.

And here are your tuna anticuchos.

I'll just take one.

Spoon on a little sauce.

A squeeze of fresh lime juice.

Mm.

The tuna is meaty, like the traditional beef heart, gentle fire from the aji amarillo, smokey, garlicky, cumin scented, sweet onion, crunchy bell pepper.

The tangy mint.

Tuna anticuchos, it's the heart of Peruvian grilling.

Travel the world's barbecue trail and potato salad turns up almost everywhere that people put food to fire.

Peru's version is papas huancaina, named for the city of Huancayo in the Andean Highlands.

It may just be the most flavorful potato salad on Planet Barbecue.

Start with purple Peruvian potatoes.

Cut them in half lengthwise, then cut each in half widthwise on the diagonal.

Look at that beautiful color.

Place the potatoes in a mixing bowl and add peeled carrots, cut into bite size chunks and the white part of two scallions.

Drizzle the vegetables with extra virgin olive oil and toss with a spoon.

Then season with coarse sea salt and freshly ground black pepper.

One thing that makes this potato salad so incredibly flavorful is that we'll grill the potatoes over a wood fire.

Arrange the potatoes and carrots on the grate in a single layer and swing the potatoes over the fire.

Now the cooking time here will be about 20 to 30 minutes.

We'll turn the potatoes as they grill.

An alternative method of cooking would be to indirect grill these potatoes in a skillet, adding wood chips or chunks to the fire.

Again, the idea is we're trying not only to cook the potatoes, but to infuse them with wood smoke.

The other thing that makes this potato salad so incredibly flavorful is the huancaina dressing.

It starts with a soft piquant cheese called queso fresco.

You could substitute Gouda or Edam.

Next, add one sliced hard cooked egg, which will help thicken the dressing and freshly grated turmeric for color and an earthy flavor.

For heat, add a spoonful of Peru's aji amarillo.

For brightness, a little freshly grated lemon zest.

And for acidity, freshly squeezed lemon juice.

And notice how I squeeze it between my fingers to catch any seeds.

Then add evaporated milk for a creamy consistency and vegetable oil for richness.

A pinch of salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Puree the dressing until smooth.

Now take a taste.

Piquant, spicy and creamy.

This is utterly unique in the annals of potato salad dressing.

Back to the potatoes.

Once the vegetables are tender, transfer them back to the mixing bowl.

Here are your wood grilled potatoes, carrots, and scallions.

Take the huancaina dressing and spoon it over the vegetables.

You can see that gorgeous yellow color you get from the aji amarillo and the turmeric.

Add finely chopped cilantro.

And scallion greens.

And toss to mix.

Then spoon the potato salad into your serving bowl.

Finally, sprinkle a little of the remaining scallion green and cilantro.

And there's the potato salad known as papas huancaina.

Take a taste.

Mm.

I love this salad.

Grilling the potatoes keeps them firm, imparts a smoke flavor.

The dressing is creamy, piquant, cheesy, spicy.

This is a potato salad unlike any you've ever tasted.

So that's our show from Caracas to Lima.

We're Planet Barbecue.

Thanks for watching.

See you next time.

[announcer] For recipes, books, and more live fire cooking, visit StevenRaichlen.com.

You can also follow Steven Raichlen on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok.

Steven Raichlen's "Planet Barbecue" was made possible by... [narrator 1] This is the Big Green Egg, where fire and flavor come together.

You can roast, bake, and sear with the versatility of a grill, oven, and barbecue smoker combined.

Locate a dealer at BigGreenEgg.com.

[narrator 2] Fire Magic, combining style with the versatility to sear, smoke, rotisserie cook, and charcoal grill.

Crafted in America for over 80 years.

[music] Shun Cutlery handcrafted in Japan.

[narrator 3] Father's Cooker, multi-fuel, multifunction.

[narrator 3] Argentine Beef proudly supports "Planet Barbecue."

[narrator 4] Truly wireless temperature starts with Maverick.

[announcer] And by the following: Everybody's singing about No, no, no, no All we are saying... [Chris] You're going to go right to left on the turn.

I'm just going to go like that.

Quarter turn.

[Chris] Beautiful.

Just give peace a chance [crew] Rolling.

Pepper.

Fresh mint.

In pre-- In Per-- In Peru.

[Melanie] Still rolling.

Settle please.

Quiet on the set.